These days

I've been out walking
I don't do too much talking these days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And all the times I had the chance to

I've stopped my rambling
I don't do too much gambling these days
These days I don't remember who
I used to be when I knew where to go
And I wonder if I'll ever know

And I had a lover
I don't think I'd risk another these days
These days if it seems I'm afraid
To live the life that I've made in my mind
It's just that I've been losing all this time

I've stopped my dreaming
I don't do too much scheming these days
These days I watch life turn to stone
While counting time in quarter tones to ten
Please don't confront me with my failures,
I had not forgotten them.

A breakdown

There's this song that's been floating around since 1967 that I've known for years but never really paid any attention to until recently. Ain't it like that for most truly valuable things?  You only discover them way way down the road after a lifetime of not even noticing?

Anywho.  This song is called 'Alone Again Or'.  That's it.  Strange, huh, the title?  Alone again or what?  That's the first thing I noticed as being kind of... 'do what?' about it.  So, it's like this.  Here's a breakdown of the lyrics:

Yeah, said it's all right
I won't forget
All the times I've waited patiently for you
And you'll do just what you choose to do
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

Yeah, I heard a funny thing
Somebody said to me
You know that I could be in love with almost everyone
I think that people are
The greatest fun
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

To begin with; the first verse.  It's such a normal, self pitying verse.  So many people can relate to it, I'll bet.  How many times has this situation unfolded throughout the course of history?  Boy meets girl, or vice versa, and we have this as a result.  "Yeah, it's alright, you're gonna be doing what you're doing while I'm alone, as I always am, I hope you feel like shit, MY DEAR".  Sarcasm implied, and hopefully understood.  That's the message of the first verse.

Thankfully, there's a second verse which describes an encounter with someone who relates the joy he gets from other people, which results in a change in attitude towards the situation of being alone.  The resulting message is that people are (word that doesn't exist but means awesome), but being alone is a (word that doesn't exist but means awesome) thing too.  'My dear' becomes a declaration of love instead of hate.

The band is called Love, after all, right?  Funny.  I heard a funny thing, and it was this song.

It's got a kind of Flamenco/Spanish thing to it.  I first heard it back in... '98 I think, in a movie called 'Bottle Rocket' by Wes Anderson.

I'm a genius

What we have here is the setup I use in order to keep the floor from  getting soaked and rotting away due to the leaky air conditioner in my  room.  See, the thing is, my AC drips water from the front all over the window sill, which then drips down onto the floor.  I think it's supposed to drip out the back instead of the front, but go figure.  At least it blows cool air... but not when it's raining, or immediately after it rains.  For some reason, when water gets inside, it slows the machinery down and it just sits there and barely hums, gasping out tepid air until all the rain water has either evaporated or leaked out onto the floor.  I don't know why it does that, but then again I'm absolutely convinced that it's because my AC is allergic to water.  That would explain why it's always vomiting the stuff out the front end instead of disposing of it quietly out the back end, with dignity, like normal AC's do.

Anywho, after a week or two of just letting it leak, the floor directly underneath the window becomes soaked and begins to mildew, filling the air with that pleasant scent of decay.  In order to combat this, I first tried stuffing a towel into the crevice which separates the bottom of the AC from the window sill.  This worked fine for about a day, until the towel became soaked and started dripping all over the floor anyway.  My next idea was to roll up another towel and stick it there under the window sill, thus catching the dripping water from the first towel when it became saturated.  The problem with this method was I had to keep switching out the soaked towels for dry ones, and I only have a limited number of towels.  Also, I would frequently forget about the towels and they'd just keep getting more and more soaked, with the damp area of the floor underneath the window sill growing larger and larger with each passing day.

Finally I got fed up with this ghetto bullcrap and contrived a semi-permanent solution which only required a minimum of effort.  I also used physics, which makes me a genius.  Here's what I did:

See what that is?  It's my laundry hamper sitting underneath my AC, filled with water.  See the towel jammed up in there between the bottom of the AC and hanging down into the hamper?  That's how the water goes into the hamper and not onto the floor, by soaking into the towel first.  See that hose stuck into the water and running out the window?  That's for draining the water out of the hamper, since after about 4 days it will fill up all the way to the top and start spilling over the edge.  I wonder where the heck all that water comes from, anyway.  The air?  Probably.  So my AC produces about 20 gallons of water a week by just sucking it right out of the air like magic.  My very own moisture farm, except it's a major pain in the ass and I don't live on Tatooine where a moisture farm might come in handy.  Still, that's physics at work right there, people.  The same physics that will eventually make moisture farming on the moon a practical reality.

On to the next step.  See that?  That's the back end of the AC, with the other end of the hose hanging out the window.  The whole setup is like a colostomy bag for my AC.  In order to get it to drain I have to siphon the water out of the hamper so that it gets from point A (the front of the AC) to point C (the ground outside), bypassing point B (the floor under the window sill) completely.  That's the physics part that makes me a genius, plus I use geometry.

I'll skip showing the part where I have to suck on the butt end of that filthy, nasty hose which has been sitting outside in the dirt and grass, exposed to the sun and rain and snow and all the elements of nature for the past two years, in order to get the siphoning started so the water will drain out of the colostomy hamper.  However, I will show the results.  See the water pouring out of the hose?  Once again, that's physics at work, people.  The same physics that will eventually allow mankind to land on the surface of the sun and retrieve a sample of sun rock for study back here on Earth.

