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Chinese Year of the Metal Rabbit


Rabbit Years are fourth in the Chinese calendar, following Tiger Years. The Chinese new year usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solistice. This year the date is today: February 3, 2011. 

The characteristics of the Rabbit (both those born under the sign of the Rabbit and the actual year itself) are influenced by the five Chinese elements: Metal, Water, Fire, Wood and Earth. So there is a sixty year cycle that overlays the 12 year cycle of the Chinese calendar. This is the year of the Metal Rabbit.







                                     THE METAL RABBIT 1951 AND 2011






Metal gives Rabbits a more resilient demeanor than the other more quiet Rabbit. These Rabbits are very ambitious and can be quite crafty in their dealings with others. They throw themselves and their emotions into everything they do, making them intense lovers, but not outwardly affectionate lovers. Their determination can affect their work as well, whether through personal relationships with colleagues or with the work itself, a Rabbit can be known to immerse himself in his projects…business and personal.


Methinks, I myself shall opt for intense immersion this year.
--
art: Beth Cavener Stitchter

Home or Something Like It


For about five years now I have refrained from using the word "home" to describe any of the places I have rested my head. I lived at 'Bill's Place' in Las Vegas ('06-'07) and then at 'the condo' ('08) also in Vegas. I literally was undomiciled for fourteen months ('09-'10) while traveling about the country and since March I have lived in the 'Berkeley apartment.' Ann Arbor ('00-'06) was probably that last time I recognized a place as home.

I am not actually adverse to finding a new home and certainly I have no problem calling the SF Bay region home, I lived here from '90 to '00 quite happily. I settle fairly easily into any place that can reasonably replicate a cave, but nothing has felt like home for awhile.

This comes up today because I have returned to the Bay area after fifty days in the Mt. Shasta/Weed/Lake Shastina environs of north-central California. I am not back in the Berkeley apartment yet, the slow pace of remodeling there still crawls forward. So I am in the City staying with yet another seemingly willing friend, I surmise I remain an entertaining interlude in the spare room.

In the next few days I will visit the apartment and assess the likelihood of re-occupancy in the relatively near future or thereabouts. But the search for 'home' continues.

M&M Monday - OCD


One of the comment traits of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is the need to have items in straight rows or consistent groupings. I clearly am not OCD because when I offered this picture as a joking example to two of my moderately OCD friends, I received the following responses:

"The yellow are too high and completely out of square, have you considering using a straight edge to get them right?"

"When you enlarge the photo you can clearly see that there has been no effort to align the embossed M's on the individual candies."

Also I can now attest that cats are seldom OCD or at least Midnight is not because just after I took the picture above his paw snaked up from the dining room chair to this result.


"Before there was Prozac, we had purring cats."
--
M&M Art by me and Midnight

Hair, less Hair, Hairless



For many years I had a hairy tradition of growing a winter beard and taking it off during the spring conference I attend in late March or early April. Intervening warmer climates, like Las Vegas, disrupted my hirsute practice.


This year I grew the beard and the hair, which is to say what hair I still have; but I find myself unable to wait until late March to divest as I will be returning soon to more temperate climes.


Several friends tell me the beard makes me look older; must be the grey.


While other friends, all of the female persuasion, prefer me with facial fuzz.


As I say in all of my relational endeavors, if there were a consistent female presence in my life, she could request any flocculent configuration she desired.


Until that time, it will be a thermal decision.

Star 80


I 've had this post lingering in the queue for several months or more. Then last night it came up again "the scariest movie I have ever seen was . . . " For me the scariest film  is derived from the scariest character ever. If you have seen Star 80 you probably agree with me and very possibly you are not going to finish reading this post because you don't want to be reminded.

Star 80 is the story of Playboy playmate of the year (1979) Dorothy Stratten, played in the movie by Mariel Hemingway. Eric Roberts plays her boyfriend and low life Svengali. The story plays out in Hollywood and in particular at the Playboy Mansion. It ends when Paul Snider (the real life character) murders the real Dorothy Stratten and then kills himself. Now the story itself is not that unusual. What is compelling is acting of Eric Roberts.

If you have ever known a person, probably a man, who could literally go from love to hate in an instant, then you know Paul Snider. The mercurial explosions of anger, hate and the fear such behavior engenders has never been depicted as frighteningly as it is in Star 80.

The film came out in 1983, it was not a big success; too close to the truth apparently. But still today Roberts is often asked about the film and finds people still reacting to the brilliant fearfulness of this character.

I highly recommend the film and I strongly suggest you see it with the lights on.

Humor


Do you train your friends to not send you internet humor? I do, or at least I discourage most of it but leave a couple of avenues open because several of my friends and relatives have very strange and entertaining funny bones. The other day someone not on my 'humor allowed' list sent me a list of 50 one-liners and a note that said "I'll bet that you wouldn't be ashamed to put at least a dozen of these on your blog." Let's see, remember he said a dozen. [added comments are mine]

3. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die [along with emptying the contents of 'that' drawer or in the case of certain friends 'that' closet]

9. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong [the measure of wisdom is what you say next]

16. There is great need for a sarcasm font [if only so people we are trying to insult would get it and visa versa]

21. Google maps really needs to start directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure by now I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

29. Bad decisions make good stories [and great blogs]

31. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call [Yep, I have two]

38. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still don't understand a word they are saying? [I did this once on a date, I was shocked when I later discovered what I had agreed to]

42. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974.That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important [I like juxtapositional humor. Two contortionists walk into a bar . . .]

So, 8 out of 50 not bad but not a dozen either.

Let me leave you with a blond joke from one of my unblocked sources.

A short, thin heavily spectacled middle-aged guy shuffles into a bar, sits down in front of the bartender and orders a shot. The bartenders smirks, assumes he didn't notice he had walked into a bar called the Dyke's Den, she serves him his drink. The man downs the shot and says:

"You wanna hear a blond joke?"

The bartender says: "Maybe you want to look up here first."

The guy looks up at the six foot two blond bartender as she says:

"Wendy here is our waitress." 

Wendy has more tattoos than the guy has ever seen and she too is blond.

"Joyce at the door is our bouncer."

The guy swivels in his chair to see golden haired Joyce in full motorcycle leathers and a nasty look on her face.

"and Mary over there is the owner."

Mary seems to fill the door of the office near the back of the bar, she has to go 250 and, of course, platinum hair. 

"You sure you want to tell a blond joke?" asked the bartender.

"Well hell no," said the guy "not if I am going to have to repeat it four times."

M&M Monday - BiPolar Disorder


I mentioned that my M&Ms series was prompted by some psychologically based art I saw on the web. I was struck by how some psychology terms could be graphically represented. Today three images of what we might visually imagine as bipolar disorder, which used to be manic-depression and before that schizophrenia.


Sometimes we think of bi-polar disorder as being an A or B state of mind (below); when, in fact, it is very often more like AcdefghizyxwvutsrqwnkthvydhskB multi-stated state of mind (above).


Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
--
Art by: me