Friday, January 27, 2006

Follow up to life's weirdness.

I have received a number of cards and letter from you readers for my last entry (along with an e-mailed copy I sent) "you like me, you really..." or better named as "life's weirdness". I feel gratified to hear so many of you responding in such droves. Well, all two of you. But...the truth is that it seemed to have struck a chord with so many of us. and my dear friend Jeff left me a message today remarking about how we are so hard on ourselves...how DARE anyone else to criticize or unlike us. I appreciate that. And Michael said you can't fool all of the people all of the time but you can fool some of the people some of the time...or something such. But it makes a lot of sense. In here (pointing to migraine headache area). Today I don't really care what people think because...(oh my god, my boss just walked in...OH MY GOOOOODDD).
The tests that I am working on for class are here and we are making great progress with the IEP versions of the computers system of reality. the model of government...Oh hi Ms. Shartz. How are you? Good thanks. I'm just working on classwork. A lot of classwork. I'm on task. heh heh (nervous).
Log off please. Back to class.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Fw: life's weirdness



---------- Forwarded Message ----------
It is just amazing to me to fully admit that I could be as unliked as
I am by so many different people in the world. It is also just as
amazing how liked I am by other people. What in god's name are people
seeing who both like and dislike me? Those who dislike me are seeing
the same actions I perform as those who like me. What in God's name
is going on here? And, more importantly, why do I give it so much
credence.
That's a really good question. It is unfathomable to me that anyone
couldn't like me. I have set up my entire life in order for people to
like me. And when they don't, and believe me they don't, I just can't
stand it. I just can't stand me for doing things which make them
dislike me. Especially when I don't do anything to make them feel
this way. So, the truth is I have to change myself to make every
single person like me the way I need them to. How do I do that? You
see the silliness here. 
What other people think of me is not my business. It is God and my
business. I have heard that term over and over and have no idea how
to implement that sage bit of advice. It seems that people will see
exactly what they need to see in order to feel okay. That applies to
both camps. My job is to stay connected to my higher power and
remember that it is his love that matters. His way is the way. Those
who need to control me, man oh manoshevitz, god bless them. Those who
love me. Well, thank god for them too.

You like me! You really like....?

It is just amazing to me to fully admit that I could be as unliked as I am by so many different people in the world. It is also just amazing how liked I am by other people. What in god's name are people seeing who both like and dislike me? Those who dislike me are seeing the same actions I perform as those who like me. What in God's name is going on here? And, more importantly, why do I give it so much credence.That's a really good question. It is unfathomable to me that anyone couldn't like me. I have set up my entire life in order for people to like me. And when they don't, and believe me they don't, I just can't stand it. I just can't stand me for doing things which make them dislike me. Especially when I don't do anything to make them feel this way. So, the truth is I have to change myself to make every single person like me the way I need them to. How do I do that? You see the silliness here? What other people think of me is not my business. It is God and my business. I have heard that term over and over and have no idea how to implement that sage bit of advice. It seems that people will see exactly what they need to see in order to feel okay. That applies to both camps. My job is to stay connected to my higher power and remember that it is his love that matters. His way is the way. Those who need to control me, man oh manoshevitz, god bless them. Those who love me. Well, thank god for them too.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Is anybody reading this anymore?

Well, it seems like I'm starting to sing into the void now. I have noticed almost no responses at all to my missives. That's okay. I guess I could begin to see this as a diary online that maybe aliens will discover and decipher millenia from now. Perhaps I will end up being their god. Perhaps they will see my hirsuted countenance and pray to me and write twelve step programs to connect to me after seeing these remarkable visions. That would be cool? It would be really cool if I weren't so bitterly lonely all the time. Ah, the human condition. But, I guess at some point we just kind of soldier on, eh? Most days are okay. But I'm still addicted to drama. So the okay days are not normal for me. I am worrying less as well. Big relief. I don't have much more to say right now. Well, I do but many people may read this.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Get outta my way!

