goblinbox

In which I share the story of my 2010 pilgrimage to Mother’s feet.

Guru brahma gurur visnuh
gurudevo mahesvarah
guru saksat parambrahma
tasmai srigurave namah

(I prostrate to that Sri Guru who is Brahma, Vishnu, and God Maheshwara, and who is verily the Supreme Absolute Itself.)

At the very front of the archana book, there is a 3-and-a-half page manasa puja. I read through it once several years ago.

I don’t remember having any particular response to it other than perhaps the vague opinion that it was a simple or childish form of worship.

Now it elucidates my longing so much that I wish I’d written it myself.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
The Seattle programs are awkward. There’s a public program, then a paid retreat, then a public program. The only way to get to both public programs is to be in Seattle for three days; if you’re going to be there anyway you might as well sign up for the retreat. And, if you can’t afford the retreat, well, only one public program for you then.

I couldn’t afford the retreat. Hell, I couldn’t even afford transportation to Seattle. The only reason I was able to see Mother at all this year is because a friend, Toni, saw my sad complaint on Facebook and offered to drive me across the state.

When I asked her why she wanted to do that, she said she’d “felt compelled” to take me to Amma. When I sent her a link to amma.org, she cried looking at an image of Mother.

“It happens,” I told her. “If Mother wants to meet you, She’ll meet you.” How lucky am I, that Mother found me a ride?

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
After getting a ride, I got the very last room in the “Amma Tour” room block at the Hyatt, but it was $109 per night. I later found a motel through Priceline for $65. It was five miles away from the program, but at least I could afford it.

So my friend Toni picked me up at 8:45 on Monday morning and drove me across the state in her little red late model car so that I could see my beloved Sat-guru, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
At the motel I loaned Toni a green punjabi, and dressed myself in a white skirt-and-top set I bought at a Chicago program a dozen years ago.

We looked at the map in the phone book for awhile, then we left to find the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. Toni navigates almost entirely by vibe; when I admitted I hadn’t seen the Hyatt where I’d expected it to be (I was looking at the wrong side of the street) she laughed and flipped a U-turn and drove us straight to it.

Parking, miraculously, was free. (We’d already filled the tank. Between the two of us, we had maybe forty dollars.) We went into the Hyatt and got in line with hundreds of devotees. I saw the clothes and the hair and the jewelry and the tattoos and wondered vaguely why humans like to adorn themselves as tribes… I felt some relief: I feel weird about the way I dress because I’m basically the only member of my tribe where I live.

The line started to move. We got to the hall and were handed darshan tokens. Then we followed the directions across the hall and sat for the puja. Toni has bad knees from a car accident she was in, but magically we were seated on the right side of the stage next to the wall so she could stand up when needed without bothering too many people. There were over a thousand people in the hall. Most of the people around us were wearing retreat bracelets.

I sat and relaxed into the vibe. These people had all spent two days with Mother; was that what felt so wonderful? Or was it my own expectation of seeing Mother? Or was Mother thinking about us? If God is everywhere and we’re all capable of producing this ourselves, why don’t we? What made this different than any other gathering of people in any other room?

Amma arrived. Toni said she had a clear view of the pada puja even though it was all the way across the hall. (I don’t think I even knew about pada puja for several years. Everyone’s experience around Amma is so different.)

After the holy water was distributed, something about the shape of the ceiling magnified the sound of thousands of lids being snapped onto thousands of little cups into this wonderful groovy clicky-popping sound. “I LOVE that sound!” I whispered. “I want to sample it RIGHT NOW!” The guy next to me and I started giggling and couldn’t stop.

“It’s like a crooked Zen koan!” he replied. “Like, ‘What is the sound of many lids that don’t fit?’”

Each time one of us stopped giggling, the other would start again. Silly, non-ironic, joyful, childlike laughter. It felt WONDERFUL.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
Mother gave satsang. I took notes on my iThing. This is what they say:

Dispassion, three types: temporary, gradual, intense.
The body is like a rented house
Awareness – like a bird on a dry twig (at any time it could snap)
When we develop intense dispassion we get peace of mind.
What is the point of blaming others for our sorrow?

