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Coming Home to Mac

[Content Disclosure: Hardware 99%; Software 76%; Coming Home 100%: Matusow Biography 6%]

On "first release day" January 24th, 1984; I was at the Apple store in Torrance, California to pick up my Mac. I was a Mac person until 2000, when I moved back to Ann Arbor and discovered the local high speed internet connection only serviced Apple products if you lived on the UofM campus. Reluctantly I got myself a PC and have mourned ever since.

Until today....

The constant problems with my laptop and the spectre of dealing with Vista on any new PC clone, made the decision easy. The pome was ripe. Today I am the proud papa of a brand new Mac and I couldn't be happier. Except for the double whammy this weekend of getting caught up on all the changes in the Mac in the last nine years and the reality that the gallies of the Matusow book have just been dropped on Amy and me. Tis time to tweak and polish; the book goes to the printer at the end of the month.
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Marriage

[Content Disclosure: 12.4% Social Commentary; 87% Societal Stupidity]

On the eve of the state Supreme Court hearing in San Francisco on Proposition 8, which prohibits same-sex marriage, advocates on both sides describe the issue in similar high-stakes rhetoric.
“On a broader scale, beyond the scope of the definition of marriage, this is about whether the social fabric will be torn by decimating the concept of the consent of the governed."
“I truly believe that the future of equality and the promise of justice for all hangs in the balance as the court considers Proposition 8."
Hard to tell sometimes who is fer and who is agin.
My position is obvious, I hope. I oppose anyone telling anyone else how to live their life; as long as that living does not materially affect aforementioned anyone's wallet, nose or jacuzzi. In other words, why do you care what those two folks down the street do with their life?
I thank my friend, Wil Wheaton for the graphic demonstration of what any sane person knows is the only rational position. This, of course, gives me pause when "liberal" California can vote completely opposite said rationality.



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Nostalgia

[Content Disclosure: Nostalgia 68%; Pondering 12%; Other 9%]

"Nostalgia from the Greek nostos, 'a return home,' and algos, 'pain.' Pain of the return home. A very accurate description; despite their blurs, words can sometimes be so exact." -- Kim Stanley Robinson

Emotional nostalgia is what is murmuring around in my soul these days. Not so a much a longing for a long ago place on the planet, but a return to a feeling of peace and joy. Music, of course, is a prime excavator of such times. As we all know "the good olde days" really weren't; but that doesn't prevent the warm sadness from percolating up to the surface when one of those melodies drifts by.

I am not really going anywhere specific with this post today. Just reflecting on how some memories are shared and others are not. A silly love song is just silly to some and so trenchant to others. Same for a movie, a book, any moment in time. For some it stands out like a beacon to all that was good and simple; hmm, that reeks of a Darth Vader quote from Field of Dreams. What surprises me is how even the most romantic people in my life will shy away from such a moment when it does not resonate from their experience. One wonders why falling into someone else's nostalgia is so difficult. Is it the lack of a shared anchor or is it perhaps the encounter with pain other than one's own?

. . . .

Addendum: A couple of regular readers pointed out that I seemed to be going somewhere with this topic and then sort of ran away from it. I confess, there are still times when my tolerance for self revelation gets in the way of just bloggin' along. I mean do I really want anyone to know that 'Moon River' actually tugged at some spot in my psyche? Sure classic rock but Andy Williams? Where are those blog lines of privacy?

Oh and for those who care (and I am shocked that you do), the photo is of Stetson Chapel on the quad at Kalamazoo College.
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Poker Player Politics

[Content Disclosure: 35% Poker; 83% Politics, 19% Second-hand Worldly Observations]

I was playing a few evenings ago when the far end of the table began a political discussion. Down at our end there was general cynicism regarding all things political, so we were not going to lower ourselves to engage in the national political debate that was going on down there. Besides those turkeys had been winning all the big pots with straight flushes and full houses no less (it was an Omaha8 game).

