May 10 2008 02:57 pm
It's hot today..., but it's mercifully quiet. It's hot today, but today is
quite manageable.
Yesterday, I worked through the morning, came home and slept awakened, ate a
peanut butter sandwich that was... large and in charge..., called Monica...,
determined that yes, she could drive me to Mike's..., talked to M the ex for a
few minutes..., wondered how some things that have been in process of
resolution for quite some time will ever in fact resolve..., went downstairs,
was soon in Monica's car and laughing with her on the way to the gig..., was
even sooner, so it seemed... at the gig.
I should have been tired. I should have been anxious about whether or not I'd
be able to sleep what with all the odd hours and sleep deprivation I've had
lately...
But I must have forgotten to worry. I just sang...
I probably ended up playing too much harp in some of the songs, but nobody
much complained about it.
It was a good night.
Bob came as did his niece Rebecca...

And afterward..., he brought me home such that I was back here around one...
and winding down to go to bed a little later.
This morning, I went with A the younger to eat... and to run the sorts of
errands that would render me no longer "out of vitamins" and other sundries
I'd been lacking the past few days.
I'm back home now... having practiced the harmonica a little and am probably
spoiling for a nap later.
There is much that probably needs saying... But today is hot... merciful...
manageable. I'll say the needful things another day...
"God, keep us from needless angst! Thank you for pleasantries that eclipse
their opposites! Amen",
UnAsked4

May 09 2008 06:02:38 AM
Well.... There are things happening... Should I say more?
Yesterday at work was full of people seeking exit from the valley of
decision. They'd call me.
They'd say...
"Brother un! We're walking through this long, narrow valley, don't you
see? And we wish there was some way out of it without us having to do
all this walking, the same walking we find to be... well.. most
inconvenient."...
And I'd listen..., having heard this all before, lo now these three
years... And I'd say...
"I understand, but I have no authority to get you out of this long,
narrow, dark valley."...
And they'd say...
"Your name is on all these courses. How could you not have authority to
release us from this, our inconvenience?"....
And I'd say...
"Yea, though my name is on those courses, the particular use of these
courses that have you walking that long, narrow valley is beyond my
purview/scope."...
And they'd say...
"slash?"...
And I'd say...
"Slashing won't get you out of that valley! You'll have to walk... as
did your predecessors last year... And the ones before them the year
before."...

And the pleading, reverential tone they'd first attempted to employ...
would become sullen and petulant... And they'd say..
"Who's your supervisor?"...
And I'd tell them who my supervisor was...
And they'd say...
"Well, I think I just might have a little talk with Ms. Melkonian."...
And I'd say...
"She'll like that... as she's a talker. I seem somehow drawn to
such."...
And they'd burst into telephonically verifiable tears, lost without a
bluff or a threat to move me...
And I'd feel a little bad, but at the same time, an expression would
doubtless steal over such of my face as isn't hidden by my beard. And
I'd be praying, as I noticed, that that facial expression of mine was
more a smile than a smug smirk... and they'd tear themselves away from
not only telephonically verifiable tears, but from all telephonic
connection... and they'd be left in that valley, unaware of their fellow
sufferers, all alone as it seemed to them... And I'd attempt to
discharge such duties as I might before one of their fellows should call
me again and repeat the whole sad adventure.

So I was conciliatory to the short white man from Arkansas, as I've had
to cut him off in mid-telephonic rant a lot lately... And for my
troubles, I got a full telephonic rant... in which he lamented his
manager's treatment of himself... and he lamented his health,
deteriorating as it is... and he lamented the medicine he has to use to
prevent his blood from clotting... the said medicine composed of the
active ingredient in most rat poisons... And he finally rang off just
in time for me to get on another call where the lady V from the ELMS
staff has finally backed the most wicked irksome group of contractors,
General Physics... into actually doing what they've been paid to do for
the past four years...
I was proud of her. I was proud of how, despite a gracious veneer,
she'd thought of a strategy leaving them no means of wriggling free, of
delaying, of equivocating themselves out of the necessity for (It's
everywhere today!) verifiable result.

