I'll break my current hiatus for one of these monthly updates. Lots going on so it'll be quick. (for me, anyway ). What with my latest hobby (weight training) and the fact that each stolen moment is taken up by reading these days (hooray for my Kindle!) I don't even "check" Xanga or even FB that much anymore. When I do, I'm rarely interested in seeing what people "share" that they saw online somewhere else! (I do try to search out "creative" entries but there are lots more copy/pasted stuff than original stuff among most of the posts I see.)

Here's an observation. People on social networking sites on the internet always write about their "friends". Who they admire. Who's been supportive and who's been "talking behind their back" etc. etc. etc. You know, I've lost nearly all my friends. On the internet, when people mention "friends" it's usually someone with whom they connect online. For the current generation of young people, there is probably no disconnect whether a "friend" is "real" (i.e. you see them physically at school, around the hood, at work, or church, etc.) or "virtual" (in one of their "friends" lists on an online social networking site.) I'm pretty "old" in chronological years, but young in spirit. Whole groups of friends have perished, sometimes literally. A lot of folks I knew pretty well died. Many too early, but that's life. (Er, death.) 

An "online" "friend" sent me an email the other day which supplied a link to another of her blogsites. There she had a different name than the one I've been calling her. When someone from Xanga "friends" me on Facebook, I never know who they are. The name on their Facebook site is completely different than the one on their Xanga site. Nobody much lets me know by which moniker I might have been calling them, either.) I'm convinced. Even though I've been online longer than some folks on the internet have possibly been alive (or aware, anyway) I've been a "presence" long enough that anyone wishing to "find" me can do so easily. I change my passwords a lot, but I don't change my name. I remain, as always, Michael F. Nyiri, poet , philosopher, fool. If I don't know somebody's name, then I don't know that person, no matter how many times they commented on my blog. No matter how many emails they may have sent me. Frankly, as I age, it confuses me. So I won't think too much about it. But to me "online" friends aren't "friends". They're simply connections, like acquaintances I make at work, or people who check me out at the market. 

Sometimes I think I'm possibly pretty lonesome. But I honestly like to be alone. The internet remains merely a tool for me to use, when I make the time to turn it on, that is.  

WORK: I rarely write about work because my Xanga blog is supposed to be a showcase for my "creative" side. I just want to put it in writing. 7 More Years. That's how long I intend to work. It's less than a decade. Sure, I'll be 67. But now that I'm approaching 60, 70 doesn't seem "old" to me. In seven years, I'll retire. I'm planning to begin traveling next year, when the debt completely disappears. At work, I accomplish tasks. I take pleasure in what goes right, and I possibly get too upset when something goes wrong. Too many tasks I just used to accomplish on my own have been "farmed out' to so many others who rarely even see or talk to each other, that the left hand of the company doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I've taken a somewhat zenlike attitude towards what I do in any given day. (I will admit I still let things get to me, I'm not perfect, esp. when it comes to my emotions and bipolarity.) I may not be doing what I want to do. I may not be doing what I deem important. However, it doesn't matter. In seven years I won't even "be here" at work, except to come back and say hi to the folks still in the grind. I'm one for "preparing" and "planning" stuff. I'm planning my retirement. Work will end for me, in the not too distant future, and then it's time for...

PLAY: I'm single, young, and free. I love to play. As I pay down my debts, and find myself with a little spending cash, I'm getting blurays of my favorite movies (Roger Rabbit is on his way to my house as we speak). I'm looking at places I'd like to go (the internet is a great tool for this) and I can bide my time finding the right "toys" to complement my computer rig. No more do I "collect" large amounts of episodes of TV shows I'll never watch on my DVR. No more do I fantasize about what I'd be able to create with the latest thousand dollar video editing program I can't even install on my old XP system. I'm finding that as I spend less time "worrying" or making plans that won't ever happen, I can spend more time enjoying the small things I can accomplish right now. F'rinstance. Last weekend I really wanted to go to LACMA ( the Los Angeles Art museum.) However next week I'm possibly going to the Reagan Library (a longtime plan now coming to fruition). I can't take videos at LACMA, so I passed on the impulse, and spent a lazy afternoon sitting in the sun instead. (with my Kindle by my side) In the past, I may just "take off" on a photo expedition, and find myself spending money I don't have. Now that I have a little money, I take a bit more time to think, "do I really need to do this now?". Usually, I don't. And then before you know it, the day is done, and another, with it's requisite plans, are on the horizon. As playtime increases, I'm finding that my previous frugality is paying me dividends in time as well as money now that I seem to have a little more of both!

DIET AND HEALTH: Just had my annual physical examination last Friday. One upcoming Xanga entry I've planned, and which will most probably be posted before the end of this month will be my "Ultimate Body Image" blog, complete with one of those "naked on Xanga" photos. Only this time I won't really NEED to suck in my gut. I'm trading fat for muscle. I'm on a full weight training schedule, working out three times a week. (1/2 hour cardio, 1/2 hour stretching, 45 minutes weight training, which gets longer as I add more excercises.) I may make a Mike's Video Blog detailing my workout. I'm in excellent health. Looked at my blood tests online this morning. My cholesterol is still a bit high. Doc will probably want to put me back on Lovastatin. Besides eating healthy, I'm now adding a "splurge day" every two weeks or so, usually on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, where I go to a restaurant and have a meal I can enjoy like I used to. (A mexican feast, or a trip to a Chinese buffet) One thing that's changed from my "non healthy" days, however. When I go out, I don't eat a gargantuan amount of food like I used to when I ate one big meal a day. (And I don't get upset at myself for not eating every grain of rice on the plate either if I'm full.)

A "normal" day's intake for me. Breakfast: Oatmeal (in Apple juice instead of water or milk) topped with rasins and almonds, plus a little cinnamon. Lunch: Instant noodles (The bachelor's friend). (I try to stay away from egg noodles, which have cholesterol.) A sandwich (deli meats and jack cheese) and fruit. Dinner: A salad with either balsamic vinagrette or italian dressing. I drink lots of tea. Snacks are usually a carrot, a banana or greek yogurt. 

After "deflating" a little more of the "spare tire" around my waist, you can actually see my abs!

EXERCISE: Never in a million years would I have thought I'd know the names of the various muscles in the body or how many "reps" one should be doing in how many "sets" of a weight training exercise. I was always more apt to be the guy who got sand kicked in his face when young, and I never dreamed of getting toned and muscular. Now, I check lots of internet sites and watch lots of videos on YouTube looking for the right exercises to add to my workout. I'm not into "bodybuilding" but "strength training." However my body is lookin' pretty good I must say.

I began walking about two miles a day back when my doctor first told me my cholesterol was high. This was in 2001 or 2002. Last year, for my birthday, in May 2012, I added 5 pound dumbells, which I pumped as I walked. A little over a month ago, I added a standard weight bench, plus barbell, to my "weight room" area in my house. I don't pump weights when I walk now. The walk is a cardio preliminary to the actual workout. This will all be detailed in an upcoming blog. I'm pretty serious about strength training. I should have done this ages ago! My posture is better. I don't get "breathless" that easily. And this after only a month! My "plan" is to look like Dwayne Johnson by the end of the year! (Not really, but I'm amazed at how I can actually "feel" my muscle mass increasing!)

