Tag: blogging

People who don’t need people

In the late 1960’s I listened to Barbra Streisand on a transistor radio the size of a cheap paperback. She sang “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” I never understood that, emotionally at least. Intellectually I valued it and wanted to be one of those persons. I still do….but….

I don’t like people. There, it’s out. Liking people is inherent to my religious faith. We are supposed to like all people as caricatures of God, as images of God, or at the very least, as created beings who have as much claim to the Kingdom as anyone else. But…I do not gravitate toward people as an instinctive or cultured trait. I’ve known people who show themselves to be introverts, but they put on a social face, forcing themselves to reach out, building a practice that becomes instinctual. I’m not one of those, at least not in most milieus.

It’s more nuanced than it sounds. I like individual examples of “people” just not People in general and certainly not together in a group. Nothing tops my list of activities to be avoided like a cocktail party or “open house”. A group of people in a social situation where I know only one or maybe two of them makes me nervous, shuts me down, inspires my feet to start edging toward the exit, my lips mumbling an excuse to the host. Or that nervousness gets channeled into a babbling energy, creating The Entertainer—usually to my later embarrassment and dismay. After decades of experience with these situations—which mercifully I’ve kept to a limited number of occasions—I’ve learned some coping techniques. Mostly I avoid them unless I know a goodly handful of the people and like those who will be there. When I misjudge I desperately cast about for someone I know at least casually and bother them for as long as I can.

Oh boy, another wedding reception. Great for them, not so great for me.

I’ve learned how to maintain a veneer of sociability. I’m verbally talented after all. Talking to an individual about something they like makes you likeable. I’ve a wide range of interests and I’m well-read. I can usually relate to folks. But I’m uncomfortable.

Thankfully wedding receptions have beer, and this one had photogenic grounds to keep me away from all those people.

Perhaps this explains my delight in this blog, and in others’. We skip the social chit-chat on these things (usually). We do sometimes utter the banal (“I’m so happy for you” or “Getting that disease is so horrible!”), but mostly we utter honest statements because the beauty and scourge of the Internet lies in its anonymity for those who post. It’s why I’ve chosen to blog under my actual name. That seems contradictory, but it’s not. Most of you know my name, but you don’t actually know me except through these writings—the same way I know you only through what you post. Is it bold or stupid to put my own name? I’d prefer to think “honest” in that I will utter my opinions and not hide behind total anonymity. But y’all know me from a load of coal: except for two of you, and that has inhibited some of the things I would post, which illustrates the difference I’m talking about, this being known but anonymous simultaneously.

Where all of this blather leads turns out to be unexpected. I do need people, but just not the ones who mouth platitudes, clichés, and banal statements about the weather. Symbolic language has its place, but in a social setting it makes for a symbolic encounter signifying nothing. Sure, I can do it, but the sheer uselessness of it bothers me considerably. This need for people has been reinforced (again) by spending a week alone while my wife visits the NC coast with her friend. I’m reminded of living in my head like I did so many years. I believe we all need people to listen to us. That there are so many diaries and journals of people famous and otherwise reveals a deep need for others to understand what they’re going through. I guess I am a “people who need people” but only deep down and selfishly.

Needing and caring for people remains a distinct view of my religious faith. Listen to people with care. They need that. Yes. But so do I. The adroit, talented person knows when to listen and when to ask for a listener. I, however, refer you to the beginnings of this post. I do not possess those talents. I seek for listeners, but not to be the listener. Reminded again and again of my failure in the social arena, I withdraw. This is my learning path, perhaps one of several.

Thanks for listening.

Still here!

It’s been lots of interlocking activities for me this December 2024.

Nine days since last post, and that one (actually two) appeared from thin air, a gift of a slight lull between printing out our Christmas newsletter and preparing all of the cards for them. I’m still old-fashioned in that way. I believe a pretty card with an appropriate printed message and augmented with a personal one maintains ties of friendship and family better than an email (or worse, a social media post). It shows a commitment to spending time for your recipient, to let them know you still think of them (even if it’s only once per year and due to their inclusion on the Christmas card address list).