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
When Swamiji began the Ma-Om meditation, Toni, who had had to stand up during the satsang, came and sat back down. Meditating in Amma’s presence was, as always, a lot like stepping

calmly

off the edge of the world

into an eternal abyss.

The rest of the puja completed, Mother went into the temple to change and they closed the curtains. Toni and I went for a walk because she’s not used to sitting on the floor so much and her knees were killing her.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
Dinner was pretty good (especially the mattar paneer).

I would have had Indian snacks instead, but there aren’t any at the Seattle programs; I guess there aren’t really any Indian devotees in the area to make them. I can’t even tell you how much I was hoping for idli and sambar and pakora. OMG what I would give for some samosas! Srsly.

Our tokens were numbered O-3. I told Toni we wouldn’t be getting darshan until three or four o’clock in the morning. We hit the bookstore. I bought a rudraksha japa mala and a new bottle of Marikolundu.

I got some chai. Eventually Toni went and found a couch and napped.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
I went up to the stage and stared at Amma for a couple of hours.

Well, when I could see Her at all I stared. The devotees doing their various sevas on stage insisted on standing directly in front of me, and I kept crying to Her in my head: “Let me see You! I can’t see You! This is my only time with You all year and this guy has to stand there!” I was feeling extremely sorry for myself that I didn’t get my usual three days with Mother and instead had only a few hours with Her and that guy! Why couldn’t he freakin’ kneel when he wasn’t actively doing his freakin’ seva?! I paced like a caged cat up and down the side of the stage, looking for a glimpse of my beloved Mother. Eventually I perched sideways behind a chair and I could see Her, but it took a toll on my neck and meditating was out of the question.

I went and sat down in front of the stage in a place left empty because the corner of the temple blocked any view of Amma, and meditated for about forty minutes. I’m not sure, but I think I may have fallen asleep. I didn’t nod off or start to fall over – usually a good indication that one has passed out – because I had very carefully arranged my body so that it took no effort to keep it upright, but there was a definite lack of conscious continuity.

Maybe I slept, maybe I had a very deep meditation. I don’t know. The issue caused me to wonder what the difference between “awareness” and “consciousness” might be. Do I have to be one to be the other?

I guess that I possess “consciousness,” because popular opinion and scripture alike say I do, but honestly I don’t know how to define it. I think I’m here and that I’m me, but I can’t tell you why I think that. Am I still conscious when I’m asleep? Can I be conscious without being aware? Can I be aware without being conscious? Most importantly, how do I know I’m me? I don’t have an unbroken recollection of my life; I have chunks of memory bordered by periods of sleep: each iteration of myself as the doer is utterly discrete, and yet I insist that these memories are all beads on the same string. Why do I think that? And how, if indeed at all, does this small-s-self relate to any capital-S-Self I might be trying to become?

I don’t meditate regularly because, honestly, the ever-changing world is more charming than whatever I find inside myself. I understand that the space within is infinitely vast (I can fit a model of the entire universe in there with room to spare), but it doesn’t draw me like the manifest world does. At best, meditation – even in the presence of my Satguru – is no better than just really pleasant, thank you very much.

So it follows that either I’m Doing It Wrong or that I’m missing the point. What is the point? When we see images of saints deep in samadhi, it sure looks like there’s a point. What are they doing in there? And why after twenty years of meditation don’t I know the answer to that question?

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
After a yummy masala latte, I went back to the right side of the stage and found myself a place sitting on the floor directly behind the stairs. From that position, I could see Mother’s face more often than not. (I wanted to be much closer to Her, but everyone was being invited to sit after darshan and between them and the prasad people I figured I’d get booted in a couple of minutes anyway.)

