Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Of Javier and "WoW"

Javier casually tosses the shoebox full of mewing kittens to the ground. It sits now almost at my feet. If I could somehow distract him, just for a second, for one lousy second. One lousy second later, a car alarm pierces the air and Javier looks around quickly, like a frightened koala, vainly trying to ascertain the source of the hideous sound. At the age of 39, Javier had heard countless car alarms, and his reaction was the same each time; horrified confusion. He had an IQ of 49.

Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed the shoebox and ducked behind a lettuce factory. Javier was on his feet now, and coming towards me. My knife! I searched my coat, but found it in my pants pocket. All the while, Javier gets closer. Generally, nobody gets close to Javier, unless, as he once said, "it's for rapin' or killin' and then rapin'."

I didn't like the sound of any of that. Darren wasn't buying what Javier was selling. It didn't matter if he was a second away from finding me. A half a second is all I need. I use my Putin knife and cut the twine off the shoebox full of kittens.

I'm running now. I have to or the kittens will get me, too. I can hear them behind me, tearing into Javier's liver and playing frisbee with his asshole. That's what these kittens do. And now, they are as free and out-there as Javier's spleen. Man, those kittens. It didn't have to end like this.

Ok, video is uploaded. Enjoy!




Friday, June 19, 2009

Thinking of Iran

Over in Iran, nowhere near Java, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told the supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi to cease protesting the recent election. If they do not, Khamenei has the power to make them stop. He has already blamed the foreign media for causing the trouble that has made a crackdown necessary.

Mousavi's people have yet to respond in a united voice, and as far as I know Mousavi himself hasn't responded.

Iran has ejected the foreign press and even worked to plug holes in the Persian Firewall. Then Supreme Leader Khamenei warns people to stay at home, and away from opposition protests. Eep. It's not as ominous as the silence before Tiananmen Square, but it doesn't look good. At all.

Methinks Mousavi will back off, but many of his supporters will not. There will be a little violence, but with Mousavi appealing to his people to go home, any "revolution" will be over.

Now, an Iranian recipe for a delighful dish called, aash-e gandom, in metric, as it should be...

100 grams wheat
700 grams spinach
50 grams chick peas
50 grams black-eye beans
50 grams lentils
50 grams split peas
2 large onions
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions: Soak peas, beans, lentils and wheat in water for 4-5 hours. Peel and chop onions and fry in oil until slightly golden. Add hot water, peas, beans, lentils, wheat, turmeric, salt and pepper, and cook over low heat for about one hour, stirring frequently. Wash and chop spinach and add to the aash. Cook for another 10-15 minutes. Fry one spoonful of flour in oil for a few minutes and add to the aash. Stir and cook for a few more minutes.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Of Friends and Lovers

This day finds me in the mood to do a bit of housekeeping. Not literally, but my life is full of "friends" from whom I do not hear, and who do not respond to my attempts at correspondence. This has gone on long enough, and I'm using it to justify some sort of overhaul. Mostly mental and perhaps emotional. It's not a purge of people who have moved on, for whatever reason. It's just an updated consideration of those who still seem to want to know me. I don't want to be a pest to C, for example, or A or D. I'm not using their names entire because that's not nice, especially if they see this as a pathetic attempt to get attention. It's not.

Every once in a long while, though, one has to do an audit. The people you really care about deserve it.

I've already eliminated about 20 "friends" from FaceBook, people I never actually met and whp wouldn't know me from a whole in the wall. Beyond that, it gets more difficult to parse. Apocalypse Cow is a friend from my point of view, but I know that the gentleman who uses that bovine nomenclature has a full and busy life, and probably sees me as a mere Internet acquaintance. No matter.

My brother and Linda are my best friends, as is my father. I tell Linda everything, and sometimes I fear that it's a terrible burden for her. She insists that it isn't, and loves me. I once told her that I don't need friends, I just need the woman I love, whatever you want to call that. Lover, or perhaps girlfriend. So in that sense, Linda is my everything, my all, my other self. My mortal beloved.

My advice to the kids is to fall in love with someone who is also your friend. Makes life much, much easier.

So beyond the surviving members of my family (my sister, brother, father and I), I'm close to my father and brother. And there is Linda. I'm not sure if I really want or need friends beyond that group, although I tend to think that I do. To that end, I've joined a "men's group" at my mental health clinic. Before I die, I'd like to challenge my inability to relate to men. It's why I'm there. Onward.