One last ‘task’ today: decorate the tree. We had planned to do so Monday and Tuesday, but we were waiting for a new tree-topper which only arrived yesterday evening. We’ll spend a leisurely afternoon doing this, and we’ll end with some delightful liquid Christmas cheer from one of the many special beers I purchased yesterday. From here on it’s preparing to sing for the Midnight Mass in the late evening of Christmas Eve, the drowsy-but-satisfied feeling of Christmas Day, the indulgent-but-hopefully-easy Christmas dinner, and the beginning of Christmastide, otherwise known as the Twelve Days of Christmas. While I may again post daily during this period, I suggest you revisit last year’s which starts here and marches through the twelve days with absolutely no seriousness except for the unintended kind. See ya soon!

Flaking out

Tatted (and tarted) snowflake in a window. November 2024.
  • I discovered 30 minutes in my day! Our holiday newsletter has reached 50% completion. For the first time in several years, I am “on schedule”—I dare not say “ahead” both due to the Law of Jinxing and because I see little time to work on it during the next two days. My Sunday deadline approaches, just as Tuesdays did decades ago when I worked on weeklies. Let me tell you, there’s nothing like starting a Tuesday knowing you don’t have enough copy to fill the empty pages! It really gets the creative juices flowing! I used the same approach as a teacher, walking in some days only clutching a topic in my mind. Lesson plans? Hah!
  • We kicked Covid out for good this week, but like with any unwanted guest there’s a bit of cleaning up to do. Last night’s choir rehearsal—my first in four weeks, my second in two months—did a number on my throat, partly because I had to violate the “sing from your diaphragm” rule on several pieces. My muscles ache from weeks spent primarily sitting in this office chair. The cough hasn’t completely disappeared either, small but annoying.
  • And lastly, one of the readers of this site and the one who partly inspired a trip to Michigan in 2023, may be amused by the photo below. I’m not a cider drinker, but I think this is being newly distributed here in NC:
From the exurbs of Detroit! Spotted in a Raleigh, NC, grocery store. November 2024.

Blogus interruptus

I’ve reached the Thanksgiving through who-knows-when-it-all-will-get-done time of the year. My current project, the annual Christmas newsletter, occupies virtually all of my writing bandwidth because it’s a true news letter. This old journalist packages it as a four-page newspaper complete with individual stories, headlines, a masthead, photos, captions, all of it written in the third person. It takes 40 to 80 hours depending how much I agonize over it. (I’m lying: it takes at least 80 hours.)

Meanwhile, one of our cats decided to get his paws on some Vonnegut, but apparently became disgusted it wasn’t Cat’s Cradle.

The original shelf for this book is the next one up from the bookstand in the photo. I didn’t even know they could read. December 2024.

And just like that, Phillies Phans

It never really began. One victory sandwiched by defeats and garnished with the end to their season? No, the machine ran down and died. Just like that.

I confess to you, my brothers and sisters in Philadelphia baseball, that I greatly sinned. After the Mets rattled off six unanswered runs in Game 3, I quit drinking Yuengling, the talismatic beer whose magic didn’t fail so much as it failed to show up. I lost faith. Our boys lost. Yesterday, with a sinking feeling that foretold the eventual outcome of Game 4, I didn’t watch the game, and I didn’t drink the final Yuengling in the fridge. There it is, Philly. You can blame me–although there are more than one million folks in SE Pennsylvania who certainly felt more pessimistic than I.

Now I face my most depressing season without the solace of fan-fueled postseason baseball. I detest cold weather, and autumn’s ever-cooling presence reminds me of it, like one of those guests who comes to the party late, immediately begins to suck the joy from the festive partygoers, drives away the liveliest guests first, and eventually leaves you alone in your cold, wintery room. Autumn’s first cold mornings might look pretty, but they signal the beginning of the end for summer’s warmth. I need the hopes of postseason baseball. When baseball’s postseason rolls around, fans fall into three groups: those whose teams weren’t expected to make it and didn’t; those whose teams were expected to make it and didn’t; and those who have varying degrees of hope that this time we’ll go all the way. When teams drop out of the postseason, as the Phillies just did, their fans join the middle group, the Group of Dashed Hopes. At times like this we say, “I would rather they were an up-and-coming team that wasn’t expected to make the postseason than to think they were going all the way only to watch them crash and burn.”

