Space = + or -

Space = + or -
---- Big Frank Dickinson

"In general, separability is a technical hypothesis on a space which is quite useful and -- among the classes of spaces studied in geometry and classical analysis -- generally considered to be quite mild."
---- Wikipedia "Separable Space"

1.
Ron was unloading a new shipment of mattesses that had come in that morning, but his mind was not on this work, which was pretty mindless, it was elsewhere. He was thinking about his old girlfriend - Patty. Why had she broken up with him? He still did not understand. Everything had been going well; they had been seeing each other for over two years, and then - out of the blue she tells him that she doesn't want to see him anymore. Well, she hadn't exactly said it in those words. What had she said? She said something like: "This isn't working for me", or "We should probably stop seeing each other for a while and spend sometime figuring things out." Figuring things out? He didn't need to figure anything out - what was there to figure out? He loved Patty and she had told him that she loved him, the sex was good, they never fought, they spent a lot of time together. He used to hang out at her place a lot. In fact, he was even thinking about suggesting that they consider moving in together. Why not? It seemed like the logical thing to him, what with the savings on the living expenses and all. He just didn't get it. Out of the blue it happened. He even had suggested, when she was talking about moving to Seattle for that new job and all, that he would move down there with her. That would have been an easy move, there was even a Mattress Heaven down there and they were always looking for salesmen - lots of turnover. Come to think of it, why hadn't she taken that new job she had been talking about for months? It just didn't make sense. Was she seeing someone else? He was going to have to call her; maybe she had figured things out by now. That was probably it: she had some kind of mid-life crisis. He had heard about women like that. Everybody always talked about men going through that, but women who no longer had kids at home, and were single sometimes did some crazy things. This might be just one of those temporary crazy things, and now that she saw that not being with him was not helping her at all, in fact, she was probably missing him as much as he was missing her. He would call her tonight, and then it would probably all get straightened out. He thought about what his buddy had told him he had going in his favor, and it was, not doubt true: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

2.
Patty was on her way to her third appointment of the day, her third physician. Celebrex, lipitor, and viagra - that was her mantra: celebrex, lipitor and viagra. It was like an annoying jingle that wouldn't leave her head (celebrex, lipitor and viagra), but those were her mainstays and those were the pharmaceuticals that Pfizer, her employer, told her to push, push and push. There was never a problem with the renewed orders coming in (well, viagra had taken a small dip due to generic competition) but getting appointments with the new doctors, that was a challenge. Challenges - not something that she shied away from though, she thought to herself. Just look at how she had taken charge of her life lately. It had been a challenge - just figuring out what it was that was dragging her down. That had taken months; thank god she had gone to see Freeman - he had made all the difference. It was like she had been walking in a fog for the past year or more. Blind to the numbing nothingness that her relationship with Ron had amounted to. He had been convenient, pleasant, and always there. She could always count on Ron, . . . but for what, other than his presence. He was the most uninterested person she had ever met; a man of such numbing routine and regularity that she had eventually gotten into lock step with his TV watching, routine dinners at the same restaurants, and even his friends . . . Was it possible, she thought, that there were people who just continually replayed the same tape in conversations: just substitue a different sports team - "Hey, how about those ______ (insert team name here)", "Did you watch _______ (insert TV program here); "We ate at ________ (insert restaurant's name here), great food, etc. etc. Patty had finally discovered that she didn't want to fill those blanks she wanted to create her own blanks, and she wanted to be around other people who had surprising blanks that she had never heard of. Ron, poor Ron. He just didn't understand. It was funny, she hadn't thought of him in weeks. What was the old saying . . . "Out of sight, out of mind."

It Is What It Is (Part 2)

It Is What Is (Part 2)
---- Big Frank Dickinson

Try to remember this: what you project
Is what you will perceive; what you perceive
With any passion, be it love or terror,
May take on whims and powers of its own.
Therefore a numb and grudging circumspection
Will serve you best . . .
---- Richard Wilbur

