Eight

I'm trying to be prepared, for once. Taking the time on Sunday night to sit still and THINK. (Insert Pooh Bear clip, with eyebrows knitting and a paw tapping the side of his head. Think. Think Think.)

On the eighth day, Moses said, bring a bunch of livestock, 'cause you're gonna see God. And the people were all like, "what?" And they brought the animals, exactly as prescribed. And Aaron lit it all up, like he was supposed to, but God still didn't show up. And then Moses and Aaron were like, "fuck!" and they both went inside the tent and had a little tête-á-tête with God. And then God was like, "Okay, jeez, you made this whole big tent thing for me and all the dolphins skins and shit. Fine. I'll come down." And the people totally freaked out and fell on their faces.

Then we get some strict lessons: don't enter the Mishkan while drunk; don't eat the shrimp or the pork, or camels or alligators, or centipedes (knock yourself out with the grasshoppers though!); and, uh, don't touch the ark. Yeah. You'll die.

All these RULES. Dude, you're killing me with the details and the rules. Can't we just stick to the good stuff, like don't kill your neighbor, and hang on to his ox if you see it wandering around? Don't put a stumbling block in front of a blind man, 'cause that's just fucking evil. No, you've gotta remind me again about the Red Heifer and how we'll never be pure again, really until we find one and turn it into ash. Dude. C'mon. Weren't the Israelites enough of a hard sell after You had your way with the Egyptians?

And yet there's this outlandish leap of faith we're supposed to take. For them it's putting their lives in the hands of a God who seems a little fickle and weird, with crazy instructions and details that are so convoluted even Aaron and Moses have to have a moment to figure out if something was wrong (who ate the sin offering and where?). For us now, it's just about believing. That's the leap of faith.

For me, it's about trusting.

Turning

I am all fur and feathers
standing guard and pacing
Bear with wings and spear

Few are good enough for you
And me, I know this
Sorting through humanity is an onerous task

Keeping one eye skewed
squinting watching

of course your flower should blossom
your house warm to homeness

I, skeptical and untrusting,
leave the gate open
but refuse to abandon my post

Shel 3, Love 0

Yes, I am winning, in the battle, the game against Love. Love, that flighty bitch, has pinned me down for the last time. I am fairly certain that I will win overall and NOT be burdened with that hormone-laden crazy-time known as losing myself in another's eyes. No, I won't.

I will WISH, hard and in secret, for a touch, tender and full of emotion. But in the blazing light of day I will know, in the bottoms of my feet, that I cannot wait for this thing, this romance, this fake fucker to come around and give me that dream. Crazy stupid dream of what? Someone to fawn over me and gush? Someone to pull on me and lean, needing me for every breath?

No no no. I can poke holes in anything. Just watch. I can be bitter, doubtful and most of all, alone. I will send out tendrils to scout out the landscape. But I will stay here, where I am me first of all, whatever that may mean.

f00d

No, not a "w00t" but f00d. As in HOT DAMN it's FOOD! Which is pretty much how my brain feels as I sit down to a meal. My brain and food have a long lasting, highly sexual relationship. My body and food, however, are not exactly friends.

I write this as I stuff a Subway 6" sandwich into my mouth, knowing that it is that "full mouth" feeling that I really need. I need it. This is how I know my relationship with food is as fucked as my relationship with my mother.

And that's pretty fucked up.

Mentally I know what is good food and what is bad food. Bad for me. I know that I can have a little of the bad for me food, but it shouldn't be my diet. My brain is playing games with itself. It does this, whether I want it to or not.

I do notice when I eat better, that I feel better. For a while I did the Diet-to-Go thing. It was great. It taught me about portions. It taught me about what to eat for breakfast. But I'm fussy and still essentially a child inside, and I don't want to eat another yogurt for breakfast, damnit. Diet-to-Go has a particular smell. All the meals, no matter what, have this identifiable smell. A co-worker was heating up a meal the other day and I asked what it was, it smelled so familiar. Yup, Diet-to-Go. It's probably a function of one kitchen making every meal. So, I can't bring myself to go back to it.

My D-t-G days were also largely vegetarian, and lacking in dairy. So I seek to emulate that change now, while still allowing myself the mentally-vital cheats just now and again. My Subway sandwich is the VeggieMax, the funky veggie patty. It's an awesome funky patty: every once in a while you get a water chestnut. Double meat, bitchez.

Quickly Now

I have to learn how to wedge in the important parts. Life; as it is in its natural, chaotic state; needs wrangling and some amount of structure. Not too much, so much as to squelch the organic growth and flow. But enough to say HEY, I need (insert verb, noun or complex phrase).

HEY: I need sleep. Hey, I need to work out, again. Last night was great but we need to keep that going.

Hey, I need to figure out why the hell Twitter won't post to sFB.

Hey, I need to write that girl back. She's far away but cute and TALKATIVE over email. That's a change. Nice to get a conversation going.

Hey...

This Post Has No Title

I sliced my finger on a tool and now it won't work on the touchpad on my laptop. It's a peculiar thing to have to work around. This digit, that is tweaked anyway, is consistently rejected by my machine. It's getting a complex.

****

I am so freaking happy to get back to the internet, can I just tell you? It's not like I haven't been there, but I've been working. Work work work. Not even a freaking status update. FROM MY PHONE.

No, I can't even think, really, work is so big. I have three major initiatives RIGHT NOW PEOPLE. Moving an office; dealing with FREAKING service providers to double our bandwidth; massive changes to the infrastructure, which is really more of a LIST that begins with re-wire the fourth floor, and virtualize your server infrastructure.

And baby, if you followed all that.... Well then you probably feel my pain.

Pain that feels like a brain that doesn't really do lists well with too many freaking lists. I go by feel. I like to feel, frankly. At some point tonight I realized that I might really be an adrenaline junky, who likes to mostly hibernate. But that was only one of many moments when a THOUSAND ideas and lists and dependencies are whirling around in my brain. Hello? Hello? Can I get off this ride? No? Oh. Fuck.

****

The good news is this: I'm finally tired.

Sweet dreams, dusty ones. Snowed in and stuck. Rest, loveys, recuperating and caretaking. Easy. Slow. Silent. Sleep.

Zap, Zlat, Na na

It'll get it
quick now switchin
I'll hear it,
say it list'nin'
focus and logic
thinking things out
creative real
cool baby no doubt
standing tall
as five two can be
some days darlin
big ol' redwood tree
eyes wide open
missing no miracle
if no one sees it
wasn't there at all