Gods and Magicians

Last night I finished reading The Magician King, the second novel in The Magician Trilogy by Lev Grossman. (My daughter turned me on to the show The Magicians, and because I could never find the time to watch it, I decided to read the books instead.)

One of the big things that stood out for me was the subplot concerning the part magic plans in Julia’s history and development.

Unlike me, Julia was a freaking genius. However what she and I did share in common was her lack of certainty in any kind of god or gods. Julia needed evidence. She needed experiencial data.

I am like that too, in a way.

While I do believe in a Universal Creative Energy that some may call “God,” I have trouble believing deities — be They Zeus, Odin, Perkūnas, or even that nameless deity which many refer to as just plain “God” —  that have been fashioned by human beings. Theirs is an anthropomorphic construct — something that’s been fashioned to include human attributes, thereby applying certain limitations to something that cannot be contained in a tidy package. After all, we love our words.

But I guess that’s a human thing. Humans are not comfortable with ambiguity. And many are not comfortable with not being able to define things. Thus, something as vast and undefinable as the Universal Creative Energy — The Source of All Things — had to be squeezed into an easily graspable concept.

The thing is, concepts have limits. And somewhere along the way people either forgot that, or they never bothered to take it into consideration in the first place. Eventually, they also forgot that they, too, were part of this Universal Creative Energy.

And that’s how gods became entities separate from ourselves.

Anyhow, because my concept of “God” is a bit different from that of the popular mainstream, I have a hard time cultivating a the type of relationship with God that most people have. (Cultivating a relationship with Jesus is even tougher for reasons I don’t want to go into now.)

Maybe if God spoke to me like He did in the Old Testament, or even like He did to Donald Neale Walsch in his Conversations With God series, it would be a different story. I have trouble relying on faith alone. That is how Julia and I am alike. If no one answers when I ask questions, or gives me a concrete sign when I ask for one, it’s hard for me to accept that there is an all-powerful higher being who takes a special interest in me.

That is not to say that I am an atheist, or even an agnostic. It’s just that my understanding of “God” does not include an imaginary friend that talks back to me, or some irate bearded dude hurling lightning bolts from Mount Olympus.

The Source of All Things is beyond words and beyond comprehension, though we can tap into it.

As for deities, I think that Lev Grossman brought up an interesting premise in that deities are not so much higher supreme beings, but that they are magicians with an incredible and mind-boggling range of power.

And as for Julia, she did finally become a believer after she had an encounter with a goddess. In fact, not only did she become a devotee of this goddess — Our Lady Underground — she also became a demigod herself, which involved having to sacrifice the part of herself that made her human. 

(That in itself is another metaphor that can be explored at another time.)

Sharpies Art — Part 5

Sharpies Art — Part 4

The portrait subjects that interest me the most are those that depict a person’s energy and dynamic character. If I don’t feel the energy, I am not inspired.

Sharpies Art — Part 3

Not all Sharpies portraits are people.

Sharpies Art — Part 2

Seeing that posting from my phone (which is the only way I can post when I am away from my laptop) is a royal pain in the arse, my post about Sharpies is going to have to be broken up into smaller, manageable posts. Safari is supposed to be a supported platform. However my iPhone did not get that memo.

When I was first starting out drawing Sharpies portraits, one of my favorite subjects was my next door neighbor Jory, as not only was he my best friend when I lived in Lubbock, he was (and still is) quite the character.

I also included Jory’s bromance buddy Gabriel, as well as my other neighbors, like Tommy the Mexican Hulk and Mr Garcia, who loved his guns.

While he was impressed with his Sharpies portrait,

Jory was not all that overly thrilled that my design decision had him with green hair. However, after he accompanied me on my move to Houston, that issue was rectified, and Jory was pleased with the results.

My hair, however, still remains green.

Sharpies Art

I never set out to be a Sharpies artist. I was something that just happened. It all started with this handbound book, with handmade pulpy pages, that I bought at The Magick Cauldron, when I visited my daughter in Houston during June 2014.

As I am a big sucker for notebooks and sketchbooks — the more fancy the better — I could not resist this beauty. But as much as I have been seduced by pretty notebooks and sketchbooks, I have also faced the fear of “contaminating” the pristine pages with a poorly executed drawing or scratched out words.

