The faces of my dead

The book in hand is Traffics and Discoveries by Rudyard Kipling.  The story I have open is "They" in which the narrator has met a blind woman at her country estate, where "they" live -- magical (?) almost hallucinatory (surely not!) almost faerie (?!) children.  The narrator almost asks whether his host had ever had sight. He stops himself, but she understands.  An excerpt:

     "Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old, they told me.  And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream about colours.  I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see them.  I only hear them just as I do when I am awake."

     "It's difficult to see faces in dreams.  Some people can, but most of us haven't the gift," I went on, looking up at the window where the child stood all but hidden.

     "I've heard that too," she said.  "And they tell me that one never sees a dead person's face in a dream.  Is that true?"

     "I believe it is -- now I come to think of it."

     "But how is it with yourself -- yourself?"  The blind eyes turned towards me.

     "I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered. 

     "Then it must be as bad as being blind." 

Well now!  I know it is methodological madness to mix the author up with the narrator. Nevertheless, here is a conjecture:  Mr. Kipling was someone who could see and remember any number of faces while awake.  Part of his creative gift was that he could emphatically see and pay attention to anyone he met. Yet here he has the narrator saying, "I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream."

How different I must be than Mr. Kipling!  (And yet I love him like a friend I never had, or like one of the friends of mine who have passed beyond the veil of this life.)  Yes, how different he and I are.

In my waking life masquerading as a grown-up, I have a hard time remembering names and faces.  I'm afraid I have to know you quite a while before I can see you.  Sometimes I wonder whether I ever see the faces of those around me.  But in my dreams -- ah, unexpected mercy! -- the faces of my beloved dead are frequent and comforting visitors.

When I was born... and so on

For perspective:

When I was born the President of the United States was Dwight David Eisenhower; the Vice President was Richard M. Nixon. 

When I was born the United States flag had 48 stars.

When I was born Fulgencio Batista was president of Cuba.

I watched the Moon Landing LIVE on TV. 

My first “word processor” was a manual Smith Corona typewriter. 

My first computer was an Osborne.

My first “real” job included producing custom reports by hacking COBOL code. On a Burroughs B20 and a keyboard that had the function buttons on the left.

I have made archival copies of computer files on 5-1/4″ floppies, 3-1/2″ floppies, 1/4″ tape drives, CDs, DVDs, thumb drives from 256Kb on up, SSDs, and “cloud.”

The “don’t be evil” might have ended when Google bought  Deja News.

Flag this post

I was born under a wandering star, the song said.

Actually I was born under 48 very stable stars.

The 48 star flag of the United States was used from 1912 until 21 August 1959, at which time I was a chubby little crumb cruncher working with a dozen or so teeth.

Mental processes

When I was about seven years old (1964) the world, including my parents, was completely okay with little kids riding their bikes a couple of miles across the town to visit the variety store.

No helmets, no sunscreen, no hydration in the 110°F desert heat. And we left the bikes outside unlocked without a second thought.

To buy candy. Root beer barrels. Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum at five cents a pack.

But I polygress.

The bike ride was on streets except for one place where you could save about half a mile by cutting across an undeveloped lot.  There was a beaten path along a minimum-length diagonal from the one boulevard to the back of the drugstore parking lot.

All was well until some construction-type asshat needed to get rid of about three yards of sand.  He went out into the middle of the path in the middle of the lot and dumped a mound of dry sand.

So there I am biking along and thinking of the money in my pocket and its value with regard to things like Brach's cinnamon hard candies vs. green army men vs. plastic model glue (and yes any kid could buy it in those days).  Turning across the vacant lot and up the path, I see the lump of sand.  No problem.  But...

There is a reason you don't see too many bicycles at the beach.  The pounds per square inch on bicycle tires make you sink into dry sand way deeper than a footprint.  I ended up slogging down to a complete stop about one and a half bicycle lengths in.  Hm. Time to get off and walk it back to the beaten path.

Where was I going with this?  No, not the drugstore.  I mean, yes, the seven year old me was going to the drugstore.  I think a squirt gun claimed my money that day.  Shaped like a Colt 1911, fit my had perfectly, never leaked -- you could fill it up and keep it in your pocket for emergencies.

I meant where was the present me going.  Only this: some days, some times, my whole mental/verbal ability is down to about the level of trying to bicycle through dry sand.  Your mileage may vary, and it probably depends some on the width of your tires.

The Aging Process

It's bad when your portal amnesia extends to the opening of a notebook so I can write down something lest I forget.

Um, what was I going to write down?  I forget.

Healing, growth, change, recovery

You're four years old and you fall down and get a scrape on your leg.  Two days later there is new pink skin on the spot and you can run as fast as ever.  The worst long-term effect is that for the rest of the summer you will have a light spot in your leg tan.

You're fifteen years old and a girl you like tells you she doesn't want to see you any more.  Actually she doesn't tell you, she has her friend tell you and that hurts even worse.  Six weeks later you meet a very nice girl at a dance and you end up taking her to Junior Prom.  The worst long-term side effect is a bit of embarrassment over the past.