Where are my socialist friends and comrades? I still write to a few of them. Every so often I call David McReynolds and talk about his presidential campaign, or his cat, or something he's written in EdgeLeft. Yes, David is a friend. After that, it gets complicated and brings sadness with rumination. Every comrade has a story. A couple of Reds still think of me fondly, I think. And I think of more than a couple that way. Strong feelings here and there.

Former co-workers? Nope. Kept to myself, mostly, or played the clown. Either way, one doesn't make friends that way.

Neighbors? No friends, but people I'm friendly with and often speak with about this or that. None that I would call a "friend," though.

It paints an unflattering picture, but in my defense I think people generally like me, but I push them away. Far away. These days, I have maybe 4 friends that I could call on to bail me out of jail, not including family. That's a good test of friendship, isn't it? Two are ex-girlfriends and two I met at UMass or through a Lefty group.

Sentimentality is killing me. You can see that, can't you?


Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Trick of the Thing

A car alarm is outside my bedroom window, beyond the courtyard couched in one of the parking lots of the housing project where I live. If it were along the street, the other buildings in the neighborhood would absorb some of the sound. There are trees, as well, that mercifully block the random noises of the city. And the sounds of other cars on any one of a number of busy roads in the area act as a massive white noise machine.

But as I said, it isn't along the street, it's obliquely across the courtyard and two parking lots away, and is not in sight. As I wait for the owner to turn the off the alarm, or for the thief to get away, I shall practice Zen Buddhism. The blare seems uncut by the other building, or by distance, and is shooting into my brain.

I am a leaf upon the wind.

To be honest, it doesn't seem to be working. I'm one for the fast-acting Enlightenment, so I've taken 4mg of lorazepam and 20mg of propranolol. The latter is a heart medication, used to treat angina, and in my case, anxiety.

That will make it easier for me to be a leaf upon the wind.

Ah, and the car alarm is silenced. It pleases me to think that the owner of that car will someday die, just like the rest of us. It's an empathetic thought, and humanizing, so my anger subsides and the gentle, predictable drone of the city is arcing over my flat like a rainbow. Muscles are so tense during these anxiety attacks, but if I focus a bit I can free each limb. A pleasing exercise.

The smell of fresh cut grass and fried chicken is wafting through my window now, although there hasn't been a lawnmower out today. It must be a neighbor's cooking that I smell, and the grass that was cut yesterday morning. It appears to be a fine day outside, weather-wise. The garden is small, but well-tended and should be fruitful. I prefer the word "fruitful" over "productive." That's just the way it is.

Watch someone else soar. I'm not one for the soaring. Avert your eyes.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

What If They Gave A Bris And Nobody Came?

Every nation on Earth that maintains a military more powerful than a child with an air gun needs to have this engraved on every last war memorial:
We are not afraid to use violence to defend ourselves, and will only ask our young men and women to take to the field of battle if every other option has been tried and tried again. The queers can stay home, though, for reasons we can't explain right now. Just trust us, you don't want your gay comrade masturbating in his bunk with a picture of your father, do you? We didn't think so. If you do, don't say a word to anyone. Just a bit of advice for you soldiers.

We will always maintain diplomacy and communication with the leaders of the other nations of this planet in the hopes that even one war can be averted. That said, nasty words about Israel will not be tolerated. Something affable is OK, like a mild Jewish joke or a Seinfeld Roast. Anything more than that and you're an anti-Semite and may be bombed.
If we avoid just one war through scrupulous assessment and self-reflection perhaps all will fall away and this kind of horrific violence on an international scale will become just another barbaric thing humans used to do, like smoking in a hospital, critical thinking and flag-pole sitting. A world of peace, that is all most of us want. Those of you who want war, especially in the abstract, concern that rest of us. They have medication for you now.

There you have it. They can put in on the money, as well.

There's a Jewish mother on a beach with her young son, who is swimming a bit too far out into the sea. The son panics and calls for help, and a lifeguard springs into action. As the concerned mother looks on, the lifeguard fights the swells and white-caps to reach the young man, and drag him back with great effort. On the beach, the child is temporarily lifeless, but the lifeguard turns him over and drains his lungs, and follows that with CPR. The mother is speechless and horrified. Moments later, sputtering water, the kid starts taking deep breaths.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you for saving my boy!" says the woman. They all pause a moment to take in what just happened. Finally, the mother breaks the silence.

