H.E.P.A.

I took my car into The Dealer to have the oil changed the other day.  As a general rule I don't trust people who work on my car because I don't know anything about cars.  I believe I could find the area of the car where the engine thing is located but that's about it.  So the car guys can say whatever they want: "Mr. Seaweed, your Johnson Rod is in terrible shape."  

What am I going to say: "I don't think so - I inspected all four of the Johnson Rods just last week and they were in fine working mettle."

I tend to do what car people say should be done because the car is a pretty expensive item.  As a general rule I don't trust people who work on my body, either, because they can scare the shit out of me and I don't know enough about the body to mount a rigorous defense.  So what am I going to say when the medical guy who makes a lot of money and has gone to school forever says: "Mr. Seaweed, your Johnson Valve - it connects the stomach to the duodenum - is falling apart and we need to operate."

Generally, I take a walk when the car people are in action.  I don't even want to be in the same building when those people start poking around the car's moving parts.  I got a phone call during my walk telling me that the engine filter and the cabin filter were very, very dirty.  I did not return this call, preferring the "if I don't answer the phone I can't get any bad news" defense.  I decided, in my mind, to pass on replacing these filters.  Unfortunately, when I got back to The Dealer they had already replaced them at the cost of $130.  These must have been some pretty important filters.  I told them to take them right on back off.  I noticed up on the Pricing Board that one of the filters was called a Hepa Cabin Filter and it cost $80.  I didn't research the engine filter - I'm pretty good at math and could come up with a ballpark figure on that dude.

I asked my service gal, Bell, what she thought I was doing in the cabin itself?  Running a Class IV Clean Room so that I could polish semiconductor wafers?  Conducting emergency surgery on some poor sot's Johnson Valve?  HEPA, in case you're wondering, stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air.  I asked Bell if maybe they had a more moderately priced filter, perhaps a JAEPA - a Just Average Efficiency Particulate Air.  She said they did not.

There was another woman in the waiting room who needed a HEPA filter, too, AND some new windshield wipers.

"The car is only a year old," she said.  "And it hasn't rained since I bought it."  It's the desert here, basically - it doesn't rain too often.  The woman wondered why these wipers wore out.  She wasn't too happy with old Bell.

Do you think either of us will go back to that dealer?

Parable of the Goatskin

Parable:  A short narrative illustrating a lesson (usually religious/ moral) by comparison or analogy.  

The philosophical question today is this: Do I have to be nice all of the time?  The premise is this: if most people are being nice to this or that particular individual then what difference does it make if I'm nice?  The overwhelming preponderance of people being nice should outweigh my grumbling.  And why should I recycle or vote?

I'm reminded of the great Biblical story of the wine goatskin at the wedding.  I've heard this story a million times but I could never get past the wine in a goatskin part to the moral of the story part.  That sounds like a horrible way to store wine.

Anyway, the tradition was for each guest to bring a small goatskin of wine to the wedding and pour it into the large, main goatskin.  This particular guest thought this: Why not bring a goatskin of water and pour it into the main goatskin.  Nobody will know because there's going to be so much wine in there already.  He was cheap.  He wanted to drink wine but not pay his fair share.

When the host poured or drained or decanted or whatever you do to get wine out of a goatskin filled the first goblet he was shocked to find out it was nothing but a glass of water.  All of the guests tried to pull the old switcheroo.

Isn't that a great parable?

The Pool. Again.

How about a pool story?  I haven't had a good pool story to pass along in a while.  I seem to misbehave in the pool just about more than anywhere else, which is odd when you think about it seeing as pools are usually associated with relaxation and fun.  I can ruin just about anything.

The pool that I use has an exercise class where a bunch of actually pretty large older women slosh around to a deafening disco-like soundtrack, under the sway of a shouting, yelling, gesticulating instructor who is no tiny little thing herself.  The class is held four times a week at 9AM.  If I choose to swim on a day when the class is being held then I rather obviously have to get there an hour early - which is a little too early - or after the class ends - which is a little too late.  This is typical of me, always trying to manipulate things so that they happen exactly the way I want them to happen.  

I want to swim at 9AM!

Greatly put out and horribly persecuted, under attack from people who don't know how important and fragile that I am, I set up my swimming schedule on non-class days.

Without warning! the classmates and the instructor with her venomous boom box begin showing up on two of the three days when the pool is calm and empty.  The crisis is not severe - they only use two of the four lanes, keeping the remaining ones open for lap swimming.  Frankly, it isn't all that great because 20 actually pretty large older women sloshing around in a small pool create a hell of a lot of waves.  It would be easier swimming in rough surf off the Cape of Horn during a windstorm that trying to make it up and down the length of the pool through all of that sloshing water.

This schedule lasted a few weeks.  Without warning! one day the instructor told me that the class was going to use the whole pool and I'd have to make other swimming arrangements.  This was irritating but fair enough.  I started my swim only to realize that she meant today, that the new schedule was starting today.  She was starting to remove the last lane divider separating me from the sloshing Mongol Horde.

