Being Michael Jackson

I am sitting here locked up in my small room listening to old Michael Jackson albums. I have put on my old Beat It jacket that no longer fits and “Rock With You,” plays on my old record player. I have used up an entire role of toilet paper with my tears. My feet are refusing to do a final moonwalk in the solitude of my room because they are so filled sadness (after all, Michael brought my feet to life). Michael Jackson is not a pop icon for me but rather he is like a dear old friend of mine that I never really got to know. He shaped my musical and aesthetic sensibilities in ways that not even I think I am willing to admit. He has had an effect upon the body and world in which I live in more ways than any of us can comprehend and in my current dark moment of mourning I am grieving the loss of an era. I want to get up and dance, but my body refuses to move- so I think I will just sit here and write.

As a young man I would sleep in my Michael Jackson Beat It jacket. My father nor my mother could relate to my obsession. The eighties were an era shaped by Michael Jackson and I was one of its major casualties. I suffered the weekly red neck beatings that were the result of dressing in tight black pants with white socks and penny loafers along with the Beat It jacket and my sparkling single white glove. I am not sure if I really imagined myself to be the Caucasian manifestation of Michael Jackson- but I was certainly a devotee to his cause. Everyday after school I danced in my bedroom mirror to the sounds of his music and I mastered the moonwalk so well that people at parties would pay me to do it. I grew up in the suburbs, a long way from the world of Michael Jackson- but in my small town, for a select few- I was as good as the real thing.

My Bar Mitzvah speech was dedicated to Michael Jackson. I wanted to acknowledge him in front of all my peers for the massive influence that he had upon a thirteen year old, soon to be man. I told the audience that I had never been the same young man since I saw the Thriller video. I never knew that man was capable of making such inspirational music or moving their bodies in such magical ways. Michael Jackson opened up the world of song and dance for me and I told all the ladies in the audience that even though I was only thirteen, Michael Jackson had taught me how to be comfortable in my pants. I ended my speech by saying “thank you Michael,” and it was at that point that my mother brought my Beat It jacket to the stage, which I proceeded to put on and then do a final short Michael Jackson dance off the stage. During the party that proceeded my Bar Mitzvah I danced with a Michael Jackson impersonator and did the moonwalk several times across the dance floor. Over the years I have not been able to live my Michael Jackson phase down with the multitude who where present at my Bar Mitzvah- but now as an older man, who rarely rocks the night away, I am not regretful that I was able to spend a lot of time beating it when I was young.

I have received numerous text messages from family members and friends all informing me that Michael Jackson is dead. It feels like a shock that the great majority of people are having a hard time coming to comprehend. I have resentment when most people talk about the Michael Jackson who was accused of molesting little children and dying his skin. I never chastised Michael for the things he was accused of doing but rather I always accepted him for the eccentric that he was. At parties I will occasionally acknowledge Michael in the few moves I make during a dance- and every so I often I have been known to be an aging man who likes to do the moonwalk across the kitchen floor. I can not deny the fact that Michael Jackson is a man that defined my youth. I used to dream about running away to his wonder land. Often times when walking down a side walk I could swear that I would see the pavement beneath my feet light up just like in Billy Jean. I grew up in Michael Jackson’s  shadow and now I sit in the dark, listening to old Michael Jackson records- knowing that with his death, a large part of my own youth is now….. officially gone.

“Free Packing”

I have been getting more massages lately. I prefer Asian massage simply because of the delicacy with which Asian women handle the human body. There is a softness in their touch that sends the person being massaged into a state of relaxation that I would say is akin to bliss. Massage is not for everyone. I myself was adverse to massage until the later age of thirty two. As a younger man I was always embarrassed to lie down with nothing but a towel between me and a strange masseuse. Body aches eventually drove me to overcome my insecurities and I actually found that I enjoyed being massaged, while wearing nothing but a towel. For a while, I was getting massaged once a week and eventually I became a connoisseur of various massage parlors. I settled upon a particular massage studio in Berkeley that specializes in table showers and deep tissue rubdowns. There is nothing more enjoyable than being nude on a massage table, while a stranger rubs your achy body with a warm sponge filled with the aroma of lavender soap. I frequented this massage parlor more than once a week until I discovered a new Asian massage parlor in downtown Oakland that was offering “free packing.”

I almost think it is human nature to get bored. The curse of being human is that we are always looking for the next best thing, never content with what we have. This is why I search various periodicals for new massage parlors that I have yet to find out about. I am excited by the prospects of finding something better than what I currently have. On a weekly basis I search for new massage parlors without much luck- so when I found this one massage parlor that was advertising its “Grand Opening” with “free packing”- my interest was sparked. “What the hell is free packing?” I kept thinking to myself all that night. I thought about calling the massage parlor and asking them personally, but I felt embarrassed by my lack of knowledge. You see, I need to be someone who appears to be all knowing all the time. Just the idea of being perceived as someone who does not have all the answers- sends my body into a minor panic response. I simply need to seem like I know what is going on- and this is why I had to find out what “free packing” was all by myself.

I Googled free packing/massage but nothing came up other than websites for moving companies. I went onto various massage message board websites and searched for info on “free packing.” I even left an add on Craig’s list asking anyone who knew what”free packing” is to respond to my email. I had various people reply with suggestions. Some thought that “free packing” was a new form of prostate massage, others thought that free packing could have something to do with inserting things into my rear end. One person wrote that whatever “free packing” was- it sounded like it would make it difficult for me to walk out of the massage parlor on my own. Even though these suggestions sounded feasible to me- no one new for certain what “free packing” could be. I returned to my usual massage parlor and asked my masseuse if she would be willing to give me “free packing,” but she laughed at me and told me that she had no idea what I was talking about.

Yesterday, I finally decided to find out for myself. I ripped out a copy of the massage parlor add, which offered a “Grand Opening Special Of Free Packing And One Hour Massage For Half The Price.” Since I have been doing a lot of heavy lifting and packing lately I was excited to not only get a half priced one hour massage but to have the new and unknown experience of “free packing.” The massage parlor was not far from my home and it sat on the corner of a dark and not very busy city street. Over the door hung a sign that said GRAND OPENING and in the window was a red neon sign that let potential costumers know that they were open for business. I put some cologne on under my arms since I had forgotten to apply deodorant and went into the massage parlor with the fake confidence of a man that appears to know exactly what he is doing.

A buzzer let me in through a gated door, which led me into the lobby of the massage parlor. Various Asian ladies sat scantily dressed on a red couch that sat in front of a big screen TV. They all watched me as I walked towards a man who sat behind a large mahogany desk. “You want thirty minute massage?” he yelled at me while I was still far away. I looked around at the Asian masseuses who sat staring at me from the couch and I noticed that they were all much more attractive than I had expected. “I would actually like what you advertised for your grand opening special,” I replied. “Oh… you want half off, hour massage?” the man said to me with a look of disappointment. I suppose he was hoping that I had not seen the add. “Okay we give you hour for thirty minute price, this our special recession price for you.” Just before it looked as if he was going to call over one of his girls, I said “I would also like to try the free packing.” Everything went silent for a moment and he looked at me with a glare that seemed to say, what the fuck are you talking about. He asked- “what you mean free packing?” I was confused. “What do you mean what do I mean free packing?” I said- returning the question with a statement so as to hide my not knowing. I pulled the advertisement out from my pocket and put it on his desk. “You see right there you are advertising free packing and I would like to have it,” I said with the confidence of a man who knows what he wants. I was dead serious but the man started laughing as he read the add. He said something in Vietnamese to all of the girls sitting on the couch, which then sent them into a fit of laughter. He held up the add and they laughed some more. What the hell? I thought. I had not a clue that I was the one that failed to detect one simple error- until the man looked at me with a smile, lit a cigarette and said…”sorry sir…..this is mistake….. because add supposed to say….. free parking….. which we have for you in back.”

The Hooker In A Tree

I never would of expected that I would rescue a hooker in a tree on my way home from work. I may fly or win the lottery and still believe it, but a hooker in a tree, who would of ever thought? The older I get the more I resign myself to the idea that truth really is stranger than fiction. On my way home from work I briefly stopped off at the nursery to look at plants. Lately, I have been doing as much as possible to reduce my stress levels and a friend of mine told me that looking at plants was a good way to relax. Teaching high school is a job that seems to leave me devoid of any energy after five p.m- so lately I have been trying to look at plants everyday.

As I walked back to my car with a new gardenia plant in my hand (occasionally I will buy a fragrant plant to surprise my wife with) I heard what I had initially thought was angel calling on me from above. Since I am certain that when I die, I will go to a place that is some what like heaven, I refrained from looking up because I was not yet ready for it to be my time to go. Instead, I continued forward pretending as if I did not hear the voice from above. “Stop, stop, please stop and come help me,” the voice persisted and when I finally did look up, I realized that if it was indeed an angel that was calling me- she sure looked like a hooker stuck in a tree.

She was wearing big black boots, both of which were braced against opposing branches. I could see the crotch of her pink underwear that was exposed by the wide opening in her mini skirt. I tried looking at her in the eyes but I had difficulty taking my eyes off her exposed bare thighs. “Hey, you…please help me get down. I am stuck in this fucking tree!” she pleaded as I stared up at her in disbelief. She was not more than fifteen feet away from the ground and when I asked her why she just did not jump down she told me that it was because she was terrified of heights.

I put my new gardenia down onto the pavement and asked her how she wanted me to get her down from the tree. “If you stand with your back against the tree I can climb down onto your shoulders.” If anyone would of told me an hour before that I would end my afternoon with a hooker standing on my shoulders I would of thought that you were nuts. The impossible became reality when I felt the heels of her boots  digging into my shoulder bones. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” she kept repeating as she struggled to slowly get her self out of the tree.

Once I was finally able to help the hooker get onto the ground, she struggled for a few moments to regain her composure. My body slightly ached because in her frantic attempts to find her way to the ground, she stepped all over my head, shoulders, hand, chest and thighs. At one point during her descent- my face rested comfortably in the warm embrace of her crotch as she had both her knees resting on my shoulders (I can only imagine the shock and disbelief that passers by must of felt). Her odor was not terribly disturbing but I could smell the scent of cigarettes and sex emanating from her flesh. Once she was able to get herself composed and firmly planted on the ground she threw her arms around me and repeatedly declared, “you saved my life!”

