Is it a Culture Thing?

I recently watched repelled, as a woman clipped the fingernails of her three children on the bus.  I was so thoroughly disgusted I could hardly contain myself.  Contain I did.  I knew she wasn't hurting anyone, 'cept for the poor bastard  that had to clean all of the repulsive child nail clippings from off the floor.  Or the next person that sits in those seats and is forced to pull nail shards out of their pants after their bus ride.  Seriously, this is not the place for grooming.  We are no longer in tree tops, cleaning each other based on hierarchy and gender.  We should not be bonding with one another through the grooming rituals of our fury ancestors by pulling off protein pieces that protrude from the tips of our fingers.  Why this woman felt the need to preen her spawn in public on the busy bus on a Friday afternoon is so beyond me.  Could you not find the time at home?  Is this how you keep your little monsters from running a muck? You must literally hold their grubby mitts while you snap off pieces of keratin coated dirt chunks?  The fingernails were all over the floor, the seats and the children.  The entire family seemed completely at ease with this act.  It was as though they were bonding over nauseating the rest of the passengers...if they had the awareness to notice.  They didn't even realize anyone else was paying attention.  They were in their own little tree top, high above in their canopy with a floor created by crunchy nail collections and filth.  Why was this a thing I needed to witness?  Albeit they weren't causing direct harm to anyone but why on the fucking bus?  I clip my nails over the garbage in my bathroom.  Have you ever gotten a nail sliver?  It's not fun.  That shit is there to protect your juicy underparts and than to be discarded promptly when they piss you off while masturbating...er...or at work.  Yes, while working.  I guess I should be grateful the Alpha didn't bust out his feet for a little groom o' doom before my stop came.  Savages.

Day One

I don't want to be the one
who counts my days
down to none.
To be the only
person
on this planet
so sad and very
lonely.  I sometimes
can't muster the
strength to go to
any length of change
or growth, to be
without remorse or
shame.  I am doomed
to roam alone,
fulfillment rings its
empty tone.  I shall
not know what keeps
me going.  Perhaps it's
not what's in the knowing
but what the journey has
to offer.
Pretend!  They say,
while they cram
full the coffer.

Avoid Eye Contact

I was uptown today to get an HIV/AIDS test.  I always get super paranoid when I'm newly single so don't be worried as tis merely a formality of my insanity.  I don't know why but I feel the need to be uber healthy and aware of said health when I'm not fucking anyone...weird, I know.  Anyhoo, so for my journey home I catch one of those little mini buses that hold many and drive like the devil.  I make eye contact with this woman who starts talking about the flowers out our window.  Usually, I avoid such contact.  People are fucking crazy and those that transit are to be kept at leg kicking lengths.  However, I was feeling lightheaded having just given blood and engaged.

She seemed to be a worldly woman of distinct attire.  Not odd distinct.  Kind of tasteful classic I'll say.  She had grey/silver hair and was wearing a moderate amount of heavy gold jewelry.  She had minimal makeup on but was quite strikingly pretty.  Not beautiful but a very handsome women indeed.  She mentioned the beauty of the cherry blossoms and asked me what my favorite springtime flower was.  I hesitated in thought, for why would I lie to a stranger and told her that I was fond of the crocus.  "Ah yes," She said knowingly.

From there she mentioned that the world doesn't take the time anymore to 'stop and smell the roses' as the saying goes.  She went on to say that, "We are so obsessed with what we don't have that we cannot fathom appreciating what we do."

I added, "We are indeed consumed by what our neighbors have."  I was fascinated by this woman's openness and thought to ask her take on the current situation we find ourselves in.

She said knowingly, "Television.  Television has ruined our civilization.  I divorced my first husband because he didn't match up to how Hollywood depicts a relationship should unfold.  He took care of the kids, changed diapers, washed walls and I didn't appreciate him or what I had because I was told there was something better.  I expected what others had and gave up being grateful for what was right in front of me."

