Understanding the Road Once Again
I walk these empty streets
On the boulevard of broken dreams
While the city sleeps
And I'm the only one
I walk alone

Or something like that, as the Green Day song goes. I used to live that for awhile. But one thing I've been able to perceive yet again is that it's impossible to be alone unless you choose it. If you want to be with people, you can be with people. You need to be with people, love to be with people? Find ways to make it happen.

Sure, Den, you say, like it's easy to just overcome being a wallflower, shut-in, or massively shy guy/gal/dog/cat/pony. I kin just change over night and be the life of the party.

( rambling Coyote insight ahead...Collapse )

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But they don't come in stealthy or black....
Just got done listening to a radio commercial where a bunch of ninjas are trying to buy a 'midsized' Hummer H3, and extol the virtues of the thing.

And no resourceful ninja would ever ask if they could store their katanas in the roof racks. First of all, the ninja weapon of choice is a ... ninja-to. Do your market research, Hummer.

(I suppose they could be Ninja -turtles-...)

I'm sorry, but ninja vehicles? Need to fit in and be invisible, not bigger than traffic and require large amounts of time at a fill-up station to refuel, all the while with people looking at the hunks of wood in the passenger seats.

Still think someone needs to make an amphibious conversion kit and make it the H2O.

*nod*

-Dennay

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Five Minutes On: Carpe Diem
Or, in English, 'seize the day.' Made famous by 'Dead Poets Society', this is the concept of closing your eyes to tomorrow in order to enjoy today.

I'm still a bit reserved on the concept of screwing up tomorrow's security for today's happiness, but on the flip side, there is such a thing as 'missed chances.' It's rather a balance of right versus wrong, harmlessness versus long term effects, and being able to best understand the choices that we're given in life.

I ended up living so hard looking at tomorrow, and the bleakness of it, that I quit dealing with today; things I can't change today have had a way of affecting me today, day in, day out. It's hard to remember that one day at a time is the space between waking and not; I've spent days doing absolutely nothing when I could have been worrying -- mostly because I understood that I couldn't make the clock go any faster.

Somewhere in there I started looking ahead to something I can't dodge and I can't run away from, and it made me afraid; like the people down in Florida, I started boarding up windows to my emotional state and making sure all the roofing tiles were in place and the breakables stored, and then hid in the basement waiting for the inevitable storm.

Like the people in Alabama, it sits there, hovering off the coast of my awareness, never quite 'getting it over with', but rather, remaining a distinct possibility until forces outside my control take control and fix it -- or do nothing.

Doing nothing leads only to waiting.

If you get stuck in a hurricane with someone else, with no power -- you break out the cards.

Anyone want to play cards with me? Sure passes the time...

And that's five minutes.
-Denali!

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Five Minutes On: Disbursive Bargaining
(..instead of 'collective bargaining.')

Sometimes when you have to get something from someone, you have to pay for it up front. It's not so much a matter of getting the other person to be indebted to you, or to feel guilty about you doing nice things for them -- there are 'takers' out there who will walk away with anything you give them -- but rather, you need to be able to make -them- feel like you're not just using them. "Making it worth their while" works differently if you start by offering something up.

It's not quite the same as waving a white flag, but it is an attempt to parley by showing up with something they consider of value.

( Read more...Collapse )

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Five Minutes On: Communication (or lack thereof)
E-mail doesn't work as a communications method when nobody really reads it.

Heck, people can tune you out even when you're talking directly to them.

I'll even admit to doing it now and again myself.

( ...so, you can like, skip the next four minutes...Collapse )

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Fifteen Seconds: Observation of the Day
It's -really- hard to read a book while you're dancing.

I needed to do both.

Dancing won.

That is all. *goes back to bopping about the room*

Rar.

-Dennay

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Five Minute Update...keyword: juggling
Juggling is the art of doing more than you have hands for. In the legends, Coyote juggles his eyes -- and loses them. Well, as those of us who can sling a jug (the term for a single toss-catch action, I believe) will attest, it's really hard to juggle blind.

He does, however, replace them with amber, which is why Coyote has yellow eyes.

Hm. Star Trek:TNG's Data has yellow eyes. Brent Spiner actually enjoys playing Stan Laurel, who may or may not have been distantly related to Coyote-as-whomped-upon-by-fate.

Seeing the world through amber could be construed as meaning that we see things by the moment, rather than as a free-flowing, changeable and mutable world it is.

*laugh* I know better than that. One of the first things I learned is that the only constant in this crazy universe is change.

I was talking about juggling, wasn't I?

Juggling is the art of being able to ascertain which things are your priorities -- namely, which thing will hit the ground first -- and focussing your attentions on that.

But it is also knowing when and where you can throw away an object because you don't care if it hits the ground -- or how hard.

And the art of quick-grabbing something out of the air, and throwing it up again, way high, so it doesn't come down for awhile -- but you still have to pay attention to it.

Okay. That's five minutes.

-Denali!

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Winter Storms...
The smart critters are hibernating by now. When it's easier to just sleep in someplace warm and dry, instead of burning energy trying to scare up scarce hunting, and competing with everyone else for too few things, sometimes it's just easier to hide down and wait for spring.

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Change Magister...
Sometimes the magnitude of change that can happen in an eyeblink is simply overwhelming. Other times you see it coming, like sitting on a surfboard watching a wave forming as it rolls towards you, but there's nothing you can do.

And then there is the change you trigger, the moment you step out of a perfectly good airplane and trust that a square of silk will keep you from splattering in a cloud of dust.

Life is about all three; life is about also, holding fast to the things that are important to you, about enduring the re-entry burn to get home, and about walking the extra mile though your feet ache to get to a destination.

What we sometimes forget are the little things, the things which fascinate us, the things which choose to alight in our lives but briefly, and yet those things can cause the most profound change.