Bullshit small talk at work

Customer: Crushes.
Me:

Description: Customer wants a pack of Camel Crushes.  I get them.

Difficulty:  Nonexistent. 

Observation: This most basic level of interaction bypasses any pretext of social dilly dallying.

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Customer: Hey.
Me: Hey.
Customer: Pack of Camel Crushes.


Description: Simple acknowledgment of existence and simple item procurement.

Difficulty:  Simple, easy, almost no thinking involved.

Observation: The bare minimum of social pleasantries are observed. 

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Customer: Hello.
Me: Hello.
Customer: Pack of Camel Crushes.


Description: Social formalities are introduced at the basic level with 'hello' as opposed to 'hey' or simply an ineffectual grunt.

Difficulty:  Still simple and easy, but the vague threat of further interaction beyond the basic 'money for smokes' concept lingers.

Observation: When the customer actually says hello, I usually feel compelled to make eye contact, and body language is thrown into the equation.  The possibility that more words will have to be thought up and said could lead to further complexities.

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Customer: How's it going?
Me: Pretty good.
Customer: Pack of Camel Crushes.


Description: A little harder; the next level of basic social interaction.  A query for information, necessitating an appropriate response in addition to procuring the indicated item.

Difficulty: Simplicity is sacrificed for social niceties, introducing the possibility that further social interaction may be required at least a rudimentary level.  However, it's usually safe to assume that no undue thinking will need to occur.

Observation: Although a step up from simple acknowledgment, this exchange occurs almost automatically, with both parties usually aware at an unconscious level that the customer has no real interest in how things are actually going.

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Customer: How ya doing?
Me: Ok.
Customer: Pack of Camel Crushes.

Or, alternately...

Customer: How ya doing?
Me: Well, I twisted my back the other -
Customer: Pack of Camel Crushes.

Description: Comparable to 'how's it going'.

Difficulty: Possibly tiring.  Although this exchange is still largely automatic, it is more personal.  The probability of a simple exchange decreases with possibility that the ego may become involved.

Observation: A couple of times I've found myself interrupted, embarrassed, and pissed off when I tried to answer this question with something other than the stock reply.  It's important to remember that all the customer really gives a flying horses patoot about is getting those Camel Crushes from point A to point B.

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Customer: Hey man.  What's up?  How's it going?  Say, do you think I could... you know... or do you think you could, I mean, you know... do that payroll thing?  For a couple of beers and a couple of packs of Camel Crushes?  And I can get you back on Friday?
Me: Aw crap...

Description: A blitzkrieg of social pleasantries forces thinking and talking into primary mode.

Difficulty: Exhausting.

Observation: This happens because I'm too damn nice, or stupid.  I don't know which yet.  It all started when I let one guy payroll a pack of cigarettes, and then another.  At first it was just ten bucks a week, but then I started doing it for Bruce, and then for Wheels too... and the next thing I knew, I was letting these guys payroll anywhere from 10 to 40 bucks a week each, resulting in a significant percentage of my check this week being payrolled away on cigarettes and booze for these parasites.  I know what it says in the Bible: "If somebody asks you for your shirt, give them your coat too."  I'm beginning to wonder if that should apply to beer and cigarettes.

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Customer: Hey.
Me: Hey.
Customer: This and a pack of Camel Crushes.
Me: Got your ID on yer?
Customer: Yeah man, sure.
Me: I need a current one, not just this temporary piece of paper.
Customer: I got this from the DMV.
Me: Do you have the expired plastic one to go with it?
Customer: No.
Me: I'm sorry man, but I can't sell you the beer.
Customer: Well hell, why do they give you the temporary one then?
Me: Sorry.
Customer: Can she buy it for me?
Me: No, that would be illegal.  It's a state law, sorry.  The TABC has been giving $2500.00 tickets to us for selling to people with expired ID's, and -
Customer: Fuck it.
Me: Again, I'm sorry, but I'm not risking a $2500.00 ticket and jail just so you can catch a buzz.

Description: Things fall apart, the center does not hold.  The World War Three of customer interaction.

Difficulty: Yeesh.

Observation: Screw it.

Hipster sighting

"Did you see the tight pants that guy was wearing?" asked Brittney, referring to a customer who had just exited the store.

"Yup.  And speaking of hipsters, that's a definite hipster fashion," I said, since we had just been talking about hipsters a few minutes earlier.  I thought about the time when I used to wear tight pants like that, back when it was a rock & roll thing.  "I used to wear them tight too, about twenty years ago when it was the glam rock style," I remarked as I leaned down and grabbed the excess material of my pants leg around my calf.  I bunched it into my fist, tightening it until it clung to my leg all around.  "See?"

Brittney observed the effect.  She laughed and said, "His were tight in the butt." 

I let go of my pants leg and stood up.  I reached around reflexively and grabbed the seat of my pants and then let go quickly, suddenly self conscious.  "Oh.  Yeah... well, he probably wasn't a hipster.  And mine weren't ever tight in the butt," I lied.