So I basically got to eavesdrop on this discussion without having to offer my own six cents worth. The topic, of course, was the economic crisis, those banking bastards and those lazy politicians and absent regulators who didn't do their jobs. Right away I was ready to tune it out, I mean can't you recreate this same conversational rant from CNN, FOX, the watercooler, the unemployment line, the corner bar and your own dinner table. Yep, me too; but this one surprised me.

These guys were all 65+ and clearly retired locals, yet check out what I heard:

"No sense in being a Republican or a Democrat anymore, you gotta vote for the guy who is going to make the hard choices."

"I can't believe those news commentators going after Obama, what he has been in office for six weeks and all of this is his fault? I didn't vote for him but if I had known what he was going to do about the economy, I would have."

"...and how come the Republicans can vote like 80% for Bush givimg the banks $750 billion but 0% of them could vote for the Obama package?"

"What annoys me the most is that no one is going to go to jail for this, but a couple of hundred thousand people will lose their houses. Yeah, I know they overbought but the prices went way up when the financing got cheap... Hell, it wasn't cheap it was free!"

What finally wrapped the whole conversation was the admission by all four of the players that they had voted for McCain but three of them would go for Obama, if the election were held today. Interesting what you pick up at a poker table, if you just listen.
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Story #2


[Content Disclosure: continued from yesterday]

For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ---- ----- ---- 1 Corinthians 12

We do not see the world the same way a person standing right next to us does. We perceive reality through the lens of our upbringing, our culture, our beliefs. We see the world through the pains and panes of our experience. What may be moral and good for our twenty year old self, might well be hubris or sin for us at fifty. Morals and judgments are relative because we do not live in a world of absolutes nor perfect penance.

As promised yesterday. Story #2:

Some years ago, I had a clinical client who was perhaps twenty-five years older than I. He was a chemistry professor with over thirty years of university teaching experience. The loss of a spouse and his own health problems brought him to question his current situation and led him to therapy with me. A month or so into our clinical relationship, his health forced him to give up his job and the triple threat of being widowed, being in failing health and now out of work led him to question just about everything. One day a session turned to questions about suicide. My quick assessment was that Edward has enough of the factors in the clinical checklist to be taken seriously. At some point in a conversational lull, I initiated this exchange:

"Edward, am I a good therapist?"

"I believe you are an excellent therapist."

"Can you tell me why?"

"Well, you have clearly studied the various clinical theories on therapeutic psychology and you are able to apply them with your patients. You are a very good listener and your interventions are appropriate and to the point and you are never diverting, which makes me wonder why our conversation about my potential suicide has suddenly become a discussion about your psychological skills."

"One of those clinical skills you mentioned would suggest that I should be telling you that these feelings you are having will pass, that suicidal ideation in most individuals is transitory and 90% or more of patients move beyond this state of mind in a matter of days. But I think you know that and I also believe that you might actually be in the other 10% of that statistic."

"Interesting, are you suggesting that I might just as well go ahead and be gone?"

"No Edward, what I am suggesting is that you missed one of the key reasons I am the therapist I am today, which is that I learn from my clients. Each and every day someone teaches me something about the human condition that I did not know. I get some insight into a problem from a perspective I had not considered, most often because I could not have that experience from inside of my body and my mind with the life experience I have had. Clients have experiences from within their own worldview and they illuminate the world for me by the simply act of telling me about their unique view of life. In a few months, maybe a year; you will be able to look back at this dark time in your life and reflect on the experience with a new vision, a new perspective. That new insight you will have might then be transmitted to someone who can use it to help others, someone like me. So for just that selfish reason, I think we should work on why you are feeling so desperate and put aside the actual potential for your demise."