WEALTH: For the first time in my own financial history, I charged two meals and a video on a credit card last month, and paid the complete balance back to $0.00 when the bill was due this month. That old "consolidation" loan I took out in 2007 (and updated in 2009) for Forty Thousand dollars now has a balance of under 9 grand. (It will be completely paid off by 2014 at about this time!) I've cut up all but two credit cards. And my Amazon.com card is mainly used for free books and apps on the Kindle. 

VACATION/BIRTHDAY: I began a new annual practice last year when I took advantage of a free boat ride to Catalina Island on my birthday. Actually, the practice was begun earlier. In 2009 I took advantage of Disneyland's free birthday ticket and spent my birthday in 2009 at Disneyland. I spent three days on Catalina, however, and took a "mini vacation." This year, I am going to be loaned the keys to a vacation cabin (actually a five bedroom house) in Lake Arrowhead, and the week of my birthday, from April 29th through the end of the first week of May, I plan to be vacationing in Lake Arrowhead, in the San Bernadino mountains, about 5000 feet up. I'll be sure to be taking my cameras. I love the mountains (almost) as much as I love the sea!

 PHILOSOPHY: 

I may wonder what it would be like to have sired children, and to be spending my time "with the grandkids" like pretty much everyone else my age, but then I read about some utterly incomprehensible happening and I'm glad I don't find myself having to "explain" something I don't understand to anybody.

I may wonder what it would be like to hold hands with a woman, and have a really close warm relationship, but then I read about how families are being torn apart by violence and how less and less love seems to be spread around the world.

I may wonder what I have lost, or have never found, or what may be "over the mountain" or what might have happened if this had occurred or if that hadn't. But then I think about how wonderful the life is that I'm leading. Perhaps I'm not sharing it with anyone right now, and perhaps I may never do so. I am part and parcel of the Universal Existence, as is everyone else. And soon, hopefully not sooner than I'm ready for it to happen, the cosmic door will open and I shall pass through. Then perhaps, in Universal Ecstasy, I will find companionship with the universal essence of humankind. And I shall never wonder again.

Embrace the little things which matter, and don't wonder long about the imponderables. 

Posted: March 19, 2013 8:50 AM

"Old Hat"

Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
02/19/13
6:00 a.m. pst

Worn but not out
Forgotten but not gone
Aging gracefully
(as graceful as possible)
Memories fall from the band
(used to be fastened and full)
Color might not be so vibrant
still comfortable though
and still fits without a doubt

Hats hanging on racks all around
Where did I get that one?
Do I even remember anymore?
The hat on my head feels right
(but so did so many others in the long ago)

Old hats are never tossed out
they may sit farther back on the shelf
they may hide behind other hats on the rack
they may fade they might fault
they may be old hats
but they survive
as do I

Posted: February 19, 2013 6:12 AM

The "Google Doodle" is an established part of the internet. On holidays, birthdays, and special occasions, the main page of Google's search engine displays an artistic (and sometimes interactive) version of their multicolored logo. HERE is a gallery of past "Doodles". (Dont go there, though. This isn't about them. It's about ME!  Here on my blog, I used to feature a "revolving header." All versions of the same design, with the logo and the AllThingsMike graphic, and usually themed along with my profile pic, a morph of which features a lot of those is always in the upper left hand corner of the page. The "design" of my blogpage doesn't change much (it really displays neatly on my Kindle tablet, but I need to remove the various embedded flash files, which are passe in HTML5 ) Over nearly a decade,  however, I have created, in my handy digital picture editor, a vast collection of interesting headers. I'm going to display some of them for you now. I probably won't go to the trouble of "dating" them. All have appeared on this blog over the past eight years. In no particular order: 

This is the basic black header image I've used since 2010.

Nuts and bolts.

Theater curtains. Possibly first used for an ElectricMovies themed post. ElectricMovies is the site where I wrote movie reviews, even before being associated with the Xanga service. I haven't updated it since 2003, but wrote reviews on Xanga back when there was a "reviews" section in the old days. 

One of many "cloudscapes". The cloudscape background didn't used to be covered by the white background for the entries in Xanga 1.0. My text would "scroll" over the background, and I took great pains to arrive at a balance in the contrast where you had no trouble reading the black text on black and white cloud images. 

More clouds.

My "borg" background included my famous profile pic as "Locutus Baldmike". Resistance is futile.

Blue curtains. Blue is the color of my eyes and also my favorite color. www.allthingsmike.com has color coded sections. Allthingsmike was blue. ElectricPoetry green, and ElectricMovies red.

Blackout header. Can't even remember using this. Possibly for one of my monochrome profile pics of old time celebrities.

This is the "Clowns" background to my Clowns website which was the theme of my blog (and my profile natch) when I created the Clowns "website in a weekend" and accompanying MikeVideo Internet Movie in 2006. 

Rocks.

Green marble.

Groucho Marx. (This is the real Groucho in the header. My profile was doctored to give me the Groucho look as well.

Paisley print. (Actually I take that back. It's red marble)

A Spring Floral background when I announced my latest (at the time MikeVideo ) "Floral Dreams". in 2007.

Another yellow floral background.

One of many Christmas themed headers.

Another Christmas header.

Jacaranda blooms, in honor of the Photo series presented in 2005.

Alpine background.

Dreamcatchers. I used to always have a dreamcatcher hanging in my profile pic somewhere too.

Still more dreamcatchers.

The background is a speaker grill. This header announced my new series of "Mike's Video Blogs" of which I completed the sixteenth (over 20 if you count the three part series videoblogs!) Mike's Video Blog "A Dance to 2013" last month. 

A rock wall. 

Wood paneling. 

Different grain wood background.

Drapes. I'm sure this one and the red theater curtains header actually contain photos of real drapes or curtains I photographed in my house rather than do an image search on the internet. Since 2007 I've always made an attempt to make sure most of the elements and layers in my "photoshopped" composite art images use photos I've taken my self, and art I've created myself.

A green fabric background.

The "AllThingsMike" logo itself, (which, in the header, when clicked, takes you to the main page of the website, of which this blog is a part.) has pretty much stayed the same since 1999, when I created it. I did get the sunrise over the clouds from an image search in the long ago. The font for the logo is Enview. (This also used to be printed on business cards which I'd hand out to promote my website.) Then I "spraypainted" clouds over the print to make it look like it's floating off in the clouds somewhere in the Universal.

The header logo currently at the top of the blog is "Windows 3.1" and notice the "arrow" is hovering over the AllThingsMike logo. If I'd known better back in 2004, I would have "titled" my username/blog "WhenwordsCollide" instead of "baldmike2004" to avoid confusion. Since I rarely if ever call myself "baldmike." But my username on Yahoo was "baldmike2000". I've used "baldmike" pretty much as a "username" but the title of my website is AllThingsMike, and the title of this blog is WhenWordsCollide.