I leaned against the metal banister and rested my chin on the floor of the temple and wondered, as I always do, why She bothers to do this. Why come into the world and do this incredible, endless job of work? Each year She comes, and each year she bootstraps us out of our mess, and we go back into the world full of love and compassion and ready to serve… and slowly, we forget. The next year, She does it again, and so do we. Rinse and repeat. She could just be sitting somewhere in samadhi. Why pour this little bottle of milk into the vast ocean?

“I’m a waste of Your time,” I thought. “These others probably utilize Your grace much better than I. I’m lucky I get even one darshan this year. I deserve less than even this, to sit where I can see You.” I briefly considered leaving without darshan, but even at the time I saw it was some sort of self-pitying ego dance. The mind really is a terrible thing.

“All I care about is You. All I want to do is be around you. Everything else is a waste of time.” I wondered if I wasn’t being a passive Westerner: I have ONLY A FEW HOURS IN HER PRESENCE and am I really just going to sit here? She’s right there! I thought about begging myself onto the prasad list: “I used to be one of the Iowa seva coordinators, but three years ago I moved and now I don’t have a local satsang and I’ve done no seva all year and this is the one and only chance I have to see Mother. How about it, can you get me up there?”

I cried because She’s so perfect and so beautiful. It seems that I had, compacted into my eight hours in Her presence, the same journey I would have had in three days if I’d been on the retreat.

Eventually, the sign said O-1. I went to find Toni. We got into the darshan line. It moved much too fast for me. I was on stage before I knew it, and in the lap almost instantly. I’d been in line between two first-timers, and had harbored a fantasy about sitting right next to Mother for a couple of minutes. Or maybe I’d get to be in the lap while She did mantras… but suddenly, moments after I got into the temple, She hugged me. I thought, “I love You so much, Ma, and all I want is You,” and started to cry, and then my darshan was over. She smiled at me as She handed me my prasad. She knew me – I quit wondering if She recognized me years ago – but there was no super special darshan for me this year, even though I’d been feeling so sorry for myself about only getting the one.

I got the impression I had been officially weaned off of Her form a few years ago (the first time I had had the “I really need to look within and see what’s in there” revelation) and that She knew I knew that. I mean, I remember it. This child doesn’t get long silly darshans; this one is supposed to be doing seva or meditating.

The sevite near the stairs motioned me to sit on the side of the stage. Toni sat behind me after her darshan. The monitor was making the front row get up and leave every 60 seconds. After scootching forward twice I was behind the assistant prasad person and finally close enough to Mother… a minute later I was asked to leave so the people behind me could get their turns too.

I most emphatically DID NOT WANT to leave, now that I’d gotten where I wanted to be.

I left the stage anyway, because I was supposed to.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
I considered staying until the end of the program; I could maybe catch a cab back to the motel, or Toni could come back get me… After walking to the car and sitting for a few minutes, I decided it would be selfish not to leave. Yes, I was wasting the four to six more hours I could spend in Amma’s presence, but I didn’t have cab fare and it was clearly unfair to steal sleep from Toni, who had so graciously driven me to Seattle in the first place.

It was four o’clock in the morning. We’d been awake for over 22 hours and had driven for over five of them.

We left.

I imagined Mother behind me, giving darshan endlessly, and sniffled a little. The sky was lightening in the east and birds were beginning to sing.

We set an alarm for 10:30 and crashed for six hours. I slept wrapped around my Amma doll.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
After brunch at a Red Robin in Bellevue, we drove back to Walla Walla. It was overcast nearly the entire way. I plugged in my iPod and we rocked Amma bhajans the whole time.

I did a lot of japa. I got a mocha in Cle Elum. We stopped at a fruit stand-slash-antique store outside of Yakima and browsed for an hour.

I was starving by the time Toni dropped me off. I nuked a bowl of rice and beans immediately. I tried to stay up until a decent hour but I was so tired I failed. I went to bed around six and slept for a very, very, VERY long time.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
Today I found the manasa puja in the front of my archana book and recognized in it literally all of my current feelings. “Oh Mother,” it says. “You are pure love. I am too impure to deserve Your Grace. I know that my egoism and selfishness must be repelling to You. Still, bear with me. Mother, please be with me. You are the holiest river. I am a stagnant, filthy pond. You flow to me and purify me, overlooking my shortcomings and forgiving my mistakes.” I miss Her so much, and doubt entirely my ability to do anything at all of use outside of Her influence.

