Daphne — Urban Mouse Hunter

He looked at me, twitching his whiskers, taunting me… mocking me…

It wasn’t a subtle appearance—they were bold as if they perceived themselves to be thoroughly welcome house guests, anticipating their own set of fresh linens and tasty late night snacks.

A pair of beady little black eyes and long gray whiskers jutting out from a tiny furry body appeared from behind a box of unopened oatmeal. We stood there staring at each other for a bit, then he scurried into my stove, out of view. I took in a deep breath and sighed. I hoped we could be friends, but these sorts of friendships never end well. One thing was certain, however…

Damnit! I have mice. Oh, sure I only saw the one, but where there’s one, there’s more. How many more is anyone’s guess.

I quickly decided that the last thing I want these infernal things to do is go running all over the apartment and get into my food in the kitchen. So, they’ve commandeered the stove—great. The stove is theirs for the time being until I can figure out how to capture these vermin. That means for me that the stove is off limits. I certainly don’t want to prepare food where these things are dwelling. They are not the tidiest of creatures to put it mildly.

How to keep them out of my food? Well, I will feed them, of course! If they eat their own food, they will stay away from mine. (Interestingly, that tactic actually worked. Don’t knock insanity until you’ve tried it!)

I’ve found that they are quite fond of peanut butter and crackers, and I realized that there were certain times of day that they went about foraging. They seemed quite pleased with the convenient and thoughtful bits I’d leave for them. Little did they realize that my ultimate goal was their capture. I’m certain they found me very hospitable.

And capture I did! Two—the only two I thought I had—I placed their food into an open cage that I had set on the stove. When they entered, I slammed a bit of plastic over the opening so they couldn’t escape. I then secured the opening door behind them, and I had mice in a cage.

How did that work? So, yes. This means that I had to stand alone in my kitchen, during the times I knew they dined, and waited patiently to make my move. Yes, this took hours. Yes, this happened over a matter of days…longer, actually. No, I have no discernible life—stop judging me, okay?

Oh, no. The story doesn’t end here—this is only the beginning…

As I went about my mouse-free life, my mother suddenly fell ill, and I needed to stay at her apartment and help with her dog and a few other responsibilities as she recuperated. Meanwhile, I had a cat that stayed in my apartment, and I would visit her daily, feed her, pet her—all of those things you do with cats as they go about mauling you for fun. Then, when I realized that my stay at my mother’s was going to be extended, I moved the cat over to her place, too.

I’d still go visit my apartment, clean, check on things, discard old food, etc. And, that’s when I noticed it—a pair of old slacks I had meant to donate had pieces shredded from it, and it was lying on the closet floor. I examined other bits of this and that to notice more shredded fabric and debris. Mice!

Now it was clear that while I rid myself of a couple rodents, several more made their way in and called my mostly vacant apartment home. I noticed droppings here and there, food packages with holes in them, and of course the shredded fabric where they attempted to make little nests for themselves.

I decided it was time to move back in, and reclaim my apartment from these vermin. Bastards aren’t even paying rent!

This time there will not be any attempts at trapping them by hand, but I did go out and buy several “no kill” mouse traps, still with the thought in mind that I would just relocate the furry fiends, and we could all just go about our lives… separately.

One afternoon, I’m sleeping. (Hey! I work at night…) I wake up to find a pile of sunflower seed shells up next to my pillow. I was livid! The little bastard is taunting me, mocking me!

I could just picture him there, piling up his mid-day lunch next to my head, then crunched away on my seeds with a smug little look on his face whilst watching me sleep. As if I was some sort of entertainment to him, an amusement.

All sense of civility left me. I yelled at the worthless cat, threw out the “no kill” traps and banged on the stove to make sure the little critters were paying close attention and officially declared war!

I called an exterminator and set an appointment—they would arrive in three days. Yeah, I know. Most of you are thinking—what the hell took you so long? Look, when I was a kid, friends of mine had mice as pets. It’s not as simple as it might seem. Of course other friends had pets like snakes and lizards that ate mice, but I didn’t have access to a snake or carnivorous lizard at the moment, and the cat, like I said—worthless.