"Are you gonna go back to that style now that it's the 'in' thing again?" asked Brittney.

I imagined trying to pull off that style now and pictured my belly spilling over the thirty inch waist of the tight glam rock jeans I used to wear back in the early 90's.  I frowned.  "I don't think so," I said.  "I don't want to be mistaken for a hipster..."

At that moment I glanced outside and watched as a scooter pulled up to the gas pump.  Aha, I thought to myself.  Now that is a bona-fide hipster!  A hipster sighting is always a cause for some fun for me at work, since identifying one isn't always cut and dried.  This one, however, was a dead ringer.  I pointed the specimen out to Britney.  "See there, the guy with the scooter?  That's a for sure hipster.  And a scooter is always a good sign."

Brittney followed my finger to where I was pointing and laughed. "You're silly," she said.  "Weren't you just saying that you wanted a scooter an hour ago?"

I rolled my eyes.  "That's different.  I want one for getting from point A to point B, not so I can display my non-conformity by conforming to the vague rules of an anti-conformist sub culture."

Brittney rolled her eyes at me and smiled.  "Uh huh."

I shook my head and laughed.  "A hipster I am definitely NOT.  I'm stuck in the entirely different sub-culture of early 90's grunge.  At least most people have heard of my music."

"Yeah, like most people have heard of Pinback."

Brittney will never know how close my brain had come to imploding just then.  "Uh... anywho," I said after I'd recovered.  "Back to the hipster.  You know how I can tell he's a hipster?"  The guy dismounted his scooter and began fiddling with the gas pump.  "First off, he's riding a scooter.  That isn't a dead giveaway in itself, but it's a good indicator."  We observed as he abruptly left off what he was doing, and as he approached the store I noted his attire.  He was wearing tight fitting cut-off blue jean shorts, Chuck Taylors with black socks, and a black t-shirt with a picture of a pistol on the front with 'New York' printed in large letters above it.  He was also wearing a backwards baseball cap.

"Ok, see?" I remarked.  "He's wearing the tight skinny cut-offs.  See how tight they are?" 

"Yeah, those sure are some tight shorts," observed Brittney.  "How can he actually like them being that tight?"

"It isn't for the likes of us the question the ways of the hipster," I answered, eliciting laughter from both of us.

"See the black socks?" I said as I resumed my commentary.  "That means anti-establishment, to wear shorts with black socks.  And the t-shirt with the slogan that makes no sense... what the heck is that supposed to mean?  Probably something ironic that nobody has ever heard of or understands except for him and whoever he invites into his loft apartment."  I sure as heck didn't know what it was supposed to mean, unless it was just a simple statement about gun violence in The Big Apple, done in an obvious way as an attempt to be confusing and profound at the same time.  Typical.  "Oh, and look," I said.  "He's even got the country hick baseball cap with the tall flat front."

At that moment the hipster came into the store and wandered back to the cooler.  "Hey," I said to Brittney.  "Leah told me that she teased Nick once about being a hipster.  I think he might be a closet hipster."

"Does he have rich parents?" Brittney asked, since earlier I had been describing hipsters as decadent youths, eternally dependent on their wealthy parents to support them throughout their twenties and thirties so that they could spend all of their time observing the philosophical irony of something or another, while at the same time acting like they didn't care about it.  While drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Or lattes.

I thought about it for a second.  "Hmmm... I dunno," I replied.  "He was a hobo for a while and used to jump trains a lot.  He definitely lived a kind of homeless lifestyle for some time.  Maybe he's a hobo-hipster.  A hobster." 

This got a laugh out of Brittney.  "Oh man, did that make things worse?" she said, referring to my situation concerning Nick.

At that moment the hipster came up to my register.  He placed a soda on the counter and asked for two dollars in gas.

"Well, it didn't help anything, but that's just me being retarded," I said as I rang up the soda and set the gas pump.  "I actually liked Nick just fine before," I said.  "We were right on the cusp of becoming good friends when things fell apart.  I even asked him to be my Godfather once."  I met Brittney's eyes and laughed.  "Man, that would have been awkward."

"Wow.  Yeah, I remember you telling me about that," said Brittney.  "Did he wear the skinny hipster jeans?"

At that moment the hipster at my register gave Brittney a brief but pointed glance, then took his change and exited the store.

"Did you see that?" Brittney said excitedly.  "He looked up when I said hipster!" 

"We've just made an authentic hipster sighting.  We were quite lucky... the hipster in it's natural environment is an elusive creature," I remarked.

Brittney laughed and shook her head.  "You're silly," she said.

Three prayers

Since I became aware of God, He has spoken to me clearly and personally three different times.  The first two instances came out of the blue, like an unexpected but gentle clap of thunder, and the third time was as an immediate and direct answer to a prayer.

A month or so before I became a catechumen I was singing at a Saturday evening vigil when I suddenly knew what God wanted me to do - or at least, I thought I knew.  In the middle of the service I was overcome with the sudden feeling that I should go back to school, get a degree in social work and/or counseling, and help people who were suffering from addiction.  This idea hit me like a random bolt; there was no precedent for it.  I was sure, and still am sure, that God spoke to me that night.  However, now I think that His message may have been a lot more general and encompassing.  I think God gave me a life assignment that night.

