Not Enlightened Yet

I can’t be good no more...
honey because the world gone wrong...
The Mississippi Sheiks

...John Milton said they also serve who only stand and wait...but how ‘bout they who sit around getting in utterly needless nasty arguments with complete strangers in the comments under youtube videos?....

...had a bit o' road rage on the way to yoga class today...yeah, it’s happened before...this time in a car...somebody making it nearly impossible for me to merge, and I, quite unmindfully, flipped her the bird....then noticed she was driving a hybrid with all kinds of mellow, socially conscious bumper stickers, like that one with COEXIST made up of symbols representing the world’s major religions...and she seemed to be taking all the turns I was...occurred to me she could be heading to yoga class...possibly even the same yoga class I was...which could be uncomfortable....figured maybe I’d break the ice with something like actually, sister, the middle finger is an ancient Hopi symbol that means “the radiant earth crystals of my heart imbue you with their healing love energy"...and maybe she’d be really moved by that and we’d go out for herbal tea, vegan stir-fry, and the latest documentary about drinking water...

I had read everything I could find about enlightenment. But the more I read, the more despair I went into because these texts had nothing to do with me and my problems. Enlightenment? I just wanted to wake up without wanting to kill myself.
Ana Forrest

...some yogis have a real problem with that particularly potent and aromatic form of prana known as coffee....I point out that they didn't have it in ancient India...if they had, Yoga Sutra 1.1...atha yoga nushasanam...translated into the English dialect unique to Philly and Jersey as: yo, let’s do some fuckin’ yoga...would most likely be preceded by Yoga Sutra 1.0...first we drink coffee...

Waiting for the Hurricane

...once saw a personal ad specifying, among other things, no baggage...obviously not looking for me....which is okay, since, I suspect, a person with no emotional baggage would have be either perfectly enlightened or boring...



...or both....once, talking to a shrink, expressed concerns about possible ill effects of overcoming depression...particularly on musical taste...asked if I could end up trading in Miles Davis and Lou Reed for Britney Spears and Mandy Moore...(this was ten years ago...insert appropriate poppy upbeat 2011 equivalents if you please)....he laughed, but didn’t exactly say no...



...had a version of that high school anxiety dream it seems everybody has...(y’know, walking the halls during finals week, realizing I’ve somehow forgotten to go to class all semester, and, in fact, am not even sure what rooms my classes are in...meaning that, even after all that higher education, I’m still in danger of failing high school)...



...(I’ve never had the showing-up-at-school-naked dream, but suspect that, metaphorically, it’s the same thing)...(like the dreams a friend said she was having, in which it turned out her divorce papers never got properly filed and she’s still married to her ex-)...(anyway...)...



...in this one, though, I’m at some kind of office job, realizing I haven't the slightest idea what I’m supposed to be doing, and getting a bit panicked about it...but, then, realizing I really don’t want the job, anyway...



...got an e-mail (in my spam folder) this morning reading Congratulations you have been chosen for Registry of Distinguished Women...(sic)....don't think I'm being overly humble in saying this honor was unexpected...