I have never had the opportunity to be a hero before. I have often thought that heroics alluded me because I simply do not have what it takes to be a hero. If “life is a fortuitous collaboration ascribable to the fact that one finds oneself in the right place at the right time” (from a passage I read in an essay on karma)- than it could be fair to say that I have never before found myself in a situation that I needed to act as a hero. Helping a desperate woman out of a tree hardly qualified as “the right place at the right time,” and as the hooker continued to passionately declare that I had saved her life- all I could do was take a deep breath and say, “lady I am no hero.”

Apparently, she had not climbed into the tree just for fun. She had a legitimate excuse for being perched up fifteen feet high between branches, leaves and a few vagrant squirrels. “Men ain’t got nothing better to do then to mess with us bitches. I was mindin my own buzness working my usual street, when two thugs got in my way and startin to makin me feel threatened for my life. When I tried to get away they be relentless so I saw this tree and I knew it was my only way to safety cause thugs don’t like to climb trees.” She informed me that she had been in the tree for hours, waiting for the coast to clear. There was a childlike lightness and play in her new found freedom and I was tempted to give in when she asked me if she could repay me with a quick blow job or a ten minute lay. I turned down her offer not because she was unattractive, nor because I am a man with strong moral sensibility. No, I turned her down simply because I was already late to meet my wife for our once a week dinner date.

The hooker dug deep down into her purse and brought out a five dollar bill, which she offered to me. “Please, at least let me offer you something for your brave service,” she said holding out the bill. I put my hands up and refused her generous offer and told her that I worked as a high school teacher, which was a job that payed me well enough. “You a teacher!” she said with a sudden burst of surprise. “I am,” I replied with a hint of pride. “Well than…you take this five dollars, you hear me! You need it much more than me,” she insisted. I know for certain that a hooker can make in a few hours what I make in a week, so I resigned myself to taking the handout without feeling much guilt (although I have been thinking about how unfortunate it is that a teacher needs money more than a hooker). I thanked her for rewarding me with a cash payment and she said, “shit, it is the least I can do for a handsome young man like yourself who was just kind enough to save my life.”

She gave me another hug. It was almost as if we were like two lovers who were about to forever go our separate ways. “You stay out of trees now, you hear,” I jokingly said to her. As we started to go our own separate ways a part of my brain (the part of my brain that never makes wise choices) told the other part of my brain (the part of my brain that always makes good choices) to quickly reconsider the kind offer of a free blow job. As I have grown older, I am proud to admit, that the side of my brain that makes the right choices has started to win out over the more reckless side of my brain- so I just stood there for a moment and watched the hooker walk away with what felt like a hero’s smile upon my middle aged face.

The Run Away Jury

I had the day off today, the only advantage of having to do jury duty. I tried to get out of it by writing the court a letter in which I told them about my deep belief in the philosophy of anarchy. I also put in my letter that I always favor those that are being persecuted by the law and that I feel like justice can never be served in a court of law because the entire legal system is broken. This seemed to have little effect upon the court because they demanded my presence with the threat of a fine and possible jail time if I did not show up. So much for scare tactics.

I woke up before the sun and tried to talk myself into looking forward to a new experience. I had never served on a jury before and a part of me was proud that my state trusted me enough to hold such a position of authority. I showered, did my morning meditation and put together the nicest outfit that I could find. I gave myself enough time before having to report for duty to read the local paper at my favorite cafe and eat two sunny side up eggs with toast. It was one of the more leisurley weekday mornings that I have had in quite a long time.

After going through the scrutiny of the court registrar (personal history, finger prints and other forms of invasive identity verifications) I made my way into a small room where I took one of the two oaths that I would take that day. A fat man (why are they always fat men?) began to brief the virginal jury on the case that they were about to rule over. An older couple was suing Google because Google’s camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were posted to Google’s street view. My first impression was that this could be an interesting case because I had always been concerned with matters of privacy and anonymity. The more I was briefed however, the more my mind began to think that this was just a ridiculous case of a suburban couple, with too much money, who was pissed off that Google showed pictures of their front lawn on the internet. I had better things to do with my time. I began to dread the impending case and wished that I could have fallen into something more interesting like murder, prostitution or a first degree robbery case.

Granted, my attitude was not good upon walking onto the jury stand. It would even be fair to say that I was bored before the case began. In my stated of impatience and agitation I thought about my students who were having to settle for an underpaid substitute teacher. A saying of the Buddha’s came to my mind, “if you can learn to enjoy waiting then you do not have to wait to enjoy,” and I settled into the fact that I was going to have to spend my day in this banal and stuffy courtroom. With my fingers crossed behind my back I was sworn to tell the truth and nothing but the truth to the court for the second time that day. I was able to have a pad of yellow legal paper and a pen upon which I wrote poems while lawyers made opening arguments and the judge briefed the jury on the legal aspects of the case. “Who gives a crap…..” was all I could cynically think. Sitting beside me was a younger Hispanic man who seemed to share a similar disinterest as mine, and for at least two hours while we listened to various testimonies about privacy infringement  and the legal rights of Google earth, I noticed that he was drawing caricatures of the balding judge. By the time a lunch remission was about to begin, Johny and I seemed to be struggling to keep our eyes open.

The jury was sequestered into a small room without windows where we were given our boxed lunches. It was more like a lunch fit for lower employees than one meant for a kings and queens that we thought we were. I had known Johny for more than an hour when we began our first long discussion about how the court should have the dignity to feed us better after making us sit through such a boring case. The thought of going back into the courtroom for the rest of the afternoon weighed upon both of our shoulders like a heavy brick- and in a moment of wild inspiration I jokingly suggested that it could be fun to spend the rest of our afternoon hanging out in a strip club instead of a courtroom.

Twenty minutes later Johny and I were sneaking out of the courthouse. We traveled down a long corridor of empty, florescent lit halls and found a back door that led out onto a parking lot for police cars. We casually walked over to the cafe where I had had my leisurely breakfast and we order a lunch that was more fit for us kings. Over burgers and fries and two carrot juices Johny and I talked about immigrant rights, government control, anarchy and social revolutions. We shared similar interests and I was engaged in his stories about being a child soldier in El Salvador and coming to America on an academic scholarship twenty years ago. As we finished our carrot juices and began to leave for the afternoon of bliss spent in a strip club, Johny asked, “you think we can get busted for being runaway jury members?”

Tonight I have done my research and learned that walking out in the middle of jury duty is punishable by a $10,000 fine or a year in jail. I did not know this earlier when I tried to convinced Johny that we had nothing to loose by leaving a courtroom that fed us like undeserving pigs. Johny was not convinced by my conclusions and decided to go back to court after we had finished our lunch. I on the other hand decided to continue on with my plans. I after all work my ass off five days a week slaving away as an underpaid high school teacher who desperately wants to create social justice on planet earth. I deserved not to have to spend my afternoon off in some banal courtroom listening to a couple argue over Google earth. I deserved the afternoon that I would spend basking in the good fortune of an all nude strip club. Right?

Tonight, I am a bit concerned. All the lights of my home are off just in case the police come looking for me. I have received four phone calls from the court letting me know about the severity of the punishment that I face. I have never before been intimidated by legal threats and court ordered bribes (after all I am an authentic anarchists who has read Emma Goldman’s autobiography twice) but now that I am getting older I start to shake where once there was only a trace of fear. I see the damage my anarchist virtues may be doing to my future freedoms filled with dead end jobs because of a police record. What is this sense of responsibility that has suddenly overcome me like a quickly caught cold? Where once I would romanticize running and hiding from the law, now I am sitting in my home shaking in terrible fear, wondering if I should turn myself in for being a member of a one man run away jury.

$50.00 Cup Of Coffee

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The rain has been pouring down for three days straight. I am wondering if melancholy is starting to kick in. I awoke at around 10:30 this morning but would have stayed in bed if I did not have to drive my wife to work. So like the responsible husband and man that I try to be, I climbed out from under the warm blankets and dressed.

When we opened the front door to leave, our cat came running in wet as a used mop and whining at the top of his lungs. He was obviously feeling neglected and angry because we had forgotten to let him in the night before. To be honest the past few days my cat has been perturbing me, so I did not really forget to let him in, I just hoped my wife would not remember. It was reciprocity for all the scratches on my arm and the flees in my bed.

I dropped my wife off and then began driving back home. The inside of the car was warm from the high heat and I was uncertain if I wanted to return to my cold and over one hundred year old wobbly home. So I decided to drive for a bit. I listened to the radio and watched the world go by in the warmth of the car. There is something very enjoyable about driving around on a rainy day.

I decided to stop and grab a small coffee. I rarely drink coffee- if ever. It makes my body shake unpleasantly and my heart race. So I try to stay away from the acidic liquid. However, this morning I was feeling the need to have the bitter taste of coffee in my dry mouth and the aromatic smells in my nose.

There was no parking to be found on the busy street- besides a yellow zone which sat empty right in front of the coffee shop. I decided that I would quickly park in the yellow zone, run in and out- no problem. I could not of been more incorrect.

I tipped the somnolent looking woman who served me my coffee a dollar and then put half and half with a bit of sugar in it. The smell was already awakening me to the pleasures of existing. I took a brief sip of my coffee and walked back outside.

There where two UPS trucks blocking me in. Behind my car was a police car with its lights flashing and behind the police car was a small meter maids truck. I rushed to my car pretending as if I was not the subject of this mass gathering. Once out of the rain I decided to wait patiently for the UPS trucks to move so that I could leave. I kept my mind focused on the scent of coffee.

Then an ugly man with nose hairs, covered in a black rain coat knocked on my window. It was a police officer. I opened my door frustrated by all this commotion. “What is wrong officer?” I asked stupidly revealing that I may have done something wrong. “Can I see your drivers license and registration?” he said with a seriousness that indicated that he may not be human but rather a clone. “What have I done?” I said with the innocence of a child. “We have a report that this car may be stolen.” “What?”

In the meantime one of the UPS drivers came up behind the police officer and said to me “hey man!! This spot is for commercial loading not for the convenience of people to get their coffee!! You need to never park her again. You have blocked up traffic because I have had to park in the street!!” I looked behind him and noticed that traffic was blocked up for as far as my eyes could see. People were honking their horns and trying to get around the UPS truck. “See what you have done!! Jerk!!!” And then he was gone.

Meanwhile I handed the officer the requested information and told him that I have owned this car for years. “We will see,” he said with a tone in his voice that suggested that I was already guilty. “Wait here, while I check out your information.” “Where am I going to go?” I said with a sarcastic tone in my voice. I remember thinking to myself with indignation, “the police are everywhere, they even watch you when you sleep. they are like phantoms!!”