I need a mouser…

Walking back to my car late at night, I noticed something. We have a family of half-feral cats living among us. One is friendly enough that she lets me pick her up. Idea! Maybe I can do away with the expense of the exterminator and just kidnap this cat to do a little mousing.

I went back into my apartment, and shoved my worthless cat over on the bed so that I could try to get some sleep. When I’ve almost drifted off, I see my worthless cat out of the corner of my eye prancing around. I look up, and there she is in the center of the room… with a mouse in her mouth!

I sit up in glee—what a wonderful sight. Life’s food chain in full action! My cat isn’t worthless after all! But, if she’s such a great mouser, and she indeed appears to be, why haven’t I seen any mouse corpses lying around?

Just then, she walks over towards me, and just beside the bed, she is still toying with its near lifeless body.  I watcher paw it, nibble it, lick it and suck on it until I watch her devour it whole… little bones, tail whiskers and all!

The next day I cancelled my appointment with the exterminator. It appears that I’m living with one, and she’s finally covering her share of the rent in labor. Good cat!

 

Alien trying on a human suit — a personal essay on attachment

There are markers in life, much like creases in a paper back novel where the binding has been scarred, pointing out the more profound moments where we pause, linger and think.

Perhaps these markers serve a purpose—branding some teachable moments that grip us and hold us down until we succumb to the lessons we ought to learn. I think these markers exist, too, so that we may return to these moments in time and quarry lessons that we may not have been ready to learn when they first occurred. Time, it seems, wields magical powers that discards debris, leaving only that which is purposeful behind for easy discovery when we most need it, though seldom want it.

It is the reoccurring marker that I find most disturbing. It is timeless, unchanging and it smells of burnt embers and damp dirt, haunting me in various incarnations throughout my life, and it marks the same story each time: attachment.

Very recently during a certain tragedy, this marker slipped into place once more, and I knew it too well. Interestingly, this wasn’t my tragedy to claim as my own—they never are. I’m just a bystander. Or worse. I’m trapped in a limbo, a perpetual waiting room with no doors or windows. And it’s quiet. I’m only aware that the tragedy exists—I can’t see it, hear it or know of its details. In fact, it is this absence that weighs on me, and emotions start coursing through me like electricity. This is the source of my suffering: I worry.

Okay, truthfully it’s not as bad as all that. In fact it wasn’t — it hasn’t been and it isn’t. But it’s an accurate description while melodramatic. The point is, I worried.

Worry? That doesn’t sound so bad. People worry all the time about their bills, relationships, family, friends, jobs, reputations, wardrobe, what brand of moisturizer to use and exterior wall paint color. Yes, people do. I don’t. The gods felt it wise to have the “worry gene” lay dormant in my DNA. And that’s not all…

Compassion, empathy, sympathy and worry, these simply are not strong traits in my character. I have enough to be classified human and sane, but not enough trace evidence of it that you’ll hear anyone join these words up with my name outside of sarcasm. You won’t find me teary-eyed over a friend’s grief: love, life, loss… After all, that’s his grief. There’s no sense in both of us getting all torn up about the thing, right?

Right.

Well, mostly. And then the marker slips into place. Every once in a long while, my immunity to attachment weakens, this DNA reanimates, and there you have it—I care. Not with everyone, just with a select person or two, I end up attached. Maybe if I were a little more practiced in this art I wouldn’t be so jarred by it, but as it stands, I’m not a fan, and I pretty-much suck at it. Please don’t misunderstand me, this isn’t some altruistic caring for others that overtakes me. No, it’s completely, obsessively selfish. I think…

Somewhere I have to believe that there’s a seed of goodness, of altruism, of genuine concern for the other at the heart of my dysfunction that is intended to somehow be beneficial to them. I often hear it’s a good thing to care about others and their well-being. I’m not so sure. I’ve yet to find an instance when worrying about anyone or any circumstance has actually done any good. From very limited experience, I do know that it can be quite painful for the worrier, so I’m torn on this matter of goodness.