That is the solution now isn't it? The more I get out of my own way, the more I can allow the light to shine forth from within. This is no easy feat. My will precedes me. As my dear friend Jimmy G. says, his addict is up a good half-hour before him, writing, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes saying "hey man, look at this", as he shows him his addicts written musings. If I don't hit my knees immediately, or connect upon waking, I'm already in big trouble. Everything I think seems like a good idea. I'm already out the door and I haven't even put on my slippers. That's why I have to connect to my higher powerand do the first three steps pronto. And I must continue to do this during the day as well. My head will always tell me the "if onlys". If only I had this career, or that girlfriend, or this toy, well "then" I would be happy. And believe me, it can get confusing. I mean, what about my career, and a relationship and a new thing? Isn't it okay to desire them. As Allan Watts says "how can you desire not to desire?". It's a paradox, like so much of this deal. And is it okay to no longer want the same things you thought you wanted. A newcomer said to me recently that she was terrified to turn it over because what in God's name (ha ha) will happen if I no longer want it? I understand this fear. I could only tell her that maybe I never really wanted it in the first place. Maybe it was an ego trip all along. Or that I want it but it's now something I want to "do", rather than desperately "have". But maybe I'm not doing it now for a reason, like getting sober, or taking care of myself. I mean "really" taking care of myself. Maybe I'm supposed to help others, in a different way. If the only thing we are supposed to do is pray to our higher power for his will for us and the power to carry it out, well maybe where I am right now "is" that. The ego gets pretty freaked at these concepts. It feeds on fake power anyway. Our higher self feeds on true power, authentic power. Light power.
So, while I wait for the phone to ring for the next person, place or thing to come my way, I try to get the hell out of my own way and let the light shine through.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Ta Ta Weaver

So, the Dodgers and Jeff Weaver have officially parted ways. Too bad. I thought he was kind of coming around at the end of last season. He was really the ace by the end. But Colletti clearly made the right decision to not re-sign him with the kind of deal they were looking at: a three year deal with an option year for a fourth. Come on! Give me a friggin break. Everywhere this mutt has gone he has shown signs of coming out of his doldrums, or so it appeared as though he was coming out of his doldrums. Truth be told, they weren't doldrums at all. This is it. Whatcha see is whatcha get. His ability to rack up "quality starts", whatever the hell that means, was totally offset by his bizarre Freudian sixth inning meltdowns and subsequent pathological behavior. His signature image will always be the catalogue shot of him in the dugout, running hands through his hair, cap off, muttering. Yeah, I'm afraid that says it all. He is a mutterer. And mutterers never get better without some kind of help. Weaver is case in point for the services of a sports psychologist. But, if the guy hasn't got it by now...uh uh...he aint' gonna. So, Lowe, Penny, Perez, Tomko, Seo and pray for rain (maybe someone else. That's what Colletti still say's he wants). Edwin Jackson maybe in the pen for middle relief and the new kid Osorio (or maybe, the devil willing, Tavares), Brazoban and the Gag's. Bye bye Jeff, enjoy Kansas City.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Am I over it?

I think I am just starting to get over USC's loss to Texas. How do I know this? Because I think I've got the lesson of the loss. It simply led me back to the great wisdom.
I had the most hollow feeling when the game ended. I was disconsolate. I couldn't get to work the next day. I felt that my fairy tale had ended. I, personally, had been robbed of imortality by Vince Young, the new great Satan. But something funny happened the next day. I got out of the house and went to a meeting. As I drove from Los Feliz to Atwater, my spiritual home, I noticed how gentle and lovely the day looked and felt. I wondered if I was hallucinating. But indeed it was a truly beautiful day out. I then understood that I had been given something far greater than had USC won that game. I had been given some kind of peace. There are remarkable lessons in losing, which most of us can't even comprehend learning in this win-at-all-costs world. The Dalai Lama has this as one of his 18 thoughts for 2005: learn the lessons of the loss. I'm not sure I can even articulate what that lesson is, except that peace is with us. That the game was the gift. That it is good to be alive and experience all the levels that existence has to offer. It felt really good.
Now, let's go out in '06, kick butt and take names!