Here I am almost two years later, and I'm not sure about school anymore.  If I hadn't gone to Alaska last year, I would have been starting my second year at UNT right now, so I wonder sometimes if I made a mistake going to Alaska... but I wouldn't be where I am now in this situation if I hadn't, and I believe my situation is valuable, as it's becoming clearer to me that God may want me to help people in other ways than I originally thought.  Maybe if I become a monk those ways will be revealed to me.  The more I think about it, the more it seems to me as my life might have been designed all along to lead me to that destiny.  I don't know though... right  now, it's a frightening prospect.  I'm thinking that I'll give the idea about five years to percolate.  In the meantime, who am I to help anyone?  Who am I to even consider that I might, ever?  That's an example of how my pride is my modus operandi; that I should assume that God deems me worthy of offering something to others which might be beneficial.  As if that beneficial thing would come from myself, and not from God.

I'm a spiritual infant.  I suppose all I can do right now is concentrate on the immediate and help myself to begin with, so that I may be of some use later.  In doing so I've discovered something fairly interesting - that I'm not as helpless as I've led myself to believe.  I still don't know if that's pride, or what... it gets confusing, trying to isolate the self from the self.  Anywho... I didn't think I'd be able to afford electricity and rent for a house, plus the other bills, and food solely on my income, but I'm scraping by somehow.  It's a pleasant surprise.  I hope it leads to good.  Is it obvious that I'm a confused mess?

The second time I heard God's voice was late April of 2010.  I was in my living room that evening on my couch with great wretched sobs heaving continuously from my chest as I loaded random web pages in an attempt to distract myself from the pain of simple moment to moment existence.  I wiped my eyes to get a better look at the page which had just loaded, which consisted of an empty black background with a single light switch near the center.  I of course clicked it, and immediately a neon sign flickered and came to bright life on my screen, which read: "Everything is going to be all right."  As I sat there staring at it, for a brief while I was suffused with peace and the knowledge that God had just made a promise to me - that everything really would be ok.  Not just with my current situation, but with everything.  It's hard to remember that sometimes though, but it always comes back to me.  I realize how it may sound corny that God spoke to me through the internet, but hey.  It is what it is.

The third time was just a couple of weeks ago.  I was sitting up in bed in the dark, just before sleep, and praying a very selfish prayer for God to please miraculize (to coin a word) my life and make things ok.  Or, barring that, to at least show me exactly what to do and force me to do it.  Reprogram my brain, erase my brain, heck, replace the dang thing and gimme a fresh install and a reboot!  I wanted direct intervention; a real, bona-fide, New Testament miracle.  Just then, three words flashed through my mind, clearly and deliberately.  The words were "patience, acceptance, and trust".  Suffice it to say that I was somewhat stunned to receive such a direct and prompt answer to my prayer, and it took a minute or two for it to sink in.  After a little while I rolled over, not without a substantial streak of fear coursing through my heart, and went to sleep.

The next day I was elated as I tried to apply meaning to those words, and I eventually arrived at this conclusion:  firstly, what God had told me was that in order for it to become possible for me to move towards asceticism in a meaningful way, I had to have patience and embrace the knowledge that change will not be immediate.  It's going to take a long time to eradicate my sinful habits, pride and self pity to the extent that a new fertile ground is established; one upon which the good seeds I'm trying to sow will be able to take root and thrive.  I'll need patience for that; something I've always lacked.

Next is acceptance.  I have to accept the fact that I am eyes deep in the sludge of the sinful, egoistic, material realm of the self, removed from God and true meaning and salvation, and that nothing... not drugs, not alcohol, not money or sex or a job, or a car or a girlfriend, or even a loving wife and family, will save me from it.  Nothing of this material world will ever serve to pull me up out of the sludge of my own self importance; only God's grace may do that, but not so long as I rule my own heart.  In order for this to be possible, I must truly accept God into my heart and His will over my own.

Finally, and above all else, there is trust.  Trust in God, in His existence, in His purpose, in His love and in His mercy.  Trust, faith and belief... that there is hope, and that I am where I'm supposed to be and I'm experiencing all the joy and pain and heartache and love for a reason, and that one day I'll be able to see beyond myself and truly love the people I profess to, and that the product of life isn't naked despair, but joy clothed in the light of God.

All of that pretty much scares me witless though.

Does any of it make any sense?

Asses within asses

Yesterday I was in the cooler at work, freezing my ass off.  Not my fingers, although they would probably beg to differ, or my legs, or my hair or arms or lungs or my Islands of Langerhans.  No, it was my ass which was in immediate peril.  My balls came in a close second.  Ass and balls, the two body parts which are the first to abandon ship when things get a little uncomfortable.  Why is that?  It's one of lifes great unanswered questions, I suppose.  If only my ass could talk.  I'm sure my balls would be feeding lines to it; the two do spend a lot of time together.  On second thought, nevermind.  I have enough to deal with already, what with my eyes and brain in cahoots, always joking around, hiding my lighters and sunglasses.  Fuck them, I say. 

Anywho.  Like I said, in the cooler.  So I'm lifting this tripple decked case of something or another, and suddenly my back joins in!  Back, what have I ever done to you?  Oh, you mean besides putting 73 tons on me just now?  Yeah, besides that.  Well, you never had me waxed like you promised.  Oh...