Either way, over the years I’ve made attempts to not allow this alien state to infect all of my sensibilities, and I’ve worked to alter may behavior so that over the years I seem less and less creepy. It hasn’t been easy. Trying to channel the swell of emotions—love, fear, hope, sadness—into something positive, or at least less creepy, has taken decades of work.

Well, sort of. As I said, this a very rare occurrence for me, so each time it happens (maybe every ten years or so), I just try to do a better job with it. And I refer to markers past for reference—fine examples of exactly what not to do this time around. I do know that following instinct here will ensure failure, so reason must override my behavior if I have any chance of success.

For instance, while I may have an overwhelming urge to attach myself to a select suffering friend like a needy baby gorilla, I refrain, believing that behavior would be quite irritating after a short while… for them. Good insight, no?

This time, as the marker settled in and emotions began to build, I don’t think I was as miserable a failure as I have been in the past. I don’t think. The story hasn’t fully come to a close yet, either. What I do know is that this time I deliberately framed my communications before blurting them out in some desperate weirdness. Reason over instinct. Instead of saying: “Call me right away before I jump out of my skin and go kick a puppy!” I said something like, “Please give me a call sometime if you feel up to it.”

See what I did there? I transformed this psychotic-babbling demand to a passive and nearly aloof request. Better, no? Admittedly I did fail at communicating anything honest, but as you can see, full honesty in this case would put my behavior way up the creep scale—the most important thing I am attempting to avoid in this life-lesson. However, I also failed at getting the desired result, which caused me to have more of those damn feelings. Not entirely a success from my perspective.

Now, still left with this mess of tangled, alien feelings—the love, fear, hope, sadness—I found also that at times I actually became a little anxious. Me? Anxious? Another foreign land for me to navigate, but there it was so I had to deal with it.

So, what is anxiety? Anxiety is a mass of powerful energy; a surge of adrenaline that causes a variety of responsive symptoms, I realized as I was trying to remember to breathe (oh I wasn’t hyperventilating or anything nuts… just a little anxious, but still). So, what can be done with an energy surge?

Well, energy can only be one of two things—positive or negative. Rationally, I know that positive is better than negative, and what I was feeling, or perhaps more accurately is… how I was interpreting the feeling was entirely negative.

But it is me—my very body is the conduit that has all the power necessary to change the frequency of that energy from negative to positive. How? Perception.

I had this great idea! Once the anxiety built to a level that had me fully agitated, all of this highly irritating energy stored up, I went quiet, and I focused on love, and I prayed. Using the full force of all of the built up negativity, I redirected it in prayer and released it. Ha! That worked! Negative turned to positive, and anyway you look at it, I was free from it. (Greater success than the passive aloof phone message was—I still have work to do on that one.)

What does all of this mean? Markers serve a significant purpose in helping to guide us through our life journeys and discover instances of personal enlightenment. Though, I submit that the jury is still out on whether emotions serve any helpful purpose. I understand that a degree of emotiveness is important in humanity, to assimilate, fit in, play well with others and to demonstrate care for people important to us—even if in my case that only seems to come up every decade or so. But does feeling pain, empathy, sympathy and worry—does this do any good? I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m absolutely not a fan of being human. And, half of me wants to take this whole horrific experience, and the other ones that came before it, pack them up in a duffle bag with a bathing suit, toothbrush and flip flops and hide out in a fishing village in Costa Rica drinking too much rum, eating tacos and writing weird fiction novels no one understands.

The saner half of me knows that I need to get my shit together, celebrate that this time having emotions wasn’t a complete failure for me—it didn’t cause any relationship damage or awkward embarrassing moments, potentially alienating me from the friend I care about and eventually humanity at large. And I can move on, work at trying to be better at this human thing next time it hits me.

And the markers with their earthy odor that continue to haunt me—I don’t think I’ll fear them anymore. I’m learning to appreciate the lessons, in part. Perhaps it’s time to call out the monsters from under the bed—the love, fear hope and sadness—and offer them milk and cookies. Make acquaintances with them even if I’m still suspicious of their friendship. They’re not really that scary after all.

Now, where did I put that duffle bag?

Murder and guns in America today–would amending the US gun law reduce murder rates?

