I've had a lot on my mind lately. I've been distracted. Living through one of those hazes where your mind's eye is sitting quietly back in the darkness several meters behind your real eyes, refusing to be present in the here and now.

I've been reading the Tao Te Ching, finally. Learning about the Tao and The Way. It's pretty weird how similar the Tao is to the teachings of Jesus in places. In order to lead you must follow, in order to be great you must be lowly, to be whole, you must be broken. The only way that the Tao can be defined is in terms of itself... that is, the The Way is itself. I am what I am.

"All that you grasp will be thrown away. All you hoard will be utterly lost"
"Whatever you lose, you've won,
Whatever you win, you've lost."

"To know what endures
is to be openhearted,
magnanimous,
regal,
blessed,
following the Tao,
the way that endures forever.
The body comes to its ending,
but there is nothing to fear."

"Why was the Way honored
in the old days?
Wasn't it said:
Seek, you'll find it.
Hide, it will shelter you.
So it was honored under heaven."

"Treat the small as large,
the few as many.
Meet injury
with the power of goodness"

I always thought it was kind of unfair that the Israelites should get Jesus but the rest of the world just has to figure it out somehow on their own. Maybe God did send Prophets everywhere, just cloaked in the language and metaphors of the target audience.

/EndHeresy

And of course I've been thinking about the usual stuff: the ideal government, the ideal tax system, the ideal health system, the absurdity of war, the speech that I would give if I could address all of the American people, etc etc etc. I might have to use this blog to sort some of these things out in my head.

I have an Indian friend who is going home to get married, his marriage is arranged but he was like, "Don't worry, we've totally met once before. It isn't like in Northern India where only the parents get to choose, they let us meet and then we have to agree to it of course." He was making it sound like his version of the arranged marriage was so very free and modern, but it still sounded very weird to us. He said that he told his bride that he expected GOOD FOOD, and she responded that she was a good cook. "We'll see," he said.

I started to wonder how hard that would be to marry pretty much a perfect stranger. Then again, your expectations would be SooOOO much lower, it might not actually be that bad. You'd spend most of your time hanging out with your girlfriends and relatives, he would do the same, he'd know what roles he was expected to fulfill, you'd know what roles you were expected to fulfill... neither of you would be expected to fulfill every need of the your partner... you wouldn't have to be lovers and soul-mates and best friends and business colleagues and disciplinarians and golf partners and everything else, like I think we sometimes expect our spouses to be. ......still.

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J: "So what about this job at NASA?"

Z: "I'm probably going to take it."

J: "And what did your boyfriend say?"

Z: "Uh, we broke up."

MP: "FINALLY! Now you can eat all of the shark fin soup you want!"

Thanks, co-workers, for your support.

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I walked into the hardware store. They recently put readable signs on the floor, so the greeter, normally overwhelmed by customers, was at a loss for something to do.

I smiled at him and then followed the lines on the floor to hardware. As I made my way through drills I saw him again, standing there hopefully, and I deftly turned into an aisle of L-shaped brackets. What could I ask him, anyway? "Excuse me, sir, where are the things that turn the things in the thing?" I perused the L-shaped brackets and continued walking through the dowels.

There he was again! Was he following me around? Hopeful, smiling, nearly the same age as me....

The appropriate French word popped into my head. "Pardon me, sir," I said in my best french accent, smiling brightly, "Where are the screwdrivers?"

He showed me around the corner where there were several shelves of screwdrivers. "Do you know which kind you need?" he asked.

I didn't know how to say "Phillips head" in French... I doubted it was called that. He waited patiently as I fished the screw out of my purse.

"Ah," he said, studying it carefully. He selected a beautiful screwdriver with a comfortable handle and a magnetic tip. I thanked him in a way that signified that the conversation was over and he moved off. I put the screwdriver back, as it cost ten euros, and tried out a number of other Phillips head screwdrivers, waiting for him to leave for good so that I could pick the cheapest one. He came up uncertainly on my right-hand side before stopping mid-stride and going back. He came up on my left hand side, hesitated, took a step back, a step forward, turned his back, turned around, and then turned his back again. I pretended to be oblivious of him as I analyzed the screwdrivers with all of my attention. What did he want to do, tell me more about screwdrivers? He was acting like he was about to ask me out for coffee.