- I was wondering, Freeman, why do you have "It Is What It Is" on your business card. What does that have to do with your work?
- Madelyn, it's just a cliche, I know.
- So why put a cliche, on your card?
- Well, on one level it's a cliche, but underneath it there is a very apt message - for my line of work anyway.
- Yes, . . . ?
- People come to me with problems. They usually are able to resolve them, with my help, when they can see their situation as it really is: It is what it is . . . do you get it now?
- So, what you're saying is that what it is, is not what they are seeing.
- Exactly, what they come to me seeing is what it is not. The reason that it's a problem is that they are looking at it as it can't be for them. They want it to be what it should be for them, so I help them look at it as it is.
- OK, give me an example.
- Well, do you remember that woman that came to see me about deciding whether to take that job in Seattle, or stay here in Spokane?
- Yeah, I do; it seems that you really got into that one. You spent a lot of time with her. I thought it was a cut and dry case - she should move and take the new higher paying job.
- Well, that was one way of looking at it. It was more money for her. However, when I delved a little deeper into the situation it turned out that that wasn't what it was all about - that is not what it was. It wasn't about money; it wasn't about moving; it was about change. She wanted a change in her life and thought that a change in her job, and a change in her city would revitalize her. However, it was basically the same kind of work - more money, but the job was the same. It's probable that within one year or so she would have completely recreated exactly what it is that she had right here in Spokane. The only thing that would have changed would have been the name of the city she lived in: Seattle rather than Spokane. I discovered what it really was and when she saw that she stayed here.
- And . . . what was it?
- It was change - she wanted change. There were lots of more important things that she could change right here. So we drew up a list of what she spent her time on and with whom and then she made the changes. She has a much different life now - and she's happier. No more talk of moving!
- What kind of changes are you talking about?
- Well for one, she got rid of the guy that she had been seeing for over two years. He was taking up all her time and giving her nothing in return.
- You told her to dump her boyfriend?
- I didn't have to: when we laid out, where it is that she wanted to go, it was obvious that she wasn't going to get there with that lunkhead.
- That was the first big break, and then she started doing things that she had always talked about doing, but never had: traveling, joining a church, getting a new place to live, and meeting new people. Nothing all that big, when you look at them individually, but the whole package resulted in a lot of changes in her. One change begot another and the next thing you know . . . she liked her life! It is what it was! And what it was, was her being in rut! She climbed out of it.
- I wonder what the guy she dumps thinks of you? Did you ever think about that?
- Oh, well, I don't think he'll be coming to see me for advice any time soon!
- Do you know him?
- Well, actually I do. His name is Ron - he sells mattresses.
- No way! He's the one that got me out of the valley?
- You got it; and that was after their break up. Now that you mention it; you don't think that mattress is sagging a little do you?
- It is what it is!

It Is What It Is

It Is What It Is

---- Big Frank Dickinson

"It is what it is

says Love "
---- Erich Fried

1.
Just when he had thought that the weather had turned and winter was gone, it snowed. Well, not a lot, but still enough so that his thoughts were no longer hinged on renewal; but rather on a reassessment of a number of things. One, of course, was the business that he had somewhat rashly begun last year. It had always been a dream of his to open his own business and he had finally taken the leap almost exactly one year ago. His business was pretty broad in scope, but infinitely interesting, and the first year had gone fairly well, as far as his enjoyment. The income, however, was not all that he had hoped for. His business was a kind of combination research, counseling, and private investigation. The sign outside his office read: Problems Solved, and that is exactly what he did. People came with their problems and he solved them. Well, to be more exact, he offered possible solutions. He didn't guarantee anything, but for most of his clients the issue was mostly that they did not have a clue about what to do, where to begin, and needed someone to show them options and encourage them to act in some way. That is exactly what he did. His business card read: Freeman Pastore, Problem Solver; and at the bottom of the card in italics there was this quotation: It Is What It Is.
2.
Madelyn awoke early and was concerned about Freeman. They had spent the evening together and he had seemed a little distracted. This was not something new. During the last year, since he had started his new business, he was often somewhat distracted. Perhaps he was taking his work home with him, as it were. While he did not have all that many clients, still he took his work very seriously and spent considerably time mulling over the more puzzling problems that he was presented with. For example, there was that woman who could not decide whether she should take a new position in a city on the other side of the state, or remain where she was. It seemed, to her, a straightforward situation: the new job paid slightly more, and she was single with no kids, so why not? However, Freeman built these complicated grids and tried to bring in all the extraneous factors and possible repercussions and was constantly adding new data. The emotional factors - he spent way too much time on those, she thought. Well, it had been an OK evening, otherwise: a movie followed by dinner. He had spent the night at her place, and now they were both waking up, lying in bed awake with eyes closed. Any minute now they'd look at each other and start their Sunday morning: coffe and conversation. Still, they lay in bed postponing for just a couple of minutes the end of the sleep, the beginning of the day. She thought of his business motto: It Is What It Is.