This women, a total stranger to me on this shitty bumpy bus was bestowing upon me some very generous wisdom.  We all know this lesson but who of us needs to be reminded periodically to keep us on the path of internal growth and enlightenment?  Who of us needs a gentle nudge once in a while to hold true to what's important and say 'fuck it' to the other stuff?  This guy.  I thanked her for sharing and pulled the chord for my stop.  I must admit I wanted to chat more but you know how life and bus stops can get in the way of that.  As I walked the short distance to the door she said, "Every time I see a crocus, I'll think of you."  I waved and that was that.  A gorgeous moment between two people at very different stages in their lives, connecting over the shared experience of simply being alive.  I wanted to share this because I wasn't zoned into my phone.  I wasn't blaring music from my ever present head phones.  And I didn't avoid eye contact with a crazy lady talking about how beautiful the flowers outside our window were.  These are the moments we live for people...don't forsake their weight on your day or in your life.

Calm Blue Ocean!

Sooooo, member earlier when I was all like calm and serene and my inner child had awoke to bring my true self to light and release a lot of pent up past shit?  Well, my Inner Child wants to put down her posies and punch a dude in the face right now...that didn't take long.

I'm at the pharmacy getting my Typhoid vaccination for some upcoming travel when the pharmacist begins to dumb down everything he's saying regarding the dosage and so forth.  I'm like, "Dude, I've done this before...I got this."  He proceeds to painstakingly explain shit to me I already know, even after I assure him that I'm good.  I see that my confidence hasn't swayed the duration of his speech so I keep quiet and allow him the dignity of finishing his speel.  Finally, when the chatter had ceased, I ask him, "So how long does this vaccine last?"

He goes on auto-pilot, "As I previously explained to you, it lasts up to three years but if you're travelling back and forth to the area you may require a booster...and blahblahda-blahblahblah."  I interrupt this time having my patience run dry...

"Dude.  I know.  You said and I've received the vaccine from a travel clinic before.  I want to know how long the vaccine, in the form it is currently in at this moment in space and time is going to last so that the poison I'm about to inject into my body doesn't die before I accomplish this."

"Oh.  One year.  In the fridge."

Either the dude is so use to talking to the elderly or he doesn't know how to listen.  I'd like to think that I don't look like a spacey moron who can't understand simple instructions, so I hope that wasn't the reason behind his relentless descriptions.  Or alternatively, that it wasn't a gender thing and he assumed that my vagina made me unequipped to understand...like every relationship I've ever had. I get that he often has to repeat himself because the general public are useless boobs but his entire purpose in life is to listen to people's queries and respond accordingly.  Instead he had already preordained his responses to my unasked questions and here we are:  For whatever his reasons were, Inner Child needs to punch a dick.

Tears Upon the Yoga Mat

I had a profound experience this morning.  They come so few and far between that I felt compelled to write about it.  As I was performing my day off morning ritual of stretching, I believe you new-ageists refer to it as 'Yoga', followed by a brief guided meditation I became new again.  This is one of my many goals in the limited time I have on this pale blue dot.  I want to be new again.  To see things freshly without all of the baggage and pain that I tend to color experience with.  My brush needs new bristles and my paints have all mellowed.  These rare moments of seeing things freshly and from an original perspective, untainted and untarnished by the torment of others and too often myself, revive my color collection and renew my faded canvass...my brush is still a piece of shit.

I decided the guided meditation I was to partake in this morrow was regarding the topic of the inner child.  I know, I just heard your eye balls rolling violently to the back of your skulls.  But seriously people!  I feel transformed...cue next ball rolling.  I know these moments are so very transitory so I must put it to page before the warm feelings and insight escape me.  The meditation was about seeing yourself in a garden with your 'inner child'.  You frolic with your child while telling them positive and forgiving things.  You tell them that you love and respect them and that you're sorry for all of the pain you've allowed others and yourself to cause them.  Well, it was about this time that I lost it.  Truth be told, when I imagined my little kid self, skipping free and oozing with potential in a garden of my mind...my eyes began to well with salty substance.  My little child, me, who so tiny and fragile and open has been hurt by so much of life.  I as an adult force that little frail one to carry the load of all of my mistakes, regrets, and sacrifices.  Seeing myself as a child it was so easy to forgive and apologize for it all.  I am so often excruciatingly hard on myself but when you look at yourself as though you were a wee one, how could anyone put all of that nonsense on a child?  Why is it okay to do it to myself as an adult?