Of course, this isn’t true. Phillies fans suffered through two lengthy periods where year after year it seemed no one in charge had a plan for making the team better. I’m talking about the years 1994-2004 after 1993’s appearance in the World Series (the Joe Carter game!), and the period from 2012-2019 following the five-year run of 2007-2011. We know that having no hope tastes worse than this, a bland meal which becomes ever more unpleasant as the season unfolds. (Ask a White Sox fan.) But to savor a .586 season and the first division title in a dozen years, only to be served this…this…what can we call a 1-3 performance in their first round? Something steaming for sure. And to the Mets! There are many insufferable fans in baseball, but the ones who flood your ballpark from barely more than 100 miles away? Who fill your ballpark with their “Let’s go, Mets!” chants? Who have thrown beverages and even batteries at players (1999, John Rocker, Atlanta Braves) and yet somehow dodged the rep while it sticks to Phillies fans like an undeserved judgment? No, please, not to the Mets.

All because I failed to drink a Yuengling? Surely there are greater sins, oh gods of baseball. Give me back my joy. Make this autumnal chill release its grip on my baseball heart. Send me a reason to hope again.

Honor Thyself

Maybe my purpose simply lies in imitating Charlie: hang out at the bar and drink a half gallon dry? May 2024.

I’ve several pieces of writing sitting on the shelf in a to-be-born state. Some even sit at the front edge of the shelf, just waiting to be taken down, polished, exhibited. This beckons now, however. It underpins the others.

I’ve too often settled for what I can do instead of striving for what I want  to do. This blog and its recent lack of activity exemplifies that. There exist but a handful of activities which bring me as much pleasure as posting photos, essays, poems, and other pieces of writing here. Why the weekslong gaps?

At the age of 13, as inchoate as any such a creature, I became focused by two things: my Language Arts teacher said (using a bit of poetic license), “Damn, Pilcher, you can write! You should consider being a writer!” The other event occurred in the same year when a partner and I debated some topic which I now forget in front of the entire 8th grade class, all 300-400 of us. I got a glimmer into my innate bent toward logic and reasoning, both inductive and deductive. Our duo lost the 8th grader vote, but we won the teacher vote, similar to winning  the electoral college but losing the popular vote. I considered myself a Writer and a Debater from that point forward. I did not know they were sometimes mutually exclusive.

In high school my teachers redirected my interest in writing. I learned they placed little emphasis on writing creatively, focusing instead on the expository writing of the essay, the critique (book reviews), and the like. Can one function in society where business letters rule the day? (At least they did then. If those teachers could only see today’s society…alas, most are dead.) I therefore looked to the available outlets, enrolled in Journalism, and joined the school paper (an elective class). In my senior year the two points of view in C. P. Snow’s The Two Cultures collided. All that expository writing reached new heights when Senior Humanities brought me the two-hour essay as a substitute for a test. But…the loosening of curricular philosophies brought me the elective of Creative Writing. Suddenly I wanted to go back to the latter. Yet already I had applied to the University of Montana because it had an excellent School of Journalism.

To shorten this up: I did attend the U of M, but enrolled in an experimental education program instead of journalism. I spent one year there. There followed a year of earning money, a two-year stint at a regional college learning to be a recording engineer—no, wait, a radio-TV newsman—no, wait, a weird combo of that with Economics—before I enrolled in journalism (again) at the University of Washington, determined to make my way in that field because, “if I don’t focus on something, I’ll never do anything!” And I did work in newspapering for almost four whole years.

Pause. This supposedly promised to be about how he couldn’t focus his desire to write into the pursuit of WRITING. He settled for what came to hand, taking the path of least resistance, doing what he appeared to be reasonably talented for. Compress the next twelve years: convenience and aptitude led to a ten-year teaching gig. Divorce and early-onset midlife crisis led to One Last Attempt to Be A Creative Writer. It failed in less than a year. (Insert all the comment you want; I/we know our psyche. I/we did what seemed necessary to maintain mental health.) Through a series of events which defy a bad Hollywood script, I wound up analyzing data and writing scientific reports for the world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturing company at that time. I did well. I spent a quarter century at it, eventually as a consultant, and retired.