First, here are some interesting statistics about murders from a global perspective. Most people are aware that the United Kingdom has outlawed guns (for most citizens). What’s the correlation between that and murders? Well, in the USA, which proudly upholds its government’s Second Amendment, in one year there were 15,241 murders (2009) – that’s 5 murders per 1,000 people (RPT).

In the UK, 724 murders were calculated in one year with an RPT of 1.2. I’d say that’s a significant correlative difference. Did the difference in gun laws “cause” the problem – I’m not sure. Let’s look at more numbers…

The country that reported the highest number of murders in one year was Brazil at 43,909 with a RPT of 22.7. Falling just behind Brazil in number of murders is India with 40,752 reported but with a RPT of only 3.4 because of the incredibly dense population of the country.

Now, examining the significance or RPT, check out Honduras, reporting 6,239 murders in one year but with an RPT of 82.1!!! El Salvador reported 4.085 murders in a year with an RPT of 66!

Data comes from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDC). As you can imagine, the United Nations explains that it is somewhat difficult comparing these statistics accurately. Nations have different views on what constitutes murder, they report on different years, reporting methods differ, etc. However, this data does paint what I think is a fascinating picture.

It seems that developed nations have fewer murders (rate per thousand – RPT) than non-developed nations. And about those guns…

I still want to point out that there is strong correlative evidence that suggests having a loose gun law in a nation (e.g. USA) leads to increased murders as opposed to a nation with far stricter gun laws (United Kingdom). Still, there is more going on here. America is unique because of it dense and mostly developed sprawl. If you look at data maps, most murders occur in cities that are heavily populated with poverty, gangs and drug trafficking.

Therefore, if the US enacted heavier gun control laws or even outlawed guns for most citizens, the argument that many gun rights activists use, “only criminals will have guns,” could very well come to pass. I question if heavier gun laws would have a great impact on people who are career criminals–a sociological construct that already exists without much indication that we have a solution to curb this activity. If this is so, they won’t get rid of their guns, and they will continue obtaining guns from other criminals. These are groups that already, as a rule, operate outside of laws. The only regard they have for law is that it dictates to them that which they must keep hidden, as hidden as possible to try to not get caught.

How does all of this relate to the Colorado shooting? It doesn’t. When a society looks for solutions to reduce murders, by rule it has to eliminate anomalous causation. A psycho on a shooting spree in a movie theater is not a common profile for murders in America. Therefore, an act like this isn’t successfully addressed through policy or law. Most likely people around this individual ignored warning signs that he was a sociopath with homicidal tendencies that turned wrong — way wrong. But hey, what the hell do I know. I’m just a writer here, tapping out letters… What do YOU think?

Do you want to travel for free (or at least really cheap)?

I think humans are in deep need of three things. These things are dangerously rare as we concentrate evermore on the everydayness of hectic lives and responsibilities–chaos, confusion and emergencies–chores, deadlines and all sorts of gadgets and media that serve as distractions from feeding our minds, bodies and spirits with all that keeps us craving more and more of the greatness around us and in us.

 

What are the three endangered things?

1. Adventure
2. Imagination
3. Creating

I challenge you to find one thing a week–or even per month–for you to do alone or with a friend or with your family that offers you a sense of adventure or sparks your imagination or allows you to create something–anything.

This could be as simple as reading a book, visiting a museum, volunteering in an organization, planting a garden or taking an art class. You could travel locally to a neighboring community and be a tourist for a day. Try hiking or yoga or just daydreaming on the beach–maybe a late-night stroll. Skip the high-priced family reunion across the country this year, and instead book a room in a beachside Florida motel and reunite with your own family 1 on 1 (and you get to run home for that camera you forgot to pack).

Go out and explore your own back yard! Follow your cat around the neighborhood, if you can keep up. Invite your friends over for a seasonal fruit and veggie tasting party. Create a comic book using stick figues and a pencil or finger paints. Buy a hammock and daydream or write a short story. There’s so much to see right in front of you, you can be an adventurer for the cost of the mere courage it takes to dare see the world through a fresh set of eyes! You can be an artist with just the thoughts in your head and the skills of a 5-year-old.

Go do something right here. Right now. I dare you.