But I decided to do something different with this book — something different from the couple of pages of Zentangles and mindless doodling that had already  soiled the first couple of pages. I decided that this book was going to be filled with drawings — every single freaking page. And because the rough texture of the paper did not really support colored pencil drawing — not the way I like to draw with colored pencils — I decided to use Sharpie markers instead. (Or course, the paper wasn’t all that ideal for Sharpies either, but I would make it work.)

Little did I know that I was to embark on a new artistic journey.

The intention of my first Sharpies drawing was to create the energy in order to manifest my move to Houston when I was going through divorce 
proceedings. Basically, it was a visual spell — a
magickal working.

While this was not the among my best Sharpies drawings, it was a drawing where I totally got into the energy of creating it.

From that followed other efforts. 

For the first time ever I actually got into drawing 

portraits. Up until that point, I had never been into 

drawing portraits because I felt that I was not good at them. And I will admit that my first few efforts 

were a bit crude. But I also knew that I was on to something.

 

The interesting thing about drawing with Sharpies was that the limited color palette forced me to make some design decisions concerning skin and hair colors. Plus, since I was not using black or white (which is not part of the Sharpies palette), I also had to make design decisions concerning these two color

A Cooking Palooza — The First of Many More to Come...

...the first in this blog, that is, as I’ve been posting my cooking adventures on Facebook and Instagram for quite some time.

It was raining yesterday, but I was not going to let a little bit of rain deter me from firing up my grill for the first time this year. After all, I had two fat pieces of sirloin that were rubbed with the most awesome steak rub ever waiting to jump on the grill.

Don't those babies look good?!

I had only planned to grill those two pieces of steak, but all those live charcoals were just begging for me to slap something else on the grill. Good thing I had some mini peppers on hand.

Not only did they grill up nicely, they had a wonderfully sweet flavor to them that would go nicely with a grilled steak, had that steak been served on a plate. But like I mentioned earlier, I had other plans for this steak.

The sirloin got cut up into smaller bite-size pieces. Also, I minced some shallot, and chopped up some 

red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, along with 

some mango.

Let the mason jar salad assembly begin!

First thing into the mason jars was some homemade rosemary/garlic/shallot white wine vinaigrette. Next went in comes something which can tolerate sitting in the vinaigrette, which in this case would be the meat. (I certainly would not mind that additional marinating action.)

Next came the shallots, then the chopped peppers, and then the mango. Now that there was a sufficient barrier between the salad dressing and the leafy greens, I stuffed the rest of the jar with artisan lettuce that I picked up at Aldi. You want to make sure that the leafy greens are the last to go in the jar, because they would get really nasty from sitting in any kind of vinegary salad dressing for days.

And there you go. Voilà!

Not All of Us Are Delicate Flowers

On occasion, my workplace has cultural awareness banners. Last month there was a banner for Black History Month. This month it is a banner for Women’s History Month.

And it’s in freaking pink!

Why is that? Why is it that whenever there is anything to do with women, the communication devices used almost always contain the color pink.

Pink is the color of softness and yielding. It is the color of calming and pacifying.

It is the color of a delicate flower.

While softness, yielding, and pacifying are some aspects associated with feminity, that is not all that we are.

We are also strong, fierce, and tenacious. We are natural problem solvers — and more. Even our nuturing comes from a place of power and strength.

By including pink in this banner (as well as other women-centric communication devices) there is a subliminal message being sent that women are to be soft and yielding. 

From our earliest years we are bombarded by messages designed to condition us to be subservient, to avoid the spotlight, to pacify and placate, to play only supporting roles, to put everyone else’s needs first and put our needs last, etc.

We are conditioned to be “sugar and spice and everything nice.”

“Little girls should be seen and not heard.”

We have been conditioned to allow the menfolk to have center stage and to stay in the background.

Basically, we have been conditioned to deny and suppress a major portion of what we are.

Once ALL women lay claim to the long-suppressed aspects of feminity, only then will we be an unstoppable force.

Is Family Everything?

There is no one who’s not familiar with the saying, “Family is everything.” When family members are loving, respectful, supportive, and nurturing people with a healthy sense of boundaries, family is, indeed, everything. To be part of a intimate self-enclosed island of individuals that uplifts you during times of trial and celebrates your accomplishments, no matter how small and trivial they may be, is one of the most precious things on this planet.

