Reading Around

Reading Around

Expedition

Notes: My Back Hurts

I
Back spasms are no fun.  I don't even know exactly how I strained my back this time.  I didn't carry scuba tanks too far; I didn't lean over and lift a box of books and then twist to put it down somewhere else; I didn't even try to pick up the other kayak, which I know is too heavy for one person.  (I have, I must admit, been carting gear about, shifting book-boxes, and loading up the other kayak, but I haven't had the dramatic pull, that overstepping of muscle through negligence of mind.)

Still, I've had a sore back for days, and today the spasms started.  Really, from long walks in the wrong pair of shoes?  Or a 70-minute hike?  Or, more likely, from the years piling up?

I've applied heat, I've stretched, and now I'm trying ice: three cubes in a glass with Flor de Cana.

II
I certainly don't like pain, but sometimes these back spasms just crack me up.

I've always thought that muscle cramps carry with them a funny sort of pain (they hurt, but the twisting of the muscles seems ridiculous), but some of this morning's spasms seemed triggered by the slightest wrong move, almost by the thought of moving, and I keep having to laugh.

Gasp and grunt, yes, but also laugh.

(I didn't move, I swear; I only thought about moving!)

Time's Wicked Current

Rum-tee-tum-tee-tum-tum.
Sipping rum, watching "Into the Blue" with the director's commentary going, and remembering a long-anticipated Hawaiian dive-trip with my late best friend back in 2008.

Time has a wicked current, you know?


(If you want to know more about the clay mask, check here.)

Rum Reflections

When I was in my teens, my 20s, and my 30s, I wanted to rescue people. When I was in my 40s, I wanted to rescue myself. At the edge of 55, I'm still committed to a little of both, but I am also fairly sure that the matter is largely out of my hands.

I'd like to help out, in any event, as the case may be.

Zevon: Mutineer

MUTINEER

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Hoist the mainsail - here I come
Ain't no room on board for the insincere
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

I was born to rock the boat
Some may sink but we will float
Grab your coat - let's get out of here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

Long ago we laughed at shadows
Lightning flashed and thunder followed us
It could never find us here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

Long ago we laughed at shadows
Lightning flashed and thunder followed us
It could never find us here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

I was born to rock the boat
Some may sink but we will float
Grab your coat - let's get out of here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer
I'm your mutineer......

--Warren Zevon

from his album Mutineer
c. 1995 Zevon Music BMI

Pirate Xmas: A Song

Here’s a bit of doggeral for singing:
"Pirate Xmas" --  

Ran out of Irish --
Drinking rum --
Pirate Xmas

Futility feeds into despair
Lack of hope fills that empty chair
Friends and family in disarray
Dead, distant,
Dreadfully dismayed
Under sentence
Ducking attack
Don’t count the blessings that we lack
Don’t count the blessings in arrears
Just bless, just bless
Find the needy and just bless
Pirate Xmas

Look beyond
Look beyond
Feed whom you can
Toast the rest
Pirate Xmas

Ran out of Irish –
Drinking rum –
Pirate Xmas

X marks the spot . . . .

--MD

I expect to revise this one, but the tune's in my head.
Feel free to sing as you wish.

After The Paddling And Diving . . . .

Flor de Cana is a memorable rum.

(And, that clipboard. Middle school, high school, college, the warehouse job, the swim instruction job, grad school, community college -- a friend for life, you know?)

"Kiss My Ab"

Simple shot of an abalone gripping the underside of a rock up in Mendocino waters. Just anticipating some free diving coming up. The non-dramatic elements, like this, please me to no end.

Now, this abalone is undersized, in legal terms, about 5 or 6 inches across that shell, I'd guess.  (I'm holding the camera quite close here.)  And, while I learned to dive while "chasing abalone", as we used to joke, I tend to look and appreciate and not take these days.  Good eating, yes, but also good thriving.

"Kiss my ab" was the motto we'd throw at each other while abalone-diving.   The good old days.  (You know, driving three hours and then limiting out in 10 minutes of water-time.   Or, better, taking our time to find the best abalone we could there off Salt Point or Kruse Ranch, imitating the harbor seals in the surge channels, diving deep into the kelp again and again, and dealing with those rocky shore exits, no matter how much the swell had risen.)  Those days were too short and too few, but golden while they lasted, silver in memory.  I'll toast those days -- and my dive buddy Keith -- with some rum in the evening after the next time I go free diving, and I'll go free diving soon just to be toasting those days, that friend.

Mermaid, Seeking

Mermaid, Seeking: sculpture mix; sea foam glazing; copper wire; water.

Mermaid with a taste of rum.

Message In A Bottle

The Glenlivet bottle is empty.

(Am I hearing Captain Jack Sparrow with a Caledonian accent now?)

The Thinker, Fisherman-Style

OR, THE FISHER-KING?

I needed a book-end for the semester's worth of books I was setting up for a shot.  The rum just went with the charcoal I had just started about a dozen feet away and outdoors.  Grilled salmon on the menu.

I'm still thinking of a proper title and text for this shot.  That's how I work sometimes.

"Blue Drop" started as a reflection on anger--anger that's stultifying--and with those photos of the small blue mask underwater stacked in my mind.  I moved the photos from memory, in the organic and technical senses, onto the page, started a mini-story in between, and there it is.  I'm still working on that entry too.  (I must have tinkered with the wording--especially adding, cutting, and re-adding, and then revising the last two paragraphs--a dozen times in small ways, but that's all part of the fun.  Draft in motion.)


If you are intrigued by what I've said about "Blue Drop," please go here.

Cocktail Time