Monthly Archives: September 2013

the inbetween

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there is that interesting (and sometimes scary) moment in the rare nap of mine. that time and place where upon waking you notice the light creeping around the window shades. not too bright like later morning or afternoon. not too dark like night or very early morning. somewhat of a goldilocks zone of light where i’m not sure what time it is. did i just fall asleep for a few hours and i’m headed into the evening or has the body taken command and kept me down until the morning and i will have to go to work soon? the slight pause as i think about the ramifications. i was tired enough that i actually took a nap. was i exhausted that i slept until the next day? the lingering thoughts of what wasn’t accomplished in the evening and the time now gone. the notion that the phone is a short reach away and it can solve the dilemma. i lean over from the couch and the answer is revealed on the glowing screen…

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

 

the art of… art

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the creative process is interesting as i find many things in life.

sitting, pondering, doing, erasing, doing over, trying, retrying. scrapping it and starting all over.

writing, painting, sculpting, creation of any kind.

for myself i’ve tried many types.

pottery making is fun even if messy. getting the right speed of the wheel, the right pressure on the clay outside and inside. big, small, tall, squat. plate, bowl, cup. glazed, unglazed. if you mess up, chuck it (gently) back into the pile of clay and start over. i signed up for a single 2-3 hour class and made four different things. i like three of the four only because i messed up on the fourth and ran out of time before i could fix it.

painting/drawing i seem to suck at. in middle school the teacher told me that i had a lot of imagination but no talent. that’s the only reason i got a ‘d’ instead of an ‘f’ i think. maybe i should try a lesson. every so often i tried and pencil sketch something usually something right in front of my like my hand. some of the doodles aren’t that bad. but it isn’t something i can reproduce easily.

writing, somewhat rhetorically obvious, is what i enjoy. even in high school i enjoyed it. unfortunately i was told often i shouldn’t be wasting my time on it by teachers, family and friends. i even tried to submit a piece to a writing contest. the way i remember it, i spent quite a lot of countless nights awake working on it. i then gave it to my ap english teacher to review and submit. one day i asked if she had heard anything. again unfortunately she never got around to looking at it. i don’t remember an apology or anything. i still don’t think she even liked me since i was never as good as my sibs had been. i do remember the feeling of being crushed and i did give it up for a while. i took some classes in college but it wasn’t the same.

so now i’m making another run just a little differently this time and maybe i will even take another chance in the future at something a little longer than a blog.

to anyone that creates, keep it up. don’t let them tell you it’s not good enough. let your heart and head decide. beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

 

anecdotal evidence

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i want to call that an oxymoron.

these days we think of evidence as hard facts.

in science there is the scientific method. an idea possible until it is proven or disproven and even then it may not be 100%, just really really close.

as i understand this in medicine there is the idea of evidence based medicine. you do a study and follow it forward and see what happens. not looking back in time as this is subject to other factors and things you didn’t have in control.

how much of what we know about anything in life is from what we’ve learned or were taught?where did that knowledge come from? you buy a textbook of history and learn about what happened during the year XXXX (or YYYY to be gender equal). then you go to trivia and use this new, hard won information to dazzle and amaze and maybe get a point or two.

was the information accurate? i haven’t looked at a textbook from k-12 in a while but i don’t rememeber if they have any references to where the information came from. someone somewhere says they did some research with musty and dusty tomes and documents and have brought to us this boon. it might actually be factual too. but how truthful is it? by that i mean, did the author present an unbiased view of his research or is that chapter colored with what they thought was the more correct version.

we go through life with a sponge for a brain, constantly soaking up knowledge through all our senses. we make judgements based on this learning. the car in front has a brake light on. that probably means they are slowing down or trying to avoid something. our brains of course try and integrate the speed and other cars and a varied amount of information to know should i swerve out of the lane, brake hard myself or wonder what the next car is i would like if i survive this encounter.

you walk down the street late at night and a group of young looking kids are walking with their hoods pulled over their heads. most people would probably not be wondering what those fine upstanding citizens are doing out late. yes it’s profiling. we profile on a constant basis with constant pre judging but not necessarily in a bad way. if they pass by without incident my heart will start to come back down to normal and eventually i’ll stop looking behind me. if something does happen that is negative, it just adds to the anectdoal life experience and will continue to reinforce the profile in my mind to avoid that situation again.

