desiderata

When I was 17, my list of things I wanted in life would have included pretty much the following:

• a hot chick
• an electric guitar
• a car
• a computer of my own
• rock stardom
• lots of tea

I think I've done pretty well. 

Obviously I've scored bigtime in the hot chick department. Hub-ba! I can't even begin to tell you, not without making most people who might read this extremely uncomfortable, in one way or another, and so, I will let discretion be the better part of hubba.

Not only do I have an electric guitar, but also an electric bass guitar, and three 12-strings, two classicals, two 6-strings, and a guitar in another state. In my house, I'm never more than 30 feet from a guitar.

Eddie Jetta just had his first major surgery, after 85,500 miles: the cooling fans and thermostatic sensor crapped out, for a total of about a grand. We drive him much less these days, of course, and I hope that extends his life.

I'm using my big-screen iMac. Next to me is my iPad and the mini notebook I bought myself because the university wouldn't buy me a computer (except they did - a MacBook Pro, which has a bum touchpad). Also on my table is the iPhone. There is approximately 2 billion times as much computer processing power and 2.5 trillion times as much storage memory on my table top as was in the computer I owned when I was 17. 

Didn't quite make it in rock stardom. My alter ego Biff Nerfurpleberger has his fans, though. Of course, so do Paper Cats.

I'm drinking tea right now. 

I suppose, in truth, when I was 17 I also wanted to fight the good fight, and I'm doing that. Once I started college, I never wanted to do anything but be in college, and that's going well also. 

happy happy

Now that the official deadline has passed for the state to hold a special election to keep some taxes in place, and the state senate has started holding hearings on a cuts-only deficit reduction that would lead to massive layoffs of faculty and staff and huge increases in tuition for students, I'm headed to the CFA Assembly this weekend. Good timing.

I decided last night that I would practice Strategic Happy-Making™. This is a series of actions one takes in order to attempt to impose a cheerier mood. Counter-insurgency against doom, you might say. Attitude regime change. Whistling in the dark.

In any event, since the Assembly is in San Francisco, John Phillips' "San Francisco" was going through my mind. And although I may not wear some flowers in my hair (though I've been known to), I will definitely be wearing flowers on my shirt. I'm going to be decked out in bright yellow, green, and blue for the Assembly, the Faculty Rights workshop, and the Lecturer Council meeting. Perhaps someone will ask.

I should consider wearing flowers in my hair very seriously for the election, because I'm running again to be on the Contract Development and Bargaining Strategies Committee, and I figure the flowers would encourage people to vote for me.

Sometimes this kind of dopey effort works for me. Some fair percentage of being happy is convincing yourself to be happy.

fifth of July

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of Lauren and I cohabiting. We celebrate three anniversaries, in fact, but to me, the fifth of July is most important.

July 5, 2004 wasn't the best day of our lives together. I had spent the previous week moving my effects out of a household that had been broken for longer than I care to think about, and myself out of a relationship that had been broken at least as long. Lauren arrived late that afternoon with a carload of her stuff, moving out of another unhappy relationship. We were both terribly excited, which masked some of the overwhelming stress and uncertainty. It was a tough way to start a life together, but we made it, and created a beautiful, delighting life.

In retrospect, that says a lot about how we love one another and why suddenly it's been four years together. We've had a tremendously happy time together, most of the time. But also a lot of terrible times, a lot of sad and distressful times. This isn't earth-shattering. Everybody goes through difficulty. The beauty and delight abide, always.

What keeps coming to mind for me lately is that no matter how stressed, paranoid, upset, angry, confused, or certain of doom I have been, of all the people in the world, Lauren always gives me hope and joy. The hope and joy she gives make it possible for life to be open, free, meaningful, and make it possible for me to fight the good fights I have to, and to smile. That hope and joy, and grasping hold of that hope and joy, of the possibility for happiness, is what the fifth of July represents to me.