After that call, there were more from the valley of security training.
They've had all year. We love them... But we can't airlift them out of
that valley.
J S called me just as I was leaving.
"Brad, I'm impatient!!"...
Says I, with no true eye to bat and thus, not batting an eye...
"You should seek therapy!"...
She was flustered... And then, she had to laugh...
She too, sought, if not complete rescue from, at least a shorter, an
effortless path... through that valley.
We'll do what we can for her, and we won't much resent how she had
imagined that because of former associations/acquaintance with J the
second ex, I might deal with her leniently...
I have no authority/position/facility for dispensation of leniency.
Should I tell them all to pray?

Does it matter...? Should I mention...? Nilza and Gwyn are at it
again... A conversation about family... about someone's sister...
And her voice has just gone that octave higher, the heightened octave
itself accompanied by a definite rise in amplitude...
But after work, after riding home with Slightly-Chipped-Of-Shoulder
Lawrence, and more heavily-chipped-of-shoulder
Tony-on-the-books-as-Jose, I went with J to her house for a glass of
wine, and from thence to the Lucky Lounge to meet up with the family F
and to listen to Ian MacLagan.
The show was good, despite a few issues he seemed to have with his vocal
mic...
Afterward, we went to Magnolia Cafe where we all regaled one another
with anecdotes about the ridiculous exploits of employees past and present.
It was a bit sobering (as were the three cups of coffee I ingested to
counteract the possibility of headache introduced by the two beers I had
at the Lucky Lounge) to hear J of the family F describe various
people's health problems I didn't know anything about.
J the second ex was long-winded and unfocused in her attempts to join in
the anecdotal humor... and was later, obsessive about the price of the
meal, the tip, the entitlement of change... until I finally said, as she
was asking if it was at all right... "Don't worry about it."...
I think I stung her just a little as I'd given her four dollars to which
she probably wasn't really entitled just to get her off that (for me)
boring subject... But there was no lingering difficulty and I got home
around ten-fifteen where I was soon pleased to go to bed for a short
while.

I was up around three-thirty... Drank yet more coffee, the same
legal-but-reckless habit certainly in a pattern of escalation this
week... Showering was followed by the brushing of teeth, the donning of
clothes, a last cup of coffee, a walk down the stairs... and soon, a
ride to work with Prissy T and Chatty P, themselves talking up a Friday
mood...
And now? Here I am, having just gotten off a long, essentially
pessimistic call from poor M C, himself marooned in Atlanta, and
experiencing digestive discomfort from some chance burger he ate last
night... and himself feeling that our organization might be
intentionally whittled down for a final cutting away in some future
reorganization...
It certainly could happen, but when he's been traveling, as he has for
the past two weeks, life always strikes him as worse than it really
is...
He asked me to read some documents and to communicate to him, my opinion
of what those documents might imply...

Once home, it is my hope that I'll be able to sleep a little this
afternoon in order to be able to prosecute my singing at tonight's gig
at Mike's house.
Bob said he's coming, but later, and he told me another story I might
share later which alarmed me a little as it has a direct bearing on his
possibly deteriorating physical health...
"God, bless them all through the valleys they must walk. Thank you for
my connections with humanity, and may they grow ever deeper and more
meaningful. Heal such sadness as I see, and such sadness as i don't.
Amen",
UnAsked4