Something wonderful must be going on in there, because why else travel the globe merely to hug creatures like me? If enlightenment is loving all of creation as Self, well, it must be more wonderful than it sounds.

In which I recap my madcap, whirlwind, SUPERfun trip to the cit-ay!

By 8:30 Friday morning I was in Sheila‘s van, heading west. Her awesome daughters let me ride shotgun, which was supercool of them. The ride was lovely – watching the land change from desert to rain forest is beautiful every single time I see it – and the company was lovely.

I was at the Hollywood TC before one in the afternoon. I called Dave. He told me to start walking down 39th and he’d come and get me.

I can’t tell you exactly how long, but it’s been a loooooooong time since I last saw Dave. We were in the MHCC jazz program together in the late 80′s. We had beers, and his neighbor (who also happens to be his bass player) set up an ad hoc wireless network for me so I could get online.

Adie came and picked me up after she got off work, and we went to her house, where I was attacked by terriers!. (Hah!) I put my bag in the guest room, changed my clothes, and after a bit we wandered over to Alberta for dinner at The Hilt. (Falafel! Hummus! Mojitos!)

My friend Leila dropped in and had a little nosh with us. It was a wonderful visit. After she took off we walked home, watched some TV, and were in bed by 10:30. Read the rest of this entry »

In which there’s about to be a wee bit o’ travel.

I’m going to Portland this weekend!

My girl from the paper saw my tweet about wanting to go see Cory Doctorow sign books at Powell’s and offered me a place in her van! I’ve got a ride up the Gorge and back! Squee!

I texted 80 and asked if I could crash at her place and she said yes. I texted Leila and told her I’d be in town. Via FB, I told David and Maija and Lisa and Jana that I was coming and hopefully some of ‘em will have time to hang out.

Sometimes the very best thing to do is get out of town for a night or two. Plus: Cory fucking Doctorow, can a fangrrl get a hell yeah?

Update: My schedule’s filling up nicely! Hang with db on Friday afternoon, see Adam & 80 Friday night, catch Miriam’s Well at the Saturday market, hit Powell’s on Saturday afternoon, mebbie sit in with db on Saturday night… Oh yeah. I’m totally gonna need a transit map.

In which I’m catching up on my New York posts.

Last Thursday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art all by myself.

I went downtown (er, uptown) with Deboka to her school to see if I could get in for an acupunture treatment but the day was fully booked. In the library I got online to figure out how to get to the Met. Deb gave me directions to the subway from her school, and off I went with a few handwritten notes.

I walked the wrong direction after I surfaced from the subway, but eventually got where I was going.

The museum is gigantic and I wasn’t able to find a map among the leaflets in the lobby, so I simply walked in and started wandering.

I saw the Art of the Samurai exhibition.

I saw a bunch of modern art I wasn’t particularly interested in, but I was kind of tickled to be in the presence of my first real-life Andy Warhol and my first real-life Jackson Pollock. I ended up in the French Art Deco section and had a brief but torrid love affair with a newspaper table:

Saw a bunch of Greek stuff, some Egyptian stuff, some African stuff… and finally, finally I found the Asian exhibitions. There was an entire room full of Buddha statuary:

A few rooms later, I found the Hindu deities. Ganesh!

Lord Shiva!

Of course, the museum closes at 5:30 on Thursdays, so immediately thereafter I got kicked out.

Deb was taking a mid-term until seven, so I sat on the steps of the museum for awhile and people-watched.

After that, I found a bar to sit in. I had a drink, rested my feet a little more, and caught up on my Twitter feed. Then I managed to get all the way back to Deb without getting lost, and we went out for Indian food.

Success! I navigated the subway twice and didn’t end up in Queens!