I, personally, remain, as always, Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool

Posted: February 06, 2013 8:00 AM

February 2nd would have been my dear mother's birthday. She would be turning 90 years old had she lived. I write about my mood swings all the time. We called mom's bipolarity her "nervous condition". She passed away from heart and kidney failure in a nursing home at the age of 54. She'd been hooked up to a dialysis machine, in a vegetative state, for over three years. Her first stroke was in 1972. The stroke which completely paralyzed her occurred the following year. The last time I saw her was in 1974, when my siblings and I imparted to her the news of our father's passing following his 13th heart attack. I abandoned her, believing her mind was gone. I didn't even attend her eventual funeral. We know now that stroke victims are cognizant of what's happening around them, but at the time I believed she was mentally gone. If I have one regret in my life, it's that I abandoned my mother. On my yearly Mother's Day post, my readers always console me for beating myself up about this misjudgment. I was 21 years old in 1974. I wrote the following poem in 2005, after decades of not coming to terms with my actions, or should I say inactions. I was pretty much a "mama's boy" while growing up. I still have her loving handwritten "crits" on my early poetry and on the last page of my novel. (She wrote: "Don't change a thing.") Happy Birthday Mommy. And, again (and again and again.) Please forgive me. 

"No Stroke of Luck"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
March 9, 2005 4:02 p.m. pst

I
She wanted to "escape the Mexicans"
No matter that Los Angeles was part of Mexico once
No matter that most of the street signs were in Spanish
As was the name of the town
No matter that my siblings and I had made many friends
(and a lot of Mexican descent) and really didn't want to leave home
No matter
Dad deferred to Mom's rants and uneasy nervousness
Dad dialed the number of the real estate agent
Dad secured a place in Glendora, far from "the Mexicans"
And though the family felt ripped from existence in El Monte
Torn from friendships and high school shenanigans
I didn't mind too much, as I graduated that year,
And college life loomed fifty miles away the next semester.
Sis and bro took it all badly, and emotions erupted
Escalating erratic behaviors
Eviscerating complacent dreamscapes
And planting the family in unforseen circumstance

The nightly dinners grew upsetting,
But Dad deferred to Mom's state of paranoia after all
Sis and bro became rebels
And I didn't pay too much attention to it all
When confronted with the brick walls of academe
Which collected my attention spanning the new decade

Mom was growing more agitated
I'm sure Dad and my siblings noticed more than I
And I, her "little genius" and most beloved
grew farther from her, and this probably
added to her insumountable troubling episodes
But I hardly noticed
Preferring to spend time at the library
between school classes and worktime hours

I would get home late at night,
open my own door with my own key,
and slip inside my own "apartment" within our home
I would get up early and bathe,
then climb in the car for the fifty mile drive to school
before eight in the morning when class started.
I didn't see a lot of the buildup
I didn't pay attention to the wrenching dissimilarity
of Mother's actions.
The slow nervous laughter of unforseen calamity
didn't pierce through my hedonistic armor
The fast sure slipping into manic obsession
didn't register with me, but it did with my family

Quarrels seemed to grow in number and intensity
I would quarrel with my siblings,
gaining chokeholds on bro in the kitchen
I would quarrel with my Mother,
Even as her nervous calamity grew larger
as a black cloud of coincidental animosity
And the night before she was struck down
Was one of the nastiest quarrels in our household

II
That Christmas was the last of feigned happy times
opening presents which presented a modicum of laughter
and less tears than usual
But come the spring, the evil sprung up again,
Sis and bro were finally getting settled
And high school daze descended upon them in Glendora.
They were children, really, and the pleasant auras of
new friendships and undiscovered lands
occupied their misery and supplanted it entirely
Like any older brother, I would greet their new friends,
And make friends of my own, including sis's best friend
who became one of my girlfriends.

The night of long knives in our household
followed a trip to the medical center the day before
I had driven Mom in for a checkup
because she "didn't feel right"
After all, she seldom "felt right" in those last days
leading to the stroke
The doctor (after an interminable wait) gave her a
clean bill of health
"nervous problems"
take two of these and call me in the morning

I can't remember the subject of the quarrel
Only that there was one, pitting Mom against me
And at 19 I felt I should finally "get my say"
After all I didn't need to be in the (new) family home
I could be in a dorm at SC with my friends.
I certainly didnt' need the fifty mile drive.
I felt we shouldn't have moved anyway
Just like everybody else (except Mom)
I went to bed crying, and so did Mom,
but we didn't "make up"

the stroke hit her the next morning,
and Dad didn't go into work, but took her to the hospital,
which in essence she never left for another four years.

III
I found out when I got home from school in the evening
We visited Mom in her room at Kaiser Permanente
Slick floors and the ever present alcohol smell
White robes and IV tubes
the first stroke was not bilateral
Only one side of her body was rigid
Memory has clouded and I don't know if she could speak
that first night
but in time she grew stronger, and she did come home
for about a week sometime later

until the bilateral stroke finished her sentence

IV
Time has not been kind to a memory I forgot years ago
The particulars of bad news tend to filter fast
as sands hurtling through an hourglass with a
foot wide opening
Days fade to weeks fade to months
This was no stroke of luck,
And it ended quick her pluck,
Mom's body took it's toll, and the fee was very great

With a bilateral, all muscles freeze
There is no speech, nor would it seem recognition
Nor did she appear as Mom to me anymore
The family put up great facades for the nightly trips
which seem to have lasted for years, but there were only two
From nightly, to weekly, for sis, bro, and me
But Dad kept the vigil, relating to unheard ears
the events of the day.
Nothing was normal, my grades began to suffer
Dad kept having more of his heart attacks
as the pressure burdened him so
Mom was relegated from hospital to nursing home
Money fled the bank accounts, both hers and Dad's

The smell always overwhelmed me during the visits
And I can't say I looked forward to them at all
They were a hindrance in an otherwise full life at school
And with friends, discovering booze, dope, rock and roll and
sometime romance, the "other life" rarely made an appearance

Two years of visits, and I needed a vacation
A vacation from everything.
Young people are filled with angst and ennui as a rule anyway
And my situation seemed to fill me with insufferable agony
So I left for a vacation in the Summer of 74
And Dad, who never stopped his nightly trips
Had his 13th and last heart attack when I was
somewhere north of Frisco camping out.

V
Mom of course couldn't attend the funeral,
as she was hooked up to a dialysis machine
The day was overcast even though it was the middle of summer
when I, my sis, and my bro trekked to the nursing home
to tell Mother the grief stricken news
She couldn't cry, but she did
And something within me snapped shut,
I made a terrible decision that day,
One which I regret to this day,
In fact, the only regret I harbor after living
over a half century is this one.
I never visited Mom again after that
She lost not only her husband but her oldest son
I felt as if she had been gone for two years,
And for me, cutting the umbilical held finality
Her eyes looked like dark marbles
Her sweet dispostion had quietly melted
somewhere between El Monte and Glendora
She was a cipher, a cardboard facsimile
She was not my Mother
And I left that afternoon never to return

VI
I have called myself a poet,
But poetry seldom tells the truth when the truth
Cuts as deeply as this does now pondering the outcome
I am sure as salvation that I have been forgiven
By sweet Mother's soul
I am positive that I have nothing to worry about in perpetuity
That I have not become an evil being because of my youthful
naivete.
Two more years and she finally passed away, softly, and with no troubles
Her death certificate reads heart failure
Her broken heart stopped beating at last.
I didnt' attend her funeral
To me she was already dead

VII
Poetry spoke to me in the years following at times
Yeilding petty purpose when confronted with the ills
of my behaviors
My suicidal urges at once escalated, and thanks to
good friends, and counseling, and prayers to Jesus
in time I was able to come to grips with the situation.