May 08 2008 06:00:18 AM
An over-write from a year ago tomorrow says something unfortunate
happened tomorrow afternoon a year ago.
I remember.
"We still remember"...
And I? I'm somehow out of phase.
I'm not wandering down some abject unbroken line of depression. I'm not
falling through some undefined abyss into some awaiting pit below.
I'm not dead. I've apparently showered, if not more recently, at least
to better over-all effect than had Chatty P when we rode to work
together this morning in the car full of hot air and HipHop radio.
But.. I'm out of vitamins. I'm out of apples. I'm somehow... out of
sync...
And as all that is unfolding...
I find, I'm suddenly busy. I'm suddenly obligated off and on for the
next several days.
Tonight, J asked me to go with her to see Ian McLagan (We'll render his
name thusly this time and I won't check for it's correctness as I can
never remember just how it should be.) and then to go eat with her and
the family F at the Magnolia cafe.
Since I opted out of Monday, I said yes.
On friday, I have a gig with Running with Scissors at Mike's house.
Saturday hasn't asked yet... But... on Sunday...
The girls are taking M the ex to brunch at the CheeseCake factory. L
the eldest asked me if I'd go as "Mommy really likes it when we all get
together."...
So, I said yes...
Then, yesterday, J called me at work. I was in the middle of crafting a
guarded response to a loaded question from one of the many uncooperative
operatives in the CyberSecurity section I "support"...
She said...
"You don't have to do this if you don't want to"...
Somehow, I knew what she was going to ask... and I knew I'd do it...
"I thought"... said she... "Instead of just going up there... and
eatin' lunch with mother... that maybe I'd bring her over here for a
little while... and we could get Chinese... Would you mind?"...
Says I... "No, that's fine."...
J's mother doesn't know we are divorced. J's mother might not be able
to tell you if asked what J's husband's name was/is. J's mother hardly
knows what's happening anywhere in the world.
But she'll enjoy it if it doesn't last too long and if J can hold her
tongue...

So, on Sunday afternoon, I'll call my mother and thus... "Mommy"...
"Mother"... and "Momma" will all be addressed and "properly"
acknowledged for their contributions to our immediate sphere of
influence.
In all this, I guess I'll refrain from mentioning to any of them... how
I'm out of sync/apples/vitamins. I might prevail upon A the younger to
help me back into some sort of syncronicity... maybe on Saturday..
As I write this... As I delay my immersion into the Stygian depths of
work... a lady named Nilza is chattering incessantly to her
friend/co-worker Gwyn...
I need to adopt a more sunny reception of people's connections, but they
both have a habit/penchant/likelihood to talk loud, to talk long, to
talk often... about !!anything!!!
This lady... Nilza... actually has a pretty enough speaking voice...
But when that voice so often cuts through the atmosphere, the atmosphere
can't help but be fragmented after a while.
They both rate lower on the laugh scale, (Gwyn and Nilza) as they tend
to jump up about an octave and a half above their normal conversational
pitches with the result that they sound like mischievous birds in
blighted trees in some urban setting frequented by people who might be
participating in some HipHop morning show being beamed into a car full
of hot air and less-than-effectively-washed passengers.

(Nilza currently laments "over-active children"...)

And far away... where nothing I do might make a difference... someone is
very sad. When I saw, I was sad for her... My sadness, unlike her own,
hung not on any specific detail... but was a response to her own obvious
sadness...
Was the distance between two hemispheres sad too? How about the oceans?
Further away than even India!!
So I should close this one out now. I could keep writing until Nilza
and Gwyn stop their morning show which certainly hops from topic to
topic but seems somehow hardly hip... but I'd better take some semblance
of a high road out of this funk and get to work.
"God, don't spare me when I'm like this! If I won't attain to an inner
sunrise on my own, show me! show me!! show me!! until I see how my sky
has so few clouds and I'm once again attempting to be gracious toward
others! Amen",
UnAsked4

May 07 2008 06:12:39 AM
Really? Yes... really!!
How unusual...!
Yes! Unusual enough, all right!!
So I didn't sleep much at all last night.
I'd try. I lay very still...
But after work, I went over to M the ex's house to "fix her computer".
I uninstalled the JAWS (Jobs accessed with speech) software we use to
read our screens, re-installed the software... and still got... the same
odd result.
I've tried to gently hint to her that it's something in her computer,
and that she'd be better off in terms of desirable result to have a
real technician come out and fix it.
Said she..., "It's something in all those updates..."...
But we had... a nice enough visit and i was thankful once again that
despite two divorces, I manage to stay on good terms with those from
whom I am, by my own volition divorced.
Maybe I've observed before... that... when growing up, (or certainly
trying to...) I used to think Jesus's remonstrance against divorce was
harsh and that it (the remonstrance) came from a place of anger.
I have lived to change my mind! I think Jesus spoke so vehemently about
divorce because he hated to see anyone going through it. Now, as we
were taught, the circumstances of some of those divorces in his day left
eh women destitute... But when he said that about "From the beginning,
it was not so."... I think he meant that more as a sign of man's
pitiable fallen state than he meant to present himself as angry.