So now here I am, lying in bed in excruciating pain, with my back making up for 25 years of empty promises.  My balls and eyes and brain and ass are all laughing their asses off.  Wait, there it is again.  Now I have asses within asses?  Ok I give up.  It's over.  Bye bye.

The sadness will last forever

When I first read these words several years ago, quite a while before I knew anything about God, I was going through a really rotten time in my life.  I was unemployed, living alone in squalor, and hopelessly addicted to homemade morphine tea, which I creatively derived from poppy pods and seeds.  I was collecting unemployment, which wasn't enough to pay my rent and bills, and I owed hundreds of dollars to family members who had been helping to support me.  I had also sold everything of any value that I owned, including my personal library of almost a thousand books which I had been maintaining and adding to for over twenty years, mostly to support my drug habit.  I was not a happy person.

At the time those words... 'the sadness will last forever'... struck me as being the most honest words ever spoken, at least for me.  I truly believed that my debilitating sadness, which had led me to seek an escape through drugs to begin with, was never ending.  I had no real hope, and at one point I even composed a suicide note.  I think what caused me to skip over that option at the time was that I couldn't send it to anyone immediately because I had no internet connection and I was out of printer paper, and I was far too apathetic to actually make the effort to send it.

At that time 'forever', to me, merely meant the rest of my life, and I'd been of half a mind to shorten that concept drastically to something more manageable.  Since then, however, I've gained a modicum of hope in my life, but ironically, I also believe that the sadness can last forever when separated from God, so I view them far more literally now than I ever did then.

These were the last words of Vincent Van Gogh.  It is said that his favorite color was yellow, which stood for the light he dreamed of being in the hearts of people. 

Names

Today before work I was in the checkout line at the grocery store.  As I was standing there waiting, a rack of keychains caught me eye.  They were the kind with names on them, so naturally I began scanning them for ones that said Ashley or Elias.  As I was doing this, the guy in front of me, a giant, hulking brute of a black man, started looking for one that said Rachel, for his wife.  "Aha," he exclaimed when he found it.  I found one that said Ashley, and said, "Here's one with Ashley on it.  That's my name," I clarified.

"Your name is Ashley?" He inquired, incredulous.

"Yup," I replied.

"Do you actually go by that name?  You introduce yourself as Ashley?"

"Well, yeah," I said with a resigned smile.  "Mostle people just call me Ash though."  At this point the cashier, who had apparantly been listening to our exchange, said "Yeah, that's a lot better."  The big black guy then asked what my middle name was, and I told him that it was Howard.  He mulled that over for a few seconds and then said, "Well, at least your middle name is ok.  I ain't never heard of no boy being named Ashley."  He seemed genuinely perplexed, and even a little concerned for my predicament of having such an unfortunate name thrust upon me.  I was about to reply when he suddenly began to backpeddle, saying that he hoped he hadn't offended me.

"Nah, it's ok.  Don't worry about it, I'm used to it.  Heard it a hundred times," I said to the guy.  After he checked out he went back to the keychain rack and mumbled, "I wonder if they have Ernie..." 

I proceeded to the register and checked out.  As I was exiting the store, the guy called to me, "At least your name isn't Ernie.  I hate my name!"  I laughed and laughed.  He had a point.  A giant, hulking brute of a man - especially if he's black - has no business being named Ernie.  

Bread

Today Nancy came by 7-Eleven and gave me a prosphera bread.  For the health of Elias, it said on the paper in which it was wrapped.  It's the most thoughtful thing anyone has done for me in a long time.  Thanks, Nancy.

Things

My walk to work is like a 10 minute movie with tiny variations every day, usually consisting of pauses for traffic, random looks here and there, and sometimes the movie screen is filled with the pages of a book.  It would be interesting to see them all overlapped, going back to 2007, and watch everything blur together except for tha main features... the road, houses, trees, the approach to 7-Eleven.  Yesterday I encountered a major deviation from the norm.  Somebody had written on the sidewalk on Normal street with white chalk "have a great day!" and left a chunk of chalk lying there, a obvious invitation to reply.  So I stopped and wrote a thank you with the chalk.  The rain probably washed it all away last night.  I can imagine waves of green odor exhuding from the guy who buys copenhagen every day as he walks down Oak St. in the distance, leaving a lingering trail behind him.  If he stood out in that torrential downpour, I can only imagine the smell taking on a deeper stench, unless soap was also falling out of the sky.  What I'm doing right now is sinful and only serves to separate me from God... this writing.  Indulging my will by recording my memories, as if that serves any purpose than reinforcing my sense of self.  To be ascetic means abandoning all self will.  I don't know if I can do that.  Even Theophan the recluse had books and a microscope in his cell though, so even he was't perfect.  I wonder what kinds of concessions to myself I would keep if I were a monk.  Probably a private diary, and a bottle of vodka.  Maybe a small shelf of science fiction for the days when fasting is forbidden.  