There You Go

There You Go
-- Big Frank Dickinson

"Oh, the world keeps spinning round.
It's a wonder tall trees ain't laying down;
There comes a time. . . "
---- Neil Young

1.
Spring was a time when hope sprang anew in his heart. It was easy to feel that way at this time of the year, because there was real anticipation in the air. This was not some kind of metaphysical nonsense, like giving off positive energy or learning a lesson from the universe; no, this was real honest-to-goodness season change as manifested in the very grass that you walk on or the leaves in the trees above you. He was thinking that if that rebirth was programmed right into the planet in such a pervasive manner that it was probably programmed into him too. He was thinking in cliches, thoughts like: "When a young man's thoughts turn to love . . .", and "Here comes Peter Cotton Tail hopping down the bunny trail." That last thought was actually getting stuck in his head and much as he liked spring he found that song to be invasively annoying. So with sticky bits of that tune clinging to his brain he left the house and went to one of the two things that spring most brought to mind: his yard (the other he could not go to because she wasn't there). His neighbor was in his backyard looking at his yard with his arms crossed. "Looks like I'll have to get on this yard again; I'm getting an early start!", he shouted. His neighbor replied: "There you go!"

2.
Her yard had been carefully prepared for spring last fall. All the debris that had fallen from the trees or blown in from neighboring yards had already been disposed of. Her ornamental grasses had already been trimmed, the sprinkler system had been drained, and the delicate trees had been bundled up. She was not thinking about her yard; she was thinking about Easter! And at that moment her phone rang; it was her sister. They talked for a short time, and it was a typical conversation that had little to do with spring or her yard. It was mostly about a friend of theirs who had recently been ill, but had recovered. In passing they discussed Easter - the Easter dinner! This was always carefully approached because it entailed some suble negotiations about whether the family was going to do something together for Easter or not, and if so, then who and where and all that had to be decided in such a way as to keep everyone happy but not put a strain on anyone. Everything was pretty much up in the air so far, which meant that she did not have to do anything beyond what she normally did. Easter was a time to decorate (lightly) her home, but was not treated, by her, as a holiday that should entail any family gathering beyond her immediate kids, who were not in town. So that meant that she was really not going to mark this Easter in any way. Her sister actually asked her: "Do you have any Easter plans?" Her reply was short: "No, I think I'll stay home and work on my yard." "There you go!", replied her sister.

This Is As Good As It Gets

This Is As Good As It Gets
---- Big Frank Dickinson

"Squeeze out
all the segments
of this orange day
before it disappears
into the sunset."
---- Dennis O'Driscoll
1.
He had promised his girlfriend that when he was abroad that he would get her a present. This was something that weighed on him as he trudged through the various markets in these foreign lands that he was traveling through. There was no real reason for him being so abroad other than his wanting to put himself in a different place than the one that he was overly familiar with. He had this idea that traveling to unfamiliar countries alone was something that he needed to do. He wasn't sure why. He was not familiar with this country in the least. The language was so strange that the only words that he understood were the occassional "OK" - which he recognized, despite the fact that it was said with the first syllable stressed and asperated. It sounded like the kind of "OK" that the foreigners said in movies. It was said like this "HO-k. In fact, he somewhat felt like he was in a movie. A movie of a foreign land.

He found lots of stuff made out of wood. Wooden boxes, wooden plates, wooden coat racks, wooden balls, and wooden dolls. He decided to buy a wooden doll. He asked (well, he actually motioned) for the clerk to take down a big wooden doll. The foreigner said, "HO-k" and gave him the big doll. And then, much to his surprise, the clerk opened the doll and inside was another, and inside this yet another, and so on and so on. He decided that he should buy it: "This is as good as it gets" he said to himself.

2.
Why were there so many different kinds of mattresses? He was out shopping to get a new mattress. His old one had a very large valley in the middle of it. He could not sleep on either side without sliding into the middle of it. He had slept like this for a very long time, and it was not something that had much bothered him, or something that he had much thought about in any way whatsoever. However, he had met a girl; one thing led to another and they were now sleeping together. Sometimes he slept at her house. She had a very nice mattress. It seemed like it was high. Perhaps because his girlfriend not only had a mattress, but she had a boxspring on which the mattress was perched. And the mattress, his girlfriend had told him, had padding on the top. It also had springs and there was no valley in the middle of it. He liked being in the valley with her, but she said that he generated too much heat for them to be in the valley together. He could not regulate his temperature, so he was buying a new mattress.