But, as I say, I am more fortunate than many people I know because I am
welcome in the houses of both my ex-wives.
Many people, even my friends, (not Bob and Ted, but certainly M C) will
laugh... or insinuate indecent things... or just say... "That's weird
to me!!"...
But I wanted it that way... and that's for me, the way it is...
He must be psychic... that is, M C... As I was winding up that last
sentence, he called me, this time, from Atlanta to see what's happening.
He's a genuine friend, but when I'm tired, as I'm certainly tired today,
everything that isn't just so makes me a little impatient... like the
way the telephone kept breaking up the first and last phoneme of every
word he uttered... "chopping" off his consonants... (Rendering him
inconsanant????)
But back to why I didn't sleep much.. M the ex offered me coffee for my
troubles with her computer.
I knew better, but it was so good...
Once home, around eight-thirty, I dashed off a quick email to Michael
Rubin to let him know I'd registered for the harmonica workshop.
He said advanced sign-up was low and he wasn't sure it was going to
"make".
I felt sad for him. He's at once, sincere, practical... and somehow,
genuinely spiritual.
And what, pray tell, might I at all mean by "genuinely spiritual"?
I probably mean that somehow, I can see his spirit strivings, and not
content with being able to "see" such strivings, I presume to pass
judgment on his strivings as genuine while someone's strivings I can't
see.. say... like the other Michael I know, my friend M C... well, I say
of him often that he seems not to have a spiritual side...
Maybe after all, his fondness of me is his spiritual striving/trial.
I'm probably a trying enough "team member".

Ah, but once home, I lay down, tried to sleep, slept fitfully, awoke,
was hot, went briefly back into that light sleep that might as well be
no sleep at all, arose around one-thirty, resumed my reading India's
history, got all the way up to Harsha... stopped long enough to Google
"Saint Thomas in India"..., got several hits, some passing on a legend
of Saint Thomas first not wanting to go to India, then having a vision
from Jesus directing him to go anyway, having him then follow some
ambassador and founding a large Christian community there... at which
point the legend broke off and was replaced by commentary on several
endings, some of them decidedly more unhappy than others.
(One had him martyred; Another had him dying in peace.)
I then did more searching... more finding out... took a shower...
dressed... (You're certainly welcome!)... made lunch... had more coffee
as I knew today would surely be a long one... walked out... hadn't long
to wait as Prissy T had to run the route in reverse because of some
strange pick-up "Dispatch" had given him... and arrived at work only
five minutes late despite his having to rearrange his route.
It's very breezy today... and somehow, it was affecting everyone's
conversation/mood in the car. Chatty P was extra-chatty... and as we
drove north to retrieve a characteristically disgruntled Jerry, I
couldn't' help but be put in mind of how close we were to the abode of
the queen...
But I was gracious to everyone...and didn't surrender to impatience or
fatigue and I'm certainly thankful for that.

And now? Here I am... with a man who has always reminded me of a
cockroach because of his tenacity "breathing out threatenings and
slaughter" against me...
But my boss knows... And his boss should know... And I'm sure I'll rise
to the challenge of composing an explanatory email that deals not with
his personality and its resemblance to a cockroach's tenacity, but with
why I wasn't able to do what he was asking me to do...
Once I suggest that "policy" and not my own inherent distaste for his
modus operandi prevents me from granting him his wish, I think we'll all
live through the furor and get on to the next one.
(He wants to claim having read a book as "training"... Policy doesn't
sanction such a thing...)