A dream - traveling companions

The two of us had gone back in time to 1930, where we found ourselves sitting at the counter in a coffee shop which reminded me of a drug store soda fountain.  Since we had traveled back in time by accident, I had arrived wearing a concert t-shirt, blue jeans, and modern tennies on my feet.  My traveling companion was dressed up in 1930's garb; very stylish for the time, I was sure, but I thought it was silly and I told her so.  Nobody had noticed anything different about me, and I'd been walking all over town since we'd arrived.  She patted her coiffed hair and smiled, happy with the way she was dressed.  I rolled my eyes.

Suddenly we heard machine guns.  We all looked out the front window - myself, my traveling companion, and the proprietor of the coffee shop - and saw that the bank across the street was in the process of being robbed by authentic Italian mobsters.  The proprietor yelled for us to get down, and we all dove to the floor.  We stayed there for a while, listening to the cacophony of shouts and gunshots across the street as we tried to remain unnoticed.  It was then that I suddenly and forcefully remembered that I had a 7-Eleven paycheck with me.  I'd had the bright idea that I would be able to cash it and buy our way back to the present day, but with the bank being robbed, I didn't know anymore...

...I checked my pocket, in a slight panic.  I withdrew my check and unfolded it hurriedly, and sighed with relief.  Then I noticed... ah, hell!  The date on the check was 1997, and there I was in 1930!  There was no way the bank would cash a check from 67 years in the future!  As I fretted silently my traveling companion rushed over.  "Please, may I see it?  Hurry!" she said, and I handed the check to her.  She scanned it intently and then, visibly relieved, she handed it back.  "What was it?" I asked, thinking that she'd had some concern for me regarding the check.  "I just wanted to be sure that my name wasn't on it anywhere," she said over her shoulder.  "I wouldn't want anyone here in 1930 to identify me as being associated with you because of that check."

I was taken aback, and I felt deflated as I returned the check to my pocket.  I stood up, oblivious to the danger of the machine guns.  "Lie back down," the coffee shop proprietor whispered to me. "If they see people in here, they'll come rob us next!"  I didn't care.  I stepped outside into the street and started walking.  Eventually I came to green park with a giant white tree occupying the center.  The trunk was at least 10 feet wide, with thick, sturdy branches which began growing from the trunk starting at about 5 feet up from the ground.  The branches spread outward horizontally for at least 50 feet in all directions, splitting and dividing into clusters of white leaves.   I climbed up onto the nearest branch and wherever I touched it or stood upon it, white flakes detached from the bark and settled to the ground.  I walked far out onto the branch and then climbed up onto another.  I continued like this until I was at the very top.  I looked down and let my gaze travel outward, beyond the white profusion of leaves, until I could see the town.  I saw the coffee shop, and I saw her inside, sitting at the counter and sipping daintily at a cup of tea.  I didn't feel like sticking around there anymore, so I jumped from the topmost branch and flew away.

How to mangle an Epistle

Well, we had no liturgy this morning, so here's what happened Last Thursday at the 7:00 am liturgy.

I arrived at about 6:40 am and Fr. Justin was lighting the oil lamps as I approached the icons to venerate them.  "Hello Elias," he said.  "Morning Fr. Justin," I replied.  At that moment I realized that I had reacted completely naturally to being called Elias.  I reveled in the wonder of it for a while, and then I asked Fr. Justin if anyone was supposed to read, since there was nobody else there at the time.  I told him that I would read if nobody else showed up, so he agreed and suggested that I should.  While Fr. Justin was getting the altar ready, he explained to me which parts of the Epistle to read and how to read the Prokeimenon and Kentucky Fried Kontakion for the hours, after which he paused from what he was doing and met my eye, seeking my confirmation that I understood.  I stood there with an expression on my face which was two parts 'duh' and one part upset stomach.  Fr. Justin started bustling around again, doing busy things, and suggested that I should go look at the Epistle book and see if I could figure it out, and that he'd be out in a minute to go over it with me.

So, I did that.  I looked at the pages which were marked in the Epistle book and discovered post-its stuck here and there, with pencil scribblings and arrows pointing to heaven knows where.  I tried to make sense of it; I really did, but my brain started to hurt so I decided to just wait for Fr. Justin.  About ten minutes later he emerged from the altar and came over, flipped open the Epistle book, and repeated what he had said to me earlier.  This time he was flipping to different pages and pointed to passages I was supposed to read.  Here's how it sounded to me: "Forward to that page, skip over to the part between the two post its, sing the verse (what verse?), go back 164 pages and read the part above the post it, but replace the first sentence with (whatever it was I was supposed to replace it with, it wasn't written down anywhere) and be sure to say Alleluia!  Got it?"  I had to admit that no, I hadn't gotten it, and that I was perfectly befuddled.  Fr. Justin nodded and said "that's ok, you know how it goes."  Uh... no I didn't.

Anywho, at that moment I realized that the Epistle reading was likely going to be injurious to all those present for it, and I suspect that Fr. Justin had come to the same conclusion.  By that time two other people had shown up for the choir... Michael, who sings bass, and someone I didn't know who was dressed in a black readers robes.  I wasn't sure which part I was going to sing, so I asked him what part he usually sang.  He said that he normally sang bass, so I decided to sing the main melody.  So, the liturgy started and we sang, and stumbled pretty good here and there, and Mystery Reader directed us some.  I found myself speeding up several times almost involuntarily because I thought we were going too slow, but Mystery Reader kept the tempo nice and adagio, and I finally was able to just go with it.

