counting people/celebrities are like teeth

over-cautiously, i've been avoiding saying anything about my pretty decent stretch of timely employment with the u.s. census bureau this spring/summer. as of now, i'm wrapping up my second, and most likely final, operation. yes, in this sclerotic economy i might attract envy and/or contempt making $18.22/hr...neither of which i want----anyway, i think that my tree falling in the forest, this blog, hasn't made a sound....so fall away, proverbial tree!

there is no easy algorithmic way of summing up my checkered experiences with the people of northern new jersey: for as many who implicitly or explicitly have wanted me to turn around and return from whence i came [putting it too diplomatically] there have been just as many who seem genuinely at ease with a government employee asking for some basic information and recording it on a form.

any conflicts without as well as within have mostly arisen from the census procedure itself, which, as far as i can tell, is an emergent, chaotic, mysterious process that no one person has a grasp of----throw a swarm of people at a particular problem until it goes away. i sympathize with residents who are utterly fatigued with visits by the likes of me, with my badge and clipboard. they ask, 'you again? how many times are you going to come back?'...an unanswerable question. to say that the census process is redundant is like deja vu all over again and again!

i think the greater problem touched upon in the above paragraph is the pre-existing burnout of many people in this geographical area: there is no more room for much after everyday life extracts its considerable tax. add a ladle-full of contempt for the perceived 'invasiveness' of the current administration [despite the fact that the same ol' census would've happened the same ol' way even if mccain won and has happened for the past 220 years, regardless of the administration] and you get a potentially volatile cocktail waiting for you when you ring a random doorbell.

could thatcher's [and by association, reagan's] 'there is no such thing as society' maxim be coming home to roost? i find the prospect of dissolving the concept of society in favor of an atomized hyper-individualism an amazing, devastating step backwards based on the fallacy that we can do and have done everything ourselves, without assistance from any outside agency---the myth of the self-made person. how ironic that society and its fruits: roads, plumbing, sanitation, medicine, schooling, inherited knowledge, currency [to name a few] have spoiled us into thinking that we're an island by granting us time free from the struggle to satisfy basic needs. how we ignore the hand that feeds us...thankless little bastards!

we're so enchanted by the self-made myth, that its aberration, its shadow casts itself across most of our psyches: celebrity worship, which is a symptom of our profound disconnect with our selves and each other. let's attempt a courageous experiment:

let's ignore celebrities and see if they go away....

this time, left-handed

there has been an amazing symmetry in my life, especially the past five years. i've had the opportunity to revisit issues, people, and places that have been waiting for me during that time---very well-preserved, indeed...a time capsule...an open book with open-ended chapters, to which i now get the chance to write the conclusions and codas...hopefully with a steadier, more mature and robust hand!

this second time around, i'm having to live left-handedly, actually and metaphorically---more true to my real nature. i'm even [re]learning how to play the framedrum lefty...i'm pursuing a relationship...left-handedly! a new career: ditto! if i attempt to re-learn guitar...ditto, ditto...

i've heard it said, perhaps in an unfounded, anectdotal way, that naturally left-handed children develop problems, including stuttering, when using their right hand dominantly [by force or by choice], all of which clear up when left-dominance is reestablished. i'm finding myself clearing up my metaphorical stutterings at 39 yrs. old. one could call my focal dystonia a stutter of movement...

luckily i was never forced by my parents or the church! in fact, the gross, inherited persecution of left-handed people by the catholic church and the society based on it is due to a misunderstanding of the latin word for 'left', which is 'sinister'. this was actually explained to me by my brilliant high school latin teacher: our english word 'sinister' does have the roots of its meaning in that same latin word, but for reasons of fashion rather than hand-dominance. since the majority of people are right-dominant and have been, even in roman times, the person wearing a toga needed to have his/her right hand free for acting in the world; so, the other hand [left] was needed to hold up the other end of the sheet. the left arm extended out front with the sheet draped over it created a pocket or 'sinus' in which things could be carried innocently or concealed sinisterly...

 notice that hidden----sinister---left hand!

words, words, words....from now on my words will be left-handed...as is this blog...