"He had a hat."

That's the kind of mild Jewish joke that is acceptable. I even told that one to my Jewish doctor, but he knew it.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Kill Bill and Four Rules

There is a man with a weed-whacker outside my bedroom window. I want to hit him with a banana creme pie. Perhaps several.

Yesterday, I heard the news that actor John Carradine ended his life via hanging. It saddened me, probably because I thought he did such a find acting job in the Kill Bill films. That seems a bit crass, but I never met him, so I only know his work. If you take a look at his obituary you'll find an actor who was quite prolific. Now that his peepers are shut forever, I anticipate a very rapid end to his career.

It's almost common for artists of any media to walk out the proverbial open window. Elvis Presley died in the bathroom, Hendrix drugged himself up and choked on his own vomit, Mama Cass did the same. We all probably know at least 20 famous artists who either committed suicide, or lived in such a way that tempted death. Kurt Vonnegut, whose father was a suicide, and who often spoke of his suicidal desires, died of a fall at his home. I admire him for that. For some, suicide is a "fuck you" to god or the universe, or both. But for Vonnegut, the unexpected act was to live a long life. Despite his mental illness, he wasn't going easily.

This morning I discovered an article, off the AP wire from Thailand, which indicates that Carradine's death is still being investigated as a possible accident. A sex thing, probably, involving asphyxiation. People close to Carradine in life say that he would never have committed suicide.

Anyone is capable of suicide at any given time. Friends tell me otherwise, but they are wrong. Before I tried suicide, people would have said the same about me. That I was in school and working and cared deeply about many things. It helped that they could blame it on Prozac, but by the time of my second suicide attempt it was clear that mentall illness had me. But "normal" people can find a reason with ease. The opposite sex (love, marriage, sex), lack of money, poor health, or just biology and pressure over time can make suicide appealing.

Let me say a word about religion for a second, and then I'll move on. I've been approached 3 times this week by people who are disturbed by my atheism and want to convert me to Christianity. Simply put, they want me to find Jesus. To them, and to others who might want to try, here are 4 facts that you have to overcome. I'm asking you not to try.

1. I really am an atheist, deeply and proudly. I didn't come to it lightly, and I'd appreciate a modicum of respect for my belief, the same you'd give to one of another religion.

2. Stop assuming that I've never looked for god, I have. I've gone to church and read my head off. And for countless hours I've ruminated. I'm an atheist.

3. When you write something like, "Christianity isn't a religion. It is a way to Christ. All the people of those other religions are going to Hell." This is nonsense to me, as Christianity IS just another religion. I know it means the world to you, and has saved you, but for me the Bible is a good book, but just another book on the shelf.

4. Answer my questions, and I'll answer yours, but don't simply go into a diatribe.

That's it.


Wednesday, June 03, 2009

First, Do No Harm

I think that I'm a harmless person, generally, and of a compassionate disposition. One doesn't aspire to harmlessness as a child, and it seems like a easy accomplishment. And it is. I've never been in a fight in my life. Even when I was mugged, I offered no resistance. My brother took off like the wind, but I wouldn't have gotten far that way, what with the fatness.

There has been a lot of suicide this and that, and cutting, and burning. But always, of course, to myself. Sort of defines, "suicide." At some point, I got it into my head that I was going to fail at anything I tried, because I was up against something stronger than ambition or self-respect or self-control. So that was that. Not that I was all that ambitious. But I did have my eye on grad school, and I loved biological anthropology (focus on osteology)

I have a good life. Better than what I deserve. I'm doing my best to put this crushing guilt behind me, and to just be there for Linda and my family and friends. Still, I'm toying at the idea of going through a program that would return me to work, if possible. I'm comforted, but it's a delusion.

Confident or fatalistic, it doesn't matter as either way I'm out-matched, the rest is just aesthetics.

For my friends out there, to the extent that I have any, I don't go a single day without thinking about what a difficult person I can sometimes be. Occasionally, very difficult. I'm not really good at anything and the world is not for me, but I'll ride it out and hopefully make a life while I'm waiting for the Void to open up.

So morose.

Anyway, I'll write more tomorrow. I hope you find the time to read it.