WAIT! WTF? I THOUGHT THIS PROMISED SOMETHING ABOUT HONOR AND ALL THAT?

What is honoring thyself? Youth #1 has innate talents for playing baseball, thinks “I really like buying and selling stuff” but goes into baseball because his/her innate talent take them that way. They succeed as expected, then coast for the rest of life realizing passive income from the insane amount of money earned as a ballplayer. They neglect to build a business empire based on that initial desire to be a capitalist. Youth #2 loves baseball despite having mediocre talent at playing it. He/she works every waking moment for years to make this dream come true. They are drafted into professional baseball, succeed despite what their projected ceiling is, and spend the rest of their life in baseball as a coach or a manager or a consultant developing young talent.

Which one honors themselves? The one who leaned into their innate talent? Or the one who ignored who-knows-what talent to pursue a dream? Youth #1 drifted into baseball on talent. Youth #2 ignored talent to pursue a dream which consumed the remainder of their life.

And for the religious among us, which one is pursuing their God-given path? Youth #1 made the most of their innate talent. Not #2.

How can I be nearing 70 years on the planet and still wonder which one of these I am, and what the answer is to that question about honor?

When I volunteer to write a database/listing application for my church choir, am I fulfilling my innate talent, or am I defaulting on my dream? Ditto for ditching teaching to write business reports that pretty much anybody could write. To make it more mundane, when I derive great joy and satisfaction in planning a set of weekly menus, selecting good recipes, and cooking them, am I dodging my greater dream, my greater desire to Be A Writer?

Is Being A Writer just an ephemeral dream, a wisp of wanna in a wind of reality?

Deep down I think I fear that though I have a talent for crafting language, I have nothing to say with it. I need to be explaining something, reacting to something, pontificating upon something. (I’m doing it now.) Avoidance mechanism or recognition of doing what I truly want to do? I fear it’s a bit of both.

I intended to end this with a promise about upending my approach to the day, the week, my life. To declare, “I will write FIRST, I will read FIRST, and only then will I tackle the mundane!” (“Dear, have you emptied the cat boxes yet?”) I cannot do that. I’m sitting here thinking about the monks with writing skills who eschewed them to pray aloud and work the fields. Of soldiers skilled in various practical skills who instead served on the front lines. Of women (and a few men) who gave up promising careers to raise children. What is a Calling and what is a desire?

In the end I come back to this: you have done what you wanted to do at the time. If more high school guidance counselors—do they still have those?—had told this to their junior and senior clients, a lot more of them would have been able to pursue what they were drawn to. I know I would have.

There will be no end to this piece. Not until I reach my death bed and give you the answer, and likely not even then.

Frivolous Friday

The piece I wrote last night isn’t quite ready, my tasks outpaced my time available, and I really want something to be posted. Ergo….

THOSE WHO DAWDLE MUST STAND ON CURB

I guess the two on the curb are crossing guards. May 2024, Raleigh, NC.

One of the best blues-rock live albums of my lifetime: “LIVE” FULL HOUSE by J. Geils Band, released 1972. “Whammer Jammer, lemme hear ya, Dickey!” and Mister Magic Dick on the lickin’ stick takes off with some serious Southside harmonica work. (YouTube also has a 1979 video of the band performing this onstage–worth it for Magic Dick’s bush of hair alone.)

Ideas I will never write (feel free to steal):

  • I was only hunting moonbeams/But my eyes got in the way
  • The scariest monsters don’t lurk under your bed. The scariest ones climb into bed with you and pretend to love you.
  • “He’ll worry all about the bugs on the windshield but not about the car coming at him in his own lane.” Not sure where that is from. Was it me?
  • Many people will travel the world on a regular basis but will be unfamiliar with the land and culture within a 300-mile radius of where they live.
The oak-leaf hydrangea has recovered from the complete devastation of the squirrels two years ago. Though only one stalk remains, it has leaves on it as big as a small dinner plate, and this lone but lovely bloom cluster. May 2024.