Edward laughed. I am guessing for the first time in many weeks, he just laughed. And the he said:

"Well OK, if we can help you then I guess I can stay alive for that. Do I still have to pay for these sessions?"
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Right for You, Wrong for Me

[Content Disclosure: Morals, Ponderings, Life and 1/2% Poker]

‘Reinhold Neibuhr said, “You make a moral choice, you act, and then you ask for forgiveness.” You make the choice, because you can’t sit around hemming and hawing forever. You ask forgiveness, because, to quote Paul, “We look through a glass darkly.” What appears moral and good in our eyes may not appear good and moral in the eyes of others, even our friends. No act is absolutely moral or good, because we don’t live in a utopia where we have those absolutes.’ -- Chris Hedges

Some of my very dearest friends are passing through some tremulous periods in their lives right now. Seems like these things come in threes or sixes, depending I guess on how many really close friends you share your life deeply with. What strikes me is how many big decisions are made based on unreflected assumptions about life and for lack of any better word -- reality. Assessing reality in order to make choices about our path is made infinitely more difficult if we hold shifting beliefs about what actually constitutes ordinary reality. Therefore giving advice and counsel to others is more and less difficult based on just how much of consensual reality you share with the other person.

Obviously my friends personal struggles are not blog fodder but during my conversations over the past week, I told two personal stories as examples. In both cases I was told that I should share those stories more widely, so under the category of 'life in stories', take what you will from these.

Last year, I was leaving a Las Vegas casino either very late at night or very early in the morning, I was with my old friend Jon, we have been friends from times well before the 'poker phase' of my life. We were on a seemingly deserted floor of a big parking structure when we came around a massive concrete abutment to first hear and then see a scuffle. A women was down on the floor by a car with a man straddling her and pulling at her purse. My first thought was not "what do I do?" No, my thought was "who am I with." Jon was on my left and already moving away, widening the distance between us. "Hey!" I shouted at the guy and he turned with a knife in his hand and swung wildly. He was too far away and too drunk or drugged to be an actual threat but I still stepped back, so his knife was missed me by eight feet or more and his lunge awkwardly landed him on all fours. I stepped to the right as he tried to regain his balance and once he looked up I moved just one big step towards him. He was completely focused on the very large man moving in on him, just as I knew he would be. Never for a moment did he consider Jon nor see him and the hard sided briefcase that smacked with a loud thump on the side of his head.

I checked that our knife-wielding menace was out cold, while Jon made sure that the lady was not on the far side of a domestic dispute and about to show her love to the unconscious jackass by attacking us. But no, this was a straight robbery attempt. The lady was not interested in a police report, as she felt the authorities would be all too willing to book her too, based on some past 'evening encounters' she may have had. So we got her into her car and Jon pulled my vehicle around the front of the casino while I walked back inside to tell a security guard that someone might want to check section 4B of the parking garage for a cold cocked mugger and no, I did not wish to make a formal statement.

The moral? Well, I am happy to let you draw your own existential conclusions. I would only add that dealing with the 'reality' of this moment was clearly a function of knowing Jon and having shared certain physical insights about the nature of reality and the darkside of the same. I often leave casinos alone late at night and at those times reality can be very different.

Story #2 -- will wait until tomorrow.
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Tis Good to be Back

[Content Disclosure: 13%-19% Poker, 87% Northern California]

Let me get it out of the way right up front, I have not been to the 101 Casino (formerly Sonoma Joe's) for any poker yet, but soon I promise. I have been to several Indian and one Burmese restaurant, one herbal apothecary and an acupuncturist in Forestville. I have hung out with at least a dozen cats (pictures soon) and am slowly dealing with the deteris of life and in particular the leftover flotsom and jetsom of this last year of the voyage.

Personal economy-wise there is work being done both on spec and on the clock/cash register. Otherwise, I have several long time friends here in Sonoma and many more down in the City. I am meanderingly getting to see all of them in a slow flourish of reconnection. Planning for this summer and beyond is beginning, although like so many others, a bit of the future is in the hands of the Washington politicians and in my case, in particular, Barney Frank.

The question is: If online poker comes back completely in the US, will it matter now that the dollars are not flowing so freely in this wretched economy. Like my friend Dr. Pauly, I am working on my non-poker book, while awaiting the decision on poker as a writing source going forward. And like my co-author Amy Calistri, I am taking some time to be blog reflective.

Here in the green, damp Northern California environs, it is very easy to look at all the balls you have in the air and just decide to let a couple of them drop and slowly roll away. Things look and feel different. Perhaps just a matter of perspective but more likely a product of long gestation and an ill fit with certain aspects of life.

But then again, it is Northern California:


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