But what about those families where the people are damaged people who pass down their damage onto their offspring and siblings? Is family still everything?

I’ve been around long enough to see that not all families are created equal, and that there are some who demand blind loyalty, that’s based on shared genetics, without deserving such loyalty. I’m talking about the damaged folks who spout that family is everything out of one side of their mouths and then turn around to inflict more harm and damage on members of their own family.

What is especially tragic is when people grow up in toxic and dysfunctional families not knowing that what they’ve experienced growing up (and as adults) has actually been abuse. They may have grown up hearing their parents and siblings constantly say that theirs is a close family, that no one loves each other more than this family.

Yet their words never match up with their actions. And when people hear the same words being repeated over and over since infancy, they believe them. That’s how lies become the truth, and how abuse becomes something that every loving and close family does.

And these “loving” and “close” abusers use the phrase, “Family is everything,” in order to assure that their victims stick around.

Unfortunately, many do choose to stay close to their abusers because that is all they know, and because they haven’t gotten around to realizing what they’ve been experiencing all their lives is indeed abuse. They have wholeheartedly bought into the lie that shared genetics does indeed demand unfailing loyalty. And they will go to the grave never having had their eyes opened.

However, those who have made the realization have a long and interesting healing journey ahead of them.  And many may connect with likeminded folks who wind up becoming their soul family, which in that case is everything.

Upping the Game

This is the third year I’ve done a serious nutritional reset/detox. As with each nutritional reset/detox, I have chosen Lent as the time period, because it is much easier for folks, especially in a religiously conservative state such as Texas, it is much easier for folks to understand and accept that you’re turning down their tasty, but nutritionally-compromised vittles due to a Lenten sacrifice then it is to try to explain to them a nutritional reset and detox, especially when many of the foods they’ve believed to be healthy are actually inflammatory.

Frankly, I don’t feel like expending that sort of energy into explanations. 

Anyhow, this year the program that I’m following is the Whole30. (Last year it was a plant-centric version of the Abascal Way; the year before that it was the Whole30.)

This year I decided to up my game. Instead of just doing a nutritional reset/detox, I decided to also include a Facebook fast. I love Facebook. It’s enabled me to reconnect with people from my past. And with my socially isolating work schedule, it’s enabled me to have a social life of sorts. But it’s also been a time-stealer.

In place of Facebook, I’ve taken to walking 25 minutes in the morning (which, so far, works out to one mile) and then meditating for another 20 to 25 minutes. (I’ve had to adjust my waking time from 6:15 to 6:00 so that I could have enough time to squeeze in a shower after breakfast.)

I’ve been at it for three days now. And I cannot say that I’m particularly enjoying this new regimen. I won’t lie when I say that I miss having my tequila boilermaker when I get home from work. And I do miss snacking on tasty goodies while reading at night just before going to bed.

But it’s that booze and noshing before bedtime that has caused me to pack on the pounds and padding. 

Each time I’ve done the Lenten nutritional reset and detox, I’ve lost over twenty pounds. But when my old nighttime habits started creeping back in, so did the weight. And before you know it, I was back to having to loosen up my belt.

I’ve realized that these habits, as much as I’ve enjoyed their taste bud gratification, did not support the person I want to be, both physically and spiritually.

So here’s hoping that with my upping me Lenten game that I will have greater success in realizing my health and spiritual goals.

A Day In a Life of a Light Rail Train Operator

While this may be Thursday for most people, today is my Monday.

Right now I’m sitting at the train platform at Altic/Howard Hughes. I’m waiting for my deadhead train to come in while watching this fellow feed the two dogs at the lot across the street. Just minutes earlier the two girls got treats from me.

My train should be here any minute now.

It has arrived, and I am riding on it. Rather than catch the train at 10:30am and riding it directly to Hobby, I like to get there earlier and catch Chacho’s* train while it’s still going eastbound to Magnolia Park.

I just picked up my train at Hobby from Kōsh*. There’s a young lady with a dog in her purse named Pippin in the train. People aren’t supposed to be on the train after Theater District, but sometimes it happens. I gave Pippin a treat.

It’s time to get underway.

There are two Stop and Proceeds on the train order. One is downtown, at Milam and Rusk. The train signal is in malfunction, while the traffic signals are in four-way flash. The other is at Chartres.

