Permutations on a Theme

Tomorrow the nature of this blog will shift and expand in order to accommodate the wider scope originally intended for this blog. Writing about personal matters was not my original intention; writing about The Grid, and people Off of It. But the blog was what it was. And now I realize that writing about personal things can backfire. Not in the way that some readers of this blog hoped or predicted it would. I will remind anyone who reads this regularly or periodically that writers write what they know. They may refashion what they know into fictitious creations, but it's that's material. It's all material.

Nobody said this blog was supposed to be an exercise in happiness or a celebration of frivolity, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. I am not Dave Barry or David Sedaris. I'm a New York City history teacher who came to Colorado to become reacquainted with the inner workings of his body, mind, and spirit. These blogs can only be testament and witness to that metamorphosis, if one should occur. What lies at the other end I cannot say. My hope is to have a body, mind, and spirit strong enough to live out what my conscience dictates is right and true.

Many people have asked me what my book is about. It's about Power. It's about the Power of the almighty Dollar as well as the Power of those who refuse to spend it. It's about how individuals can find power in community and communities find power in individuals. It's about addiction in all of its permutations. Buying and Spending are addictions. There is a fine line between habit and addiction. We are not addicted to oil, as the President said, we are addicted to our TVs, our cars, our restaurants, our camping gear, our clothes, our charities, our subscriptions, our prescriptions..

There are as many points of view on the nature of power as people living. My parents feel power comes from a cross and the carpenter hanging on it. Chairman Mao said power is at the end of the barrel of a gun. Michel Foucault said power is everywhere. Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, the State and the Individual. There's power everywhere. I suspect Joan Didion was closest to the truth when she said power is self-respect, and self-respect never comes from anyone but the self.

Many people have questioned my motivations for quitting my job, leaving New York, traveling with Bob, and coming to Colorado. I questioned them too. What was the purpose? Was it all vanity? Maybe it's vain, if vanity means treating one's life like an art project or an experiment or financial investment or a metaphor for development and process. The Wombury's father likes to say people don't fail, they just quit before succeeding. He also wishes he was more adventurous. I talk about change and power, but like most people we meet, it frightens me. It always had. That's why stories about Puberty stick with me. Puberty is change. But there are other changes too. Childood friends no longer call or return your calls, old schools are razed to the ground, boyhood homes in disrepair, old girlfriends with new boyfriends. Our realities change, and change is a kind of death that leaves behind a ghost of memory to haunt you. I'm here to make establish a baseline of self-respect to draw upon after I leave.

So, tomorrow, this blog will expand. It will be more and more about the Grid and things On and Off of It. Some days it will be all irony and jest; but not everyday.

The only thing I want to do is tell the truth.

Until then,

The Wombury