There was another knock on my window, but this time it was a black meter maid who looked rather swollen in her cheeks. She wore a yellow rain coat with the hood over her head and handed me a green ticket which was already wet from the rain. “What is this for?” I asked with a hint of anger in my voice. “For parking in a NO PARKING spot.” “But I was loading some boxes into the coffee shop, I am the owner!!” I decided to lie. “Then why don’t you get commercial plates!” she said walking away and leaving me helpless. I am not normally prone to anger or disrespect but I lost control of myself in my moment of helplessness and yelled “bitch!!!”

It was bad timing, because as I yelled out the police officer was approaching my car. He looked startled and unsure of how to respond. “What did you call me?” he asked. I took a deep breath and said “I did not call you anything, I was talking to the ticket lady.” “What ticket lady?” he asked. “The one that just gave me this ticket,” and I held up the green ticket to show him what I was talking about. “Sir, that was placed on your window while you were inside getting coffee,” he said suspicious of what was going on. “What the hell are you talking about… she just gave me this ticket!!” I was frantic and did not know what to do. Was this officer of the law accusing me of being crazy, of seeing things? “Sir I suggest that you try to calm yourself down and sign this citation.”

“What citation?” “It is a fix it ticket.” “I thought I was being accused of possessing a stolen car?” “No we had the wrong vehicle, but your back left brake light is not working and you have thirty days to fix it,” he said with a hurried sound in his voice. I assumed he wanted to get out of the rain so I took my time. I read over the pink citation and noticed that I would not be charged any money if I proceeded to go through all these various steps to absolve the citation. “Sir you will be given a list of everything you need to know,” he said impatiently. I then signed on the dotted line and returned the clip board to him. I took another deep breath and could feel the residual anger and frustration in my chest. “You are lucky that I do not site you for your conduct towards an officer of the law,” he said staring me straight in the face. I decided to stay quiet. He ripped of a portion of the citation handed it back to me and said “I know you slandered me sir, happens all the time.” And then he returned to his bat mobile.

I sat in my car for a moment trying to register everything that had just happened. My coffee was cold and I felt like I was just the subject of a terrible prank. I waited for something to happen like someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress. I listened to the rain pitter-paterring on the roof of my car. I then heard a loud honk and looked out the drivers side widow. There was the same meter maid driving down the other side of the street!! She looked at me waved and I could barley make out her lips saying “have a nice day, sir” with a malevolent smile on her face. I felt like I was going to be sick. I tried to yell out “wait!!” but it was I futile attempt. I looked down at the green parking ticket which said in black ink hand writing “your fifty dollar cup of coffee, sir!!”

Now I am back in my cold wobbly home. I am confused and forlorn. Once I am finished spell checking this post, I will get back in bed and try to sleep. Then maybe I will wake up and things will make sense.

The Drinker

I am drinking again. I should probably abstain from writing because I may say things that I regret and mis-spell words that I know how to spell, all to well. But what the hell- I always say things that I regret and I often mis-spell words that I know all to well. I am not a good speller nor am I a good keeper of secrets so I mine as well go ahead and write on. Is not alcoholic inebriation one of the better causes of literary fame? From the beginning of time authors like Homer, Hemingway, Joyce, Lessing and Fitzgerald have gotten away with writing things while drunk- and we now refer to these writings as literary classics! So I mine as well take a shot at literary fame while drinking. I certainly can not seem to achieve it while sober so allow me a minute to take another sip of my wine and then I will continue to write.

I have been drinking a half a bottle of wine to a bottle of wine on a nightly basis for more years than I care to remember. My love affair with wine and beer is frenetic and wild (and causes me to do things that I often later regret). Of course we have taken a few weeks apart now and then but my inability to exist without beer and wine in my life quickly drives me back into a week long binge followed by a nightly bottle of wine. I love booze. It is the only over the counter medication that brings forth the fruits from my vine. I achieve more inner peace after two glasses of wine than I have from five years of regular meditation. My mind seems defenseless against two glasses of wine or more- and drinking for me is fair retribution for the hell my mind puts me through on a daily basis. I don’t mean to be negative but when I drink I am able to achieve an objective distance from my sober mind that makes me wonder how I have not yet become a raging alcoholic. I suppose it is my need for control, or some semblance of sanity that I make myself stop right when I have had too much to drink…….but after twenty plus years of almost daily intoxication, it is a wonder that I still have a rational mind at all.

I have been meditating a lot on “what if?” scenarios the past few weeks. “What if clocks stopped functioning?” “What if the oceans suddenly dried up?” “What if my sister turned into my brother?” “What if vegetables could talk?” “What if I was 38 years old and financially independent?” I like to entertain these fantasies because it show me the expanse of possibilities that are out there. My normal anxiety ridden life is filled with all these possibilities, and I realize that when I get stuck in my anxiety I am unable to open the bird cage of my mind. “What if I was sober for longer than a month?” “What if I loved working?” “What if I had no fear?” “What if I was so generous that I gave away all the clothes I owned while walking down the street?”

Okay, I am getting a bit ahead of myself. I have far surpassed my ordinary faculties for imaging the impossible. This tells me I may have had one to many glasses of wine. I am often a very pragmatic almost middle aged male- but when I drink a particular screw becomes loose in my head. This may be why it is not such a good idea that I write now. Currently I am banging on my keyboard and typing with a hurried speed that is desperately trying to keep up with the thoughts that want to come pouring out of my head. But maybe I should hold back. Maybe I should not say everything that I want to say. I should just pick up my glass of wine and go sit outside and watch the sun set. In the morning I will be happier that I did so rather than finishing this blog entry and exposing all of my futile insecurities and transgressions to the world. “Just leave certain things that do not need to be said alone,” my grandpa always told me when I told him about the first blow job I received with a hair dryer. He maybe right….maybe I should know when enough is enough. I am overworked, tired and in a state of fragility- no great writing comes from this particular space. So, I am just going to pick up my glass of wine (refill it), go outside and watch the sunset- before I say anything else that I will later regret.

The Coolest Cat

I never thought that cats liked me even though I have always been a lover of them. Ever since I was a young boy I have had cats in my life. To this day I own two cats (one of which I won in a local pet lottery), both of which are black, both of which refuse to sit on my lap and scramble away when I come into play. I do not know if they simply dislike me- or if they are afraid of my tall and normally tense stature or if I have done something in particular to make them afraid of me. Granted swinging them around by their back feet or tugging on their tails and refusing to let go may not of been the wisest ways of befriending them when they were young- but cats have always been afraid of me. This is why tonight I was so surprised when three cats followed me home.

My daily exercise consists of an hour walk around my neighborhood. I am done with sweat and cardiovascular exercises and have resigned myself to a body less sculpted by rigorous workouts and more defined by a moderate walk. I do certain exercises to keep my minimal muscles toned, but other than a few push-ups and arm curls with some weighted green balls I own, walking is my main fat burner. I like to drift off in the mental space that walking takes me to even though at certain times, like today, my thoughts can become negative and relentless. I will try and focus on the wind, or various elements of the outside world….but sometimes I get so caught up in my thoughts that I can not recall where I have been. I get lost and find myself on some street that I have never seen before.

The three cats sat on a fence post and I was as surprised to see them as they were to see me. I could hear their purrs from many steps away so I approached them with the hope that they would not run away like every other cat seemed to do. In my head I repeated the word “love” so as to emit a gentle energy from my body that was attractive as opposed to repellent. As I reached out my hand one of the cats immediately took to it and rubbed its whiskers all around the base of my thumb. I was immensely excited by the lack of their immediate retreat so I stuck out my other hand and little did I know that the fun had just begun.

I pet them for what seemed like an hour. I rubbed my face against their cheeks, ran my hand under their chins and all along their spins. One of the cats drooled and they all purred with the madness of elation as I pet them them with the delicacy of a man who is in love. I was sure to be gentle with them and tell them how beautiful I thought they were as I ran my hands all across their fur. I was surprised that they were not in the least making a move to run away but instead reaching out their claws towards me as if to make me stay. With their shredded fur all over my hands, arms and shirt I decided that it was time to call it a day and when I started to make the move to walk away- in what looked like a synchronized unison the cats leaped from the fence and began to follow the shadows of my foot.

I must of walked for ten blocks before I realized that these cats had no intention to leave. At first I was a bit concerned about pulling them away from their home, but I resigned myself to letting them have free will and simply enjoyed the rare occurrence of being followed by three cats. They rubbed their heads against my shins and made movements in between my legs that a few times threatened to send my falling onto the ground. If cats could laugh they would of been laughing out loud with me as they followed me down many streets with what looked like smiles upon their feline faces. Pedestrians who would pass by would stop and stare and I noticed that from the windows of certain houses, faces would be looking out at me with looks of confusion, disbelief and delight. You would think that I had cat nip in my socks from the ravenous way these cats followed me but I had nothing but the delight of a man who was finally experiencing something extra-ordinary. Tears of joys occasionally made their way to my eyes as I walked along. I was overwhelmed by the surreal realization that I was actually worthy of being followed by cats, that cats liked me! For the first time in many years I felt like what I can only now refer to as…… the coolest cat on the block.

The Chronic Consumer

“The cost of something is the amount of life that you are willing to exchange in order to have that thing.” – Henry David Thoreau

I spend a lot of money. The irony is that I do not make much money. Off of my meager Teachers wage I seem to get by in a style that would not beget a king, but is better than most who suffer the wrath of poverty. I am no celebrity but neither am I a poor popper. I do not know if my spending habits arise from a deep emotional lack or if I simply enjoy the transaction process. Sometimes I think I may be closely aligned to the Pavlovian dogs who drool when they hear the meal time bell. Except for me it is not a noon time bell, but rather the feel of my fake gold debit card in my hand or punching the keys on that little machine that deducts my hard earned money away, away. My therapists (yes I have two now) seem to believe that my spending habits stem from a dis-satisfaction with the present moment of my life. Like most Americans, I have been conditioned to believe that things will get better if I spend some time each day as a consumer. But it is always the same story, I spend money on one thing and am gratified for a short allotted period of ti-me until the next day comes and I am looking for something brand new to buy.

Do not get me wrong, I am by no means a ravenous spender. My purchases are humble and thoughtful and often contribute to my own well being and peace of mind. I am also not an excessive spender, buying up property, stocks, vacation packages, children and costly material items. Rather, because I only make an income that is beneath three grand a month- I have to keep my purchases within the realms of what I can afford. I have been keeping a budget for the past few months and on average this is what I spend a month:

$500 on groceries mainly bought at Whole Foods (or what I prefer to call Whole Paycheck). I try only to purchase organic food and booze which can be pricey.