"God, bless anyone I might have harmed through my two divorces. Bless M
C and his spiritual side. Bless Michael Rubin with success. Bless
Agnes, who ever she is. Give us strength to be gracious when our bodies
are tired and our minds are put off center from fatigue and caffeine.
Amen",
UnAsked4

May 06 2008 06:15:24 AM
An over-write from a year ago was full of angst. I was wrong about a
lot of things. Things I used to worry about didn't come to pass.
I didn't go see J yesterday after work. I begged off. There was a catch
in her voice suggesting she wasn't happy. I didn't feel good.
My ears... My stomach... My... soul??
I just wasn't up for it. I came home, slept, arose, ate, sat briefly as
if to begin... something... got up with purpose... went in the
bathroom... flossed my teeth... brushed my teeth... drank some water...
and went to bed.
I was sad inside. I felt bad for not going to see J, but worse still
for the mood that was upon me.
Sometimes, things all seem doable. Things, no matter how many... seem
like you can mentally place them... It feels like references, once
established will be dependable the next time you need some part of the
brain that decides what's current to access something that might be
sitting/waiting in the background for its brief moment in the cerebral
spotlight.
But I wasn't feeling that yesterday. Had I been a brain surgeon, I
would have had to postpone all surgeries, lest I forget how the brain
was wired and re-connect it all up the wrong way.
Had I been a soldier, I would have had to call off the war lest I
orchestrate/prosecute the battle such that the enemy would benefit.
And had I been on the way through India, well.. I would have ended my
tour less informed than at its outset.
So I slept... And awakened, having slept so much, at the wee hour of
one-thirty.

I arose, feeling somehow... cleaner???
I put on a load of laundry, read about the Honker Harmonica mic... drank
coffee, talked to fat Zeus who arose with me... sent a message to a
lady's post about ethics... took a shower..., drank more coffee and went
out the door and down the stairs to await my ride to work.
I hadn't long to wait. Everyone was in a good enough mood, I guess. I
felt... "semi-detached"... but still able to... if not contribute, at
least acknowledge that a conversation was being had.
I was sad to see a friend far away sounding so sad. Is she sad? Or
just stressed?
"Burned out"?
I don't know, but still, we pray for her betterment.
I won't have a harmonica lesson this week, again, mainly because I can't
afford it.
This month's financing will be interesting. I'm still not exactly sure
what will happen, but I suspect a way through the scary valley of
amounts and accounts will be made.
I found out yesterday a class I was supposed to attend isn't going to
happen this month.
I also found out that many normally loud people are out of the office so
the next few days will be quiet like they haven't been in a !!long!!
time.

"God, help me through times like these when things seem to want to get a
little too still! Keep me mindful of all the beautiful symbolism in the
Resurrection! Bless anyone who is so sad as to say what she said.
Bless J the ex! Bless me in my dealings with M the ex today. Bless
India! Bless the people in the cars I ride in! Thank you for the mixed
comfort I'm given from fat old Zeus! Bless Ted on his trip to Alabama!
Thank you for the peace and quiet that now seems to establish itself
like an active force here in the office. Keep me sincere! Amen",
UnAsked4

May 05 2008 06:02:14 AM
Another over-write... from tomorrow three years ago.
Some things change. Others never change. Buddhism would not readily
agree with that one, I think.
So the periods of being asleep and wakeful came and went all night.
I've probably been more or less awake since a quarter to three, but it's
hard to have any perspective on all that since I essentially spent the
whole of yesterday between long reads... and short naps.
It's "muggy" this morning. Prissy T lamented the weather. Chatty P was
back having moved into her temporary quarters while they remodel her
apartment.
The banter was somehow less lovable this morning. I wasn't much into
it.
And now? A long day today? Who knows?
What time is it in India? Everywhere in India? How many time zones?
Are there any people who would talk to me if I inexplicably rode some
current of undetected wind and was transported thither and then landed
safely in some city, that city teeming with people who knew what was
what about where they lived.
No..., I'm too tired to even think what might happen then.
Back on Sam-E. But for now, it's for the best. I looked at my
financial picture this morning... and that's one graphic picture.
I wouldn't want little children to be exposed to those numbers and the
columns they're all lining up under.
So I should go now and earn such money as will be shortly forthcoming.
"God, keep us from pointless worrying about things that needn't be
worried about! Remind me how often a way through has appeared when I
was patient and didn't accuse those whom I'm trying to help of
ingratitude. Amen",
UnAsked4

May 05 2008 01:26 am
So it's late... and it's early... all at once!
I spent a strange Sunday in that I read, napped, read some more, napped some
more, had supper, read, napped... and now...
India has sprung from informed prehistoric speculation... into verifiable
dates and facts.
The scanning that brought this book into a format I might read... rendered the
emperor Asoka as... Anoka, Agoka, Aoka, Moka... but I still got the gist of
the story...
So I lay down. I arose again and read. I listened to some music.
I had decided to try laying down again as the rain that was falling earlier
has stopped.
Says I..., "One more song and I'll turn off the computer and go try to
sleep."...
It was Judy Collins - Spanish is a loving tongue.
Do we not feel foolish when romantic songs make us sad? I do.
Of course, I thought about the queen. I thought how when she called on
Wednesday and left a message, I could hear the doves.