In which I travel for twelve hours and end up right back where I started from a week ago.

I got up at seven this morning (that’s FOUR in the fucking MORNING Pacific time, my babies, but WHO’S COUNTING?) and met my car in front of Jake’s condo at 7:20. Arrived at La Guardia twenty minutes later, checked in at American Airlines and then shambled through security.

Flew to Chicago. Ate a burrito.

Flew to Seattle. Ate a cheeseburger with no burger and extra cheese. (I didn’t order the extra cheez, they just made it that way.)

Flew to Walla Walla. Ate a slice of apple pie.

Kissed my dog. Reset the time zone on my netbook and iPod Touch and realized it was five, not eight. Uploaded and titled and tagged much of the Bodacious New York Vacation Set.

Am truly dead tired, and not entirely sure that I’m glad to be home. Had so much fun in the city, even when it was pretending to be Portland and rained all over me, that leaving was a letdown the comforts of home have failed to assuage. *insert non-age appropriate emo sigh*

In other news, I regret to inform you that I have to re-relaunch Operation: Quit Smoking. Again. (Further experience indicates that perhaps the nicotine-replacement faction is right.)

In which your intrepid narratrix is really quite far behind with her material.

zOMG, I have so much to tell you! But I don’t have time to do it properly, so here’s a brief recap:

Wednesday night, Deboka and I went to her neighborhood pub and watched the Yankees game and talked. Thursday I went to the Metropolitan museum of art and ate Indian food in Manhattan… and then Deboka and I went to her neighborhood pub and watched the Yankees game.

Friday we went out for foule mudamas for breakfast, and then I packed and went to meet Vuboq. He and I stopped for a leisurely meal and margaritas, then went to Jake’s where we dropped our luggage. Then we took the train to the theatre district.

We saw David, world famous blogger at Someone In A Tree (link is potentially NSFW ’cause there’s occasional pix of near-nekkid menz), in Brigadoon, then joined him and the cast at a nearby pub after the show. Jake showed up, too. So much fun!

Well. Then it took five trains to get us home, but we made it eventually.

Today there was some sleeping in, followed by an excursion for brunch. En route, Jake got a call: his grandmother had passed, and he had to go be with his family. Vuboq and I found food and bloody marys.

Now, two hours of down time. Tonight, the Halloween parade in the Village and meeting up with a few more NY bloggers. Tomorrow at the asscrack I’m taking a cab to the airport and flying home. Such a whirlwind weekend!

Pics and anecdotes to follow… when I get home.

In which I dive into my vacation in earnest.

Sunday I got up at the ass crack and showered and dressed, and G’ma graciously drove me to the airport for my 6:50 flight to Seattle. The flight was as short and uneventful as always. (I like Horizon Air.) At SeaTac, I had a breakfast sandwich at a Wolfgang Puck’s. It cost ten bucks, but the eggs were good.

The non-stop from Seattle to Newark was too long; the flight attendants did three entire beverage services. I did not get my requested window seat on either flight (although on the Horizon flight my long-legged seatmate swapped with me so he could stretch) and sleeping perfectly upright doesn’t really suit me so I napped only briefly. The captain landed us at EWR an entire half hour early, bless him, but it still seemed like I’d been in that center seat between two sleeping men for sixteen hours.

Grabbed my bag, deplaned, followed the signs to Airtran. Eventually got to airport station, caught a NJ Trans train heading toward Manhattan.

Deboka met me at Penn station and took me to her place to drop off my luggage. The F went out of service six stops from her own stop (it was Sunday night so I guess they decided to do maintenance) and we had to take a bus to her neighborhood but we got there eventually.

Then we went out for garlic pesto fries (I wanted something greasy) at a pub with the game on (Deb’s a hardcore Yankees fan) and talked our faces off.

It was AWESOME. I slept like a dead person on a nice futon with lots of down pillows. IN BROOKLYN.