in the anecdotal evidence, we use our life experiences to make decisions about what we will do or think in a situation.

there is more and more of a push for evidence to prove something. at what point can i tell myself that what i’ve experienced is good enough or maybe even better than something tested. i’ve learned to trust my gut instinct quite often. even the ‘something doesn’t seem right’ sensation gets me out of trouble when some other part of my brain was thinking something else. maybe i find the problem, maybe i don’t but i trust that something felt off and i take the time to slow down and at least take a look at what i was doing.

i hope that my gut stays true and the plethora of life experiences filters through as my own continous prospective study, fine tuning itself hopefully to better and better decisions. some might say i am blinded or double blinded at times but i plan to keep at least one eye open.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

bonds

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don’t forget how strong you, how many things you are doing, how you have improved yourself mentally and physically and continue to do so. it’s ok to write down positive things and post them on the mirror or door or steering wheel. we are humans, not machines. we also have negative things we need to work on too. we have emotions and we have self doubt.

you have family, old friends, and new friends. acquaintances are great for those times you just want to catch a movie or dinner or a show. friends do those things too but are also there when you need someone to talk to. that’s the price of friendship.
-Santa’s Fallen Angel

greed and philanthropy

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i’ve learned something interesting about myself. i don’t mind giving back to the community but i’m just greedy enough to want something in return.

for instance.

at the local co-op they sell nice healthy local fruits and veggies, organic and maybe not organic. i guess i haven’t looked that closely at the selections. the point is that i’m trying to eat healthier and local and they have it. you can just go and buy your groceries and walk out the door. they also have memberships.

for some small amount each month you can be a member of the co-op and get special deals and discounts and a refund percent from your purchases. as well they make loans out to farmers and organizations and help people. here’s the kicker. they have a lifetime membership as well. i’m all for the idea of helping out with a membership especially since i don’t really shop there very much. it’s almost like giving them money. but just in case i do shop i can get something back as well. so yes. i bought a lifetime membership. it does give me a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that i am helping the local community and promoting healthier eating/growing practices and it also strokes and stoakes the inner demon knowing that i am getting something back in return, even if i’m not really shopping there. i’ve only shopped there twice so far but plan to do more.

i was forced into this thinking when i saw that the history and science museum was offering for a not small sum of money, a perment seat i the theater to help generate funds for renovations. my first instinct was “great! they need to keep that place up and running. i love science!!” a friend and i just went recently and it felt like being a kid again. lots of ooos and aaahs from me as i learned more information and seeing my friend’s curiosity being piqued and that hunger for information.

but then i started wondering if a permanent seat meant i could catch every show they have forever and ever. (envision evil grin and the wringing of the hands.) alas, it just means a name placard on the seat. i have a long name, i wonder if they would be able to fit the whole thing. how pissed would i be to see only part of my name if i went down that route. who would even recognize my name? in the dark they probably wouldn’t even see it. just a rough shirt to slowly wear away at my name until it is dull and letters are missing. the warm fuzzy hasn’t caught up to me yet on this one.

the warm fuzzy part of me would like to think that i could just give and not get something in return. maybe the demon has tricked me into thinking that even the warm fuzzy is a good thing but that by itself is something that i am getting as a benefit even if it is not material in nature. now as devil’s advocate if we end up getting a non material return on doing good, is it really that much difference from getting a material return as well? is there really a demon inside or just perception of one? is it a matter of which angle you’re coming at it from? the true philanthropist gives and secondarily gets the warm fuzzy but the greedy heartless bastard that i am gives knowing that he gets a warm fuzzy in return.

in the end, warm fuzzies are had and philanthropy occured. i should look up the definition of philanthropy just in case i have the idea wrong but that might make me feel bad so i’ll ignore it.

from my namesake, what does the big red guy get out of his gig? does he have sponsors funding his endevours? these are questions best left unasked or maybe best left unanswered. finding out he’s using it as a cover and is secretly an international drug runner dropping packages across the world might explain how he funds his operation but this might ruin an entire capitalistic system of milking every cent as well as ruining all the greed and guilt people might feel during the holidays…errr.. christmas season mulling over what they did or did not get and how easy will it be to return, exchange or regift it. perhaps this will be another blog to be called greed from philanthropy but i’ve done the holiday post already in a different incarnation.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel