my child...

well, i've found that, unless you really really wanna stay on top of it, at some point you need to come on down off the mountain.  while my beloveds all fried their faces off in New York, i hugged myself up in Uggs and a sweater and thought about making tea to have on the porch.  when i got back within reach of a solid Verizon signal, i called everyone i knew and told them that since i had reached sage status, i was available to answer any questions they might have on life pressing issues, but by text email and gchat only, quite honestly.  being enlightened is really amazing.  for one, i forgot how to swear, completely.  i also forgot how to be mad but evidently, being Buddha doesn't mean you can forget how to be anxious.  as soon i entered city limits, i had to go anti-anxiety straight up or else i'd lose it on the subway platform at Bedford.  i don't know...maybe you're supposed to spend time sitting around listening to loons make those crazy calls and watch thunderstorms crash down from clouds RIGHT over your head as you crap your pants huddling it up in bed, but i guess the question is, what do i do with it now?

the answer to that question, my dear, is always to eat.  soy chorizo from Trader Joe's?  really, it's been too long...    

this must be the place

i’m about to go on hiatus in the wilderness, clear my head so to speak.  sometimes, i think that’s what will happen to me in the end: after a long absence, someone in the big city will suddenly remember that i existed and ask as to my whereabouts to which much head-scratching and puzzled looks will ensue as the interlocutors try to remember where I was heard from last.  

fact of the matter is, at that point, i’ll be whittling a stick into a sharp point with a big knife to skewer some unfortunate fish for dinner on, crouched on the ground, spitting over my shoulder once in a while, a hundred miles north of anything, musket propped up beside me on a rock.  i’ll keep my hair in messy braids and wash it only once a month, if that, by accident (not very far removed from my practices now) and wear layers of long, swinging clothing, even when it’s hot, preferably some kind of shawl or sheepskin or something. 

there are times, frequently, when i’ll be driving down the LIE or the BQE or the GCP and I’ll look at all the thousands and thousands of cars whizzing by, one person per car, and it blows my mind as to what greedy ass-rapers we are.  it just really breaks my heart.  in my head, I try to imagine what the same places looked like 100 years ago, and then i just need to lean out the window and vomit on some douchebag’s mustang from massapequa, no stopping it. 

i probably just need to get over it, but then this morning I was reading about how we’re withholding 800 million dollars in aid to PAKISTAN’S military, whilst meanwhile, our kids don’t know how to read, probably because they don’t have any books in school.  seems bout right.  

i was about to say i’ll come back down from the mountains when we’re all done being such a bunch of losers, but i’m pretty sure there just isn’t a statute of limitations on that one that I could hold out hope on, and there are just too many peeps i love around these parts anyway.  

i guess veggie burgers are the only answer.  

miles to go before I sleep.   

Bless you, Mr. Frost. 

  

incredible, edible

every morning when i was a kid, my mom used to crack a raw egg into a special, tiny, demi-tasseish, gold-rimmed Turkish coffee cup, whip it up with a similar demi-tasse spoonful of sugar and hand it over for me to slurp up, fresh as can be.  you may be resisting the urge to vomit profusely in your mouth, but i'm here to say that that shit was seriously so fucking mother fucking delicious, it would blow your mind.  come to think of it, i need to ask her why in God's name she would subject her only daughter on a daily basis to possible straight up salmonella poisoning, but she did, she absolutely did.  who would ever imagine that a rich, sunshine froth of creamy sweet raw egg would be just absolute heaven (haagen dazs rum & raisin ice cream has a similar taste, if you're really just dying to know)?  she also told me never to sit directly on the ground in months that had the letter "r" in them, as my ovaries would be prone to catching cold and probably falling out.  wait - you know what?  that's a lie, she actually NEVER said, "son, be sure to never sit on the ground in September through April for your little egg factories might go on strike forever", but she sure as hell must have insinuated it in some fancy fashion because to this day, if it's remotely September through April, my ass cheeks will not be found anywhere near dirt, plain and simple.

it's amazing that eggs are so amazing.  i mean, they're the center of life, but we just fry them up for breakfast and throw ketchup on top, or spread really expensive ones on tiny toasts and walk around acting like we actually mean something.  

yes, my mother did call me "Son".  all Serbian mothers call all of their children son, regardless of gender, and if that doesn't just speak straight to the heart of pure, unadulterated chauvinism, i just don't know what does.   

now ya see it.....now you don't

up regulation, down regulation.  an apothecary friend of mine told me about this.  it's so confusing, and the opposite of what you'd expect, but here - bear with:

it's like when someone snaps a photo of you and you're temporarily blinded by the light.  that's actually DOWN regulation, believe it or not, something to do with your synapses being all jolted out of their regular level of bored baseline existence,which is actually UP regulation.  i would assume therefore, ironically, that most of us exist completely in a state of UP regulation and how terribly upsetting and mortifying is that, as wrong as it sounds????  if the alarm clock going off at 6:57 every weekday isn't down regulation, and having a ton of mindblowing sex (with someone you love!), eating chocolate and receiving just accolades isn't up, well then...i just don't know about these apothecaries.

don't get me wrong, i'm all for being gainfully employed most days and what not, but the fact of the matter is, in the end, we're all going to go down the same, whether we spent the last 80 years beating it to the hard-core grind, or smelling dandelions, naked.

it's hard for me to wrap my head around that.

i tried to see if i could find a photo of nirvana on google images, being that that must be what a constant state of down regulation is like, but this is the best i could come up with:

relax

what's serenity?  a couple of days ago, per obnoxious state guidelines prohibiting regular phone refills on certain narcs, i went in to get a script renewal on my Xanax.  my doctor is decidedly bad ass, and aside from bullet points on my general anxiety level, our conversation took us to some sort of "wise man on top of a mountain" notion, as in what would you ask such a sage if you ever met him.  how the hell do i know?  if someone could give me The Answers, i'd have a scroll going: is there a God, what's "beyond" the Universe, where did that prick really go that one time he dropped me off at the train station, will i EVER have an idea for a best-selling novel???  if someone could just answer those questions - for starters - i feel like i might finally get a solid night's sleep.

speaking of doctors and scripts and peace makes me think of serendipitous swimmer's ear.  one summer when i was maybe 18 or so, i got such bad swimmer's ear from paddling around in lakes upstate that i had to go see a doctor or i feared i'd certainly go deaf.  my regular doc was out, so i sat patiently waiting for his stand-in, who by the looks of his really stuffy sounding name, i imagined would be an old dying white dude.  imagine my great and wondrous joy when in walked a young Rasta stud only a few years removed from me in youth, wearing the most glorious Italian leather shoes i had ever seen.  it turned out that i was unfortunately allergic to amoxycillin, but the young md and i became fast friends that summer in order to discuss further implications therein.  every day, after his practice, he'd roll the biggest doob i'd ever seen. 


i just googled him and it turns out that he tends to a very successful practice in Minnesota, so i guess that's a relationship i won't be rekindling any time soon.  as far as i know, the stress levels of Saint Paul lie far below ones in any way associated with Brooklyn, so wherever you are, Doc, big ups and boy do i miss you.