Melancholy in less than 500 words

(Photo credit: http://anxious-creative.blogspot.com/)

As a writer, I am concerned about words. They mean something to me. Also, I am concerned about stories. They mean something to me, too. 

I am concerned that contemporary culture may lack a love for words and written stories–that it is a love affair that is becoming more rare. Sometimes things that are rare are special, but in this case, I find it melancholy.

I am concerned that our culture is too distracted to have a love affair with words and stories any longer. They want one night stands and speed dating versus the relationship filled with deep attraction, love notes, commitment, harsh words, broken hearts and promises, redemption and the bliss of kindness, thoughtfulness and quirks that make these love affairs beautiful and worth living for.

More and more, 500 words or less is the formula for success in modern media, and I have no choice but to succumb to stay relevant. So, I promise to rise to the occasion and challenge myself to engage you in a deep love affair confined to brevity–to sweep you off your feet and enchant you into a friendship or more that hopefully will fill you until the next story, the next encounter, the next night in our favorite hotel above the busy street where words will take you onward to the next chapter in our relationship.

Maybe then you will be willing to take on more than 500 words. Maybe then you’ll long for the whole story not just the soundbite. If so, imagine this story (link below), of this life slashed into 500 words? What a tragedy that would be, indeed!

[Total: 270 words]

Not authored by me, though I wish it were: Shelagh Was Here: an ordinary magical life 

The Day the Web Went BLACK–the people still have mad power in government!

Link to full article here: http://saintpetersblog.com/2012/01/battle-between-old-world-media-and-new-media-the-new-kids-have-teeth-and-so-do-the-people/

I recently wrote an article on the web blackouts. Old media versus new media and all that jazz. What happened? Minds changed in Congress, including the authors and major supporters of the bills. Why is this an epic turn of events? The people, armed with the new media tools (social networking, emails and websites) and old school tools (phones and conversations) were heard and made change happen. How? Read the link above.

With the old guard of the powerful recording industry and motion picture industry working hard with Congress to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and Protect I.P. Act (PIPA) in the Senate.

New media giants answered back wielding a powerful sward—the support of the people. Facebook, Google, Amazon and many more have been communicating directly with Congress on ways to improve the proposed legislation without impeding progress in technology and communications whilst rallying worldwide awareness through their massively popular sites.

And one by one, emails and phone calls poured into Congress opposing the bills from all across America. Petitions were signed in mass and brought forward. The internet giants were quickly impacting politics in a fashion never seen before.

How did they do this? January 18, 2012, the internet went black. Well, not exactly. Several internet sites went dark in protest to SOPA and PIPA. This marks the first time in history that major internet sites used their substantial power to communicate a single message to the people and to the government. It worked.

Wikipedia and reddit were among the most dramatic internet sites to “go dark” in protest. Neither of these sites were accessible when you went to their sites on this fateful day. Wikipedia did have a few different ways you could get around its blackout and still use the site if you insisted, such as via mobile phone and tablet apps.

Other internet big shots used their power to communicate with a mass audience in different ways. Google put a black banner over its famous Google logo that lead to an on-line petition against the proposed bills, which it encouraged its users to sign. Facebook took on a life of its own in the social fashion that is all Facebook—its users spread the message on a viral scale…

AND

While protests are notorious for making a lot of noise at worst and raising awareness at best, this one had teeth. . .

While the premise of preventing piracy is a legitimate concern to protect the intellectual property rights of creators and those who lay claim to the ownership of such things, most agree, upon hearing a resounding cry from across the land, that the legislation proposed needs significant changes. These changes include language that ensures progress in technology continues and people can continue to use this platform in innovative ways.

What might possibly be even more significant than all of this change of hearts and minds is that the people have learned, first hand, that they have not lost total control over their government. Perhaps with support of new media and the platforms they provide, change, meaningful change, is possible.

It’s worth studying this grand accomplishment to see how in the future, the people can wield this powerful sward again. Yes, the new media giants had a lot to do with this change as well. But, it wasn’t until the people spoke up that Congress echoed its collective change of heart. Now, let’s do this damn thing again!