Do they have mourning doves in India? Does someone there react to that sound
the same way I do?
Will that person's life be covered in detailed narrative in "The Oxford
History Of India... Umpteenth Edition"...?

"God, thank you for reading as a diversion. Thank you for experiences of all
kinds as means of imparting instruction. Show me what my present state of
mind means that I might be instructed. Amen",
UnAsked4

May 04 2008 04:24 pm
It's strange to suddenly remember what used to be I's phone number! It's
strange that I've felt so disconnected from reality all weekend.
It was strange to confront, head-on, my relative ignorance of India.
(I read Vamshavikshra... and realized... I was ignorant!!)
But, strangely or not, the weekend has come and now almost gone.
I saw A the younger yesterday. We went, retrieved M the ex and ate lunch.
Both M and A had hoped for breakfast, but Waterloo IceHouse stops serving
breakfast around 1 on Saturdays and 2 on Sundays.
A the younger and M the ex... were loath to let this one drop. But we had
lunch and I hope they enjoyed it after all.

I've hardly spoken to anyone this weekend. I started to call the queen, maybe
I even left a message on Friday, but not since.

I've thought a lot about music this weekend. I played a little guitar, but
otherwise, I just thought.
I know part of the reason for my relative inactivity is that I ran out of the
results of French research, and elected, for the time being... not to order
more.
So I've changed my token "anti-depressant" from Adrafanil (the results of
French research) to Sam-E.
The Sam-E is seemingly more deservingly given the designation
"anti-depressant", but the Adrafanil seems to do more for the mind itself.
Such meaningless splitting of hairs has me wishing I could live without using
any such "anti-depressant", but as they say so often, "I'm not there, yet"...

Maybe I just need stronger coffee. Maybe it's exercise that's missing.
Maybe, if I knew more about India, or if I had something to do musically every
living day from here on out, I'd be perky whether or not "perk" was warranted
and never tired or sleepy or apt to stay in bed when I should get up.
But "I'm here still!", so "I'm not there yet"...
It was good to hear back from you. I read your entry. Yes, Dylan..., when
you're sad... But then again, Dylan when you're just as happy too!!

So what about India again?
I like the surnames. But I can't keep regions separate in my mind. Northern
India... Dravidian"... Deccan...
South...? I'm not sure. It's all mysterious. It's all far away. It's all a
part of something I haven't been taught.
I need to practice the harmonica. Would I be able to do that in India? Would
I have to buy the harmonicas that come from China/Japan if I were in India,
aspiring, as I sometimes say I am, to learn the harmonica?
You see, I can't even talk about India without question marks popping up
everywhere.