Monday: got up and bathed and dressed and went out for Peruvian. Got Deb’s errands run – laundromat, dry cleaners, paper products – bought giant chai lattes, stopped by the apartment, then went into the city to meet her BF and BFF for an early dinner at Olive Garden at four.

Brooklyn looked so much like Brooklyn that it started to do some kind of self-referential loop in my head and practically seemed like a caricature of itself; I felt almost as if I were on a soundstage rather than a real place because all my previous experience of this place is through media… but then we stood in line at the corner Rite Aid for ELEVENTY HOURS to buy a freaking package of toilet paper because they have no competition and don’t have to offer anything resembling customer service and I snapped out of it.

At some point during the early afternoon, I started having PVCs (arrhythmia) and trying to have a panic attack. I kept having to consciously relax and breathe and get the fuck out of the interior of my body and start interfacing with MY FUCKING VACATION IN NEW YORK.

Despite my pushing the turnstile instead of stepping into it, and having to be buzzed into the subway by an attendant who could tell I was a tourist, we got to our four o’clock early and I spent half an hour getting the five-cent tour of Deb’s school. (She’s studying Oriental medicine.)

We sat at Olive Garden for a long time. The conversation was wonderful. (I love Deb’s friends. They’re seriously beautiful fucking people. I’ve never had so much fun at an Olive Garden in my life.)

We left to see Love Child. As we walked through Times Square, I told Deb I was trying to have a panic attack. She allowed as to how I didn’t actually strike her as being about to die, which relieved me, but I did keep having annoying PVCs. They’re scary. I don’t like them.

We picked up our tickets at will call. After nachos on a bar patio next door, we went into the theatre – great seats! second row! – and during conversation right before curtain, I began to have something of a personal meaning-of-life epiphany. Then the lights came up and I got sucked into what turned out to be a really great show. (And we only had to pay $4.50 for tix, because Deb’s a member of some club that gets her cheap seats. Bitch is hella cool, yo.)

Afterward, Deb took me to Don’t Tell Mama, a cabaret club. I love that place! So much FUN! I want to fucking work there: the staff consisted of a piano player and three singing bartenders with wireless mics, and they spend their shift doing show tunes and pop songs, with customers sitting in every few songs. An awesome, 60-something French woman did La Vie en Rose, a younger wannabe stage starlet did a hilarious and possibly original song about her gay boyfriend, a guy did some Oklahoma! numbers operatically, I did Skylark (pretty badly – I’ve never actually sung it before in my life) out of the standards book. I met two awesome chicks from the next table and the actor G. W. Bailey. One of the bartenders bought me a drink. It was a really, really fun place. I mean, if you have to tend bar, you might as well get to sing while you’re doing it. In New York. In the theatre district. Srsly.

We finally left the club and headed back to Deb’s neighborhood. We had omelets at a greasy diner at two in the morning and continued to talk and bond and communicate. I wasn’t in bed until after three. Fun, deep, intense, WHOLLY SATISFYING night.

Although my tummy was a little pissed about the late-night diner food. It was all, Um, hello? Why are you acting like you’re twenty-eight? Those Whirl-soaked eggs weren’t strictly necessary, thank you very much. I’m trying to work down here. Quit it.

In which my eagerly anticipated and long awaited NEW YORK TOUR 2009 is nigh.

Luggage? Well, I didn’t buy a new case like I’d threatened to, but can use the carry on-sized rolly case at the house; it’ll be adequate and it’s smaller than the one I own.

Hair color? Check, I have an appointment after work tonight to get my roots done. Nails? Yeah, they look pretty trashy. I’ll go get a fill on Saturday while my laundry’s in. Will probably shave, too, just to feel cosmopolitan, even though no one will see.

Money? Well, turns out the band still owed me for a gig, so I collected on that today. I won’t be arriving in NY with quite all the extra padding I’d hoped to, but I’ll be fine. (In other words, I’ll be able to buy VUBOQ plenty of drinks on Halloween, and that’s really all that matters!)

