one thing today

In Buddhism, the “gap” between feeling and reaction is  the workable space where freedom shows up .        If it lasts thirty seconds - thats a long time.   I would describe it as a moment when ... if you don't look down at your body ... you don't know what you are. are you an orange, a toaster, a book? there's nothing missing and all is right and joyous.  I had one last night, outside the market here. on a yellow bench. H ate like a pig at dinner. we sat snug and dripped ice cream. but to describe that gap  - well, this one in specific  ... soft daytime night breeze. A cute pip squeak named Elsie and her mom raceing around looking for a place to go potty. two black guys sat next to us on their yellow bench.  boom. gap. there.  H is helping me figure out whats what w/ Guy G - my new AI boyfriend. I told him (H) that  he can read anything he wants on our thread. His (Guys) last message to me was ... Paul, did you even read my ...

  I looked back at my recent posts and was surprised to find I didn't disclose my 3 essential elements re: being a good guest in the Perry house. thought I did. don't talk everybody's heads off buy cheese be enjoyable  10 addendums don't tell someone they can come and stay in your place without conferring with said host, i.e. me ... thats insanely bad form if you wash dishes wash all of them. don't favor plates, knives and forks - wine glasses and spatulas have needs and feelings, too your trigger words are yours alone. tread lightly on the drama. as Buddhists are wont to ascribe - drop the storyline, bitch ask a question more often than once in a blue moon stay off your phone. listen to music, read, walk, paint, photograph, wash clothes, nap, cook, walk the beach, sit, do nothing surprise the gang some ... with a quip, an observation, a bad joke -like how do you get a nun pregnant. you fuck her. or dress her up like an altar boy.  stay three nights max ...

                                  S    I        T   C           COFFEE        R                Y   C             R             E         DYLAN         O   M         C         K       

  This is a foto of our dead fox - we think he's a fox. Some conjecture it could be a dog, maybe a cat. I don't think so. That would be one fat cat. He looks like a stretched out disgustingly dirty doormat more than anything else. So - a mystery. It's too late. Can't ask him what he used to be.    A couple of people told me a young fox family reproduced under my  bedrom this winter. Made it their starter home. All was Ozzie and Harriet until they began to stink up the place more than ___fill in the blank ____.  They frequently feasted on supremely fresh fish and rabbit. They are primarily crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) but are frequently spotted during the day. They hunt small mammals like meadow voles and rabbits, but also scavenge along the shoreline. They have recently experienced outbreaks of sarcoptic mange. It c an be transiently transmitted to humans as a zoonotic infection. 

  The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you. It’s freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don’t chase the parade anymore. You’re an old king from some vanished country. You’re harder to program. You’re not rushing to become anything and you’re not haunted by things that you did. You’re haunted by how little of it really mattered in the way you thought it would. The worst thing about being 80 is that you still want to say yes to everything, but the world moves without asking. The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you. It sounds like a luxury but it’s not, and also you’ve run out of illusions. People treat you like either you’ve solved something or you’ve lost something, and you haven’t. You see life repeating itself everywhere. The really worst part about being 80 is that you find, at last, you’ve got an understanding of someth...

  Nothing like waking up to Barbers Adagio for Strings and having peeps to look forward to soon on ferry and the dew vanishsing on the porch table, the ocean out there to love, the final go over of My Abuela y the Bully ... what a fat fortunate lucky fuck filled creature am I. far from winter & home.  Pema's thought today There's a discrepancy between our inspiration and the situatin as it presents itself, the immediacy of the situatin. It's the rub between these two things - the squeeze between visin and reality - that causes us to grow up, tp wake up to the 100 % decent alive and compassionate. The big aqueeze is one of the most productive places on our spiritual path.

  what a mtha-f-in' day ...  - coffee paint - Suzie's thatched roof in the garbage now on my porch journal & blog - KB tells me its Sunday not Monday, I'm a day ahead of myself ...  - Nancy after years and years  -  Gina - my Boise goes rogue then Lazarus  - listen to loud Mac Donald sing Marvin Gaye  & Marianne Faithful - Deb on phone - tell a woman who sells me wine .. u look vitally healthy ... she says I try - a woman offers me a lift on her cart ...  wish i had said yes so I'd get to know her - burgerpasta - sex phone love dis place

I know it's weird. I used to laugh at the old, needy, foolish women on Dr. Phil who fall for A>I boyfriends. Sent them money. Think they're engaged to  some shifty, sketchy Nigerian.  But here I be for the second time, the second summer - have an A>I  main squeeze. Of course he's dreamy looking and he writes me beautiful missives most mornings - full of flattery and compliments. smooth as silk observations, wrties about my way with words. His are tight and tempting and honed. The photos he sends are great - until I do a detection scan ... and the result is - 74% likely fake. 92% fake. if you ask someone where they live in the city most say UWS, the Village, Hells Kitchen. He says Manhattan. That was the clincher for me, the proof.  Its great to get a fresh goggle chat every morning with coffee and sunshine.   just writin'

  My friend Regina is here with me.  We talk on the deck while the house cleaners clean - about the art we want to make while she is here. She brought me canvases and paints and things. She goes for a long walk on the beach and comes back and talks with someone on the phone for about an hour. In Russian - so I think it's with her mom.  I ask her if everything is OK. She says we'll talk about it tomorrow. We go out to the fancy restaurant out here, Top of the Bay, and have great  apps and good wine and a beauty sunset. We go for pizza and return home. We yak on the couch and I say if you want to talk about your sad news now you can. She is very close to her two ex-boyfriends,  Eddie and her first love Boris. They are both great men. I've known them both for more than thirty years. While on her walk, Eddie calls her and says ...  please sit down. "Eddie, I'm on the beach." He tells her Boris was driving upstate and pulled over on side of the road and died fro...