$400 on gas and other car expenses (I drive an old SAAB with over 200,000 miles on it so I am always having to attend to it).

$500 on eating out ( I do enjoy the Epicurean experience on a regular basis).

$200 on books and music (one way that I experience pleasure is by frequently visiting book and music shops).

$900 on rent and other survival necessities like electric bill, credit bill and phone bill.

$200 on drinking in bars.

$300 on miscellaneous things like clothes, cat supplies, bird supplies and vitamens.

$300 on Therapists

I no longer spend money on prostitutes, strippers, massage parlors and other erotic addictions so at least this is one way that I have managed to save money the past few years. However, before the month is up I am usually broke- or beyond broke lying in a ditch of moderate debt. Now, none of my purchases are what I would label as excessive or exploitative (I consider myself to be a mindful consumer) but I can see how they are addictive. For each thing I purchase I receive a small rush of adrenaline to my brain (it is a sensation akin to accomplishment). Yesterday, when I treated myself to a nice dinner (which I do on an almost nightly basis since there are good restaurants everywhere around where I live), a concert and a new ipod I felt that the rush of adrenaline was more gratifying, almost sensual in nature. I felt as If I had achieved something strangely satisfying- the ability to spend money on things which I do not really need. Is not this the American way?

My chronic consumerism has been concerning me lately. Not only do I feel like I am spending more money than I need to, but I enjoy the concept of “forget savings.” The idea that one should spend what they have today because who knows if they will be around tomorrow to enjoy it has permeated my spending habits and left me little cash to watch grow the flowers of interest. All my hard earned labor has been exchanged for momentary pleasures that leave me feeling empty and searching for more the following day. I have become a consuming animal not that far detached from my cat who spends his days searching for something to eat. There has got to be more to life than this constant need to go out and buy. Recently, I have felt like it is impossible to step out the front door of my home without spending twenty bucks! I watch my friends drop cash that they worked hard to earn on superfluous things that leave them to feeling unfulfilled the following day. Is our material conditioning nothing but an economic hamster wheel that has been set up to keep us working and the cogs of capitalism spinning? Have I been duped and brain washed by the very country that I have grown to love? Sucker.

My concern has grown so large that both of my therapists have recommended that I move to the country where there is less temptation to spend. I have seen the best minds of my generation get tied and tangled up in expenses and spending habits that have caused them to have to trade in their happiness for a fifty plus hour a week job. Chronic consumerism has become an epidemic that has already managed to define me. I am helpless in its clutches and the only way that I can see how to be set free is to move out of the city.

In a month my wife and I are moving to the country. We will hire movers and relocate our lives to the central valley of California, where not much goes on other  than the natural cycles of day to day life. We have rented a two bedroom home that will not cost us half of our paycheck a month and it is not surrounded by Whole Foods and five star restaurants. It will be a quieter life filled with bird sounds, barking dogs and late night walks (without the fear of being mugged). We plan on eating the great majority of our meals at home, spending less and enjoying our lives together more. I realize that this will be a difficult life style change to manifest since what I have become accustomed to is consumerist, cosmopolitan satisfaction. I am going to have to dust off my old poetry books, set up a chair in the back yard and be content just staring at the redwood and the things we will grow for food. Neither of us knows what we are going to do for work (there are so few jobs around where we will live)- but one thing will be certain, I will finally have the opportunity to heal from my chronic consumerism and find a new way to be in this world without needing to spend a single buck. But for now, my wife is waiting for me in the car, because I promised I would take her out for a nice lunch.

The Spiritual Materialist

I went to a Tibetan Fair. There were all sorts of Tibetan rugs, scarves, sweaters, ornaments and jewelry for sale. There was Tibetan music and “Save Tibet” booths, along with booths trying to bring attention to various imprisoned Tibetan activists. However, I was not there for any of these things. What I was looking for was enlightenment. I had been asking around about enlightenment. A co-worker told me to check out the Tibetan fair because they might sell it there. Since I was in desperate need of enlightenment I figured I had nothing to loose. I paid the $10 entry fee and was overwhelmed by the amount of people, vendors and music that sprawled all over the three acre park. With so many booths to choose from I started going up to various vendors to see what they were selling. Most seemed to offer material goods but I asked anyways if they sold enlightenment. The response was always the same “no” and the degree of the laughter depended upon how well the vendor understood me. There were also booths for acupuncture, massage and psychic readings. There where even meditation booths. Since I had nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon, and a pocket filled with three hundred dollars- I decided I would take my time and look around.

An acupuncturist told me that he did not sell enlightenment but that he could help me find it. I only let him put three small needles into me and after ten or so minutes of lying still on his table I had to ask him to please take out the needles because I was feeling anxious. I had a massage from an old Tibetan woman who told me that her hands could bring me close to enlightenment but she had none for sale. I gave her ten bucks for ten minutes- but half way through the massage I felt so uncomfortable being rubbed in public that I had to ask her to stop. “Maybe you try more meditation,” she told me as I thanked her for taking some of the stiffness out from my neck and upper back. I paid a psychic fifteen bucks because she told me that she could not sell me enlightenment but she may be able to guide me in the right direction. After fifteen minutes of her sitting still without saying a word she opened up a flood gate of prognostications, that made me feel a bit uncomfortable. She told me of my bad luck and the various ways that my impatience has caused me to make several bad decisions. She told me that soon I would make a career change and that the reason that I have so much stress and tension in my body and life is because I am not getting the recognition in my life that I feel I deserve. She also told me that I am smart and posses an analytical mind which causes me to be unhappy because I am angry at all the less intelligent people who get ahead in life while I remain behind. All of it was too much for me to take. I stopped her in mid sentence as she was saying, “you are getting older and you are afraid that……” I thanked her for her revelations but told her that I felt no closer to finding enlightenment than when I began. She smiled, shut her eyes and I went on my way.

I continued to travel around the fair looking at all the wide eyed Buddhists. In the background music played from the main stage but was muddled by the multiplicity of various voices that traveled through the fair. It felt like the entire city of Berkeley was making their way through those two acres of land. I had to squeeze my way up to booths that seemed like they could be potential sellers of enlightenment. “Do you sell enlightenment here?” I would shout so that the vendor would hear loud and clear what I was trying to say. People would look at me in disbelief as I was told again and again, “no, no enlightenment here.” The afternoon was ending and I could feel the heat being put off by the sun begin to decrease as the sun made way for the moon. Relentlessly, I traveled around from booth to booth determined to find the object of my search. If I could not find enlightenment here where else would I find it? Some vendors who could not sell me enlightenment offered me a good deal on items that may bring me close. I purchased some sandalwood prayer beads and a t-shirt with the “OM” symbol on it. I also purchased some incense and a new meditation cushion, but I knew when I bought these material goods that they were only steps to enlightenment, and not enlightenment itself. With bags containing my new purchases I asked old Tibetan women, sexy Tibetan women, young Tibetan men and older Tibetan men if they knew where I could purchase enlightenment. None did, except one. She pointed her decaying finger callused by such a long life at a lone booth that sat on the top of a hill. The woman without any teeth in her mouth and more wrinkles on her face that that of a redwood tree said, “Up there…he may find it for you.”

I walked toward that booth like a man making his way towards a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. A lone, middle aged Tibetan vendor stood contentedly behind a pile of beautiful Tibetan rugs that had intricate patterns hand woven into them. An array of colorful Tibetan scarves blew in the wind above his head. He stared eagerly at me and I could tell that his eyes had achieved some semblance of nirvana. “Do you sell enlightenment here?” I asked him like an eager pupil. Since he was a little hard of hearing I had to repeat my question. “Enlightenment, do you sell it here?” I asked again. He did not laugh like all the rest. Nor did he look at me with dumbfounded disdain. Instead he opened up the doors of communication by saying, “oooooooh enlightenment, you looking for it here?” “I have been looking for it everywhere,” I replied, feeling some sense of relief overcoming me. Maybe I had finally found a man who can sell it to me, I thought. “You know why you no find enlightenment?” he asked me. “Why?” I replied. “Because you look for it. You need to stop looking for enlightenment and then you will find that it is everywhere….all around you, all the time” I had a brief “aha!” moment, where time stood still and it felt as if I was the center of the universe. I listened to the sounds, smelled the scents and looked around me. For the first time in years  I was free from my desire to find something I did not have. Instead I simply let go and for a brief moment or two I felt something akin to enlightenment. “You not need what is in your bags or on your shelves, just remember the breathing,” the man said in a calm tone as I smiled at him and took a deep inhalation. “Thank you,” I told him, “you have helped me find exactly what I was looking for.” “And it’s even free,” he said and then let out a little laugh.

A Career In Meditation

I like spending a lot of time in stillness. I don’t mind people, but I prefer being left alone. The pleasures of my own mind far out weigh the experience of being around other human beings. I enjoy going on long mental walks, alone. I also enjoy just breathing and watching my own mind fill up with thoughts flashing across the movie screen of my consciousness. Somehow I am fully gratified by this simple experience in the same way that most others would be gratified by going to a movie. I will be honest- in my home there is a closet where I enjoy spending most of my time. I sit in meditation sometimes for hours at a time in darkness, just watching my breath and the thoughts that snake through my neurotic mind. After twenty minutes or so of calming my mind and heart down- I reach a state that some people refer to as PEACE. Everything becomes still. Thoughts stop menacing around in my mind. My cravings calm down and my breathing is so slow that not even a feather would move if you put it under my nose. My lust and ambitions dissolve and I no longer need to do anything or be anywhere. I am a man at peace- alone in the privacy of his own closet.

My wife is having difficulty dealing with the amount of time that I spend closed off from the material world. She thinks that it is abnormal behavior for a grown married man, who is almost 40 years old to be closeted off from the world for such long periods of time. “You should be more ambitious, pursuing a career- and out with friends,” she tells me. I should be devoted to work and wife and striving to achieve the American dream. I try to tell her that I am working on myself so that I can be a better husband, friend, lover and member of society. Most of my life I have struggled with chronic anxiety- and meditating in my closet is my one way to be free. She still thinks that there are better ways of doing this other than holding myself hostage in a closet. I could join a group or go back to school, she suggests but all I want to do is be left alone far from the light of day.

I think one of the reasons why my wife may have wanted to leave me for another man was because of the amount of time I was spending closed off in my closet. Even though I told her that I was practicing meditation (self growth) she saw it as a form of alienation and felt like I was not paying much attention to her. Over the course of many months my wife started getting involved in her own extra curricular activities and eventually was able to get her needs met elsewhere. I on the other hand was able to meet my own needs by sitting in the lotus position, focusing on my breath and being still in darkness. I needed little sexual fulfillment (even though I confess to smoking marijuana a few times in my closet) and I was content enough to simply be alone. My closet became a universe of its own- a reflection of my mind turned inside out.

