I Went Here, 2

Secret Albino Redwood
In a secret place in Humbolt County, California is this giant albino redwood tree. I am told by arboralists that albino redwoods are not uncommon. What IS uncommon is the size of this one. It's a parasite, rooted into the roots of the tree next to it. Redwoods commonly link up and share root systems, but apparently this one has been unusually successful.

19 Years ago, today, I said...

Suzanne, I love you with all of my heart and my mind and my soul. You have changed my life and I want to spend the rest of it with you. And so here, before our friends, our families, and our ancestors, I pledge myself to you forever, to a permanent, committed, working, monogamous partnership, through sickness and health, summer and winter, easy and hard, together, until death do us part.

And she said something like that too

and the priest and priestess said together

"Make it so." & it has been

& that alone makes me the luckiest & happiest s.o.b. alive

I Went Here, 1

Limestone Delight, 1

In 2008 after Egypt, I visited Turkey, accompanying my friends Don Frew and Anna Korn, Glenn Turner and Katya. Part of this fantastic trip was spent in Cappadocia, a land of limestone whose caves are astonishing.

We went to Göreme, a place noted for its “fairy chimneys” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6reme) . I took the first picture, and since then have sees that the photo is pretty much a standard shot for tourists. The gigantic perky cones are pretty cool. Most of the time you don’t see things like these other melted houses that are more common.

But as cool as that was, it was not as cool as Derinkuyu. The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City) briefly covers “history,” but there is no actual evidence of who or what or when these were actually made. Here miles and miles of tunnels go deep, and Derinkuyu is even connected to another one by an underground passage that’s five miles long!

No doubt the upper floors were used for a long time of human history. But doubt remains about what it was used for. Capable of holding 50,000 people? There are doubts about the ventilation functioning under such pressure.

I saw this mass of worm holes long after I ever made my underground troll maps. I could pretend I had visions of this place back then, because my troll maps are pretty convincing renditions! But if I have to choose a made up critter responsible for this, I have to go with cthonians.

Now it’s all about…

…walking upright.

Riding, walking, foot surgery have all come to me understanding, for the first time, what standing up straight is all about. It’s about a year or so, so far, and I’m glad to be enjoying this at the same that that I feel the ol’ bod wearing down.

Here’s how it went—

• Surgery Phase

It got so that my feet hurt so bad I couldn’t walk. In fact, I couldn’t do anything because of the burning agony, 24/7. I’m no newage (“rhymes with sewage.” --Robert Bly) softie and I so just toughed it out. Why am I waiting so long, I ask myself? Well, it was because I didn’t know what to do. No new age, and no doctor either but then hark! We have a health plan now! So then Surgery to remove bone spurs, right foot (“…took out one chunk the size of a molar…); couple months later the other one (Woke up during the procedure, ha ha, but different story). Got ancient ingrown toenails sliced out, and most importantly, shoe inserts.

• Mylar Facism Massage

My feet were curled over, like bows, like I was trying to hold onto my soles with my toes. Especially my big toes. I felt my arch like a big hunk of wood. I ended up going to a massage therapist who practiced that massage, oh wait, maybe its called mayo farcical… But no farce! It worked. David’s hands were like iron on those woody muscles. It was actually quite painful—no wait, it hurt like hell at first. But I made up this movement where everything hurt like there was nothing else and I just kind of leaned into it to see what else there is besides jesus fuck damn it hurts. And what there is back there behind it is this black floating on… and on… really peaceful, until it’s done, oh thirty minutes later. I asked Alisha, “Am I passing out there?” and she smiled and said, “No, Dad, that’s the zone.” But those woody muscles and ligaments loosened up, and I could really walk, maybe a whole mile or so!

• And there is this thing called stretching

I never really bothered with stretching any more one good cat-stretch once I got out of bed.
Stretching’s for jocks, I’m no jock, not for me. Everyone knows that. But now I had this foot bone connected to the ankle bone” reaction going on. Every few blocks I had to do a up-out-of-bed, sometimes with pops, or little poppets, or worst of all, creaking.

• Upright Man

So when walking, I would regularly stretch myself. One day I did it deliberately, carefully placing my feet parallel and very deliberately straightening up. And one time, bingo, I felt myself being held up by my bones! Totally new, and for the first time I understood what they mean when they say “hang from the top of your head.” I also felt 60 years of guilt and shame evaporate from the endless reminders to “Stand up Straight, Greg.”

So, after 60 years of working to be an upright man, I finally made it!