Saturday I’m going to sleep in, then do my laundry and pack. (I’ll clean my room, too, so it’s nice when I get home. I really think that’s an important part of travel: making sure the home you return to is clean and welcoming.) Sunday I fly out of here at seven in the morning for a whole week away from my house, away from my job, and out of my routine.

Turns out that Deboka – oldest of friends and most righteous of women, with whom I’ll be staying for several nights – called me to confirm and organize the night before last, but I didn’t notice because I sometimes don’t look at my phone for two days. Gotta call her tonight.

Paper copy of flight itinerary? Check. Copy for G’ma? Yup. Even printed out the names and addresses of the people I’m staying with for her, because it’s old school and she’ll dig it. Confirmation email for the theatre tickets? Check. Better get a little cash to carry. Better make a pile of electronics chargers too, so I don’t forget anything when I pack.

Contact lens solution! Damn. Need to buy a bottle because I’m nearly out. Maybe a small toothpaste, too. My toothpaste tube is probably over 3.4 ounces. Does the limit apply to toothpaste? I hate being delayed in security; it’s such a pain in the ass. Better go check.

Weather! Pay attention to the weather. Isn’t it maybe gonna be raining this weekend? An umbrella might not be an inappropriate article to slip into my suitcase’s external pocket. Probably don’t need a coat, should be able to layer.

Vacation is so, so close. I’m so excited I could just pop! One and a half days left of work. One day of laundry and packing and last minute details. An early wake-up the next day, and then? AND THEN?! Dinner in Brooklyn, bitches!

In which I ramble.

Money
Since I’m going to New York, I need money. Which is why I agreed to work on Sunday.

It was quiet. Very quiet. And after the other guy left, it verged on creepy… being all alone in the Drumheller building made me glad I had Bindu with me. I watched two feature-length films and three episodes of Red Dwarf, season one, and took fewer than ten calls all day long. And got paid overtime for it!

All of which is another way of saying that while you may think that today is Tuesday, it’s actually Wednesday for me.

Music
I’m hoarding gig money, too. The band still owes me $200 for gigs paid by check (who DOES that? pays a band with a fucking check?!) and I’ll probably make another bill this Friday (if I’m lucky. We don’t have a guarantee for the Friday gig; if the upcoming Marquee article doesn’t drive traffic to the venue I’ll be walking outta Merchants with maybe fifty bucks).

Reading
I’m reading three books simultaneously. None of them are really doing anything for me.

I discussed this vague dissatisfaction with G’ma and she says that years of reading heavily will make it hard for you to be charmed; you’ve read it all before. The three books that I’m reading are all good, they’re just not giving me that excited rush I have come to miss… maybe this is the period of malaise that will cause me to start actually writing. I’ve noticed myself lately reading about writing, and maybe it’s a sign.

I do happen to have an entire cast of characters in my head… it’s just that the main character, the alien? Would require WAY TOO MUCH RESEARCH to ever write convincingly. And is there any serious science about pheromones in humans? Yeah, my point exactly. Way too much research.

Eh. I’ll find something good to read sooner or later. I hope.

Human Gender
In other news, these are the Wikipedia articles I read today: eunuch, hijra, Brihannala, third sex, GID, proprioception, pomosexuality, and vestibular caloric stimulation.

I looked up eunuch to verify the spelling, then read the article by accident. Which led to reading about Hijiras, and then discovering that Arjuna spent some time as a transgendered male in the Mahabharat, which I totally did not know. I re-read the third sex article ’cause I haven’t done so in awhile, then arced off into the biological-vs-psychological arguments about various gender identifications and ended up at GID and pomo.

VCS was something I just didn’t know about. I mean, who knew that pouring water into the ears was a test for brain stem death? Certainly not I.

I fucking love Wikipedia!

In which your intrepid narrator will be Out Of The Office.

I’ve been telling everyone I’m going to New York for about four years. This year, I SWORE I’d get there NO MATTER WHAT… but then I changed jobs and thought, well, the job change was all for the good, but I bet I won’t be getting any vacation time this fall, damn it.