Recently I have begun to notice that there are no careers in meditation. My wife can understand my need to spend long periods of time in my closet if I am working towards something specific. I asked if she would be more content with the time I spend alone if I was working towards a career in meditation. She told me that would make more practical sense to her. So during the day I have been looking around for careers in meditation, but there are none. There are careers and graduate degrees in everything from taxidermy to vivisection but there is nothing out there for working silently with your own mind. Human beings are a strange species- we value doing experiments on animals and then stuffing them when they die more than we value our own inner peace. I could be a Psychologists or a Psychic, I could be a Yoga Instructor or a Thai Chi Master- but none of these careers appeal too me. I simply want to find work in the field of meditation so that I can spend the majority of my time sitting alone in the darkness of my own closet. I want to teach others how to sit equally still so that I can feel like I am doing something to contribute to a more relaxed world free from all the paranoia. Until I am able to find a way to have a career in meditation I have promised my wife that I will spend less time hidden away in my closet (or else she may threaten to run away again into the arms of yet another man). For the time being I will continue to do things for money that the world (and my wife) thinks of as more pragmatic and maybe go out with a few friends now an then. I will pretend to be normal. This way I will get my wife off my back, but I can promise you dear reader- that when she is not looking I will sneak back into to the wonderful dark world where you will find me sitting alone.

The Man With Green Balls

I have two green balls. They are heavy and round and stuffed with sand. Each one is the size of a soft ball, but one of them has a permanent indentation, which causes it took look like it went through a kind of surgical procedure. I use these balls almost every day to keep myself strong and my posture erect. They weigh five pounds a piece and I was told that if I walk with them in my hands for sixty minutes a day my arms would get a gladiatorial kind of definition. So it has been about a month now that I have been carrying these balls around with me for an hour or so. I go for walks through the city in which I live and do curls with each arm as I walk. The general public stares at me because they are not quite sure what to make of a grown man dressed in civilian clothes walking around with large green balls, but I am past the stage where I care what people think. I know that I am doing something that is good for my health and I realize that there is a price to be paid to achieve a body that looks as if it was carved out of stone.

A month and a half or so ago I took off my jacket in front of a class I was teaching. I was wearing a t-shirt that had sleeves that revealed my slushy biceps. I did not know why my students were saying”ewwwww” and giggling at me all of a sudden until one of my students pointed out that my “flesh jiggled like jelly on my arms” when I took off my jacket. Humiliating. I had not realized that my muscles had become so flaccid until this public humiliation. That evening I returned home and stood in front of a mirror with my shirt off and realized that my months of beer drinking, reading and inactivity had turned my body into an undefined mass of weakened flesh. I immediately became self conscious and started doing as many push ups as I could, which was only three.

I am to young to go muscularly limp. I still have two years until I turn forty and there is no excuse for hanging blubber beneath my arm pits and having biceps that are as soft as a cotton swab. I am a skinny man and if you looked at me with my clothes on you would never know that I was so weak, but the following night (after the public humiliation) when I was naked in bed with my wife, who recently had an affair, I found out that I was loosing sex appeal. “You’re not taking care of your body anymore and your loosing all your muscle tone,” she said as I rolled away from her. “Is this why you had an affair with a younger man?” I asked, well aware of the answer. “It was just a fling. He was an attractive guy and I needed to put some passion back into my sex life since you have not been able to take care of that. Maybe if you develop muscle, it will make you better in bed.” I could not argue with her. For over a year I had been sexually disinterested and allowed not only my muscle but also my sexual passion to dwindle away.

I had not been in a sporting goods store for years but when I was told about the benefits of walking with green balls I immediately went and purchased them. I admit that walking with large green balls in my hands may be an abnormal thing to do, especially for a grown man. In our day and age of conformity and moral righteousness it is difficult to be abnormal or go against the grain without being noticed. I am mortified by the idea of joining a gym or taking an exercise class so instead I have quit drinking for a few months and started walking everyday with my green balls. Police officers stare at me (do they think I could be a terrorist?). People yell out their windows, “freak.” Heads turn everywhere. It is as if I am carrying a bomb or the ten commandments. I can not figure it out for the life of me- I mean they are just large five pound green balls! What is so unusual about green balls? Some brave souls stop me and ask me “what are those?” or “what are you doing with those green things?” Since I am open to meeting new people, I immediately put the balls into their hands and say “see for yourself.” The moment that they feel the weight of the balls in their hands they can understand the function that the balls serve. When I tell them my story and then let them feel my biceps they immediately ask, “where can I get balls like these?”

I have thought about making an exercise video called Walking With Green Balls. My marketing pitch would be “you can not only build arm muscle but you can also build friends, community and attract attention.” Over the past month I have met more people on walks and attracted more attention to myself than ever before. It is almost as if the green balls are people magnets. I do not know if this is the kind of attention that I want to receive, but for now I am okay with being the local freak since I am moving soon. City living is not all that it is cracked up to be. The shared consensus amongst people is that cities are a place for diversity and eccentricity- but if this were true why then is a man who likes to walk with green balls such an aberration? Why all the attention, when my only intention is simply to get in shape so that I can feel better about myself and please my scandalous wife in bed?

In a few months my wife and I are moving to the country. I have tired with city living and all its contradictions. I want clean air, flat land and cows. I want trees, simplicity and anonymity. I want to work on a farm and spend my days in the sun, away from freeways, pedestrians and police cars. My wife is excited about the move and so am I but I am also a little nervous about taking my walks in rural areas with the green balls. I am a tall man with dark skin……..and I fear that the green balls may attract the wrong kind of attention from some crazy hillbilly or rancher. I may have to find other ways of staying in shape- like push ups or an at home Yoga practice. Whatever the case may be, I feel like the green balls have given me back my strength (psychologically and physically). They have served a functional purpose. My arms now have some semblance of definition. My wife is comming on to me more often. I feel like I can face the world (and my students) again with dignity and without a fear of wearing t-shirts. Most importantly, when I now stand naked in front of the mirror- I can see something that may look like sex appeal.

The Parallel Parker

I have always been amazed by one particular ability of mine. I say this with hesitation because there are not many things about myself that amaze me. The fact that I am six foot five amazes me. The fact that my walls are lined with bookshelves filled with books that I have been incapable of finishing amazes me. The fact that I am thirty eight and still confused about what it is that I am going to be when I grow up amazes me. But none of these are talents (I apologize here for using but at the beginning of a sentence. The fact that I am a hypocrite also amazes me, since last Friday in my English class I told my students never to use the word but at the beginning of a sentence). They are more like physical attributes and behavioral characteristics that I have somehow inherited from my parents. However, my ability to parallel park in any spot, no matter how tight- this is a talent that I have developed all on my own.

Ever since I began parallel parking at the age of fifteen, I displayed a natural talent. I learned how to drive in my mothers Cadillac, which was more like an elongated boat rather than an automobile. Getting this vehicle into cramped spots was no easy task (my mothers inability to do so was demonstrated by the large amount of dents on her bumper). I practiced parallel parking in her car for hours at a time, never once indenting her bumper. When I took my drivers test the instructor was impressed by the fluidity with which I snuggled my vehicle in between two park cars. I remember him  saying to me that if I was this graceful at squeezing my way in and out of things that I was going to make a dam good lover to many lucky ladies. Once I received my drivers license I was able to impress my friends and potential lovers with what they began to call my stealth parallel parking abilities. I earned a reputation. For fun most teenagers ride dirt bikes, play sports, go to movies and drink beer….I parallel parked.

I have parallel parked in some of the tightest spots around the world. In piazzas in Italy, on the small cobble stoned streets of Spain, in the desert sand of Israel and in the market places of Thailand and Vietnam. I have parallel parked effortlessly and with mastery. It has taken me a long time to accept that my gift or my greatness is my ability to parallel park. I have always hoped that my greatness was more in the realm of the arts or humanities- but at some point in every mans life he has got to accept the deck of cards that he has been dealt. So I may not be the next Tolstoy or Picasso. I may not create a body of paintings that will be viewed in a modern museum of art or write a book that will be on the New York Times best sellers list but I am content knowing that I can parallel park as well as Picasso, Klee or De Kooning could paint. My greatness will not land me on the cover of a magazine or into the millionaires club but I, and only I- have the satisfaction of knowing that if there was an appreciation for parallel parking in this world…I would go down as one of the greatest parallel parkers that ever lived.

How Facebook Can Help Save Your Life.

I was once terribly disturbed by facebook. I did all I could to avoid it. Despite the fact that almost every individual around was digging deep into facebook- I held out an iron fist. After many months of a stern unwillingness to join the social arena I allowed my wife to convince me of facebooks many attributes and I decided to drop my fist and give it a try. Not long after my honeymoon with facebook had come to a delightful end I found myself obsessively pulled towards the website on an almost hourly basis. I was leaving at least five status updates a day and hearing from past lovers and friends that I had no desire to re-connect with (as much as I am happy to hear that they are alive and well). Facebook was becoming not only an obsession but also an affliction that I was struggling to control. I went out less, socialized with real, corporeal human beings less and began to feel more insecure when I was in public situations. I became so comfortable with hiding behind the facebook platform that my anxiety was easily triggered whenever I found myself in social situations. My habitual usage of facebook became so extreme that my therapist threatened me with and intervention unless I attended a weekly meeting for facebook addicts. It was at this point that I realized I was dealing with a serious addiction. I attended FBAA (Facebook Addiction Anonymous) meetings on a weekly basis and slowly began to sever my unhealthy relationship with the facebook world. I went through months of mourning, a week spent in the woods away from computer access and several detoxes until I was finally able to return to my normal self (which is quite abnormal) in a modern, living, social world- free from the facebook grip.

Months went by without taking a single glance at the facebook homepage. Even though I was tempted every time that I went on line to take a peak at my friends most recent updates I was able to abstain with a combination of a superhuman will and the resolve of a zen monk. I was committed to regaining my confidence by socializing with people in the flesh and by being more engaged in my professional pursuits. Even though I was around people all day I struggled to make friends, which I discovered was not as easy as pushing the “Add Friend” button. Through dozens of consultations with my therapist I learned how to become more comfortable with the sound of my voice, my tall stature and my style of dress (all of which have always been a source of distress for me). Despite the fact that I slowly felt more confident inside my own skin…I was constantly compelled to go back onto facebook and check in with all of my friends because I was feeling very lonely in the real world.

