I’m not in my happy place today.  At least so far.  I’m letting myself be drawn into discussions I’m better off avoiding, if only for my own sanity.  Lately I’ve been seeing signs of the same sort of thing that drove me from the other place…and I don’t see signs of anyone creating another place to escape to in the near future.

I don’t like putting up walls, really.  But when it becomes obvious that there is a central issue that I and someone else are never, ever going to agree on, I find I am much better off to not discuss anything like that issue with that person.  And sometimes it gets to the point that I am better off leaving.  I have a history of leaving, some might call it running away, just like I have a history of being told to get lost.

The former is always painful, but I have found that I can eventually get over it.  The latter is a thousand times more painful and one doesn’t get over it.  Ever.  At least this one doesn’t know how to do so.

But sometimes the former is necessary to do because one foresees the possibility of the latter.

This is a subject that is probably too painful for me to explore deeply at this time of my life, so I have a collection of …oh, let’s call them vignettes…to offer this evening.

For some unknown reason, my skull came to my attention this past week.  I have a strange skull, at least the cranium part.

I have what is called a double crown.  At least I was informed of that all during my childhood.  So I decided to research it online.  I discovered a whole different meaning for the term, referring to what I would call having two different tops of the head, hair-wise speaking.

The skull has sutures: one, of circular form, in the case of women; in the case of men, as a general rule, three meeting at a point. Instances have been known of a man’s skull devoid of suture altogether. In the skull the middle line, where the hair parts, is called the crown or vertex. In some cases the parting is double; that is to say, some men are double crowned, not in regard to the bony skull, but in consequence of the double fall or set of the hair.

–Aristotle

—History of Animals

I do not have that.  What I have on top of my parietal bone is a lump of more skull.  It makes me measure about an inch taller than I would appear to be.  I have no knowledge about what caused it or what it might mean.  All I have are memories of people making a thing about it when I was young.  For all I know, it was all based in Wive’s Tales.  My searching skills did not yield any useful information.

When I was a kid, I was told it meant I had more space for a brain, with the implication that therefore mine was bigger.  That was a heavy burden for a kid.  At least for this one.  Because we all know that in our society, bigger is supposed to be better.

I was also remembering about accepting the label “poet.”  I remember, however erroneously that memory might be, that it was Katherine Cummings who first said that to me.  Or maybe she was the first one who I took seriously.  After all, Kate was a university librarian.  She should know.  Right?

And I thought about the burden accepting such a label can be.  A big part of that, of course, is that I would have to write poems.  Can’t be a poet if you don’t have some poems to show once in a while.  frosti‘s wedding gift of Kim Stafford’s reminiscence of his father, William, that I have been slowly savoring has been especially helpful in that…and I’m looking forward to the summer when I can read the rest of the books.  I just wish I could see well enough to read like I used to.

I wonder about what effect being a small, sensitive child with a double-crowned skull in the presence of Mr. Stafford might have had.  I revel about having been in those secret places Kim mentions in his book.  Once again I was there when…if only as a fleeting butterfly.

And I wonder about the difference between someone who really crafts poems, over a long period of time, for it will be an even longer time until they are heard or read, and someone like me who publishes what she writes within hours after it is written and has the audacity to call the work poetry.

In “…and say why not.” on Monday, exme wrote:

if you are not up for reading ramblings of a reminiscent, tangential and seemingly unrelated nature, please move to the next diary…;)

I’ve been thinking about that, as well.  Most of what I write is of the sort exme describes.  So I wonder about whether as what I write becomes more and more tangential, will the audience become less and less present, until perhaps I am only writing for myself.  And as much as I believe that doing so serves its own purpose, I wonder about the advisability of placing that writing where it is being placed.

My life is often “of a reminiscent, tangential and seemingly unrelated nature.”  I live an existence on the level of metacognition.  Each day is an exploration of what it means to be a human being, each event a potential challenge to my humanity.  I can only write about the existence that I know.

Why do I do so?

Existentialism is a harsh mistress.

But NLinStPaul, in Right Brain Consciousness, told us about a different frame of reference from which to see the world, as presented by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a woman who got the chance to examine a stroke from the inside.  I have yet to integrate that frame with my own.

What of someone who habitually combines what are traditionally thought of left-brain and right-brain activity?  And what of the place of cross-fertilization?

From wikipedia:

The corpus callosum is a structure of the mammalian brain in the longitudinal fissure that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres. It is the largest white matter structure in the brain, consisting of 200-250 million contralateral axonal projections. It is a wide, flat bundle of axons beneath the cortex. Much of the inter-hemispheric communication in the brain is conducted across the corpus callosum.

…

Of much more substantial popular impact was a 1982 Science article claiming to be the first report of a reliable sex difference in human brain morphology, and arguing for relevance to cognitive gender differences.

Oh, really?  My interest is piqued.

Pretty Bauble A Friday At my computer desk eight Wordpad files opened I strike the keys that transmogrify into the symbols on the screen readable, if one is able and also can see and chooses to look My mind wanders The Canyon separation between here and there Forest Hills and Bird’s Hill full of mud and nettles and The Trail and The Log and The Creek full of crawdads and frogs and squiggly things I sit and think and watch a squirrel or with luck, a chipmunk And I wonder About the difference between someone who really crafts poetry over a long period of time for it will be an even longer time until they are heard or read and someone like me who publishes random thoughts truths maybe sketched out and strung together cut and slashed within hours after it is written and has the audacity to call it poetry Value cannot be determined by the writer But I preferred The Woods to the Canyon anyhow and seldom went to The Meadow And now to create something that looks nice while I can still see it –Robyn Elaine Serven –March 28, 2008

If nothing else, now I feel better.  Sometimes trying to create something beautiful is enough.