As I told my inner self that I was sorry the tears were unstoppable at this point and I just let them flow, drenching me and my purple yoga mat through.  My eyes closed tight I felt all of the weight I carry dissipate and my child and I ran around my brain garden laughing and holding hands.  It was a beautiful image of solace and reparation.  I felt so sad of what I've done to myself...the terrible story I regurgitate over and over in my head about who and what I am, where I'm going, where I've been and who I'll be next.  What an exorbitant amount of energy this takes.  I'm drained now but instead of being blinded to lifes artistry I am reawakened to it.  At the end of the meditation, I opened the pools where my eyes once to reflect in this moment shared with an earlier self who feels forgiven and renewed.  I left my child in the garden, knowing that I can visit her whenever I want and that she no longer needs to hold the weight I force upon her.  She is free from care.  She is free from wants and empty, passing desires.  She is free from all of the stress and worry that I impose because I fear.  She is free to be safe because I can protect her now.  She is no longer guarded from living as I won't keep her from life.  She is free now, because she is me.

Baboon! Baboon! BabOOOOOON!

I was given some advice by my supervisor the other day.  I have felt unsettled about it since until now.  It struck an old and deep chord with me.  Something she said brought me back to my childhood.  On the playground we are taught to play nice.  We are taught to take turns, respect the other...to play well with others.  We are told that to be liked is the ultimate goal.  This is the advice my boss bestowed upon me.  It's total crap.

I believe we must learn to be independent of being liked.  I believe we must not concern ourselves with the good or bad opinions of others.  No one is beneath me albeit and I am beneath no one.  I won't purposefully hurt another, that's very un-dude.  But I will certainly stand up for what is right.  If that includes putting someone in their place who so sorely requires it, so be it.  I had to do that to a colleague.  She had overstepped her bounds in an odd way and her mistake was rectified by yours truly.  I was professional and calm and corrected the injustice immediately.  Normally, I would have stewed.  I would have taken it home.  I would have slit my wrists and bled out for this person all to make them more comfortable.  All to make her feel safe.  Well all of that shit be overrated.  Safety is an illusion.  I can control my reaction to things and that is all.  Comfort is a story we tell ourselves to feel safe.  Which in itself is also an illusion.

The colleague apologized to me and all has been forgiven.  However, my supervisor felt the need to interject her own personal spin on things.  She probably thought I needed to be comforted.  Fool.  So I listened quietly as she wove a tale of how the best way to get what you want from the environment we mutually find ourselves in(our stupid job surrounded by ego driven incompetent boobs), is to be liked.  Not liked, but loved.  She told me how she manipulates people around her into loving her.  How she makes people love her to avoid conflict I had previously faced.  Therefore she never feels uncomfortable and always feel safe.  Obviously she didn't say these words but that was their meaning.  What's wrong with a little conflict?  How else do you truly know the other?  Just like in school.  Follow along.  Keep quiet.  Don't make a scene.  Play nice.  Fuck that.  Fuck her.  I am not going to waste my precious time stirring the ego pot of fear and emotion to get what I want.  I'm going to use my words, like a big girl!  I'll use logic, reason and an intense root system of justice that I feel grows within me the more I use it...like I think that's called my gut brain.  I will draw on this energy to resolve conflict.  That shit is real.  Waffling and kissing ass are no way to live.  It takes a great deal of strength to realize this and even more backbone to put it into action.  We should be more interested in doing what is right and not what feels happy in our whittle tummies.  Guess what?  That shit is transitory.  Fleeting is the feeling of consuming someones opinion about you and attempting to change it to your favor.  People pretending to love you is the nihility of love.

Feelings cannot hurt you.  They are temporary bits of code that can be rewritten at the flick of an eyelash.  So let us not degrade one another to our child selves.  Let us not consume one another in a tepid sea of fake and apologetic smiles  Let's not exist perpetually where everyone is afraid of each other and themselves.  Let us be fucking real for a change and get some fucking work done.

Poetry for the Ages

Sometimes I like to drink
 a half bottle of Shiraz
 before ten pm
on a Friday night
while watching rom-com's
and eating chocolate.
I try and hit
the garbage can
from my bed
with the wrappers.
 I'm 0 for 3.
Thought you should know.