Climbing Maya on Diet Soap...

Last November, I recorded an interview for the Diet Soap podcast. This week, I'm happy to announce that the episode featuring my interview about my book, Climbing Maya, is available at this location:

http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-01-30T01_51_45-08_00

I hope you enjoy it. Doug Lain puts together a surreal mix of discussion and music and words. Be sure to check out the excerpt from his book, Wave of Mutilation, after the interview! And many thanks to Doug for having me on!

I can now announce...

Everyone is looking for success in their life but how can you be expected to find it if you don't know what it is?


Some time ago, as one friend was dying of leukemia, another friend succumbed to alcoholism, and I found myself unemployed, I decided to find the answer to “What is success?” If it’s different for everyone, why do we have just one term to describe it? Can it really be summed up in one word or do we need to broaden our understanding? And are the avenues of success we are so often sold – wealth, career, family – the answer to the question?

Now, I'm happy to announce that my philosophical memoir on success, Climbing Maya, will be published by Solstice Publishing.

Release dates and other details will follow...

Watch this space...

Sorry I've been so quiet of late. I've been working on some good news. I can't announce it just yet because things could fall apart at any point and then I'd even have to retract this hint that something may be coming so I'll just shut up now...

... but it's going to be pretty big...

Seizure Dog…

Wednesday night, Vicky and I were treated to something new. After she had already spent the previous week being sick and in and out of emergency room vets, Shipoopi revealed to us that she was also epileptic

… and she didn’t do it with a tasteful card, either.

Nope. We’re talking epileptic dog all over the floor.

Vicky scooped up the dog like a commando. “ER Vet! Stat!”

Okay, she might not have yelled “Stat!” but you get the idea.

As it turned out, Shipoopi’s seizure passed before we were in the car and, after a conversation with our vet the next day, we now have her on anti-seizure meds that are supposed to help. And I hope they help soon because we’re talking three nights in a row!

I don’t write just because of how sad I am for the poor dog but also because of how sad I am for our finances. The ER Vet cost a bundle – a big bundle! I don’t know how much more money we can spend on keeping this dog alive. And this bothers me because I have never been the type of person to advocate spending a bundle on keeping a pet alive. I’m usually the first to say “You can get a new one for far less.”

But love does crazy things to people and Vicky and I love Shipoopi. We must – considering how much we’re spending on her. It’s not really a rational train of thought but sometimes you’re not necessarily rational. You just do what you have to do.

So, Shipoopi is now Seizure Dog and she’ll be on seizure meds for the rest of her little life, however long that is… and I hope it’s a very long time.

Belly button logic...

Ken: If you think about it, your belly button is the youngest part of yourself.


Vicky: (disagreeing) Hair.

Ken: True... and skin... and every cell in your body which is replaced every seven years or so...

...
 
Vicky and I often have conversations like this, as strange as they may sound; I'm just glad I found a woman who speaks the same language as me. :-)

STAR WARS XXX: A PORN PARODY-official trailer

... I suppose it was bound to happen...

One night at the vet…

Shipoopi got sick this week and, of course, getting her better cost way more money than you want to know about – it was way more than I wanted to know about, believe me. Right when we’re getting back on our feet – kapow!

Vicky’s attitude is always, “Pay whatever it takes,” and while mine is more like “I have to pay what?!” I know better than to say that. I just look at Vicky with a smile and sign, sign, sign.

Ugh.

While I was sitting here, thinking about what I should write, I realized just how trite it all sounds. I mean, everyone knows someone who has been through the sick pet/sick child/sick whatever experience. It happens. So, I decided not to dwell too much on that.

There’s something else I wanted to mention, though, and it happened the second morning when we were at the emergency room vet. We had to bring Shipoopi in on Sunday night, which was a holiday, and pick her up the next morning, which was also a holiday – and that made getting her to the regular vet pretty damned interesting, too.

We’re there on Monday morning to pick her up – we were told to get there around 6am and through a series of mishaps stayed until after 9am – and Vicky is telling me about how she has to finish payroll for her employees to get paid. I, having nothing else going on in my life (it’s not like I was going to do any writing that morning or, for that matter, at all that day), said to her, “Go home and do it. I can take care of things here.” After a bit of our usual back and forth, she finally went.

And I was alone.

Inside a crowded pet ER. After a while, after I’d run out of things to kill my boredom (even my phone had died so there went that!), I began actually paying attention to the other people there. And it occurred to me that this is the last thing we do. We’re so isolated from each other, we live our lives as if we’re perpetually inside an elevator; at least, that’s how it seems to me.

I witnessed a family lose their pet. I witnessed two women fear for the health of someone they loved. I shared a moment with another couple of women as we both found ourselves caught in the same process. And it slowly began to dawn on me just how wrong it is that we are all so separated in this experience. There were easily 30-35 people in there and so many of us were distanced.

I wish I could say the experience made me a better person or that I was the person I hope to be. No. Not really. I exchanged a little small talk with the two women whose dog was also sick but that was about it. It did remind me, though, that I need to work harder at that. I tend to instinctively isolate myself and live within my own bubble and, in those instances when I’m sharing an experience with others, I need to remember to step outside that bubble and connect.

That’s all I wanted to say.

A look at ethics...

Here's why I am writing a book on ethics in one photograph.

This plastic display of plastic water bottles (in an office supply store of all places) will still be around (probably in the ocean somewhere) long after you and I are dead and, somehow, our present system of ethics doesn't tell us there's something very wrong here.

Clearly, we need a new system and I look forward to completing this book and sharing a new look at ethics soon.

Assessing and Reassessing for the New Year...

This month's Recovering The Self article comes just in time for the New Year!

http://www.recoveringself.com/guest-blogger/ken-la-salle/assessing-and-reassessing