In time my sis, my bro and I got back together,
but only for a little while, before the family completely
rent itself out of existence.
I gave my sister away at her wedding.
I made love to my brother's female friend
We split the furniture in the house three ways
(I had to sell the house following my Father's death when
I was made executor of Mother's estate at age 20
so Mom could gain Medicare benefits to pay
for her stay in the nursing home,
which cost almost ten grand a month if memory serves.)

Of course in time everything heals, including bad memories
And I forgot Mother's face and Father's care.
I slipped deeper into an alcohol and drug fueled abandonment
which didn't straighten out until well into the next decade.

The decades passed,
And here I am, still here, still writing, still upset
But no matter what ever happens
I cannot turn back the hands of time,
And I cannot apologize for my inept decisions
All I can say is I'm sorry, Mother, for escaping you
As you tried to escape those "Mexicans" in El Monte
You were my rock for many years, and when you
started to crumble, I just couldn't take it,
And I fled
I've been fleeing ever since
I know I can never go back home
because it doesn't exist
And will never exist anymore

sorrow seldom soothes the savage hurt
I cry with dry eyes
and lift my voice to you in Heaven
Where absolution sighs
And let this be an altar to my ineptitude
thirty years later.

BEHIND THE POETRY: For those who've never seen this before in these pages, I just want to say this was the most difficult and painful thing I've ever written, and it's still quite painful to read. MFN/ppf

 Posted: February 01, 2013 7:39 AM

Sometimes I can't really believe I've been writing this column, (and publishing my Xanga blog) for almost nine years! You know, that's a long time! I've been going back to some random earlier columns to check what differences, if any, have occurred when I compare the long ago (mid 2000s) to my current situation in 2013. I won't say everything is looking rosy through my glasses, but they're looking more rosy collectively than they have at any time in the past nine years.

HEALTH: In Dec. 2004 I was seeing a neurologist for the pinched nerve in my back. In June 2008 I found out my 16 year old hip replacement needed repair. Sept. 2010 was a few months after my 2nd cataract surgery, and I hoped I didn't have any other unforseen health problems coming up in the future.

As 2013 begins in earnest, most of my health problems have abated. I'm working out so much that I need to get heavier weights. I throw my 5 pound free weights around like they're made of tinfoil. I'm planning on getting a weight bench soon, and work out on my legs and thighs as well. Good weather is around the corner, and then it's down to the pool for laps! My next targeted "problem" to hopefully be fixed is with my teeth. After having four tooth pulled over the past nine years, and only two "replaced" (with a temporary bridge which doesn't fit correctly now) my front teeth have "bucked" so bad that I can almost put the tip of tongue through the space between them. My poor parents are spinning in their graves, I'm sure. They put so much money into my mouth after the car wreck when I was 14 and busted my jaw. I possibly need not only implants but braces as well. My yearly physical is coming up next month. I just got over my 2nd cold this season (after bragging that I didnt' get sick for two years, what goes around comes around.)

WEATHER: Jan 2005 found me musing about the worst storm season in SoCal in years, announcing the death toll at 10 and hoping I'd be able to put the top down on the car at some point in the future!

 My blog is always filled with musings about SoCal storms during the winter. There seems to be more and more of them each year. Great opportunities for my "cloudscape" photos when the storms pass. (Check my Facebook timeline "wall" for some neat current cloudscpaes.) This past weekend was gloomy. However the weekend before that found me in Riverside taking photos of railroad trains. I do promise myself to take a Mini Vacation to the desert this spring to get photos of the wildflowers. Unseasonable rainfall makes for pretty flowers!

ENTERTAINMENT: In Mar. 2005 I surmised that "watching TV" as an entertainment choice for me was passe, because with my Tivo DVR, Netflix DVD account, and Hi Def monitor, I chose exactly what I wanted to watch, and when!

In 2013 I seem to be reading more than in a while, thanks to my Kindle Fire. Just finished one Stephen KIng book and am working on another. I did get lots of blu rays over the Christmas season, mainly classic films I already have on other formats. I cancelled three TV shows from my DVR schedule. No time to watch "procedurals" which just seem to waste time solving the same crimes with cookie cutter cops in the same requisite 47 minutes every week. I am excited about the new season of Smash, however. And I absolutely love Nashville.

As soon as the sun comes out, I'm usually turning off the HDTV, grabbing the camera, and going out to take pictures.

WEALTH: In Dec. 2009 I made a note to increase the number of dependents on my 2010 W4. I'd just bought my house and was living perhaps more frugally than at any time previous.

I'm itching to relate my latest financial news, but don't want to jinx anything yet. Let's just say the light at the end of my debt tunnel is about to become pretty bright.

LIVING AND HOUSING: July 2008 found me contemplating housing choices following the death of my friend and roommate Joel.

Next month I'll have been at "my little house" for four years. This may be the year I build my enclosed porch! I'm thinking of putting up a fence around my back yard to keep the critters out! I had to spend over 500 bucks on a new heater fan in December. Home ownership is a bear, at times. (when something goes wrong that is) I'm spending more time at the clubhouse. I call the seating area on the stage (which I usually find empty except for me) my "third" living room. (The second one is my carport, where I have seating and tables set up) I stop my daily walk to spend about 45 minutes at the clubhouse reading. (When the weather gets better, I'll be spending that time next to the pool on a chaise lounge.)

WRITING: Jan 2006 found me announcing my plans to write a short story called "The Copper Locket". I wrote that story about four years later.

I began a fictional short story a month or so ago. The subject matter isn't "nice". (I'm reading too much Stephen King perhaps.) I'll be posting as soon as I finish, but don't really think of either FB or Xanga as story platforms anymore. (Funny about how blogging, for me and a select group of readers/correspondents anyway,) was always about writing. I never get that sense too much when visiting Xanga blogs nowadays. (with a few rare exceptions.)

I might utilize the "timeline" feature on Facebook to "publish" chapters of my memoirs in the years the events happened. Also I'm planning of resurrecting my over a decade old personal website sometime this year. www.allthingsmike.com has pretty much been a "legacy" website for the past three years with no updates. That could change soon.

TRANSPORTATION: I whined about my 10 year old car "falling apart" when I had to get a new water pump in Mar. 2010.

My new car loves her shiny new "Moon" hubcaps. Next is the subwoofer/amplifier set for the stereo. I was looking at window tinting places in Boyle Heights a couple of weekends ago. Mitsubishi already wants to sell me a "new" new car. Heck, it seems I just got the Lancer yesterday. Actually, it's over a year old now!

SOCIAL LIFE: In Jan. 2011, I had 5 different visitors over to my house in the course of one day! But I complained that I couldn't seem to meet any women who didn't smoke cigarettes.

The social scene I initiated with "younger people" in their 20s-40s in 2011 didn't work out too well. I shall blog about it someday. I joined the social club at the park last month and attended one meeting so far. I plan on adding one of my special dishes to the next potluck. I figure if I can cook for one, I can cook for 10 or more. Just add bigger portions! As I age, I don't really care that much about socializing anyway. I would like to perhaps get in touch with my two siblings this year. Each time I've made advances in this area in the past I haven't been rewarded much. Neither Bro nor Sis ever seem to want to get in touch or keep in touch. I guess they have their own lives. I am planning on going to a dance with my ex gal Liz at the Reagan Library in March. A swing dance no less. Will have to practice those Lindy Hop moves!