The two ladies who leave IRS every day about the same time I do might be from
India. Or, they might be from New Mexico via South Vietnam, I don't' know.
The one lady, the seeming leader in all things competent of the two... has
that serenity in her voice that we in the west tend to insist must hang over
all voices that come from Asia.
We could perform an indecent experiment. We could confront her one day and
say...
"After examining all the evidence at my disposal, I have determined, beyond
reasonable doubt that you stole my leopard! Give him back please!!"...
She'd first say... "I think you're mistaken; I've never stolen anyone's
leopard."...
Then, I'd lapse into that same silliness that used to so annoy L the eldest
such as...
"You stole him and you know it. You know it and you stole him. No amount of
protestation could affect a transformation!! Now give him back this instant
or I'll wish you had've."...
But what if she really were possessed of the serenity we think we might hear
in people's voices sometimes? What if that serenity held? What if it
influenced me, the conductor of the heinous experiment?
Or, what if, as in keeping with the sort of luck that tends to follow those of
us who have run out of the results of French research..., her serenity was
indeed a flimsy cover over a pot boiling with anger, seething with rage, bubbling
with wickedness of a lust for violence?
What if I said that one wrong word... "transformation"... and what if, upon
hearing that word, she lashed out like a depraved cyclone of confrontative
aggression.
What if she, after brushing her friend aside, that same friend having sought
vainly to calm her down, what if she then, I say... said to me...
"Listen you blind thief of exotic game! Don't try to suggest that I stole
your leopard when the poor leopard was never yours to begin with.
All you ever had in the way of big cats was that fat old Siamese, mentally
deficient Zeus, the same having been foisted upon you by your enterprising
oldest daughter who seldom if ever thinks beyond the end of her nose... Oh and
yes, her Anglo nose, at that."...
So then, what if that security guard A who sounds as if he might work for the
CIA had to intervene?
He'd say, in that flat, mechanical voice.
"Brad, is there a problem?"...
Then she, after having cast aside that seeming mantle of serenity would turn
on him and say...
"Why are you asking him if there's a problem when he's so obviously The!!
problem?"...
I'd be so embarrassed at my experiment gone awry.
"Well you see..., I was attempting to find out if her serenity was real... or
if it was just an affectation, or if she in fact had no serenity at all."..
CIA A would say... "Well Brad, couldn't you just have asked her? I mean about
the serenity thing?"
And I'd say...
"Well, a lot of people don't even know they seem serene, and I was just
assuming she wouldn't know as she's so often calming/directing her other
friend."...
He'd lower his voice such that only elephants or I could hear it and say...
"That's weird Brad; How'd you like to come with me for a quick trip to the
shock treatment booth where I'm sure all this will straighten itself out?"...
She'd say, as she signaled her friend to follow her to the car... "A perfectly
good waste of precious electricity, if you're asking me."...
I'd say sheepishly as CIA A was leading me away. "Tell my leopard I miss him,
you wanton robberess!!"...
Soon, umpteen thousand volts, judiciously applied... would clear the temples
of all possibilities of divinity and I'd be on my way home in a car full of people
like me with Slightly Chipped of Shoulder Lawrence having forgotten about
serenity and whether or not it might be at all real.

So maybe that's not the way to find anything out.
So, as it's five-ish now, maybe I'll close and wash some clothes. Maybe, as
the clothes wash, I'll close my mind to all else but reading "The Oxford
History Of India" (fourth edition) so that in some future, my ignorance of
India might be somewhat abated.
And maybe I'll be able to have a sensible conversation with that lady some day
with my side of the conversation being full of facts about India... And maybe
I'll sneak the conversation around to a love of cats... and just maybe... I'll
say sweetly as my ride is pulling up...
"Looks like a good day to perform a leopardectomy, eh?"...
It's suddenly hot in here! Maybe some insufferable heat of the blood has
caught the bones on fire! I'll go have some water now.
"God, bless us in whimsy and in reality! Amen",
UnAsked4

May 03 2008 05:04 pm
India?
How far away is that?
Where is India?
Has anyone seen India?
Will India be joining us?
What does India think?
Don't forget to ask India!
Has India weighed in?
What time is India coming?
May I go with you to meet India?
Do we have the sorts of things here India will like?

Has India ever come to visit anyone else we know?
Should we ask them?
Will India strike us as more male or female?
Fine then! Will she fancy her own room, or shall she sleep with one of our
female family members?
Will India mind the cats?
We won't be so boorish as to take India to a place that serves beef.
How did she come to think so highly of the cow?
Why, as Bill C observes... is it easier for westerners to listen to music from
Indian musicians than it is for westerners to listen to Turkish musicians
playing Turkish music?
Was George Harrison secretly in love with India?
Was it India who told George Harrison that the most important thing on earth
was to "seek God"?
Do we have any real sense of the history of India?
Why were the anthroposophists so obsessed with India?
How do armies justify fighting in India?
Are soldiers who have had to fight in India altered forever for the worse by
that experience?
Was Rudyard Kipling secretly in love with India long before the birth of
George Harrison?
Are the two ladies who leave work about the same time as I do from India?
What is the nature of the bond between the two ladies?
Does India gossip about its own?
Does India ever shed light on the secrets of those unfamiliar to itself?
Do people in India use kratom to relax?
Do pornographers stalk the weaker aspects of India? Do such cruel stalkers
carry off the unsuspecting? Do the carried off unsuspecting get lured into
lives of abject decadence?
Are there places in India where the poor stand around idly by fires fueled by
animal excrement?
How might I be most respectful to India?
Have many American jobs been "out-sourced" to India?