Now we come to the fun part.  Time to read the Epistles!  So, I picked up the Epistle book and walked into the altar and approached Fr. Justin.  "Shut the door," he whispered.  I turned hurriedly and shut the door and then stood there holding the book exactly the way Mike Rodgers told me to, because last week he said I'd been doing it wrong.  Fr Justin blessed the book and I walked around him and out through the other door, then I stood between the icons and... just kept standing there.  I had no idea what to do.  I didn't want to look up to meet Fr. Justin's gaze, but I finally did.  He was just standing there too, looking at me.  Finally he whispered, "And to thy spirit!"  "And to thy spirit," I dutifully repeated.  Then I stood there some more.  After about five more seconds of that, Fr. Justin said, "The reading from the Prokeimenon in the 7th tone!" "The reading from the Prokeimenon in the 7th tone," I again dutifully repeated.  That's when it hit me like an epistlepiphany, and I heard myself thinking furiously... read the Epistle now, you retarded mongoloid!  Hurry, before you get struck by lightning!  So, I started thumbing through the Epistle book, looking here and there and pretty much everywhere, but I had no idea where to start reading.  This went on for... oh, say... about 30 seconds before Fr. Justin finally swooped down from the Altar, opened it to the right page, and pointed to the spot between two post its.  At least I recognized the post its, I thought.  So I started reading, and everything was going along fine until I heard Fr. Justin go "TSSST!" from up on the altar.  That means I screwed up, so I stopped in mid syllable and then the choir sang the verse Fr. Justin mentioned earlier.  After they finished, about 10 more seconds of silence went by while I tried to remember exactly what I'd been doing 5 seconds earlier, and with a splutter I managed to keep reading.  This went on for a while until something else confusing happened, which resulted in pretty much the same thing I just described, happening all over again, but with a different passage from the Epistle book.  As I was slogging through it, I finally just got frustrated with being completely clueless so I walked over to Mystery Reader, who obviously knew more about what was going on than I did, and I proffered the book to him, the look on my face communicating my dire situation.  At this unexpected development, Fr. Justin swooped down from the altar again and over to the choir nook where he once again located the correct passage for me, after which I was then instructed to read.  I waited for Fr. Justin to return to his place at the altar, and when he had, I walked back out there to face the fire and read that last part.  When it was over, I mumbled alleluia three times or something and slunk back to the choir.  I'm pretty sure that what I mumbled wasn't how the last part went, but by that time I just wanted to escape, so escape I did.

The rest of the liturgy went ok, with only the usual flubs from the choir, and I actually remembered Fr. Justin's homily this time, which was about prayer.  The gist of it, I think, was that we should consistently ask God through prayer for the things that we want.  However, we should only ask for things that are 'good for the soul and body'.  He said that the reason why we may not get what we pray for is because it might not necessarily be good for us at that particular time.  Like... well, lets say that this guy really REALLY wants a puppy dog, just his own cute widdle pupply wupply dupply, but he doesn't have a yard for ta puppity to run around in and there's no way he can afford shots and heart worm medicine and neutering for ta puppy.  Also, he's deathly allergic to dogs, and if he even gets near one, he'll die instantly.  Anywho, he prays and prays and prays, but every time he hears about a wittle cutey patootey something happens so that his plans are thwarted.  He never ever EVER gets ta puppy, and instead this beaten up skinny three legged cat with half an ear chewed off and a bald tail shows up on his doorstep one day, so he adopted the kiki meow instead of the puppy.  See, the guy couldn't afford a puppy and he didn't have a big enough yard for it anyway, plus a puppy would have killed him, so God kept ta puppy away from him and gave him a 'lil bitty poor kiki meow instead.  I'm sure that's a pretty rotten example, but I think it suffices to communicate the gist.  Also, I got the feeling after the homily that praying for inconsequential or selfish or material things, such as hockey teams and longer fingernails, are a definite no-no.

I managed to take communion without spilling the Body of Christ all over the communion napkin this time, and before I knew it I was reading the prayers of thanksgiving and we were wrapping up the whole shebang.   As I was waiting in line to venerate the icons, Louise came up behind me and whispered in my ear, "While you're learning to read those Epistles, it's better to get all those flubs out of the way at these morning services, when nobody is here!  Don't you think?"  Yup, I did think.  Then she told me how she admired my standing there in front of everybody in full retard mode, and that she was glad that women weren't readers because she'd never have been able to do it.  Nonsense, said I.  I told her that the only requirement was that you had to be completely clueless, and that I was sorry she'd never be able to experience it.

Afterward several people congregated in the little bookstore-foyer area, and I joined them.  Sam was there talking to Mystery Reader, and  I turned to him and thanked him for helping me with the Prokeimenon and the Kentucky Fried Kontakion, and for directing us when we needed it.  I thought about introducing myself and asking Mystery Reader what his name was, but for some reason I just didn't.  I dunno why, I'm weird that way (I later found out that his name is... aw heck, I don't remember, something Russian or Slavic).  Anywho, we all talked for a bit, and I said that I was going to miss the small size of the church when the new cathedral was finally built.  Sam looked at me like I was a newborn mongoloid, fresh off the turnip truck, and said, "We can't have a cathedral without a bishop, you retard!"  What I should have said was " I don't give a flying monkeys behind what they call it," but the best I could come up with was "Yeah.  Church then, whatever."  So what.  A church is a church is a cathedral.  Anywho, the drawings look like a cathedral.  Ptthhhbbt.  Oh, and Sam didn't actually call me a retard... that doesn't diminish the fact that I'm retarded, however.