XANGA: In Dec. 2004 I was imploring people to leave comments on my latest ElectricPoetry post because I was afraid it would fall off the front page of my blog without having any comments. In Feb. 2006 I contemplated shutting down my writer's group "The Internet Island" because it wasn't as popular as I'd wanted it to be. June 2011 had me bowled over that one of my comments on somebody else's blog had received 5 recommendations!

I guess these days it's great to get 10 comments on a post. I've been lax in "returning comments" but I don't really "socialize" on Xanga these days like I used to. Most of the blogs I seem to visit have a political or social "point of view" or people simply post stuff they found on the internet. I never can seem to comment about other stuff. If someone is creative, then they can post their own stuff. But everyone isn't creative, and some people like to post every day. Well, as I stated earlier, I "hung around" with writers and ran a writer's group almost a decade ago. I still pretty much use Xanga for the same exact things I used it for in 2004, 2005, etc. etc. etc.

Xanga may have "changed' but I haven't.  Just not a lot of time in my life at present to "catch up" with the folks who leave me comments. (I actually do pretty good, but I'm not "perfect". Who is?) Some of these  "catch ups" aren't appreciated anyway. One blogger recently replied that "I didn't know how to comment" cause I read multiple entries and summed up each one (datestamped of course) in a long letter/comment I posted on their current entry.

Frankly, I'm going to do what I'm going to do. As I've been doing, and will continue, till the life force is sucked from this aging but still vibrant body and I'm allowed entry, along with all humankind into the soul filled Universal Existence of which I've been writing for over a decade.

Until next blog, News and Notes is closed for the month!

 Posted: January 29, 2013 6:30 AM

Last night, (even though I was still pretty sick from the SECOND cold I've caught this season, my nose looks like Rudolph's) I took a series of photos of myself dressed up in my "button hat" to replicate a photo I found from an old (1987) VHS videotape of me in my "button man" uniform, in which I used to dress when "clubbing" with my late friend Tom back in the late 70s, early 80s in Hollyweird. (We frequented Rockabilly music venues, a frenzied form of early 50s rock and roll music popularized in the 70s and 80s by groups and artists like Rockpile, The Stray Cats, James Inveldt, and Robert Gordon. 

Here is the grainy image from the 1987 tape. I still had my red velvet jacket then. After posting the photos on my Facebook page (I'm starting to actually "use" FB for non Xanga posts, so you can "friend" me there if you like.) I got a lot of positive feedback. So I figured I'd post the selection here on Xanga as well.

I always followed the beat of my own drummer when it came to dressing up and going out you have to understand. (I wish I had some photos of Tom in HIS getup. He weighed over 300 pounds and towered above me at over 6'6". I think his was a TWENTY gallon hat!) Nobody who encountered us forgot who we were. That's for sure.

Here I can be seen standing beside a self portrait, in pencil, I drew from a photograph back in 1983. Tonight I decided, right before bedtime (which is coming right up) to try my "hand" (the one which tends to go to sleep when I use it because of nerve damage) at creating another self portrait.

This only took about 20 minutes to draw. It's in ink, which is a lot less forgiving than pencil, since it can't be erased.

I won't say it's perfect. But I'm exercising my artistic tendencies these days (all of them) during this "my year" of 2013. (The hat should be larger.)Oh well, off to bed. G'night Xanga. My "diet" of cough medicine and acetaminophen seems to have chased this cold away. (Hey, at least it's not the flu.) So it's off to work in the morning.

Posted: January 23, 2013 8:54 PM

A few weeks ago I thought I was going to begin my new year's Photoposts with a trip to Riverside County and a visit to both the March Field Air Museum (planes!) and the Orange Empire Railway Museum (trains!). A storm had just passed, and the skies were filled with wonderful fluffy clouds. After spending a few hours at March Field, I hit the 215 freeway, but turned toward home instead of toward the train museum, when another storm drenched Riverside County. It was so bad I got off the freeway in Anaheim and took surface streets cause I couldn't see the lane dividers on the highway. I returned to the OERM this past Saturday, and spent about five hours there.

Instead of using 215, I drove south on I-15, got off on Route 74 south of Lake Elsinore, and drove past some wonderful rockscapes.

It was early morning, not a lot of folks around. This is mainly ranchland. I didn't know if I were trespassing but there weren't any signs. My car is parked at the side of the road on the right.

I just loved the little house on the hill in this shot. I'm in the town of Meadowbrook, on the way to Perris.

A telephoto shot of the little cabin. I think I left the charger for my Sony Cybershot camera plugged in to the wall at a hotel on Catalina Island last May. I hadn't been able to find it, and most of my 2012 Photoposts were comprised of photos taken with my Olympus. I bought a cheap charger on Amazon.com and have been taking Photo Expeditions pretty regularly since December.

This is the reception area of the Orange Empire Railway Museum. It's actually a train station for the mining town of Pinacate. I got a $12.00 pass, which allowed me to ride all the moving trains, and to go "backstage" to some of the car barns which aren't usually open to the public. I'm glad I missed the museum last time I was in Riverside, cause this last weekend was a special event!

The photo above this of the station was taken while riding the Pacific Electric Red Car you see here in this shot. I also rode the train behind the Red Car, which had two antique restored passenger cars and a baggage car hooked up to it.

The docents are all friendly, dressed in their best locomotive gear (this guy has railroad track patterned suspenders) and they relate the history of rail travel in the Western U.S. and especially California, while we're riding down the rails. This is the interior of the Red Car streetcar. At one time the Yellow Cars (Los Angeles Transit Company, around downtown L.A.) and the Red Cars (Pacific Electric Company, all over the southland, even out to San Bernadino) provided inexpensive urban travel all over Southern California. 

The front end of a Yellow Car being boarded for it's trip around the Train Museum. The OERM was founded in 1956 by a group of rail enthusiasts to save the Red and Yellow cars, mainly, as the Southern California Freeway System started to make them "obsolete". (Pretty fanciful, seeing as now the State is spending billions of dollars to re-establish mass rail transit in the area.) I first visited in 2005, and posted photos here on the blog back then, but with the still photo function in my videocamera. The museum has hundreds of rail cars from a vast variety of sources, in various stages of restoration.

Another Yellow Car, from last century's "teen" years, inside the car barn dedicated to the L.A. Transit System cars.

I actually remember seeing these "modern" rail cars roaming the streets of Downtown Los Angeles back in the late 50s when we moved to SoCal from Idaho. I've never left. Although the only place I can see the trolleys again is out here in Riverside County!

Inside the restored streetcar shown above. 

Vintage trucks dot the grounds.

Last time I shot this area, there were about five electric buses in a row. This is the last one which hasn't yet been restored.

There were more rail cars in this area, outside the Red Car barn, in 2005. I like taking shots at this museum which look like they could have been taken anywhere.  Note the spider web of electric lines above the tracks.

I'm on my back, amusing the folks on the guided tour, to get this shot of another old truck by the side of the road.

The Title Card of my previous Webshots Gallery, in 2005, featured "Old 942", one of the powertrains for the Chicago to Los Angeles run called "The City of Los Angeles." I kept asking where this engine was kept. I found it back in the back of the museum, fully restored, with new paint. 