However, no one saw to telling me that that interlocking signal, CH2E, would be dark, let alone what to do. Seeing that interlocking signals are the sacred cow of all signals, as they are there to prevent train-on-train collisions, I radioed Control, who instructed me to proceed through the dark signal. The magnetic trip stop was supposed to have been deactivated, however my train got trip stopped anyway. 

Of course this causes a stir, and the signals guys are trying to figure out the signaling catastrophe going on at that intersection. All four signal cases are open. 

Nineteen minutes after getting trip stopped, I made it to Palm Center, the end of the line.

And now I am back at Hobby. One trip down; five more to go.

Heading eastbound on my second trip, I see a car on Main Street with its nose in the track, preparing to turn right onto Rusk Street. However, the car is not moving. Once the truck in front of me has cleared, I see what the holdup is. There’s a confused elderly man standing in the trackway. He has a walker that is way too short for him. What’s even worse is that the back legs of the walker are a good half foot shorter than the front, pitching the walker at a forty five-degree angle.

He could barely walk. Each step was an arduous is arduously attempt where he stops and turns his upper body in confusion. His trying to lift his walker over the rail is an exercise in patience. Meanwhile, cars are blowing by him.

In the meantime having to sit and wait at Main Street is going to cause a hold  up in Red Line traffic. However, I really don’t want to get on the radio and call Control.

“Train 55 to Control, eastbound, Main. Please be advised that I am unable to proceed due to an individual with walker having difficulty crossing the street.”

Fortunately, a passerby helps the old man across. But I cannot proceed until my signal comes up again.     

For some good news, at least, I’m able to make it through Chartres without getting trip stopped at CH2E. 

The trip back is blessedly uneventful.

On my third trip out I see that the signal at Milam is working. And while I dislike getting on the radio and call Control.

“Train 55 to Control, eastbound, Milam. Please be advised I got my upgrade.”

A short while after that line Seven Charlie is annulled on the train order.

However, there is still that signal catastrophe at Chartres. But it does seem to be slowly improving. While my bar signal does come up, the signal at CH2E does not. As such, Control has to talk me through that.

“Train 55 copy. I have authorization to bypass CH2E, verifying switch alignment for a normal route.”

Up to Palm Center and back with no incident, I hand Train 55 over to Bullet* and go take my lunch in the break room shack underneath the overpass at Hobby. 

Lunch has ten more minutes left but I like to be out early to relieve Minnie* when she brings in Train 52. 

Anyhow, the train I get for my second half is one of the spy trains — one of the trains that has a camera in the operating cab. (Can we say “workplace surveillance?” Sure we can.) No one likes getting a spy train.

The trip up to Palm Center — trip number four — went uneventfully. 

There was the usual ongoing issue at Chartres and CH2E. But by now, I have gotten the hang of it.

School had gotten out, and the high school kids were waiting to be picked up. But thanks to the METRO police presence, they were pretty quiet.

At MacGregor Park/MLK there is student housing kittycorner from the platform. Ever since those student apartments went up, the university kids would cut in front of the train to get to them. Well, won’t have none of that. So, when I pull up to the platform, I pull slightly past the platform and have the train’s nose on the sidewalk. And then I watch in the right rear monitor and see all those kids automatically heading to turn in front of the train only to realize the train is blocking them. Of course there’s always one defiant skinny person who insists on squeezing through.

When I get to Palm Center, there’s a dirt bike on the platform. Lex* informed me that the guy with the bike wanted to get on the train, but that Lex told him that bike can’t come onboard. I hope he’s not going to try to pull that on my train. But then I see him riding off the platform and heading towards the low to no income apartments across the street.

Heading back west, the signal catastrophe is finally rectified after ten hours of work. Seven Bravo and Twelve Bravo are annulled. We finally have a clean train order.

My fifth and penultimate trip eastbound is proceeding well, and I am making good time finally. I may be able to actually make it to Palm Center without losing any time off my time points. However, it’s no such luck as I get to Elgin/Third Ward. There is some first responder — EMS and cops — action going on the platform. The supervisor on location, 1695, flags me to the platform, as the cop car on the tracks slowly backs out. (METRO is like “Secret Agent Man,” where “they’re giving you a number and taking away your name.” By the time I let off my passengers, and 1695 and I exchange a couple of snarky comments, my signal drops. I have to request a stop and proceed, which Control grants. But I still have to wait until it is safe to proceed.