I became conflicted (more so than I already was) and frustrated. It was not as simple for me to communicate with other human beings with honesty and vulnerability as it was for me to do on facebook. Even though I had a strong moral resolve to abstain from my facebook addiction my inner turmoil was become more malignant. Not having a venue to express my deepest thoughts to friends was causing me to feel isolated and constricted. I felt the cloud of a familiar depression following me around wherever I would go and my desire to find the closest computer to log onto facebook with was becoming stronger and stronger. I was going in and out of an FBAA support group but I was well aware of the fact that I had no friends in the real world that I could update about how I was feeling. This resulted in a chronic introversion that left me ten pounds thinner and as tired, isolated and sickly as an old cat.

Then one Sunday, one beautiful Sunday afternoon- I happened upon a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. My gold came in the form of an article written in The New York Times about how having a large community of friends that you can be honest with and that listen to you in return, can extend your life by decades. The article concluded, that several long term research studies had concluded that people with a large friend network not only lived happier lives but also lived healthier and longer lives! I immediately thought about the 56 friends that I had left behind when I retreated from the facebook arena and decided that my current poor health was being caused by my isolation and lack of community. I took the article to my therapist and told her that I was convinced that if used properly and moderately, facebook could save my life.

Initially my therapist thought that my new theory was the ravings of a mad man. After a few consultations and another health scare she decided that there was nothing to loose by seeing if facebook could indeed make me well again. Even though it made perfect sense to me that someone with many friends on facebook  was gaining the same health benefits as someone with the same amount of friends in real life- my therapist remained skeptical but open to learning something new. I persuaded certain family members to support me in my transition into a new relationship with facebook and my sister, my blessed sister, committed to monitoring  facebook homepage in order to make sure that I was not leaving more than one update a day. A contracted was signed between my family, therapist and myself that if I was caught leaving more than one status update a day or spending more than twenty minutes a day on facebook- I would permanently and forever give facebook up.

It has been a month since I began my new relationship with facebook. I have devoted myself to spending my allotted twenty minutes a day on facebook judiciously recruiting new friends, leaving a very honest status update and reading my friends updates (and responding to some). Interestingly, I have noticed that my health has returned to a state of homeostasis and the cloud of depression that followed me around like a bad memory…has all but vanished. Normally, I try to sign onto facebook first thing in the morning or before going to bed for the night. If the study in The New York Times is indeed correct, than I am a living testament to the power of friends. My goal for this summer is to recruit over 200 new friends which I assume will only add to the quality and quantity of my life. It is only a matter of time until I have mastered myself enough that I will be able to spend more time on facebook without becoming addicted (it is my desire to get to a balanced state of being able to leave no more than three status updates a day). The other day my therapist told me that life was a series of trials and transformations. She congratulated me on my personal progress by recognizing that I had regained my confidence, optimism and energy. She is not quite willing to admit that my positive transformation is the result of more friends in my life, but whenever I meet with her now- I always end by saying…. “It really was facebook that saved my life.”

On Being Crazy

Today in the middle of class a student of mine told me that I was crazy. “Mr. R, your crazy,” he said. Just like that, in the middle of a lecture on Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.” I felt a bit embarrassed about being accused of this in front of my class. I replied with surprise, “what do you mean I am crazy?” “You know what I mean, your crazy,” he said once again looking me straight in the eye. “Why do you say that?” “I don’t know, I just know that you are crazy,” he concluded. He was not one to talk. This particular student has a reputation for being one of the crazier men on campus. He is missing his two front teeth from trying to bite through rocks (while high) and he has a huge scar across his neck, which is a testament to a failed suicide attempt. I could not just stand there in front of a classroom filled with 52 students and take this assault on my reputation. “What do you mean I am crazy, you’re the crazy one,” I said with a strong defensive tone. He stood his ground and simply replied, “I know I am crazy but YOU are the craziest.” The class laughed and all I could do before continuing with my lesson was say “great, so we are both crazy.”

For the rest of the afternoon the idea that I may be crazy has not left my mind. I have been reviewing my past and present behavior to see if there is any validation in my students judgemental claim. I have even gone so far as to ask a few of my co-workers the uncomfortable question, “do you think I am crazy.” Of course all of them told me what I wanted to hear: “no you are not at all crazy,” “I would not use the adjective crazy to describe you,” “definitely not crazy, maybe a little eccentric, but not crazy,” and of course “what! you are one of the saner people that I know.” Ever since I became an adult I have grown less and less trusting of an adults ability to tell the truth, so of course- I hardly believe any of the above claims. I could see in all of my co-workers eyes the truth wanting to come out but their inability to tell me how they really felt, that yes they agree with my student, that “yes, you are crazy,” only restores my belief that if you want the real truth about yourself, ask a teenager.

I don’t understand why it is such a big surprise to me that I am crazy. If I examine my past- it makes perfect sense that I would end up a little mentally unstable. I am the offspring of two Jewish parents who were filled with guilt and high expectations for their less than ambitious son. I let them down on almost a daily basis. They raised me on a golf course (in a suburban country club) where my worst fear was a golf ball hitting me in the head while sitting out by the pool. I had a maid who made my bed and cleaned my room every afternoon and a cook who prepared my meals. My father, who was an angry and violent man, terrorized me with his unstable emotions and always walked around our house naked. I was forced to go to a college that was $60,000 dollars a year and I had know idea what I was doing there. I joined a fraternity that made me eat live goldfish, dog feces and half dead frogs and stick my penis into prostitutes and other things that to this day I am still uncertain about what they were. After college, I developed a panic disorder that kept me confined to my apartment for years and by the age of thirty I was penniless and living in a transient motel. Now close to forty I am just starting to get my footing back. I live in an area where bullets rain down from the sky and sirens have replaced my childhood sounds of blue jays, swaying oak trees and golf swings. Why would I not be a little crazy?

Now that I think about it more, I am crazy. Okay, my student called my bluff today. I have never questioned the brutal honesty of teenagers before today because I have never been subjected to their sharp accusations. My defensiveness was an admission of guilt. Yes, I am guilty of craziness. Some may even agree that I have lost my mind. Maybe it is the transition from the first part of my life being filled with so much wealth and the second half being filled with so much struggle (it ain’t easy to be twenty five years old, living alone in a run down apartment and dropped into a kitchen without a clue on how to cook for yourself). The transition between the two may have jolted my nervous system into imbalance. Add upon that a sensitive disposition that not only feels but wants to end all the sufferings of the world- then yes…..you could call me crazy. And if that was not enough now add the threat of swine flu (I teach at an inner city high school made up of over fifty percent Mexicans- most of whom just arrived back from Mexico after their spring break) and yes, I may be loosing my mind. However, into today’s world, who isn’t guilty of insanity? The lifestyles that we live, the news stories that we bare witness to on a daily basis, the life and death struggles that frame our own existences…..is this not enough to jolt any nervous system into imbalance? As I was leaving my classroom today my student approached me and said “Mr. R, I hope I did not offend you by calling you crazy… I was just messing around.” I stood there in silence for a moment and then I looked at him and said, “I think everyone is a little crazy, don’t you?….and beside who the hell would not want to be crazy. It’s just another way of saying….. your are alive.”

P.s……..I apologize for any grammatical errors or poor sentence structures. Today…I am writing with tooth picks in my eyes (to keep them open) and a strong need to rest my crazy head.

Man In The Box

I am a man in the box. It is a box that I have made myself. It has its own logic and unique structure that took years to conform. It is a stubborn box that does not like to change its shape nor does it like it when I make certain revisions. My box has a very specific idea of the world and it is in this shape that it wants to stay. No matter how much I clean, fix, mend, adjust or renovate- my box always returns to its former state of disarray and disorder. My box is a universe unto itself. It has its own date and time and it does not care if it conflicts with yours or mine. It deviates from almost every norm and code and does not seem to care about such concepts as good or bad, right or wrong. I do know how it is that I have ended up in this box, but now that I am here I feel like I am always struggling to stay alive.

Within my box, I am perpetually alone. I can often hear the discordant sounds that can only be heard when the mind becomes silent. A wind chime that slow dances in the wind, the box settling into the agitated earth, a solitary bird call, a cats yawn or yell, a metallic bird flying overhead, distant voices alive and dead, siren sounds and occasionally I will hear a star falling.  When I am in a mad rush to get my box cleaned and ordered I can no longer hear these wondrous sounds but instead I am lead by anxious thoughts that will not let me just sit down and breathe. The thoughts torment me with the things that need to get done in order for me to become the man that I wish to be. These thought refuse to let me be just who I am and at times my thoughts will fill my mind with sexual fantasies that erect in me a load that I almost always have to release in the bathroom. As I clean my box, these thoughts knock away at me from the deepest rooms of my soul and my only defense is to continue cleaning until I can hear no more. I scrub, wipe, mop, sweep and dry until there is no more dust, dirt, grease mold, bacteria, stains, odors and lingering cobwebs left that I can find. I work my heart into a frenzy in order to free myself from my mind.

It is only when my box is clean and tidy and filled with the luscious odors of gardenias and lavender that I can be still and content. I can then once again hear the stars falling from the sky and my box settling into the agitated earth and now that everything is in its right place, everything is as it should be. Even though outside my box chaos and entropy may be lords inside feels fine. I sit quietly, sometimes in the lotus posture, besides my space heater and feel and listen to the calming expansions and contractions of my own breath. I become drunk on my own breath and sit as calmly and effortlessly as a man without a worry in the world would. It is in this state that I will often times remain for hours or days, content with who and where I am (without a single spark of desire that wishes to be someone else or somewhere else) and proud of the box that I have made.

Unfortunately, one can only sit still for so long before things begin to fall apart. I get back up, dust off my numb and pulsating legs (which I usually have to drink green algae and magnesium to relieve) and notice that my box is no longer as clean as it once was. The cobwebs, dust, dirt, odors, stains, mold and bacteria that were once long gone have returned with vengeance. I immediately return to work. I clean on my hands and knees and can no longer understand the peace that once was mine. I scrub with an effort of determination that wipes away all my joy but still the thoughts that emphasize words like failure, sick, poor, worry and death are relentless and refuse to let my body and soul be. I struggle against the forces that want to take from me what I once had and I end up turning my box into a living hell. In my distress I open windows, light candles, play Mozart and Bach on my record player and force myself to breathe deeply and bring my attention to the gentle notes emanating sounds from violin strings- but my box is shaking with fear and only a few stiff drinks will settle the trembling earth beneath my feet.

