What’s the point of a Rube Goldberg contraption? Children get science-class assignments to build things, learning about different “laws” I suppose. But why should grown-ups invest hours!!! in building such things?
Well, because they are things of beauty.
I love the fern frond in this one.
And this one is just crazy amazing. Love the sounds of the contraption becoming part of the song.
{ 0 comments }
Pinball is in my DNA. My father was a gangsta pinpall player, back in the days when pinball machines paid out cash winnings. He’d cheat, frankly, on top of being an ace player, and he’d travel from one small Montana town to another playing pinball, and getting running out of town now and again.
Later, I ran a video game arcade–the largest in Seattle at the time–and our array of hot games included six or eight pinball games, electro-mechanical among them.
Funny, I never played much pinball, maybe it was the way that I had to turn my back to the rest of the arcade in order to play, and that’s obviously a lousy way to run a business, with your back turned on it.
Last night was the first time in ages that I have played a game. Dominique Johns built a new one, from scratch. She’s called Galactic Girl, she’s beautiful, and she had her debut at the Tiger Lounge–with a tournament and everything. Dominique’s parents came in from Illinois, even, to check out their new “grandchild.”
It’s kind of a big deal this building of a machine. Schematics and stencils and lights and sounds. Bugs galore to be squashed. Nuances to be nudged.
The tournament was winding up by the time I arrived, and Dominique dropped in a quarter for me to play. I racked up a grand total of 14 points; I was the new low score!
Later, he opened the game’s cash box and drew out a big handful of quarters, spilling them onto the glass top and setting me up to play ball after ball after ball.
It was by many appearances another instance of cute boy amusing himself watching cute girl play pinball. In truth, after the first minutes he stood and focused his attention on how the game was behaving, watching as it gave me points it wasn’t really supposed to, and puzzling through the possible causes and solutions. Funny, I actually find that kind of thing sexy.
{ 0 comments }
I am ready for this pain to leave. I want to stop hating. I want to return to writing here about beauty.
But the hurt continues. I sit and look out the window at the glorious pink of the blooming cherry trees, and tears stream down my face–I am sad and angry and confused. And I worry a little that this deep emotion will never let up.
My dear friend, Carmi, checks in on me nearly every day, saying, “Good morning. How are you today, my love?” This morning I replied, “I hate my ex. I don’t enjoy being a hater. It hurts. I can’t believe how much I still hurt.”
And Carmi says, “You still love him, that’s why it hurts. You can’t say you hate something you don’t love in some way.”
Oh.
Earlier I made a snarly post on Facebook, my attitude getting the better of me. “I am stunned by how much I still hurt, and am thinking some phenobarbital would be perfect right about now.”
In their comments my friends say all the right things, and I love them for it, but it fails to assuage the pain in my heart, even their encouragement to pursue the Zipless Fuck.
I’ve had that actually (well, not exactly but nearly, and a little inadvertently, but nevertheless). It was great in the moment, but later he gave me the “I want to be your friend speech” which really is a candy-coated rejection.
And rejection is the last thing I need these days, seeings as I am still reeling from this most recent–ultimate–rejection. So I am better off I think, staying away from anything that might include any semblance of a brush-off. So, no Zipless Fucks. No dating, either.
But back to the hate. And the pain.
I am reading a book my friend, Elke, wrote a long time ago. It includes a chapter about healing, and it suggests that I ask my heart, mind, soul, and body what they have to say about this situation. And then, ask them what they need in this moment.
So I ask.
My heart says that she feels cheated and short-changed. And I understand that my heart means cheated out of an opportunity, short-changed of something that was beautiful.
Then my heart pipes up that she wants things to go back to the way they were, when they were good.
I tell my heart gently that that is not possible. We cannot go back. Then she says, “I want him to be happy.”
I sit quietly (with tears still rolling down) and I let this soak in. It is true, I want him to be happy and my sense (my belief) that unraveling our marriage was no particular key to his happiness, well, I wallow in that. (It’s pathetic, I know.) But mostly it makes me sad.
My friends give me (unsolicited) reports of bumping into him at parties and events around our city, and they say, “He looks like hell.” At first–from my hurt and angry place–I gloat at this news. But I realize now that those reports break my heart.
I cannot change the past. I cannot change someone else. We all know that. But these new understandings of my feelings about what was and what no longer is … well, the understanding helps me diffuse or re-purpose the pain. Right now, that’s golden.
Photo: I Hate How Much I Love You by Nawal Al Mashouq and used with Creative Commons License
{ 1 comment }
Something beautiful which my new friend, Kymberlee della Luce built.
{ 0 comments }
This morning I am thinking that so long as I still feel this depth of pain at the demise of my marriage, and so long as I continue to hate on my (ex) husband, there is probably a whole lot left for me to learn from my marriage and its failure.
{ 0 comments }
You did not not get a valentine from me this year.
No one got a valentine from me this year. It wasn’t just you.
I know. I know. I ALWAYS send valentines.
But this year I did not. And I am probably more saddened by that than you are. Not to keep the focus on me or anything.
It’s really not because I wasn’t feeling it. In spite of all the reasons I have to be anti-Valentine’s this year, I did want and intend to mail my annual, hand-made valentines. Especially because I feel so grateful for all the love and support that has been focused on me these past few months.
Nope. I am not feeling particularly anti-Valentine’s. I even convinced one naysayer to switch to pro-Valentine’s.
But it is true that I am broken-hearted, and it’s true that that has me moving a little slow sometimes, especially in the expression-of-love department. And I just didn’t get my valentines designed and made in time to get them mailed to you.
So, it’s not that I don’t love you, and it’s not that I didn’t mail you a beautiful paper message of affection, it’s just that I didn’t create valentines at all this year.
But I promise I love you. And I suspect I will make it up to you somehow in the year to come.
Photo: Broken Heart by John Koetsier and used with Creative Commons license.
{ 0 comments }