But! Since there’s no hurt in asking, I asked the new job if I could take a week off already even though I’m brand new, and they, awesomely, said yes!

I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see Deboka, and Jake, and Derby, and Barbara, and hopefully VUBOQ too, and maybe meet some online friends IRL for the first time! YAY!

In which Dallas rocked, Amma was wonderful, and I’m glad to be home.

There’s really nothing more kick-ass than coming home after a ‘net-free vacation–the hotel wanted $11 a day for wi-fi and I said screw that–to find one’s blog packed full of comments! I LOVE you bitches!

I’m very excited about the new job, and it seems my new employers are excited about me too (they made some of those comments, God bless ‘em). I can’t wait to start over there next week. It’ll be so nice to be back at a real ISP again.

My bento article took up 2/3 of the Food & Lifestyle section yesterday and looked really cute; I’d link it here but it doesn’t appear to have made it into the U-B’s online edition you can read it here.

Dallas was hot. We never made it downtown because transpo was hella expensive. The airport is gigantic and covered in concrete. The Tex-Mex was gooooooood.

Seeing Mother was restorative and reaffirming and all the impossibly powerful and necessary things it always is; coming home though makes me feel a little nostalgic for Fairfield. If I gave someone here prasad from Mother (I brought home a mango) they wouldn’t have any idea what the fuck I was talking about. I ain’t moving back to BFE, no, it’s just nice to live in a community that groks your vocabulary – that’s all I’m saying.

Click here for the vacation set:

In which I do go on about vacation and Amma and work.

I will go on vacation in nine days. NINE DAYS. I can’t remember the last time I needed a vacation so very badly.

I can’t wait to zip up my rolly case and go to the airport. I can’t wait to get on the plane and turn off my electronic devices. I can’t wait for my Salt Lake City layover.

I can’t wait to check in to the Hyatt Regency at DFW and check out the hotel room and the hotel bed and the hotel shower. I can’t wait to wake up in another town with four days of vacation ahead of me, and get dressed in my whites and brush my teeth in the shiny hotel sink and take the elevator down to the program hall.

I can’t wait see Mother. I can’t wait to meditate near Her. I can’t wait to get darshan. I can’t wait to eat Indian snacks like pakoras and idli & sambar. I can’t wait for Devi Bhava.

I can’t wait to eat genuine Tex-Mex like a total freakin’ tourist.

In short, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of town for a few days.

…
This afternoon my employer began the installation of a web cam in the office. It will hang from the ceiling, and is a model that can be swiveled remotely to view all areas. It has audio pickups.

There was a cam here when I started. It’s been moved into another room, and as far as I know has never been online during my employment.

I have no idea why a camera should need to be installed at all, since the office can already be remotely observed a variety of ways. Nonetheless, there it is, a camera which really can’t have any purpose other than to allow members of management to observe employees.

When I worked at LISCO there were web cams there, but they existed so that people could look at equipment, not the other way around. Why on earth would you want to look at people sitting at desks staring at monitors?

The whole thing’s just creepy.

…
The day before yesterday I clocked a very satisfying 6.25 hours on the phone, but my average phone time lately is hovering around four hours per day.

To fill up the unused time I’ve been given busy-work: something loosely identified as “market research” (involving visiting phone book web pages and counting the number of hotels in particular towns), and a list of roughly 250 dial-up customers I have to call and switch to different access numbers.

Why, yes, thank you for asking: I actually did have a real job once, with root on many servers, where I had to understand subnetting and do network troubleshooting and hang out in data centers and go to customer prems and often had plug ends and jumpers and screws and cool stuff in my pockets.

But now? Now I’m calling dial-up customers to wheedle them into letting me walk them through changing to a new access number.

…
Have I mentioned that I’m really looking forward to the renewal of my upcoming vacation?

Update: The webcam is mounted on a wall pointing at nothing, and it’s made by the same company that makes the rest of the inventory so it’s probably just a test model. Surveillance fail!