Again, here’s the link to my full article: http://saintpetersblog.com/2012/01/battle-between-old-world-media-and-new-media-the-new-kids-have-teeth-and-so-do-the-people/

The Black Swan a film by Darren Aronofsky (spoiler alert)

N. Portman

As the house lights came back up, and I looked around at the audience and my date for the afternoon, I couldn’t help but overhear passersby commenting firmly on what they hated and what they loved about the film. No one seemed to be ambiguous, nor did they seem to have the same experience. This is an unusual quality for any film for certain.

Much like Aronofsky’s previous films, Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler… The Black Swan left me feeling mentally agile–as if I had just successfully completed a complex puzzle. Or did I? Listening to and reading others’ vastly diverse thoughts on the film, I think I might be alone in this reaction, which isn’t an unusual spot for me, frankly. It is unusual for this disconnect to be so universal, and so I felt compelled to explore this phenomenon further.

Here’s the thing, critics are crying out that the film was flat. Specifically, while most applaud Natalie Portman’s performance, they cringe at the abuse, neglect and sexist, violent portrayals of the characters victimizing Portman’s character throughout the film. Other critiques are more interested in the plot and character development, or seeming lack thereof, describing the flat, unrealistic stereotypes drawn for each character in the film.

My theory: often moviegoers sit down in a theatre with a certain expectation, and moviegoers familiar with Aronofsky have a very certain expectation–depth.

Aronofsky is known for his intricate characters and complex plot development. Audiences are drawn in to both love and despise the deeply flawed yet intimately familiar protagonist, and often the true antagonist is identified as an internal demon within the protagonist, often fueled by mental illness, substance abuse or some other psychological dysfunction.  Yet, these characters are best known for their depth–portraying the best and worst in the human spirit with simultaneous acts of degradation and redemption.

This is a stark contrast in The Black Swan, as these characters were paper-thin and wholly predictable based on their assigned dysfunctions and nothing more. I do not believe this was an accident, an oversight, a lazy mistake on the part of the film’s creator. Just as all previous Aronofsky films have been threaded with an intricate web of intent, The Black Swan was no different. I am certain that the one-dimensional caricatures that appeared in the film were not in error–a mishap weakening the film. I believe that this story required it.

The protagonist, Nina, harbored every social and psychological problem commonly seen in young professionals in the classic arts: 1) Stage mom; 2) Eating disorder; 3) Dependant personality; 4) Self-mutilation; 5) Arrested emotional development; 6) Emotional and sexual victimization; and 7) A growing psychiatric disorder (possibly schizophrenia with psychotic episodes in this case). This is not to say that these problems are so common that they are the norm in young professionals in the high arts–they are certainly among the minority. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that a single professional would possess every one of these problems, and therein lies the complexity. How do you draw a series of charicature and make the audience believe them?

Nina, is far less a stereotype as other critics have suggested–she is indeed a caricature. Nina was not so much a person, rather she was a chasm–little more than a hole filled with packages of psychiatric and psychological disorders strongly influenced and exacerbated by juxtaposed environments of destructive social problems.

The other characters’ roles were only meant to perpetuate this dance of perfect dysfunction. A death-trap of intertwined problems, choreographed to end in perfect destruction. Depth of character was not the goal–the goal was illustrating the depth of dysfunction, drawing a picture of how this perfect storm will play-out, scored within the beautiful tale of Swan Lake.

Art is not only here to imitate, interpret or serve as an example for life and culture. Art is about inspired creation–taking what’s in the mind of the artist and his or her heart, spirit and imagination, allowing others the opportunity to experience a glimpse of this perspective.

The Black Swan was not intended to inspire or educate on reality–it is the artist’s view of a reality. Aronofsky has handed the audience his kaleidoscope, and he has let us see an image in his head. Enjoy it for what it is or not.  It is an intentional puzzle of characters, situations, dialogue and actions for the audience to put together in a way that fits for them, individually. To critique it by attempting to determine if this is a healthy or realistic portrayal of ballet is flatly silly. The Black Swan is not meant to be a work of nonfiction or something to be lauded and emulated. It is film, and its responsibility ends there.