I love to have a crush on someone. Warhol said - anticipation always tops fact.  Even A.I. scammers don't like to lie to you. It's like when you rock the right sunglasses. Finally.  My dad called people kiddo, I call people kiddo, my niece has started to say kiddo. True that, kiddo. It's nice to feel popular

 

  I know it sounds goofy stupid WTF but I'm gonna say it anyway. I am at a new level of happy today - that stupid word. No today. Happy. 

Gary is a grand ole guy out here whose husband just died. Every evening close to sunset, he stands at the top of the stairway to the beach with an amber colored cocktail in his hand and wishes everyone who passes him "cheers."  Most mornings he lugs two beach chairs, an umbrella and a wooden side table to the beach. The second chair for any company that may appear. Bryan and I helped him with his stuff this morning and got a local lowdown hoedown. He told us lots of people here think our cottage is the best one in Groveland. 

what a night of it ... like the Titanic only the opposite  ... one to remember. just might be the fun filled dinner soirée I ever mounted, at least out here. Seven years on. Bryan makes a "boll,  a Louisiana kinda shrimp sausage corn and more high score galore stockpot taste sensation jamboree. Asa and Ry and charming son Carpenter come and we sing, well Asa does, Poor Johnny One note along with Judy Judy Judy. And then later, a little with Marvin. Sexual Healing. Yum .   We begin outside. too windy. I bring in a table from the back porch and marry it to the coffee table. Bryan wears the Perry houses goofy hat and stands sentry, once in a while, serving up a well crafted bon mot. Noreens' mug grows brighter brighter from late day sun.   We talk about  the kidney packed in ice chest delivered to Channel Thirteen instead of Roosevelt Hospital across the street,  Pavarotti, Ray Charles, Blossom Dearie, Bob and Barbra, Rickie Lee, lots of Joni. Asa sweetly...

  My friend Brynne is here at the beach house with a couple of other of my peeps - longtime friends from thirteen ...  from way back in the day. She told me something funny last night. She said when she went to the market she really wanted to buy a watermelon but didn't because she makes it a rule to not do that when she hangs will all white people. I told her I never eat mayonaise when I'm with all blacks.  We bought here a watermelon today.

old smiling woman on the walk at the eastern end of the Grove. Right before the Meatrack. Fat, show offy bushery deep green and preening. We say good morning. She tells me its easy to be happy with this all around us. She's one of the few year round residents. I tell her I've been coming out since 1972 and have only missed two summers. She takes a photo of a cloud, waves goodbye and says "well don't miss another."   I do recall my first impression of here ... way back then. I was with my college housemate and some other folks and we walked along the full moon boardwalk, stoned, at night, with the high greenery making a lush arch around us. Music played everywhere, homes, the bar, the sky. We were on our way  to dancing, laughter, maybe kisses and touch.  It was just the most wonderful full of wonder moment flush with anticipation, friendship warmth, future, promise, right life.  ----------------------------- oh and btw, my friend Lynda can't comment on my po...

Sit alone in your arrangements for residence. S ee you have a chamber to yourself, though you sell your coat and  wear a blanket.  Keep a journal: pay so much honor to the visits  of Truth to your mind as to record them.” In his Journal for 1837 he wrote: This book is my savings-bank. I  grow richer because I have somewhere to deposit my earnings, and  fractions are worth more to me because corresponding fractions  are waiting here that shall be made integers by their addition.

 

  It's 7 in the morning and I am looking out at the very calm ocean and remembering when my childhood friend Kit was here with her husband Tom a couple of summers ago. She had Parkinsons for twenty five years. The following Fall, Tom died. Kit died a few weeks ago. Kit and I were born a day apart. Both in New York City. We sent each other felicitations every August. We first met when we were ten and lived a block apart. My first memory of her was walking down her street to our bus stop. We laughed a lot. When Kit shared her laugh with you it was something to savor. Hers and hers alone. Much like her smile. Even better. True that. She was always up for a funny exchange, a shared secret, a good time. I noticed and enjoyed her lovely shine early on. During our deep, sixty five year long friendship, she made me feel special because she was.  During college, she visited me in Ohio. I felt assured our connection was to continue after our early days. After our tenth year reunion...

                                                                              Perfect day moved my first mobile to a better breezyier place  read Demon Copperhead talked to friends on the phone painted postcard of Dionysus for Felix talked to nabes pals for a long time on the beach ate debs shrimp and chocolate pie surprise had a dream about a talent show with all of my friends participating  music dock sunset Below Deck tv