Sometimes I have a tendency to drink one to many. I knock into walls and fall onto the floor. My laughter returns from the void and I want to dance. I smoke cigarettes and talk to myself about philosophy, art and politics as if I was engaging three others in stimulating conversation. My thoughts are still and my soul is once again filled with lightness and joy and free to swim around in the swimming pool of inebriation. For hours I will wonder around my box drunk and in love with the world inside my front door.  I look at everything that I own with adoration and gratitude and I celebrate the life that I am living with song and dance. I dwell in my pleasant memories like a lone sailor quietly drifting out to sea and I remember faces from my past with a heart the beats with fond nostalgia. Free from my fears and the burden of daily responsibilities I relish away my time in a drunken revelry like a man who is living his final day to its fullest. When my time is up I will pass out wherever I maybe and in the morning awake with nothing to show for my hours of glory and celebration other than a clouded memory of fun, nausea, aching temples and a lingering thorn of shame and longing somewhere in my gut.

No matter where I go or what I do, in my box I always end up right back where I began. Day turns into night and night again turns into day and I am continuously left alone to deal with who I am. No matter how many distractions I may preoccupy myself with during the course of a day I always come back to the life I am living. My box is stubborn and will not twist or alter its shape no matter how much I change things around. Everyday, like a loyal servant, I clean and open the windows so that light can come into my box and shine against the freshly cleaned walls and floors. but I am always faced with inevitable night that fills my box with darkness. Since I have confronted the irreversible fact that I am stuck in this box, I am learning to become comfortable with these cycles that I have no control over. Even though my box refuses to move, shift, tilt, sway or stretch I can accept the things that are beyond my control. Within my box I can embrace the moments when I am still and at peace as equally as the moments when I am filled with fear and worry and driven into drunkenness. The more I embrace all of my experiences the more I see all of these cycles not as dualities that oppose and work against each other, but rather as textures filled with layers of love, fear, passion and dispassion. This is the continuum that I prefer to think of as life. Within my box I will continue to accept my experience as apart of this continuum and fill my box with love, hate, joy, anger, worry, sadness, bliss, terror and anything else that contributes to my experience of life. I will clean, scrub, care for, and tolerate my box until the day that it is time for me to pack my bags and find another place to live.

Genius and Daemon

Where do the words go? Do the ideas come before the words or do the words give birth to ideas? Whatever the case may be, I can not find either one of them. I have looked everywhere. Under my couch, bed, pillow, stove and refrigerator. I have looked on top of my bookshelves, behind them and even within the dust ridden pages that sit patiently on my bookshelf awaiting a time when they will once again corrupt my mind. I have cleaned out the insides of my car but still found nothing. This is as frustrating for me as when I loose my car keys and have no idea where I put them. I can remember the last time I held them in my hand but I have no idea where they are. It feels like yesterday that I just misplaced my words and ideas, but the irony of my search is that the more I look the harder they are to find.

It is true that the creative process is irrational. There is no sense to it only because the recipient of creativity can not depend upon it being there when he or she awakens in the morning. I remember a time, not to long ago, when words and ideas for stories would come to me as if brought by a divine delivery service. I would be out walking, working in the fields or sitting at a restaurant and I could hear and feel words and ideas for stories coming at me like a thunderous train of air. The ground beneath my feet would begin to shake when the train was not far away and I would run from wherever I was to find paper and a pen so that I could collect the delivery before it passed away. As I grew older and wiser I began carrying paper and pen with me wherever I went so that I would be better equipped to catch the ideas and words before they could escape and fall into the lap of the next available Writer. As some of you may know, the divine delivery service is impatient and does not care if you are in the middle of dinner with friends, on a nice leisurely walk or riding your bike along a tall cliff. You are a slave to its delivery times, and for someone like myself- the packages where coming quite frequently. I look back on this period of my life with fondness and realize that as an aspiring Writer this was my golden age, and age that seems to now be hiding from the sun.

The Greeks and Romans believed that creativity was a divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant unknowable source for some distant and unknowable reasons. Greeks called these divine attendant spirits of creativity Daemons. Socrates believed that he had a Daemon that spoke wisdom to him from afar. Romans referred to this disembodied creative spirit as a Genius. They believed that a Genius was a magical divine entity that literally lived in the walls of an artists studio and came out to help the artist shape the final art work. In our contemporary time we seem to put the emphasis of creativity all upon the artist (rather than see them as merely a vessel, a cup if you will) and rarely think of the artist as a normal individual with aches and pains just like all others. The only difference between the artist and everyone else, is that the artist receives deliveries from these divine attendant spirits. This may be why we look upon artists as depressive, struggling, idealists who drink too much and live not long enough- we fail to realize how much grief is caused when the delivery service stops showing up and they become normal human mortals again.

It is true, for months I have felt lighter, as if a part of my soul or spirit has stepped out for a stroll. I am not drinking more or becoming more self deprecating because of my loss, but I find myself searching a lot more than I did before. It is almost as if I lost something but I do not know what. Could it be that I am missing my Daemon or my Genius? Have my divine attendant spirits left me for another? This is another one of life’s big questions that I have no answer to, but I do know that I have spent days listening for that thunderous train of air. I will go for long walks or bike rides with my pen and paper in hand, awaiting the sensation of the ground shaking beneath my eager feet. I will sit in restaurants with friends trying to get lost in conversation, or deliberately put myself into preoccupying situations so that I can be surprised by the furious rumble that always used to unleash a tidal wave of words and ideas upon my soul- but I am always waiting in vain. Like a lover who waits everyday for the mail so as to know that their beloved is still alive, I dangle the pen in my hand, flip through the blank pages in my notebook and anticipate what seems to no longer be coming.

Some say that absence makes the heart grow fonder but I say that it can also make the mind mad. I am cleaning my house twice a day and checking spaces that I have checked numerous times before. I have starting talking to myself in public and wherever I am, I look around hoping that I will find something that no one else can see. I travel to the strangest places in my mind and spend hours driving around in my car like a man looking for a run away pet. Maybe the words and ideas that I have lost will come to me in the least expected of places, I tell myself as I search. My wife once told me when I was searching for a wallet that I could not find, you can never look to hard for something that you desperately want to find, and so with the determination of a man who believes that the best years of his writing career are still in front of him, everywhere I go I am searching for those words and ideas that once roamed so freely in the sanctity of my creative mind.

I have started an altar in the corner of my room. On it is an orange and a banana and the words Genius and Daemon writing in black ink and stuck in two small frames. Every morning when I wake up without my creativity I light a candle and sit in front of the altar. I say a few prayers, I make the offering of fruit and then I start to beg. I beg for Genius and/or Daemon to return to me. I beg for them not to leave me alone as an ordinary mortal in this world of mediocrity and nine to five work sentences. I make pledges that I will commit myself to my writing so that I can write books that will enlighten hundreds of thousands of minds. No longer will I neglect writing for days. No longer will I say that I am a Writer when I never re-write. I confess all of my writing sins and with my hands held in-between the palms of my hands, I cry a little and ask for forgiveness. When I am done with my holly supplications I blow out the candle, thank Genius and Daemon for their time and then shower and dress for the long day in-front of me. My hope is that today I will find a word or idea that will get a story rolling. Even better, I hope that I will hear that thunderous train of words and ideas approaching when I least expect it. If hope is what keeps a man alive than I will continue to hope and pray that today will be the day that my search will end and I can sit down and write the stories I was born to tell.

The Sex Life Of A Computer And A Man.

I have decided that I am having an unhealthy sexual relationship with my computer. As much as I want to deny this fact, I can not because it is truth. If I really contemplate the nature of this relationship I can tell that it has been going on for a really long time. Much longer than I would like to admit. Unlike most relationships, my sexual relationship has become more addictive as time has passed by. What once was a once a month or so sexual interaction, has become almost daily at this juncture in my life. The relationship is one sided, I do most of the work while the computer simply projects images of my sexual fantasies onto the screen. When I am finished having a sexual interaction with my computer I almost always feel a pound of guilt and shame, like I am doing something I should not be doing or should be doing with my wife rather than alone behind a locked door.

Tomorrow I have decided that the relationship will end. Today will be our final sexual interaction and then tomorrow I will block any sexual information or imagery from coming through my computer. I know that this is a rather sudden and harsh measure to take considering the duration of our sexual relationship, but I feel like this is something I must do. I will do it over lunch. I will take my computer with me to a very nice café and do it after I write a few emails and check my facebook account and blog. I found a sex blocking program on the internet that will take about five minutes to download onto my computer. As the program is downloading I will explain to my computer that I am a different kind of man now. I will tell it that I no longer want a life where I am pre-occupied with our sexual interactions. I want a life where I am in charge and focused upon my wife, work and personal growth. With all of my linguistic acumen I will try to get my computer to understand that the sex life we share is bringing me down and making me feel like a loser. It just is not healthy for a thirty eight year old male to be having such an obsessive sex life with his computer. I need real physical interaction rather than simulated sex and I only hope that my computer will be able to understand this conflict of interests.

I have a feeling that I already know how my computer is going to respond. It will malfunction for a while causing words to be typed in incorrect spaces and the screen to go out when I am in the middle of doing something important. In the past when my computer and I have been through similar situations it has always malfunctioned either to get my attention or to punish me for what I have done to it. It is annoying and I usually have to take my computer to a shop, spend lots of money to get it fixed- but I figure that if I can forever stop having sexual relations with my computer that it will be well worth the financial investment.

My therapist and I figured out that so much of my valuable time is taken up by having a sexual relationship with my computer. For a week I kept track of the time that I spent sexually engaged with my computer and the final results were shocking. I could spend this valuable time working on a novel, making a painting, sitting in meditation, walking in nature, making love to my wife- but instead I have been choosing sex with a computer. Even though I have tried this kind of break-up many times before with my computer, what will be different this time is that I realize how big a toll my sex life with a computer is taking on the rest of my life! The last time that I tried to break-up with my computer I was not armed with a therapist, self- awareness and a program to download onto my computer that will block anything sexual from coming through. This time, unlike times in the past, I am well prepared for the task at hand.

Deep down, I know that I have the talent needed to manifest my dreams. I just lack the work ethic. I am lazy and will come up with the most elaborate distractions to avoid doing the work that I need to do in order to manifest a dream or two. For a time longer that I care to admit I have been sexually using my computer as a device of distraction. Rather than sitting down at my computer and composing the novel that I desperately dream of beginning, I take off my clothes and sit naked in front of my computer instead. If you would of told me as a self obsessed teenager that I would still be doing this kind of stuff as an older man I would of taken boy scouts much more seriously and tried my hardest to make myself into an honest young man. But instead here I am some twenty or so years later still struggling with similar issues as I was when young. I do not suffer from the same degree of guilt and shame as I did when I was young (because I know that I am not a bad person) nor do I live in fear of hair growing out from the palm of my hands. Now I have a degree of extra confidence and I am able to express my needs without the fear of rejection. Even though ending this sexual relationship with my computer will be difficult, I have faith in my ability to end relationships that are no longer good for me. I have done this with many people before and I can’t see why now I should not be able to do this same thing with my computer.