The clerk told him that the word "mattress" came from the Arabic word for "throw" as in a mat or something like that is thrown on the floor. He immediatly starting thinking about that Japanese kind of mattress - the futon. He that that would be too low and told the clerk that. The clerk told him that this store didn't sell futons, it only sold mattresses. He then started to tell him what they did sell. Ron, the clerk, said they need to start with the size: twin, double, queen, California queen, king, California king, or super king? He told the clerk that he need one big enough for two, but that his bedroom wasn't' that big. They started looking at queens. Then Ron asked him about the mattress components: spring, foam, water, or composite? He said that he really didn't know, but he thought it should have springs so that there would be no sagging - no valleys. So Ron showed him some inner spring queen mattresses. Some had a little padding on top, and some a lot. Some had box springs and some not. Some were extraordinarily expensive - over $2,000.00 - and some were only a few hundred. It was a tough decision, but he chose one that was peach colored (there were many different colors and patterns), and cost about $600.00. He skipped the box spring. He said to Ron, "This is as good as it gets."

3.
He and his girlfriend had a fight. She had liked the doll he brought her, and she was happy with the mattress, but she did not like the fact that he sometimes talked to her about vague feelings of dissatisfaction. She would say, "What have you got to be dissatisfied about?" He wasn't sure what - he liked his job; he liked her; he enjoyed his weekend and evening activites (sometimes with her and sometimes with his friends), and he was optimistic that his life was going to get even better in time. However, sometimes he felt sad; and sometimes he felt more than sad - he felt depressed. However, he didn't know why he felt this way. She did not have these feelings - ever, and thought that maybe it might have something to do with her. He told her that it did not, that he really did not understand why he felt this way. It was not a common feeling, but when he felt it he was not fun to be around, and he also did not attempt to hide the fact that he was feeling down. She had talked to him about this many times, and it had always led to the same dead end. Sometimes she probed him about how exactly it felt. He told her it felt like a fire dying inside, like a premonition of a catastrophe, or like the knowledge that he had forgotten something that would have dire consequences. Sometimes she tried to give him advice and told him that he should just stop thinking about it, or he should go do something active, or . . . concentrate on all the good things he had going for him. Then she would sometimes get frustrated, because she loved him, and did not want him to feel sad or dissatisfied. He would tell her that he too did not want to feel this way. They couldn't solve his problem. Finally he told her that he was going to try to look on the bright side because he did have a lot to be grateful about. He told her: "This is as good as it gets."

4.
She saw him quite often, but did not live with him. She had her own house and she enjoyed her time alone. This was not time that she sought to escape from anyone - certainly not from him. It was time when she could be by herself. When she was by herself she sometimes kept herself quite busy. She liked to do a few crafts that had to do with pottery and also with collages. In fact, she was working on a new technique to incorporate collages into her pottery. The mixing of the glazes and then the selection of just the right temperature to create the impressions of a mixture of disparate scenes on the pots was a challenge that she hadn't completely solved. She also enjoyed the silence of her place and the beauty of her yard, which she had spent considerable time on. In the morning, her favorite time, she would rise with the sun and brew green tea (two minutes). Then she would take a sketch of the collage that she was working on creating for her next pot and she would take it to the table in her kitchen overlooking the garden. As she drank the tea, she sketched the scenes that she would need to create glazes for to fire on her recent pots. The silent creation led her to think: "This is as good as it gets."

A Master of The Very Short Story

Because it's Valentine's Day here's an apt quotation from Margaret Atwood: "The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love."

She is well known for her novels and poetry, but she also wrote one of the best collections of very short stories Big Frank has ever read. It is called The Tent, and the imaginative worlds that she creates in that tent are entrancing. Some are obviously stories, and some are imaginative essays and some are somewhere in between. Below is one of Big Frank's favorites from The Tent.

Time Folds

by Margaret Atwood

Time folds, he said, meaning that as time goes on and on it buckles, in the extreme heat, in the extreme cold, and what is long past becomes closer. You can demonstrate this by pleating a ribbon and sticking a pin through: Point Two, once yards away from Point One, now lies just beside it. Is time/space like an accordion, but without the music? Was he making a statement about hard physics?

Or was he saying: Time folds its wings, at long last. Time folds its tents and silently steals away. Time folds you in its folds, as if you were a lamb and the lack of time a wolf. Time folds you in the blanket of itself, it folds you tenderly and wraps you round, for where would you be without it? Time folds you in its arms and gives you one last kiss and then it flattens you out and folds you up and tucks you away until it's time for you to become someone else's past time, and then time folds again.