Would I say yes?

Without Sharkboy I had no good reason not to say yes.... though some part of me doubted that my true love worked as a greeter in a french department store hardware department..... I kept my attention firmly on the screwdrivers and at last he gave up, melting back towards plumbing.

Ah well, another possible life, quantum-mechanicked out of existence.

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Take; eat; this is my body which is given for you.

Drink of it, all of you: this is My Blood, which is shed for you and for many.

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On Thursday the Canadian convinced us all to go have a picnic at the Trocadero, overlooking the Eiffel Tower. It was hot, and everyone had decided that they should bathe in the giant fountain and sit on the grass despite the numerous "No bathing or sitting on the grass" signs. I have to admire the French people's strong spirit of not-giving-a-shit. We had baguettes and cured hams and cherry tomatoes and dark chocolate and several bottles of champagne. Some visiting Germans asked us if we do this every day, and we allowed them to think that we did, because everyone agreed that that was the impression Germany should have of France. I waded in the fountain and the boys tried to push me in, and I tried to pull them in after me, and it had been so long since I'd had boys trying to push me into a fountain that it gave my tender little heart a pair of wings. We were lucky that the fountains didn't turn on, because they turned on a half an hour later and soaked everyone in the general vicinity. On the hour the large water cannons turned on and soaked everyone that they had missed, including us at the top of the hill. Children ran everywhere in swimming suits, sliding down the concrete inclines into the fountains. We stayed another hour, drinking champagne and then beer and then ros� out of plastic champagne flutes, and when the giant fountains threatened to drown us again we moved off. I warned the people who hurried to take our place about the imminent fountains, and my Parisian friends told me that it was a very unParisian thing to do. They said that real Parisians would have just let them find out about the fountains by themselves and then laughed at them.

Just as the rest of us had suspected all along!

We rested along a wall and MP challenged me to climb all the way around a bench without touching the ground, which I did, and we challenged him to climb a wall as if he were wearing a skirt and could use nothing below his knee (to simulate what it would be like for the Canadian to climb the wall) and he did. The Eiffel Tower switched on as the light began to fade and then burst into a million sparkling lights. As my old friend Phil would say,

"This is how we should live."

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My only love lies sleeping in the dawn's white early light
Mid-stream in a dream or a dandelion's flight
Across his face a gentle trace I let my fingers play
When I find among his auburn locks a single strand of gray.

A single strand of gray! On the head of this ephemeral, mortal man
And my heart explodes with tenderness like the breaking of a dam.
The morning sun lights up the pillow as the dawn gives way to day
And I wish that I could love this man 'til every hair turns gray.

Just as youth gives way to age, and spring succumbs to frost
The marching glower of the waking hour will leave our paradise lost.
And while holding fast is folly, for nothing gold can stay
I wish that I could love this man 'til every hair turns gray.

I found a paradise within, which is happier by far
An immortal priceless treasure in a painted clay-made jar.
So my affection through my love-locked lips I struggle to convey


Never knowing when Fate might intervene to carry him away.

---

Um, so, sharkboy broke up with me.

I was in the middle of writing this poem, so I decided I should finish it before the words turned to ash in my heart.

That sounds harsh... he broke up with me in a nice way. I kind of made him break up with me, because it seemed like that was what he wanted. I was no longer a priority, he wants to concentrate on his career, his family, etc. I guess I can understand that. In the end, it's all a nice way of saying that he changed his mind. It happens. He said it all started mid-May, but I felt it happen near the end of February. You feel it in your bones when someone you love stops loving you.

I guess it's scary that it can happen.

---

I submitted a short story to a magazine. It got rejected. Ah, well. In love and in literature, we must always find the strength to try again.

---

Unrelated: Fruit flies drive me crazy.

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I had a good day at work today.

Lord knows I needed one.

Dr. Wordsworth fixed all of my problems. And we spoke in English. And we talked to a cool guy in Israel. In English. And we ate quiche. Pistachios, too. And we drank champagne. Did I mention we spoke in English? And that Dr. Wordsworth is fun to hang around with? Yes, and he fixed all of my problems.




ps---Tomorrow is the fire-fighter ball. You know, it's a dance party. Hosted by firemen. It goes until 4 in the morning.

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