I stopped and shouted something the length of the pool along the lines of: "You have to give me a little notice - I'm going to finish my swim today and if you have a problem with that you can go get a manager and I'll take it up with him."  I may even have been smiling although it's hard to tell with aqua goggles on.  The instructor relented.  I'm sure that a fairly large man in a fairly small bathing suit, begoggled, yelling down the length of the pool wasn't on her list of Good Things That Might Happen To Me Today list.

I think I spoke with reasonable restraint but I'm never sure when I'm pissed off.  I'd like to see a tape of the incident - I bet I don't come off as well as I think I do.

Frank of Assisi

Today I have been pondering the famous Saint Francis of Assisi and his famous prayer, much beloved by The Fellowship, if by "pondering" you mean "thinking about it fleetingly and in passing while doing eight other things."  The part I like most describes the power and beauty of loving rather than being loved, understanding instead of being understood, and doing something else instead of having that thing happen to you.  I can't remember the third thing.  I usually can't remember the second thing, either, and it's not at all unusual to totally forget the whole topic.

For my trip home I've apparently found it productive or pleasurable or a combination of the two to think about all of the ways in which my family has mistreated me and to not think about all of the wonderful things they've done for me in the past.  This is kind of my M.O.: concentrate on the negative while ignoring the positive.  Old Francis was on the right track - I'm never going to get it all going in the right direction as long as I'm focusing on what other people have done or have not done to me instead of the other way around.  

I'm looking at the behavior of the wrong person when I'm not looking at my own behavior.

I've also been pondering how a good day is made up of a lot of good little actions.  Sometimes I'll walk up to someone - a clerk or an assistant or a member of The Program and think: "I'm not in that good of a mood so why the hell should I be nice to this person?"  It seems like my world will be exactly the same whether or not I act like a dick every now and then, and it sure is a lot easier and a lot more fun to act like a dick.

That's not how it works.

Selfish

Selfish:  Holding one's self-interest as the standard for decision making; having regard for oneself above others' well-being. 

The cat has got my tongue.

I have booked a ticket on a jet airplane to return to The Old City.  I should look up all of the crap I wrote the last time I went home and simply cut-and-paste it into this space.  I don't think I'm making too much progress in this arena - I don't think I'm behaving too badly, either, but I haven't moved past all of the petty gripes and grievances and bitchings that plague my thinking. I'm in about the same spot.  As a general rule I like to be moving forward - maybe not all at once but so that the general trend is onward and upward and not down, down, down, into the Ring of Fire.

I don't really want to go back.  I like where I am very much.  I'm very comfortable here.  I don't really miss my family too terribly and I don't think they miss me.  I know they say they miss me when they try to get me to come back but I don't trust their motives.  I don't think they even know what their motives are, to be honest about it.

They're very comfortable spending my money for me.  They seem vexed if I bring up the topic of how much of my money I'm spending, preferring to concentrate on the amount of my money I spend on things other than going someplace I don't want to go.  I've been coached to look closely at my behavior when someone else's opinion vexes me and, frankly, I can see where they're coming from.  I'm much more comfortable spending my money on me than on someone else - which I believe is the definition of selfish - but I can also see that they spend plenty of money on themselves while offering not one red cent to help me get home.  Of course, I don't even need the money to get home but the vexing point is I don't want to spend it anyhow.

Can you see the seeds of A Resentment being sown?  Can you see me watering and fertilizing it with loving care, nurturing it into full flower?

I'm analyzing what The Right Action is.  I believe it is to make this trip home otherwise why would I have booked a ticket?  I don't know.

The Mouse Does Not Exist

At our meeting yesterday - a meditation meeting that happened to fall on Father's Day, almost -  the first person who shared brought up the whole Father's Day thing.  I'm not a big fan of this type of personalization of a good Program topic as a general rule, and not because I'm anti-father, but because it was a meditation meeting, not a Father's Day meeting.  I know that sounds crabby but . . . you know there was a "but" coming, didn't you? - I'm not thrilled when we deviate from a general principle into a specific concept.  I think if you talk about kids or work or houses then you risk excluding those of us who don't have one of those things.  I've always been a big fan of taking something specific - like a problem with a father - and trying to apply a principle to it.  If you're mad at your father then acceptance or tolerance or restraint of tongue and pen might work for everyone and if your dad is peachy as hell then perhaps we can talk about gratitude or patience.

That being said I heard some good stuff once I got off my throne and tried to get into the flow of the meeting.  It made me think about my dad and what he did well and it made me ponder the reasons behind the things that he struggled with, at least in my opinion.  It's a tough life out there from time to time and not just for me.

Just about me.  Just about me.  Just about me.

The mouse does not exist.  The mouse does not exist.

Grateful? Grateful!!

Gratitude:  Showing appreciation; being thankful.

In my weak-ass morning meditation I try to be grateful.  I'm so bad at this that I've had to actually write down the things in my life that are true blessings and I have to open up my little notebook and read them every day.  How pathetic is that?  I can barely stand to be grateful all on my own.  I need a Grateful Coach with Grateful Cheerleaders to show up every morning and rouse me with some inspiring cheers, lest I sink into the glumness that is my preferred state of being.

As if I have anything to be grateful for.

Pshaw.