Soon after that I announced my departure and started hoofing it home.  I had gotten about a block down Bernard St. when I realized I didn't have my phone on me, so I went back.  After I'd retrieved it from where I'd left it on a choir stand, Fr. Justin said to me, "Well, the Epistle was pretty rocky."  I said, "Yup, it sure was.  I really screwed it up royally."  Fr. Justin nodded.  Yup, you sure did, I thought to myself, thinking what I imagined Fr. Justin to be thinking.  However, he then said that he was pleasantly surprised with my singing, and that I did well to lead the choir the way I did, and that surprised me.  I didn't really lead the choir... at least that's what I thought.  I just sang Dax's part and started everybody else off by singing first, I guess.  Fr. Justin thought it was pretty cool though, so that made me feel really good.  He said that since I was reading and singing, we'd be able to do more morning services with fewer people if we had to.  I left the church that morning feeling really good... just really, really good.

scale killer

The light is on now, the scale killer was just a dream, I don't have to be afraid, it was only a nightmare. I was on the phone, 911. Trying to give directions to Omaha from Pittsburg, very detailed... hwy 11 to Daingerfield, left on 259 to Omaha, hurry please. Martian tripods are all over the countryside and nobody believes. I lose concentration and hope, can't hear on the phone. Now it's a siege situation years later, I'm in the military. Thousands die every day, I see the tripods at the border, humans clash with machines. It's neverending, we will lose, only a matter of time. My commander takes our platoon to the top of a hill for a better position for a last stand. I'm so scared I'm shaking, my gun is rattling in my hands. A lake over there and a heliciopter lowers into it... Strange. And it picks up some water, I can see inside, a human is forming. A new Martian weapon, hatches open, it's released into the water. It swims to shore, towards us, it has a fancy gun, and as it emerges it says "scale killer." And it shoots my friend, and she screams, and she dies. It shoots others, saying that each time, and people die. It comes for me, I dive down and hear it's awful alien voice pass over, I look up and see the air distorted into colorful bubbles by the passage. It's at the top, I run, nowhere to go, I turn and rush it, "scale killer" is what I hear, the awful voice, over and over as it tries to kill me. I grab its face and push, I see its eyes amd they are dead, not making contact, but its mouth and tongue form constantly those words as we grapple. My thumbs slip into its mouth, I'm afraid, it will bite me, it's smart, it'll bite my thumbs off and then it'll say those words and kill me. We struggle and fall against a mirror, it says the words again, but my hands are twisting its head to the mirror. The words come out and hit the mirror, and reflect off, and the volume increases, and I hear the scale killer echo through the mirror world and into my world, amplified infinitely, never ending. I'm alone, Leah where are you, I'm alone I'm alone, I want my mom. It was only a dream but I'm alone in the small hours. Lord have mercy.

6-5-2011

Got up, laid in bed for a half hour and read. Fr. Justin said I should read scriptures before sci fi, but that will take practice. Got up, got dressed, started walking and saying pre-communion prayers... shoot a monkey. Forgot something. Went back, got it, started walking again. Said my prayers on the way. Whoo boy, walking to church is sweaty work. I got there and saw Leah's car. Looked like somebody was in it... no, wait... yeah. I walked over and knocked on the window. "Here's your movies." Smile. "Thanks." Smile. "See ya." following the Layda's inside... wow, Lois shore is preggers! Ok, grab some napkins and wipe the sweat off... yeesh. I'm not smelly though... I'm never smelly. My sweat is pristine. Ok, time to sing... I start out just fine, but I have 45 minutes of middle C to look forward to. CHRIS JONES where are you? Wait who's this lady singing tenor? Ok I'm not alone. We're tooling along just fine until we get to the part where Arias has his bowels forcibly torn from his posterior by the wrath of God, and I started laughing and couldn't stop. I had to turn around and you know, "cough" several times until I recovered. Whoo doggies... first item up for next confession, I suppose. Later, when we sang the pre-communion prayer, I had to turn around and "cough" again but I was crying this time. I dunno why, it was pretty unexpected. I guess I didn't say it good enough on the way to church. So after church I went home and read some more, and fell asleep. Next thing I knew it was 1:57. SHIT. Ok, grab work clothes off the floor, change at work. It's too dadgum hot to walk to work in them anyway. So I get there 10 minutes late, clock in, go in the bathroom to change, pull my schmelvinelvin shirt out of my back pack, and... what's that smell? Sniff... JULIO! My shirt is pissed on. You little bastard. So I work wearing my Pearl Jam shirt. I get a "cool shirt dude" from this guy while I'm singing 'Somewhere' by Soundgarden. I wonder if he'd have said that if I were singing 'Summer Breeze'. Anywho. Matt isn't here yet. He said he would be late, but I have a scadzillion items to order and it's 5:30.