Sense Surround

Everywhere I see things
Everywhere I hear things

Am I seeing things?
Have you heard the latest?

Do I know you?
Have we met?

Higher Coding

A coder in the web world,
suits some lone wolf outland hider.

The father gave it up - he earned his reward.
Another space-time relative past. far away now.

long hours connected and alone
a world for virtual self expansion,
replete with clicks of approval.

The favorites, locked and loaded.
The routines. kept close as always.

Stop now, the darkness seeks to overwhelm.

A blackhole adder deep,
and dreary.

There is an out. And now!

upon hearing the clicks of approval,
stop the dreadnought spirals...

Climb to higher ground...

Find an opening...

rollover this domain.

Arrested Development

Ducking for cover when the grandparents appear
like rubes from the farm
arm in arm with my embarrassement.

There they are.

No place to hide...

sliding down in back, hoping to escape notice, yet barely sensing
the lack of notice I might already be receiving...

We wait for my friend to show.

Finally!

Dragging saxophone behind
its case as big as all outdoors I see him
rounding the bend - yes.

junior high schools do have bends.
I was experiencing a case right then.
hpoing my grandparents would just leave, but oh no...

Grandpa with his felt farmer's hat...
Grandma in her farm dress...
And me, in my insane adolescent best...

Waiting for Ronnie, who showed of course,
and then ...

Away we drove.

Past the schoolbus of normality.

Did I say normal?
There is the possibility of future developments.

The Unrequited Thing

Tonight, a little story about things that came and went long before I ever heard an inkling of the word "web design," which is my main distraction as of late. But that was not always the case, of course.
In 1964 I was just starting the 6th grade at Bryker Woods elementary school. I had attended Bryker only one year before that, because my family moved there so that my parents could go back to college. My mother was working on her PhD in English at the University of Texas and my father was in Law School. We were Austin short timers, only there for three years. Then it was back to Lubbock, Texas so that my mother could become a professor of English at TTU, and my father could do whatever it was that he was going to do - become an attorney I guess.

This story could go off in so many directions from here, but judging from the hits I am getting, I think I'd better just stick with the main story line. ha ha

When I said I was just starting the 6th grade, I mean just! It was the very first day of school. I knew some of the kids in my class, but not all. I didn't know who was supposed to be sitting next to me on the left side (I can still remember which side - but what did I eat for lunch last Tuesday?), because this unknown individual was late.

But in a few minutes this person did show up. It was the most attractive girl! Just my luck! Sort of. You see, fellow bloggers, this was Susan Heideke, and I had already heard a lot about her, from my friend down the street.

I lived a couple of blocks from John. He became my first friend when we moved there. It turned out that John had previously had a girlfriend (John seemed to be fearless when it came to girls) and it happened to be Susan. Of course this was rather young kid stuff, but you know, looking back on it, some parts of it seemed like kid stuff, and some of it did not. To a great extent it seemed just like relationship stuff, except that kids have extreme limitations on them.

But back to the first 5 minutes of meeting Susan ... I was simply stunned by her. I think this was the first time I was completely overwhelmed by a woman in my life. She was really something else! Of course I was only 12 and what could I do? And ... there was the situation with my friend John.

I made, what I decided later was sort of a mistake and told him all about how I felt about Susan. And you know he didn't seem to keep any of it to himself. It horrified me at the time, because I just could not deal with the situation. It wasn't like I had a car - I couldn't ask her on a date, but I remember sitting around my house wishing I could.

And things around my house were none too great between me and my father anyway. He did not like the direction I was taking in life. I spent a lot of time by myself. I didn't have too many friends. I wanted to build plastic models most of the time. I was already basically an obsessed artist, just didn't quite know it. So my father was determined that I would be in sports and in Boy Scouts.

I didn't really shine in either of those, but when your father is in your face BIG TIME to make certain you become an Eagle Scout, it does eventually happen.

And I am off the track of this post again, partly because there is not really much of a track to be on.

There were a couple of times when I got to hang out with Susan, and that was it. They were at school of course. By the next year at O'Henry junior high, things were really going off the rails emotionally for me. I think that a big part of it was because I knew that the family was going to move back to Lubbock again, and I just couldn't get close to anyone because in my mind it would be hopeless.

So, even though Susan was in one of my classes, I just blew her off. I blew everyone off basically. But it was worse with her. I would not have been able to deal with all the really strong emotions, which were there ... and of course the family was moving away really soon.

Now it is over 40 years later! I can hardly believe it. It seems to bother me that so many years have passed, and things from way back still sometimes come up. Like this. I've been married, and now divorced. I had an art career, which is looking promising again... and other things are happening as they alway are.

So many things have passed under the bridge since the Austin years for me. Many wonderful things. Many not so wonderful. And the majority have probably passed unnoticed and unremembered. But overall it has been a truly spiritual path for me.

Yet, even after all this time, and so many years, still I sometimes think about this young woman whom I so briefly knew and really didn't know very well at all. Susan Heideke. It is an unrequited "thing" from my early life that seems to just "be there." What a strange trip life can be.