Blog Blockers: #1, Analysis

Guilt motivates, terrifies, handicaps, and depresses us. It informs, too. My guilt about not posting more than weekly here tells me I want to write more, photo more, pour myself into creative pursuits more than I have been. It also informs me other things must carry higher levels of guilt which trump my Creativity Guilt. Taking on a project, though, motivates me. Therefore, I’m tasking myself to write daily/frequently about what’s blocking the blogging.

A partial inventory of our beer fridge. April 28, 2024.

Take a look at that spreadsheet screenshot above. One would think I created it to keep track of the approximately 22 kinds of beer in the beer fridge. Sigh. I wish it were so, and it remains a side benefit of the real reason I created it: that “Beers/unit” (Column O) feeds another sheet in the same workbook which is used to calculate how much I drank yesterday. Every morning for the past decade I make a short entry in my Health Log, maintained in Microsoft Excel. These days it’s simple: record my weight, make sure the meds I took yesterday is complete and accurate, and write 3-6 sentences about my general health mental and emotional. Examples? Life’s slings and arrows manifested as aching hips, arthritis starting to develop in my fingers, whether my collapsing ankles have caused any more ligament damage, and the condition of twitchy back. Lately it gives a couple terse lines about what happened yesterday, a sort of bulleted journal entry. I began adding these more and more in retirement.

More consistently than anything else, this log daily has tracked my ongoing battle to Not Drink So Much. It unflinchingly has recorded for the past decade the exact amount of beer I drink (I don’t drink wine or hard liquor anymore). It has done so with graphs illustrating rate of consumption, with 7-day and 14-day moving averages, with tables that project how much more the next beer will cost me, with histograms–and not one bit of it has made much of a difference in my rate of consumption. I had thought simple awareness would make a difference, much like cigarette smokers are told to record how and when they smoke. Awareness has made no difference whatsoever, even when I have done it in real time, as I’m drinking. The snippet of the calculating worksheet is shown below. Columns D, E, and F are the ones which look to the inventory sheet, multiplying the Beers/unit by the quantity drunk.

How to calculate a medically-defined beer. April 2024.

Columns A and B record odd-quantity beers, which usually occur when ordering at restaurants. I’m not going to go into all the calculations for what a medical beer is; you can see the definition at the top there and do the math yourself. Although I quit (finally) graphing the daily intake, I still list it in the health log entry. And now the beer-rating sheet gets maintained all the time. Filter the quantity on hand to ignore “0” and you can narrow the 400+ beers to a handy beer list to print out for when your wife says, “What’s in the fridge?”

This isn’t a cry for help. It illustrates the premise of the introduction: setting up these interlocking worksheets takes time. There are five other worksheets in this spreadsheet file that I’m not describing. And this is but one application. There’s a monster financial one which I think I could’ve sold back in the day I roamed the country as a self-employed consultant and needed to keep track of hours, rates, contracts, bills, accounts receivable, and how they drove our personal budget and finances. I just updated a Google Sheets app to plan music for our weekly masses and to show our choir what the music will be for a given Sunday–hymn numbers, responsorial psalm number, and the name of the anthem. It’s not a listing tool, like electronic paper. It requires the music director to pick the liturgical name of a given mass (such as the 5th Sunday of Easter) which then causes the application to pick the correct psalm information. The choir list looks to the planner. The printout for the cantor to use is driven from the planning sheet and the liturgy sheet. And etcetera for other things in my life.

In short, I analyze. I might read some political thing about the imbalance of power inherent in the two-US Senators-from-every-state part of the Constitution and go down a rabbit hole to compare the ratios of state populations in 1792 versus 2020 just to see if they’re markedly different or not. (I stopped myself on that one, thank goodness.) I might spend two or three hours to make some points about baseball like I did 18 months ago on this blog. This stuff happens all the time, and….

That’s one reason I don’t get to my writing like I think I want to.