Think about it a moment; a simple 'yes or no' decision can lead to an unexpected adventure; waiting one minute or going one minute early creates or avoids an intersection of events.

Today I am thankful for the series of events which got me where I am. It is as unlikely as there being such a thing as a sun shower, but nevertheless things played out in interesting ways.

I have so many doors open in my life I forgot to close them all, and the sea rushed in.

Should've built the house on stilts.

-Denali

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Non-Expert Systems...aka robots.text
*grins*

For Neill, Kesh, and Prem: some thoughts on determinism. Anyone know how you compress comments down into the just-lines bits, or whether or not if you reply to a comment someone has made in reply to someone else, both get the reply up the chain, or just the one person you reply to?

( Runaway reality or linear path?Collapse )

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Shared Spaces...
Short of living in a cave on a mountaintop or a cabin in the hills, we have to share space with other critters pretending to be people. I say 'pretending' because entirely too many of them are either robots, herdbeasties, flighty birds, or bugs. (Which reminds me of the shamanic lesson I got on spiritguides -- we were told not to pick up insects, no matter how curious we were -- because they don't remap well to mammal-mind thinking.)

( Mind you, I speak in general terms, here; the rest is below the cut tag.Collapse )

-Denali

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Circles within circles.
Whether storm or song is carried upon the wind
I stand here on the corner
Of civilization's need
Of desolation's want
And still I believe.

( ruminations on states of decayCollapse )

Current Mood: touched

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Oh dear.
Curiosity dragged me in. Amusement got me to shuffle until I got...

My LiveJournal Sitcom
The denaliyote Show (UPN, 4:30): denaliyote (Ralph Fiennes) buys simmah (Mimi Rogers) a goat. At the same time, sonique (Adam West) finds a bicycle in aerowolf (Roberto Benigni)'s sock drawer. Afterwards, leopardwolf (James Earl Jones) draws a picture on mcgroarty (Tom Cruise)'s forehead. On the other side of town, soundlessblue (Burt Reynolds) takes neillparatzo (Sir Ian McKellen) bowling. Then, kesherz (Shawn Wayans) hypnotizes lady_serenity (Bill Pullman) but it doesn't work. Everyone learns a valuable lesson.
What's Your LiveJournal Sitcom? (by rfreebern)

Things I learned:

• I can totally see Tom Cruise playing McGroarty. And Leopardwolf trying to Ink Ink.
  
• I don't know which is more of a surprise -- that Aerowolf hides bicycles with his socks, or that Sonique is actually Batman.
  
• Kesh ought to know not to try and hypnotize a unicorn.
  
• Question is, Neill, do you identify more with Gandalf or Magneto?
  

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Shadowcast....
One of the things I do occasionally is hunt for Coyote wisdom out on the net. For being such a common term, it's surprising the kinds of treasures you can find out there, and it's often different every time.
( Denali judges himself and is surprised at the result.Collapse )

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Pattern Change...
I've been pushing myself way past the point of exhaustion by going to bed too late at night to get up at the very last minute in the morning, in order to drag my tail into work. Not enough sleep + meetings = dozy coyoteboy.

( Boooring, Dennay. Next journalist!Collapse )

Current Mood: amused

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No Excuse For Pain....
Sure, it's supposed to be nature's way of telling you to slow down, but.... some folks have to exist and function despite the pain.

Some of them are friends of mine.

( Read more...Collapse )

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The One.
Is there such a thing as finding the One -- the one you should wait your entire lifetime for?

( I'm not so sure. (Very, very, long-winded.)Collapse )

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Feet.
"..such and such a person does not wear shoes, choosing to want to feel the ground beneath their paws."

How many times have you seen that in a description?

"..sometimes you have to just take off your shoes, walk around on the carpet, and make scrunchy motions with your toes." -paraphrased from Die Hard, the movie

I get funny looks when I walk around the office without shoes. Nobody has a problem when I walk around without 'em at home -- after all, you generally don't wear shoes in the house unless you're Fred Rogers, or you've just come in or gone out.

But there's just some times where you have to. Today seems to be one of them -- to feel that solidity between my feet and the ground every time I put my foot down. To have the flexibility to walk on my toes and streeetch just a little bit.

Gets my mind off an otherwise dull, non-motivating day where I got to see my department become a political shadow of its former fun self for a moment. Where I got my workload handed to me through the end of August -- and it's going to be busy.

Again.

Still.

Bleah.

And I'm supposed to get work done with this kind of attitude.

Mrf. Still. I'm responsible, I tell myself, and will get stuff done. Doesn't feel like I've accomplished much of anything yet, but at least my desk looks a little less cluttered. And my schedules are laid out.

But all the scheduling in the world doesn't get you anywhere if you don't make some work happen.

Focus. I did it this morning in order to make a meeting on time. No journey was ever arrived at without taking the steps with your own two feet, at least at some point. Nobody will carry me to my destination, fully, so I can -- I must do it on my own.

Sometimes you just have to put your shoes on first.

Or take them off.

-Denali!

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Coyote Dreams...
Okay. I think one of the things I'm going to do is start using this as a log for my dreams, at least the ones I percieve as signifigant enough and vivid enough to write about. Since I'd rather not have random passerby poking about the things in my head, I'm going to set up a custom-locked post group for such topics.

If interested, leave a note on this post. No offense taken if you want off at any time.

-Denali!

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.friends
A lot of my friends went to medical school; I almost went, too. I think my family was hoping I'd be a doctor -- free medical advice, you know. Almost did it, too.

Boy, would my life have been different.

I don't think I would have been as in to computers; would have never met the people that got me online. Would have never taken the choices that got me to be who I am today.

( ...a coyote in a barrel.Collapse )

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