Worth the trip just to see this gal in all her glory. I went inside too. Note the ladder.

We got to see a "backstage" tour of the new car barn housing a lot of cars and engines which are being ready for restoration. Passenger rail travel in Southern Cal has dropped off considerably since the glory days at the turn of the last century. (late 1880s to early 1950s) One of the docents told me there are plans to run a Metrolink line (current mass transit trains) from L.A. to Perris at the Perris station, and then trains from the museum would run from there. I hope they do this in my lifetime. It would be neat to ride the rails from home to the museum. Heck, I'd become a docent perhaps! I'm thinking about becoming a member anyway.

A "modern" streetcar which used to run on the streets of Chicago in the 30s.

"Old 331" is one of two restored early teens Red Cars which were purchased by MGM studios in the early 50s. This one is thought by many to be the streetcar Gene Kelly jumps on while evading autograph hounds in the film "Singin' In the Rain".

I spent quite some time just looking at the vintage advertising for lots of American products which are no longer manufactured or made!

A Pullman rail car out at the edge of the museum grounds. You never know what you'll see wandering around.

This is a rail car which was turned into O'Neill's Diner" in the 40s. A freeway overpass was built over where the diner used to be, and the museum trucked it over here soon after, where it's been ever since. I was hoping they'd restored it and served food inside, but no luck this time out.

I finished my day with a visit to the Middleton Toy Museum on the grounds. I had a long talk with Rob, the docent who was watching over the Museum, housed in these baggage cars. There are hundreds of toy trains, and meticulously hand crafted train cars made out of balsa wood and card stock, all behind glass.

I've limited this post to 25 shots. Visit my Flickr site for all 356 high quality photos! (It's taken me a while to get used to how photos are stored on Flickr, but I've now got 9 photosets there, and am about to recreate all my photo folders from the defunct Webshots Galleries on my Pro Flickr account. (that's almost 10,000 photos in over 100 themed folders. It'll take a while. More "trips around town" can be found right here on Xanga by CLICKING HERE on the Photopost tag. As I get time, I'm going over the old photoposts and enlarging the photos presented to 580pixels, and "finding" the photos which have been missing on some of the posts since Xanga changed to the "new" photo editor back in 2008 or so, eliminating the image link structure to a lot of 2005-2007 posts. 

REQUIRED READING: Mike's Flickr PhotoStream, The Orange Empire Railway Museum Photo Set

Orange Empire Railway Museum Official Website

Wikipedia Entry for Pacific Electric 

Posted: January 22, 2013 7:18 AM

READING AGAIN

In my yard, downloading free books to my Kindle wirelessly!

The 1960 George Pal version of H.G. Wells "The Time Machine", includes the following exchange. George, the time traveler, arrives in the year 802,701. He is amazed by the idyllic world of the future. But puzzled by the lack of communication among this world's denizens. He has a need to find out what happened.
The Time Traveler: "Do you have any books?"
Young Eloi man : "Books? We have books."
The young Eloi man leads George to the rotting remains of a library. He picks up a book and it crumbles in his hands.

Around 2001 or so, I read an article in a magazine somewhere about rapidly increasing electronic book technology. In a conversation with my roommate Joel (who was not yet Cancerboy) I predicted the "death of paper" and surmised that in "the future" we would get our reading matter electronically. The Time Machine movie supposed "talking rings" which replaced the rotting books shown to George. The film "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" had just come out, and the newspapers in the film seemed to be somewhat "electronic" with photos that moved, and articles which updated themselves. (Perhaps this isn't entirely true in the Potter universe, but I took the idea from the article I read and ran with it.)

Joel visibly cringed. "I hope I'm not around in a world where we don't have books."

During the year, best selling author Stephen King, whom I'd been reading since my college days when he published his first book, "Carrie", published an electronic book called "Riding the Bullet" which could only be read on a computer. Joel was really upset about this. I embraced the idea of reading on an electronic device. I liked to read authors like James Michener, Irving Wallace, (and King). Some of the books I read even in paperback were quite large and couldn't really be called "pocket books." Every time I showed Joel another advancement in electronic reading, he would cringe even more. I'd had my personal computer since 1997. Before that I owned a Brother word processor (a typewriter with a screen and a 3.2 floppy drive to electronically save one's writing.) Joel wouldn't own one or even look at my computer. He spent a lot of time at the Torrance Library, a favorite hangout for both of us.

Joel was one of those guys who had a need to read. He read the backs of breakfast cereal boxes when he was a kid. I was pretty much the same type, although I was more physically active than Joel when I was a child. I could be found during a lot of recesses sitting under a tree way back in the schooyard reading a book, however. I still love to read.

In elementary school, I outgrew the "Dick and Jane" books almost as soon as I opened their covers. I was reading at sixth grade level in first grade. I was introduced to the library, like a lot of kids, in the second grade. By sixth grade, I was reading adult novels. ("Studs Lonigan" by James T. Farrell, was recommended to me by my mother! It has some pretty racy scenes in it!) I didn't go through a "young adult" period really. I favored Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Charles Dickens. Masters of literature. I was one of few kids in my high school English classes who were always called upon by the teacher to read out loud to the class. Joel and I didn't meet till we were both in our 20s. He devoured sci fi and fantasy. He read the "Fire and Ice" novels by George R.R. Martin long before anyone thought of making a TV series called Game of Thrones.

While living with Joel in the early aughts, I found myself reading less and less physical books, and more and more stuff on the computer and on the internet. I ran poetry groups and engaged in the nascent social networking scene. I created my website to showcase my talents in writing and the arts. I joined Xanga in 2004, and for a while, most of what I read were blogs, since I wrote one. Joel's nose was always in a physical book.

The Amazon Kindle was introduced in 2007.

My roommate died of cancer in 2008. He is not around in a world where physical books are fast being replaced by the electronic ones.

I predicted, along with the proliferation of electronic media, which is still pretty much in it's infancy, that when I finally got my hands on an e-reader, I'd read more. When I mentioned e-readers online and in blog entries, I'd get comments from readers like Joel, who still wouldn't embrace the technology, and "liked the feel of paper". Don't get me wrong. Books, with thick or paper covers, and pages which you can actually turn, will never go away. They will, like the vinyl record album, make sporadic comebacks, until they become legacy museum pieces, and specialized items sold on ebay for vast amounts of money in the "collectibles" section. I don't care about "paper" however. It's the words which have always enchanted me, whether in print in a book, newspaper, or on a computer screen.

I waited till the Kindle approached and surpassed the tablet computers offered by Apple. I had my eye on a Kindle Fire since they came out with this "tablet" style version, much better than a mere e-reader. It is the Apple iPad of course which started the tablet computer revolution, it it was a natural progression for the Kindle e-reader to eventually morph into a tablet. Desktop computers (of which I've owned more than I can remember without actually looking up the amount, since 1997) are like dinosaurs. Notebooks are even on their way out. Touch is the new technology. Graduating from smart phones (which I've never owned) to tablets is a natural progression. Tablets are getting smaller ((iPad mini: 7"). Some smartphones are being developed with 5" screens! Keyboards are getting smaller. (They're "apps" on a tablet or e-reader, and now bluetooth enabled physical keyboards can be wirelessly "attached" to the tablet to create a small notebook like computer. Windows 8 is merely an attempt to capitalize on Apple's iOS and Google's Android touchscreen operating systems, found in smart phones, tablets, and the Kindle. There are multiple versions of the Kindle, including a "paperwhite" version which has no visible glare from the screen. I haven't replaced my aging desktop, but this last Christmas (armed with a $100.00 Amazon gift certificate I won in a raffle at our company Chirstmas party, I got myself a Kindle HD with 8.9 " screen, and 32gigs of storage.