Are the days of automatically assuming India's subservient acquiescence to any
other idea gone forever?

Have you seen India today? Did she say where on earth she was going?
Are there Muslims in India? Are there Hindus in India? Are there people born
in Alabama who might live and die in India?
Are there golden days like today anywhere at all in India?
Is it possible to go far enough back in time... far back enough in time... to
feel the beginnings of what later defined itself as India?
Will India one day resurrect? Has India ever had a golden spring?

Who was the young lady in the Albert Brooks movie?
"God, bless the authors of books about India! Grant them a more profound
result than my many questions! Amen",
UnAsked4

May 02 2008 05:51:00 AM
Another day in May. I read an over-write from a year ago. Maybe the
weather was somehow similar... that is, humid... breezy... sometimes
rainy.
It might rain today. I might receive the rain if it falls and I should
notice.
Yesterday had me quite tired from a sparsity of sleep.
"Sparsity"? "Scarcity"? I guess "sparsity" would refer to me... and
"scarcity" would be nobody getting any sleep, right?
So I worked as best I might. I rode home... a long ride as we had to
wait on a man at the Veterans Administration who came out "exactly on
time".
(Among those of us who ride Special Transit, prevailing etiquette says
one should come out early if one at all can. To come out on time,
especially when one's choice to come out "on time" has other waiting is
a variably forgivable/forgiven breech of rider's protocol.)
Poor Christopher was back, but we must make a confession now.
We have, since our having first met this unfortunate intersection of
handicap and paucity of socialization, consistently misspelled his first
name.
It's "Kristopher"...

So the man from the Veterans Administration and
Slightly-Chipped-Of-Shoulder-Lawrence got into an absolutely engaging
discussion of the current state of things, of the war in Iraq, of the
miraculously risen price of gasoline, of this, that and of course, the
other thing.
The man from the Veterans Administration allowed as how he was Jewish,
and further admitted to being "Pro-Israeli"...
This baring of his soul prompted a sympathetic response from Kristopher
who said... "Me too. You know... I've read the Old Testament and the
New Testament and, well, there's a lot of history in there."...
Now you'd think, what with your brother Un's having also read those
Testaments, he might have wanted to respond somehow, to find purchase in
this veritable lake of profundity now forming from a chance encounter
between two intellectual titans, but I said... nothing at all...

Once home, I attended to a call of nature, checked email and took a nap.
Once up from that, I ate supper, wondered how early of a night I might
make of it, began reading "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In the Night
Time, was at once enthralled ans saddened by that book, went to bed
early, slept until around one-thirty and have been up ever since,
reading and listening to music.
I saw J yesterday briefly at work. I signed another form, in the
presence of a notary, the same giving her even more exclusivity of
rights to the house.
We are divorced now, but she wants to change her surname as Trainham is
so often misspelled. To that end, there was something I had to sign.
I saw Mary who hates being called Mary yesterday. She's in a rough spot
as ongoing construction on her house is about to stress her out.
Meanwhile, her dog is sick and has but a finite time to live.
Not that we, as well humans don't also have but a finite time to live,
but it's sad as her dog's time to live is even... "finiter"???
And I talked to lots of people. The short white man from Arkansas, his
boss, my boss, M C, a man who seems to be revered/respected by everyone
else but who gets on my nerves because of his slowness of getting to the
point of what he needs... And I'm sure there were others.
And now? It's Friday... Maybe it's rainy out. Maybe not.
"God, bless the weather. Bless certainty when we have it and bless our
ability to get along without certainty when we don't have it! Amen",
UnAsked4