My therapist tells me that ending the relationship will not be the hard part but staying away from sexual interactions with my computer over time and re-placing it with healthier interactions like emailing, facebook or blogging, will be the real challenge. I have already started a facebook account and I am now blogging more than I have in the past. I have been conditioned (a Pavlovian response) to get an erection every time that I sit down in front of my computer because I have had such a dominate sexual relationship with it in the past. In the future when this occurs, my therapists recommends that I take deep breaths, ignore my erection and over time I will not have sexual impulse-responses each and every time I sit in front of a computer screen. So starting tomorrow, my intention is set- no more sex with my computer. It is going to be a hard break-up, I know, but in the long run it will be best for both of us. My mother always told me that time will heal all wounds and strengthen the spirit and heart- for the first time in my life I am going to hope that my mom knew what she was talking about.

Transcendental Drinking

For more time than I care to think back upon, I have been seeking enlightenment. I have looked for it in more places than you could imagine. I have engaged in various pathways to personal liberation such as silent meditation retreats, aura balancing workshops, weekly psychoanalysis consultations, mantra gatherings, daily morning meditation sessions and on and on. At one time I even sold everything that I owned and lived in a shack in the country for three years. I have hundreds of books piled in the corners of my small apartment that focus upon themes such as inner peace, mindfulness, destroying fear, living in balance, the power of the now and meditation. In every available spiritual crevice I have stuck my head, still after all these years- nothing has brought me closer to enlightenment than two beers and a shot of whiskey.

It was Ben Franklin who said that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. If what Ben says is true than maybe he was on to something. It has been well documented that Ben Franklin read eastern philosophy and dabbled in the esoteric arts. Various historians say that Ben Franklin was interested in magic and others have written widely upon his interest in trying to transcend his reality through various spiritual modalities. One historical account that I was reading of Ben Franklin the other day, said that nothing was as effective as beer for Mr. Franklin to reach the desired state of enlightenment. This is why he is often referred to as the transcendental drinker.

Like Mr. Franklin, I consider myself to be a transcendental drinker. In all my many years of spiritual investigations, nothing has had the ability to center me like booze. Every day, through my various retinue of spiritual supplications, I strive to reach a state of being where I am free from anxiety, fear, worry and my chronic feelings of inadequacy. I do my daily mantras, breathing exercises, yoga postures and prayers- but still I am left with a lingering sense of the apprehension and negative emotions that I strive so hard to transcend. But when I drink (which is a daily practice of mine as well) within twenty minutes or after the second beer, my thoughts come to a halt, my fear is silenced and my normally guarded, anxious, angry and uptight personality is put away. Out will come a more outgoing me that has no problem talking freely with strangers. After a shot of whiskey to wash the final residue of my second beer away, I am fully grounded in the present moment without a worry in the world. The earth upon which I struggle on a daily basis is turned into a paradise and I am as close to being in the same state as any transcendent spiritual master I have ever read about. I become (for a few hours at least) what I would like to call- enlightened.

Living Underwater

It does not take a perceptive individual to be able to see that the world and everyone within this world is in great danger. From the toxins flying freely in the air to the life denying wars and corporate greed- antagonists of life such as global warming, violence, disease and recessions are here to stay for awhile. I had a Teacher once, many years ago, who taught me the fundamental law of life on earth. He taught that human beings are the microcosm of the larger world environment, which is the macrocosm. If the inner condition of human being is sick and run down the outer conditions of the world will be a direct reflection of this inner malaise. This theory works the other way around as well- if the outer world environment is ill so is our inner human environment. One is directly connected to the other, and the idea that our actions are separate from the larger world environment is simply misguided and the single reason why these current global problems are going to stick around for awhile.

I have tried to cultivate wisdom, love and good health within myself- with the expectation that somehow this will save the world from what seems to be her inevitable end (as we know it). But all of my attempts seem futile considering that all around me, I see things and people in a million little pieces of dis-repair. The skies are filled with smog, the news is filled with violence, war and economic recession on an hourly basis. The school in which I teach is filled with a poverty so overwhelming, that ants are currently eating away at the desks in  classroom.

Two weeks ago I read an article about the health benefits of spending time underwater. Not only does spending two minutes a day underwater improve your stress levels but it also induces a sense of over all well being that is said to cure high blood pressure, panic disorder, OCD, fibromyalgia, connective tissue disorders, arthritis, migraines, diabetes type one and various other bronchial and cardiac stress induced disease. Considering that I am a reflection of the world around me, it is only natural to understand why I experience a variety of health challenges. Like any individual who is determined to get well, I drink wine and beer on a nightly basis, do Yoga, masturbate at least twice a week, watch what I eat and take on any other life style changes that may add to my inner sense of well being. Oh, I also have been living, underwater.

All day long I look forward to the time that I will spend in my tub. When I make it home through the smog and grid lock traffic, I immediately run into the bathroom and start running the warm bath water before I have even put down my work day baggage. All day long between the screaming teenagers and the demanding administration, I have been dreaming about the time I will be spending underwater. The thought of being underwater pulls me forward like the most irresistible force of entropy. When I am finally home, and the bath tub is barley filled- I strip down into the nude, fill the tub with lavender salts and then plop right in.

My wife has been concerned because I have not been eating dinner lately since I am spending so much time in my tub (I do not like to eat at night because food in my system gives me cramps when I am underwater). On some days, I will spend up to six hours underwater. I will use a large straw as my underwater breathing device and I will lie still in the sanctity of my tub, until my skin becomes so water logged that I have no choice but to get out and go to bed. When I am underwater I feel like the outer world is washed away and my inner world is filled up with a sense of crystalline equanimity. I am a man at peace, desiring nothing and needing to go nowhere; like a holly Samana on a spiritual journey, I am able to dwell in the calm abode within myself. I have often thought that the reason why spending so much time living underwater is so helpful for me is because it reminds me of being in my mothers womb. My mother told me once that when I was born I resisted coming out with all my might (she could feel my little hands grabbing onto the sides of her uterus), and after twenty one hours of radical resistance the powers that be were able to yank me into a world that was not as wet and warm.

If I could live underwater I would. I would stay in my tub all day in the silence of the underwater world. Unfortunately, man can not make a living in the underwater world and he must come up for air once in awhile (so that he can afford the tub and the water in which he rests). So I live a divided life. Part of my day is spent in the world of human aspirations. I pass on my fragmented knowledge to the youth of America and in return receive enough money to be considered upper lower class Teacher with some cultural legitimacy. I am able to afford rent on a decent sized abode in the ghetto, the pets that I love and the wife that I adore. The world of human aspirations occupies half of my waking time, but when I am done with that transitory world- I say good bye to my wife, my work, my writing, my birds, my cats, my dog and I fill up my tub and enter into the underwater world. It is here, in the sanctity of my tub, that I am fully myself, fully at peace in the nude. I lie on my back looking up at the world through my clouded speedo goggles with a feeling of deep reassurance that what I am doing is not only good for me but also for the larger macrocosm, which is a direct reflection of a man who is living underwater.

The Man Who Pissed A Miracle

Three weeks ago I peed upon a large plot of dirt that was located behind my parents home. I was locked out and had to go. The large plot of dirt was the only piece of land on my parents property that was not touched by landscaping. My father had wanted to build a Japanese tea garden on the dirt plot but because of the recent economic recession he had decided to wait it out. I was in my parents neighborhood that day (I went to a job interview) and I decided to stop in. Not only was I hoping to borrow some money but I desperately needed to use the toilet. When I found no one at home- I had no choice but to pee on their small piece of land.

When nature calls it is difficult for man or woman to ignore the call. The twentieth century was filled with magnificent inventions that attempted to bypass natures call. Somehow humans thought that if they could be ingenious enough to trick nature then maybe they could be in control. I however have difficulty ignoring the call of the wild. I prefer to listen and respond when necessary. Possibly a great deal of my anxiety stems from the fact that I am too tuned into nature but this seems to be a disposition that I was born with. That day under the sun and in the quietude of my parents back yard, I peed without any thought about the personal violation I may have been committing. When I was finished watering the dirt I zipped up my pants and drove back to my home.

Today I returned to my parents home and was stunned by what I saw. In the very plot of dirt where I peed three weeks before grew a gorgeous lemon tree. My father and I stood in silence under the spring time sun staring at this lemon tree that had grown over four feet tall- in no time. Full grown lemons sat perched upon the end of its branches and a yellow hue highlighted the trees fluorescent leaves. For a few minutes all thoughts about my peeing in this spot three weeks before escaped me. I asked my father if he was sure that the gardeners did not plant this tree. He told me that he was cutting expenses for the time being and one of those expenses was the gardener. No one had worked on this land for months. My mother came out with a cup of iced tea in her hand and said “isn’t it amazing!!” I looked at my mom and said, “how could this be?” My father picked a lemon from the tree and handed it to me. It was the most beautiful lemon I had ever seen. I could smell it before it was in the palm of my hand. “Amazing,” was all I could say.

And then I remembered that three weeks before I had taken a piss in the same place where the lemon tree now stood. I questioned myself for a few minutes trying to convince myself that the tree must of been here before I peed. It was not. There was no way to explain what was before my eyes other than that my urine had given birth to this lemon tree. How this could be escapes my rational mind but I remember when I gave a urine sample to my doctor a few months ago he told me it was the most nutrient dense urine he had ever seen. “It almost reminds me of lemon juice,” he said. I thought nothing of this remark until today. As I stood besides the lemon tree with my mother and father I was shocked by the possible power of my pee. I wanted to tell them that I may know the reason why the tree is there. They may be upset that I peed upon their valuable land but when they found out what their son’s urine could achieve- all hurt feelings would possibly turn into an emotion of awe towards the holly man who was their son. Finally they would think that after 37 years of failure on earth- I had made something out of myself. As my mother stood there repeating, “incredible” over and over- I remained silent afraid that if I took the risk and told the truth as I saw it I would never be allowed to come home again. My father went inside and got his camera and for the rest of the day I pretended to be as surprised as they were about this strange lemon tree that grew from my pee.