There are so many "apps" available that I'm not even treading water in that area yet. I can use my HBO Go to watch movies in full 1080p on the smallish screen. (But they're so sharp they look terrific.) I can visit websites, and with my bluetooth enabled full keyboard, I can even add and edit blog entries. My new Kindle arrived on December 26th. I immediately "purchased" (for free) an e-book called Mastering the Kindle Fire. It gave me pointers on which free apps to download, and easily guided me on how to download my own photos and music files to my Kindle. (It even told me about a browser, which unlike the "Silk" browser embedded in the device, would allow me to play Flash files , but I'm not there yet.)

Within a few days, I'd downloaded quite a few free books. I liked having the complete works of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens on this easy to handle device. The library started to get bigger. Eventually, I wandered over to the part of the Amazon Kindle Store where current fiction and non fiction is sold. I bought Stephen King's novel "11/22/63". I love the idea of serendipity. Stephen King is an early favorite author of mine who writes long novels. (853 pages for 11/22/63). He published the first e-novel back in the early aughts. The novel is about time travel. (The last physical book I read, this past summer, is Jack Finney's "Time and Again" also about time travel.) (It might also be noted that MY first novel written in high school is a time travel tome as well.)

Some people spend their time playing games on Facebook. Some read a lot of books. Some watch TV or play video games. Some of us blog. I'm still blogging, and since this is the year I turn 60, (I'm calling 2013 my "benchmark" year) I seem to be reinvigorated and feel a lot young. (One of my "birthday poems" is entitled "30 by the Time I'm 60") I've been on so many "photo expeditions" this year (and the month of January is only half over) that I've got four Photoposts already backpiled to post on Xanga! I've joined the social club at the mobile home park where I live. I'm excited about all kinds of possibilities afforded me with my "wireless mobile device" which seems to go everywhere I do. (They have to start making pockets on shirts a LOT bigger.) The neatest thing though, is that I'm reading again. Since I began King's "11/22/63" in late December, I've finished 52% (445 'pages': the Kindle Fire shows how many pages in the "real" book one has read, in case they're in a book club and want to compare notes with other readers) of the book. I'm downloading like crazy. My "digital" pile of books is pretty large.

I'm reading again. And I couldn't be happier. If somebody could be called "old school" it's me. Heck, I STILL don't own a cellphone. But I have an e-reader extraordinaire, and because of it, I'm reading again. (Sadly, I may not be reading too many blogs, but I've been doing that for most of the last decade, and sometimes Xanga just seems like a hotbed of controversy.)

I trust Joel is reading something up in heaven.

At work I hate "paper". Too many copies of too many documents which I can store on my puter in pdf files. I still have a vast library of physical books. I still read them. But I don't necessarily like the "feel of the book in my hand" when it weighs a ton, and is difficult to move around. My Kindle now has 21 "books" on it's "bookshelf". It also has over 3000 songs and 5000 photos on it's hard drive. I don't need to worry about backup either, everything I get from Amazon (the majority of the books, these guys are REALLY smart) are stored on Amazon's "cloud drive" as well. (So are the mp3 song files I buy from them, natch.)

Perhaps in heaven people memorize the words in the books like at the end of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". Maybe the angels have a bookstore alongside the music store where they get their harps? I hope Joel is as happy as I am, reading whatever he's reading in the cosmic arena.

Got to go now. I'm itching to read what's on the next "page" of my e-book. And itching to experience the next phase of my wonderful life. I mentioned this in an earlier entry here on Xanga or on FB: A couple of weekends ago I went over to the Torrance Library and asked them if they have e-books to lend yet. They're thinking about it, and do have plans for Kindle owners to be able to "check out" e-books. While I was there, I roamed the stacks, like I haven't done but used to do on a pretty regular basis. I saw lots of books I wanted to check out right then and there. Seeing books in the stacks which I may have checked out decades ago was thrilling, to say the least. However, being able to someday access these same books electronically at the very instant I'm thinking about reading them is even more thrilling.

 COMING SOON: Maneuvering through the Kindle's vast apps library (no games for the Mikester) and more observations about using a touchscreen tablet for the first time.

 REQUIRED READING: An Essay Detailing the Writing Process from 2005

E-Book Wikipedia article (includes history of ebooks)

The Time Machine (1960) imdb page

Posted: January 16, 2013 8:16 AM

You know, someday I'm going to post something creative which appeals to more than a dozen or so longtime internet friends on Xanga or Facebook. Every time I post something, there's a bit of anxiousness, sort of like giving birth, if an old bald guy who's never had children can even make that comparison. My videos, which I've been making for over twenty years, believe it or not, including the dance vids, are like my children.

I made a big deal about my last Mike's Video Blog, but then I hadn't made one in almost two years. I'm going to post this one "under the radar" and see what happens. It's probably the best thing on Xanga right this moment. It's only 4 minutes long, the length of the eclectic song I chose to accompany me. Or the song I'm accompanying. Whatever. The music is "Rafiki" by Zap Mama, from the 2005 album "A Ma Zone". As usual, I credit the music in the video.

Somebody commented about my New Year's vid, "A Dance to 2013", which was edited to 21 minutes from over three hours of performance footage, that I seemed "out of breath" at times. Well, let me tell you, two years ago, I couldn't complete a four minute song in one take. I'm in excellent shape. I'm 59, for heck's sake. Four years ago, I was on crutches for half a year, and on a walker for half a year after that (following the operation to repair my broken hip replacement, well documented on this very blog.) . I think I'm doing pretty well. Nobody should worry. Everybody should be, well, amazed. I'm pretty damned good, and not in an amateurish way, if I do say so myself. Do I think I can dance? ABSOLUTELY.

Okay, without further ado.....

And now we dance.....

REQUIRED READING:

My Left Hip from 2005. 