I get to Palm Center late, once again.

When it’s time to leave, the sun is going down fast, and it’s getting dark. I don’t like operating the train when it’s dark because the alignment goes through some very poorly lit areas that makes it hard to see people when they’re crossing the street. I slow down my operation. And by the time I get to Hobby I have to do a turn and burn.

The sixth and last trip eastbound goes slower than usual because it is dark and the glare of traffic lights makes it difficult to see. I have to sit and wait two minutes at Albermarle because a westbound train caused my signal to time out. And while the Controller on duty granted me a stop and proceed at Elgin, I know he won’t grant me one at this intersection.

Once again I make it to Palm Center late. And I wind up leaving a tad bit late too.

On approach to MacGregor Park/MLK, a car runs a red light into the path of my oncoming train. This is the usual typical bullshit I, and every other train operator, deal with every day. Some of these idiots get lucky and some don’t. This one is one of the lucky ones — for now.

The rest of the trip back goes without incident. BB* is there to relieve me.

I hop on my deadhead train, which was behind me, and I’m heading back to the Altic/Howard Hughes platform, from which I will make the 0.33-mile walk back to the station office. Once I get there, I’ll turn in my radio and vamoose.

One day down, four more to go.

* Names have been changed to preserve privacy.

Well, It's Been Ages...

...2768 days, to be exact, since my last blog post. I cannot believe that I let this poor, neglected blog lapse for this long. But then, maybe I can.

A lot has happened since 7 August 2011.

For one thing, I am no longer in Lubbock. I'm also no longer married. (An unexpected and generous inheritance saw to the latter.) And while I still very often look back at Dirt City with great fondness, I am also experiencing the peace of mind that had eluded me while I was in a marital state.

I must say that since I have moved to Texas, it has treated me very well. And that treatment got even better once I moved to Houston to be closer to my daughter as I started my new life.

However, there was no way that I could have predicted the trajectory my life would take after my move to H-Town.

First of all, getting to Houston was a bit of a challenge, especially since it was 500 miles away. It wasn't as though I could just hop in my car and drive down there to go look at rentals.

So my first step was to contact various Unity and Unitarian Churches in the area to see if they could hook me up with someone who could help me find a rental house. (It had to be a house, because with my dogs, apartment living would not do.)

The only church to respond was the Unity Church in Cypress, which was just northwest of Houston. I was put in touch with Beverly, a phenomenal real estate agent who also turned out to be great friend and fellow animal lover. 

In the meantime, I had quit my job at the end of July (mainly because I did not want to endure another annual performance review in August) so that I could finish up packing (which was a bit of a challenge due to my still recovering from rotator cuff surgery in May).

I had my sights set on August as the time I would be moving. However, it wasn't until late September that Beverly and my daughter found the house that I would eventually move into. And the move did not occur until the end of October.

Thankfully, I had an awesome neighbor who agreed to drive down to Houston with me on moving day and help wrangle the dogs (which didn't need much wrangling as they were heavily sedated for the long drive down).

The new house was in the Bear Creek part of northwest Houston, just a stone's throw from Katy. It was in a quiet maze-like subdivision. 

After I had gotten unpacked and settled in, I had to resume my job search. I figured that with my having been able to land a job in Lubbock three months to the day of moving there, that it would be a snap to secure a job in a city the size of Houston.

No such luck.

Three months passed...

...then four...

...then five.

And with the passing of each month, the inheritance money was dwindling. The situation was getting so desperate that I starting to give Plan B -- packing up all the animals and everything I could stuff into my Xterra and leaving everything else behind, while heading back east to throw myself at the mercy of my remaining family -- some serious thought.

However, just at the eleventh hour, I received a job offer from METRO for...

...get this...

...a light rail train operator trainee.

Never, ever in my wildest imagination I would have expected to find myself operating a train through the 'hood in Houston.

And I had never expected to have been at it for as long as I have.

But I will say that for all its drawbacks, this job has allowed me to live well, and to even buy a house.

I now live in Baytown, in a house that is "me," and that was found for me by the amazing Beverly. It's nice being just minutes away from a nature center that's at the meeting point of three bays. Dang! I'm living close to water again! And I am totally digging the vibes of this place!