Brand new domain name!

It's about time I did this! Now Wrecktangles blog is www.wrecktangles.com

I am feeling really good about this decision. I think this blog is starting to head in a definite direction now. I believe that direction is NNE. ha ha

In the last two days I have set up mobile posting and established the domain name "wrecktangles.com"

What is missing...oh yeah...some new poems, art and really "readable" posts.

I could do that.

Very Late Now - Just Needed to Post

Sometimes, I think I need to just keep myself in the posting habit. There have been long periods when I let Wrecktangles slide, and I regret that. I have poetry to write, and it will not happen unless I maintain a habit of frequenting this blog.

So even though I have been at the web designing all weekend, I need to post a reminder, if only to myself, to keep my attention here, and give my poetic vision a chance for expression.

It will happen if I let it.

As I type, I can feel the energy starting to flow. Unfortunately, it is too late now, and I have to report for day job duty. Perhaps tomorrow I can reserve some time to let the energy flow this direction.

My Enemy? My Friend?

I am publishing a fuzzy logic post this am. Partly because I have been sleeping on the couch, to try to help my cat Alex, not feel lonely. I guess that's what he feels when I use my nice comfortable bed.

I close the door, and that doesn't please him. It's to keep him off me. (he weighs almost 20 pounds, and still thinks he can climb on top of me like he's a kitten, I guess). But I like to breathe, and sleep at night!

Anyway, for a long time, he has has taken to pounding on the door when he has had enough of me being in the room with him shut out. And you would be surprised how loud he can pound! All efforts to stop the pounding (yelling, spraying with a spray bottle, etc.) have failed. So, I'm on the couch, which isn't too bad. I used to sleep on it a lot, because I liked to watch TV to fall asleep.

If anyone is still reading along with me, I promise to get to "it" now.

I mean the "other" fuzziness of this post. Yes, it's a double fuzzy!

I work in a woodshop, for 4 hours at night. It's not all I do, but it's the current fuzzy. The woodshop supervisor is named Bob. Which happens to be the name he "took" from me! Don't even ask how that happened, since he is 15 years older than I am!

It's fuzzy, remember?

After the Christmas Holidays, things got tricky between me (the original and true Bob) and that other Bob. He thinks the office computer is his. Has double password protection on it. Was giving me the passwords. Long story this, about how I was using the computer for my "own" things, such as internet surfing, etc. Not totally cool on a state school computer. Even though it isn't all that much of a problem.

I was subbing for him for a couple of days, and I needed to use the computer for a big assignment the real boss gave me. I forgot about that double password. So I mistakenly thought the computer was having a problem, and I called our tech people.

I won't go any further into this issue here, except to say that I no longer "am allowed" to use that computer. "Bob" will not let me. Now he has cleaning and various tasks for me to do instead.

This was not something I was totally happy about. It is not exactly his computer. But the admin upstairs said that it is his section. So I was sort of stuck.

And I might have forgotten to mention that a certain someone does not allow cellphones, ipods, radios, basically anything down in the woodshop. All these things came together in my head and created my fuzzy issue.

If you have read any of the preceding posts, you will see that some things happened to me from inside - not all bad.

I now have an mp3 player and a cellphone. And I wrote myself a mobi website. And a major catalyst of all of this was that other Bob Guy. So how do I relate to him? I had to get through some resentment. But now I feel like a new person in several ways. I not only have the new robertterrell.mobi website. I also got the artinfosite.info website up and running.

Some of the changes were already in the works, but he certainly played his part! A higher logic is in play here. Logic is not quite the word. Not from my perspective down here. It's fuzzy for me.

I was thinking yesterday that I know I have big plans for some things in my life. Or I know that there "are" big plans still to come. Only I don't quite know what they are. Perhaps I need to go "bug" Woodshop Bob so he will lay some of his unfriendly vibes on me! I perceived them as unfriendly, but my reaction to them - the overall net result for me - has been quite, unexpectedly positive.

I need more "enemies" like that! haha

A Visit to Mobi Town

What an exciting time this is for a simple XHTML coderman such as yours truly! haha Just in the last few days - really just a couple - a new dot mobi has appeared! You can find it on a cellphone near you:

robertterrell.mobi

It is just taking shape now - and a nice shape it is starting to take, I think. Just when I thought that the good dot-coms were all grabbed up by the dot-com gold rush speculators ... I realize that there is new territory in Mobi, Oklahoma. hahahaha

And I aim ta get myself a little plot of e-land there!

My little .mobi is titled: Abstract Art of Robert Terrell. Yes, it's a cellphone version of my abstract website. Not a miniature version. I intend to make it a true .mobi. NOT a dwarf version of my "real" website. I intend to give it a real .mobi personality. Whatever that means in its entirety and ultimately.

And I have big plans for tiny screens (and computer screens, too). I intend to create mo' mobi's.

You have been warned!