You're twenty-six years old and everything is working out according to your plans.  You are head-over-heels in love with your spouse, your soul mate.  Your new son is healthy.  Your job is satisfactory.  But for some reason you are uneasy in every social situation. The alcohol that was once a usable tool is now an absolute need.  All day.  It's not working.  You hate yourself and want to die.  One afternoon you remember a long-ago conversation with a friend who was talking to you (for some reason...) about how she was helped by Alcoholics Anonymous.  A call is made.  An AA meeting found.  (You get a ride because you're too shaky to drive.)  Your brief, near-fatal relationship with alcohol ends.  The long task of life without the substance begins.  The worst long-term side effect is that  it doesn't just skin over  like that scrape when you were four years old.  It also doesn't simply get displaced/replaced by something new.  You haven't got a clue, you haven't got a plan, except to survive.  And you begin to learn about taking life one day at a time.

You're forty-two years old and your mother dies suddenly.  You didn't get to say good-bye.  You didn't get one last hug.  She's gone.  Nothing makes sense.  Nobody loves you like your mom.  Every hour, every day there is a nagging empty agony. Everything hurts.  The worst long-term side effect is that it doesn't go away.  A sort of callus builds up over the wound, like a tree that loses a large branch, but you can't say it  heals  exactly, because what is gone stays gone.  You begin to learn how to go on loving after the one you love is taken away.

What am I driving at here? 

No.  I think I'll just leave it where it is.  The process is ongoing, after all.

Waist of Time

August 2011:

 June 2012:

September 2013:

The evolution of the Crowndot jeans sizes.

Well, yeah, "relaxed fit" ... 

I guess that's because as I age I'm just more of a relaxed guy!

Old and slow, old and slow...

I worked so hard.  I pushed.  I ran way past my comfort zone.  Every time I was boxed in, I put on a burst of speed rather than hold back.  I felt utterly drained at the end. 

And my time for today's 5K was slower than my last one.

*sigh*

It must be the pinto pony genes...

I keep my hair short.  Number 1 on the sides blending to Number 2 on top.  If you know barber talk.  Every two weeks. 

Maybe it was the lighting, but when I cut it this morning, it looked like the "gray" (white) was a lot more extensively spreading from the right temple area than the left. 

I'm not going bald -- I'm going piebald. 

Things happen at work...

Buying stainless steel rod oversize, then turning and grinding, is cheaper (even with the labor) than buying the rod already Turned Ground and Polished (TGP).  We're talking small quanitities here, since I work for a small machine shop that does repair work. 

A particular piece of 316 stainless came in at ~2.625" Outside Diameter, as drawn (drawn through a die to make it round, not drawn as in on a a piece of paper).  It was taken to the Machining area and pre-machined to ~2.500" O.D., then routed to the Polishing Department to polish for chrome plating.  We have 0.002" of hard chrome applied to the surface.  They call it "two thousandths per side".  Try arguing with the plating tech about how a cylindrical object only has one side, the outside.  What they mean is that by putting 0.002" onto the outside surface, you add 0.004" to the Outside Diameter (hence "two per side").  So the pre-turned rod had to be ground to 2.5945" to 2.5950" to finish after plating at 2.9990", giving it one thousandth of an inch of slip clearance into the counterbore.  I love writing technical junk! 

If you're still with me, here's the scenario: 

I am looking at the polished-for-plating rod, wrapped in kraft paper and stretch-wrap, on which the grinding technician (We'll call him "Squint") has written in fat black permanent marker:  2.522" .

ME: Hey Squint, didn't this rod get brought to you from Machining?

SQUINT: Yeah.  Boss said take four thousandths off it and then get a final measurement. 

ME: How can it now be bigger than it was when it was taken out of the lathe?

SQUINT: ...

ME: Um, did you use calipers or micrometers?

SQUINT: I mic'd it. 

ME:  Can you please unwrap this and do it again? 

( Resistance interlude, after which Squint sets the mic but hands it to me. The mic reads 2.4960". )

ME (handing the mic back to Squint): What does that mic read?

SQUINT (gradually extends his hands with the micrometer farther and farther from his face, and walking over to right in front of a 500W job light, while making his eponymous facial expression): Um...

ME: Dude, you need glasses! 

SQUINT: No I don't!

ME: You need to have your eyes checked, or at least buy a pair of reading glasses! You can't even read the mics! You're 50 years old!  It happens to everybody!

SQUINT: No, they said I don't need glasses.

ME: You had your eyes checked?

SQUINT: Yeah, they said they were fine and I don't need glasses. 

ME: You went to the eye doctor, and the eye doctor asked you to read something like I just did, and he said you don't need vision correction?! 

SQUINT: Yeah, they said I don't need glasses.

ME: You've been malpracticed, man!  Who did you go to?  We have Kaiser coverage.  You're saying a Kaiser doctor...

SQUINT: Well...

ME: Well?  Where did you have you eyes checked?

SQUINT: At the Department of Motor Vehicles when I renewed my license!

ME (NOT out loud): I am so totally blogging this!

 * * *
This is what we're up against.