Got something you’re itching to tell John McCain, or delegates to the Republican national convention?  Here’s your chance.

While some are planning to take it to the streets in St. Paul, one group wants to elevate protesting to a whole new level — the Jumbotron. (See more below on the Labor Day march, and urge St. Paul officials to do the right thing and grant a permit.)

MinnPost reports:

Giant television screens – Jumbotrons, 22 feet high and 30 feet wide – will broadcast anti-Republican-themed messages to convention-goers, the media and the international audience following the proceedings.

Organizers figure they will have much more impact than bullhorns.

The goal is to have pithy, witty and compelling messages laying out the problems in the Republican agenda, and outlining better alternatives, organizers say…

Martha Ballou, an unabashed Democrat who doesn’t mince words: “Every bad guy in the world will be here – Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, gay-haters, immigration stoppers. They’ll all be sitting in a bowl in St. Paul, and we do intend to engage them.”

…”We realize that the people in the Xcel center are never going to agree with us, so our audience is the media and those who watch what’s going on,” Ballou said.

“This could change protest forever,” she said.

Messages on the giant screen could include opposition to the Iraq war as well as thoughts on social issues and labor concerns.

A steelworkers group has contributed $30,000 to the Jumbotron effort, which is enough to rent one screen for a week. Ballou hopes to raise at least $70,000 more, to get two more screens to better blanket the convention area, in the West Seventh Street/Kellogg Boulevard area…

Ballou said that most opponents to the Republicans haven’t yet figured out good ways to get their messages across. “Ironically, the only ones really organized so far are the anarchists,” she said.

“But we’re working hard on this, and our intent is to come up with messages that are witty and technologically sophisticated, so people will want to watch,” she said.

Asked for examples, Ballou said she doesn’t have any yet.

“But the guidelines are: Hold the Republicans to their record. Hang them with their own words. Show people a better way,” she said.

True Blue Minnesota is looking for ideas, and you can offer yours here.

What would you say, if you had a Jumbtron all your own to program and the whole world was watching?

MCCAIN SUCKS?  

OUT OF IRAQ NOW?

WELCOME, LIARS AND THIEVES?

Well, sure, but we can do better than that.  Share your ideas for words, photos and video with True Blue Minnesota.  And, if you’d like, offer some ideas in the comment section here, too.

Photo credit: ThreeQBlog.

This from United for Peace and Justice:

ACTION ALERT: Tell St. Paul officials to grant permit for RNC anti-war march

For months now, organizers in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St.Paul) have been hard at work planning for a major antiwar demonstration on September 1, 2008, the opening day of the Republican Nominating Convention in St. Paul. That also happens to be Labor Day and so everyone is hopeful that because this is on a holiday it will be easier to bring large numbers of people to this important mobilization.

The Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, made up of more than 100 organizations from around the Twin Cities and across the country – including United for Peace and Justice – has been seeking permits for the Sept. 1st demonstration since days after the Republicans announced they would hold their national convention in Minnesota. The local organizers have been given a permit to assemble and rally at the State Capitol, but the City of St. Paul continues to withhold a permit for a march up to and around the Xcel Center, where the Convention will be held.

For months, City officials promised that the permit process would move forward at the beginning of March. This past March 3rd, the Coalition finally received a formal response to their application: a “provisional” permit to begin a march at the State Capitol on September 1st, with no route, no times, and with a suggestion that whatever route is eventually granted will not be for our exclusive use for the duration of the protest. The document the Coalition received was a mostly blank form, and was accompanied by a set of guidelines that unreasonably restrict the rights of any protesters planning actions during the 2008 Republican National Convention.

On Monday, March 24th, attorneys from the National Lawyer Guild and the ACLU filed a complaint in federal court, on behalf of the Coalition, asking the judge to order the City to approve the Coalition’s permit application and that no extra guidelines be attached. The hope is that legal action will help win the permit that’s needed – one that takes a massive, anti-war march to the doors of the Republican Convention at the Xcel Center.

Local organizers also know that political pressure is no less important than legal pressure. St. Paul City officials have worked hard to create the impression that they want to work with and even welcome protesters. If they truly wanted to roll out a welcome mat, they already would have. The Coalition is planning for a march against the war on Iraq, and we shouldn’t have to wait for a court ruling to force the City to issue a permit that takes us to the Xcel Center on September 1st.

NOW IS THE TIME TO TAKE ACTION.

1) Contact St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. Urge him to deliver a final permit to the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, taking us from the State Capitol to the Xcel Center on September 1, 2008. Mayor Coleman can be reached at [email protected]  or 651-266-8510. Please send a copy of your message to the Twin Cities organizers at [email protected]

2) Send a letter to the editor at either of these two newspapers in the Twin Cities and explain why you believe the permit needs to be granted, now:

    – Star Tribune in Minneapolis – send by fax to 612-673-4359

    – St. Paul Pioneer Press – send by fax 651-228-5564 or by e-mail to [email protected]