Another very short story

Back In The Old Fogie Days
by Big Frank Dickinson

Back in the old fogie days, everything was in black and white. The only color was in dreams; and people looked forward to going to sleep at night to look at that extraordinary palette of color offerings that they met nowhere else in their lives. Of course, they were not able to really talk about these colors (that word did not exist back then) all languages – even Inuit – had only two “quasi-colors” to talk about: black and white; and, of course, their combination: gray. Their dream conversations went something like this:

- I had this great dream last night. I was on a ship and the water was a kind of shimmering gray.
- Shimmering gray?
- Yeah, it was not really gray – it looked completely different from gray but it wasn’t black or white either. It was a happy gray and at the same time it was a sad gray.
- Oh, OK, I think I know what you ‘re talking about. I once had a dream where I cut myself and that shimmering gray came out of my hand. Is that the gray you’re talking about?
- Well, I’m not really sure. I’ve never cut myself in a dream. But that doesn’t seem like it would be a happy gray, does it?

Of course, kids can somewhat understand this because they have seen black and white photographs in art books, or their in the photos in their parents’ attic. And it also turns out that most kids nowadays actually dream only in black and white. So with some accuracy it can be said that the old fogie days are being duplicated in the dreams of the youth. Their dream conversations go something like this:

- Like, I was dreaming last night that I was on this . . .like ship, and the water – get this – was gray!
- No way, man – gray?
- Yeah, and I was like, “Where am I, in my dad’s memories, or what?”
- Cool – in the old man’s memories!
- Yeah, it was like I had taken a trip back; you know, like time travel!
- How cool is that? Dreams as time travel. . . . Hey, wait a minute. I think I dream in black and white too. Last night I was flying in the sky and it was . . GRAY! So was I – like – going back in time too?
- Totally – Dude – totally!

A Very Short Story

Will The Universe Instruct Him?
By Big Frank Dickinson

- I live with a man who sits in a chair and is mostly not there.
- And what is it that you did before you joined him there?
- Well, I've always been quite spiritual. Actually, at one time even religious. I was actually a Methodist minister who tended my flock and dispensed spiritual bromides.
- Oh, are you still religious now?
- Now, like I said, now I'm spiritual, but not religious. The universe is my god now; not some dusty book whose main protaganist has a beard and sits on a cloud.
- But you live with a man who mostly sits in a chair, as I understand. Is he religious?
- This is a temporary relationship. We don't really share any interests with each other, but he needs me. Actually he's an invalid; that's pretty much why he just sits in that chair. I pretty much support him with my settlement.
- Settlement?
- Yes, like I said, I was a minister and the church had to settle with me because of some injury that I suffered from their congregation.
- Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
- Don't be - they deserved it.
- Deserved it?
- Yes, having to pay me that settlement for what they did to me. It was horrible; I'm pretty much unable to function normally.
- But I thought it was your . . . man who was disabled.
- He's disabled, I'm scarred.
- Oh, so what is it that you do now?
- I write and give readings.
- Readings?
- Yes, I can channel.
- Channel?
- Yeah, you know - connect with someone and have special insights into them.
- Oh? What kind of insights?
- Well, I get images and words and they just come to me.
- Do you think that you could channel me?
- Sure would you like me to do that?
- Well, I've never been channelled before what's it like?
- I'll tell you what is in the channel; you might find it interesting - I've done this for a lot of people. They always tell me that what I have to say is pretty amazing. I don't know how I do it - it just comes to me.
- So what do I have to do?
- Nothing, just listen. OK, I'm going to close my eyes and then. . . I can see a picnic table and it has an old lamp on it. Maybe a lamp that is somehow connected with a relative - a female relative. Do you have a female relative?
- Yeah, lots of them.
- I thought so.
- Let's see . . . Oh, there is lots of blue and some broken pieces of pottery. You broke something and you can't put it back together. Does that mean anything to you.
- No, not really.
- You're not being very cooperative here. I'm not sure that I can continue this channeling if I'm going to be picking up this negative energy.
- Oh, OK; well keep going. What else?
- It's cloudy now - darkness. I see confusion and uncertainty. A plan, . . . no a map but you're not sure which way is north. There seems to be a problem with direction. In the corner there is a compass, but you are ignoring it. Yes, I see an open window with curtain flowing out it and you can't keep it inside. Outside a crow - a large one with a branch in its mouth. This is a very powerful image.
- Oh?
- Is that all you can say? So, what do you think? What does this mean to you?
- Oh, well. It really doesn't mean anything to me. None of those images are really any part of any memories or dreams of mine . . . not really anything. Is that what you mean?
- Well, if you are going to be sceptical . . . Really! You do need to acquire some social skills. You know I was doing this channelling for you because you asked. What kind of gratitute is that? I really think that your social interaction is extremely lacking - and it is pulling me down. I feel . . . wounded. That's enough . . . I'm not going to continue if you are going to be like that. I really have to go. And . . .maybe one day the universe will sit you down and teach you a thing or two. But I'm not going to. I'm afraid I must be going.
- Oh?