A Leg To Stand On from 2008

A Stay at the Hospital Hotel from 2009

 Posted: January 10, 2013 8:49 PM

EDIT: 1/12/13 8:23am. I'm starting to get worried why this entry only has one comment/recommend. (Thank you Sherry.  @SherryAngeLMysteriez )

"Poem for the New Year 2013: My Year"
© January 08, 2013 6:48-11:59 a.m. pst

This last year was a good year, I proclaimed, when it began
But this one would be better yet, prophecy led
A far far better year than most, my dictum ran
Less than two weeks in, a problem huge rears it's ugly head

Oh well, and oh crap, I'll forget obstinate negatives
Perhaps bad tidings only replace glad ones at the outset
The overwhelming mania trumps all open prerogatives
And my winning hands will surely collect the last bet

Debt will be paid (e'en as more debt is dished out)
Summer will be bright (e'en as winter tightens her grasp)
My spirit is youthful (e'en as my mirror image loses clout)
I'm still opening life's door (e'en if I'm having trouble with the hasp)

This year will be my year, and yours, for all to share
We're going on an adventure, and maybe we won't even get there
But we'll have lots of fun and we'll laugh with sheer delight
Nothing will bear witness that stamina should have to fight

This year is the year the debt will shrink, I think, I pray
This year is the year the happy gnomes and sprites come out and play
This year is the year, another year, a fresh new start
If not the year I finally find the desire which rips my heart

The play's the thing, the thing's in play, and I play with strength of soul
My year's begun, alight, undone, and doors are open wide
My health is healthy, this I know, I'm vibrant, lucky, whole
I'm getting out, around, about, and can't stay locked inside

I've danced through despair, and I've lost most of my hair
But that happened a long time ago, you see
My steps are less hesitant, altho' I throw down the stare
I shall whirl like a dervish, around the cosmic shivaree

January may be colder, By December, I shalt sure be older
But time's demons are dust, in God's power and mine I trust
My sure gait shall step o'er the storms lapping at my shore
Imprinted on my brain it says Brave New Beginnings Again or Bust

My yearly tradition of writing a Poem for the New Year dates back to the very first one written on January 4, 1974 (at 1pm in the afternoon. Another tradition is time and datestamping all my work.) This year's poem is a "benchmark" since I turn "the Big Sixty" during the year. Below I'll present some other "benchmark" Poems for the New Year in chronological order beginning with the first one. (I'm not posting ALL benchmark years either, or you'd be here forever, or leave early.  1980 is a decade year, 1983 was my 30th year on the planet, 2000 is the millennium year, 2010 the last decade. I've skipped 1990, 1993, and 2003 MFN/ppf

"Poem For The New Year"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
© January 4, 1974 1:00 p.m

Naught but compassion for a fallen soul,
He looks into mirrors in order to find life.
The religionists will curse you if you
fail to believe...their way.

Now as we survive yet another dream year,
When it has passed although we wanted
to get something else done, we realize
That time waits for no one even
when their clock has run down.

When letters are written to wisps of smoke
And I tread on fields of broken glass
I look to you for peace, my God,
Because without you I couldn't keep
my sanity in this world of paper scraps.

When I think of what they've done to you
The hypocrite religionists with their
dog-eared Bibles, I realize
my problems are but
pieces of dust
in the
wind

And because of You I can look upon
a beautiful day and forget about
problems--
and hypocritical philosophies--
and fields of broken glass--
And I can pray.

"Poem for the New Year 1980"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
© January 27, 1980 7:30 a.m.

onramp to the "freeway to nowhere"
     =finding meaning in the moment=
Unremembered moments
     Under the influence under the gun under the bed
     Understanding later the implications
     of earlier misunderstandings
The door ajar- the music off-
     the money gone
last week I broke my highschool      picture
     on a drunk- but do not remember why
     not even now
I threatened someone with a knife
and this after not drinking for      two weeks
Hello 1980
     Hello significance
     I'll change
     I'm positive this time
     My love is close this time
     I feel it
     (As I have before)
     I really feel it
     (But it wasn't real)
     I really feel it

"Poem for the New Year 1983"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
© December 30, 1982 1:30 p.m.

Let's settle back, rejoice;

  remember.

Wreck no subtle reveries tonight.
Let us lock our liquid eyes
Search for substance;
  whisper sighs.
And think of pure emotions in their flight.

Let's turn the box off

  cut the timber.

Try to talk but move no tender lips.
Let us live for moment's miracles
Mine our caverns

  cast the shackles

Read each other with our fingertips.

May we learn, to love

  a little.

Wreck no soft scenarios tonight.

May we meander for a minute

Find our fullest

  interests in it.

Share the secret stories in our sight.

"Poem for the New Year 2000"
© december 31, 1999 2000 12:10 p.m. pdt

When the books are all opened, and the covers thrown back,
The face of humanity will see the naked form of serendipity, wallowing in self-absorbtion, asking alms for creativity.
The number is so round, so pure, so oval.
In a past life one could never really grasp that humankind would arrive at this point.
Intact.
And in fact it is somewhat perilous, and with shaking hand,
That I address the multitudes on this momentous day.
A day like any other day,
And yet a day, which by it's nature will cause it to be etched in the books,
Those same books, which upon opening, serendipity stares at us,
Wondering what all the fuss was about anyway.

Nature wouldn't give presents to the inhabitants.
They stole everything they could get.
God couldn't abide by the inquisitive nature of man which gave cause for the fall.
So upon leaving the garden one was given pause.
And nobody heeded the call.
In recompense, a short year hence, when the actual Millennium is nigh,
Will anyone be the wiser, and will I breathe a belated sigh?
Ago, now, the disheveled remains of circumstance see fit to
Tell the unsuspecting populace not to worry.
Youth ages, and the skin gets wrinkled.
I do not feel any older, nor any wiser today.
But I am glad to be alive, and glad that I could stay.

The same, pure, realization which draws the numbers,
Draws the wonder from my soul, and energizes the totality with electricity.
Something is brewing, something is conjuring up a delicate brew,
Which, when taken from the cup of kindness, will spark a Millennial attitude.
I will not have felt these feelings, nor lived this life. I will be refreshed.
I will drink without prejudice, and satisfy my hunger for romance.
I will bathe in the waters of satisfaction.
A new dawning, a new page turned from the book.
A clean white page beackoning to creativity.
We are all, at once, a doomed and fallen lot,
Yet we are infused with this wonder and this capacity for understanding.
Humankind is the duality of the universe.
One man, one woman.
A thousand thousand meager understandings spark me this afternoon.

This is my poem for the new Millennium. This is my viewpoint for the stars in our souls.
As the numbers seem so round and full, so does my love.
Satisfaction upon being, a delicate balance fulfilled.
I approach this year, this decade, this century, the Millennium,
With a rapture of feeling for the Godhead's mysteries fortold.
I open my arms to this enthusiasm in the ether.
And stand transfixed, ready to welcome time into my bosom again.

"Poem for the New Year (Decade) 2010"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
© 01/13/10 6:15 a.m. pst

Always pondering beginnings
Forever reworking the past
to correlate with the present
Watching the clock even as I deny the existence of time

Always pondering beginnings
As I meet another caravan of ambulance and emergency trucks
on my way out of the senior community on the way to work
Was this a passing of one with whom I greet hello on my daily walks?

Another new year arrives, bringing with it a decade of possibilities
Those possibilities are endless, I proclaim forever
Possible scenarios do not include the inevitable
Impossible thoughts will never grace the patterns of my life

Or so I am always saying, even as I think those impossible thoughts

Always rejecting negativity
Forever reliving bright moments
Shuffling the sadness to the back of the deck
Even as aces and eights are dealt all around me

Always rejecting negativity
Purging the penalties of my lifetime
While celebrating the wonder of it all
Yanking the yins and the yangs with a vengeance

Another new year arrives, bringing with it a new decade of deliverance
Freedom from strife and procrastination
Letting loose the pain of periodic unhealthiness
Impossible thoughts will never impose on the possibilities abounding

Or so I try to convince myself, even as my body reminds me of impossible thoughts

Always looking for ideas
Always recreating creativity
Always turning on lights in the distance
Always looking forward
Always pondering beginnings

Posted: January 08, 2013 12:24 PM