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

This is what's really going on

I have been watching myself more and more lately. I have been watching for "the subtle addictive signs of my disease". In other words, my alcoholism. Or in laymens terms, my anxiety and neurosis and depression. Call it by any other name, the culprit of my normal day is the automatic, first thing in the morning, negative waves of thoughts that are so present that I can't even see them as they are coming. Thousands of messages pouring in from god know's where. My dear friend Jimmy G says that as he is waking up, his disease is personified by a doppleganger of himself who has been up many hours earlier, smoking and drinking coffee and writing. As soon as he wakes up, this sinister other shakes him awake crying "hey, take a look at this buddy". Oh yeah, that's what my disease is like. It's off to the races as soon as I'm up. If I don't connect to something higher than me, it's all downhill at a quarter past 5:00AM.
So, let's say I do turn it over right away, well, then there's the other monster, caffeine, just sitting there, waiting to perk me up into more agitated and anxious, automated amped up man. Gotta get this going. So, I turn on the KABC morning news with Phillip Palmer and Kathy Vara and listen to the coal miners who all survived...thank the lord you exist...oh, wait a minute...I guess they didn't...of course you don't exist. All the carpet commercials from Empire with the little gnomes dancing around, mixing with my coffee and bad thoughts and mini-micro alcoholic me gettin goin.
Off with the news and on with the sports talk. Gotta have The Herd on in the morning man. Gotta have my Cowherd fix. He's friggin hilarious, gotta keep the noise goin, otherwise I fall asleep and realize that I'm gettin ready to go to another day at another job which has absolutely nothing to do with why I'm here on the planet earth and barely pays my way here. Sugary cereal, followed by eggs and bacon and OJ. I've had my hot shower, scalding, and the primping as fast as I can so as not to lose control. My oldstyle hairdryer is my god. Thank god I've got hair. My belly a wretched reminder of what I've chosen of my life.
Then to Hollywood High, where the fun really starts. I'm already in maniac mode by the time I arrive at the maniacal school of hell. The admnistrators and office people and others saying "good morning" as I grunt back at them. Grunt grunt. Is that socially acceptable? Then I realize the rage that they have. The all consuming rage that drives them. There are wonderful people there, don't get me wrong. But the angry are the worst of the enraged...the intelligent without god. I just try to help who I can, but the others make it my business to create the worst day possible. So, now, it's almost lunch and I am losing cell tissue. I have no serenity left, I am numb and wander through the rest of the day just waiting to clock out. I have wanted to quit this job for so long but, the laughable hilarious bad joke is this: no matter where I work, I will still have to deal with...(ta da)...PEOPLE! I will still have to learn to cope. And baby, oh baby, don't bother me cause I can't cope. And I don't feel one bit sorry for this fact. It's me, mama. I'll keep looking to overcome (we shall overcome). But in the meantime, I pat myself on the back for even trying to live in a world when my point of view is not even mine. I want it back. I've got to get it back. And fucking soon.

Sunday, January 01, 2006


God is in me. Posted by Picasa

I've made my decision

As I enter the New Year, with a whimper and not a bang, I am more committed than ever before to the decisive act of faith. Starting with the recognition and apreciation of miracles, I will pay attention to them and catalogue their coming. I will refer to these miracles in times when the entire sphere of existence screams out that they are fallacious. I will act "as if", no matter how convinced that my actions are without meaning to anybody or anything outside of myself. I will refuse to allow my spirit to erode, even if the face or overwhelming odds against it's eternal being and when all around me mocks this expression. I will give my life to the precious ideals of love and service and continue to watch for the sublte and addictive signs of negativity and nadir. I will allow myself to feel and like what I like, no matter how outlandish. I can be a fan of horror films and dark and disturbing art and still be of the light. I can smile more, and not be afraid of becoming an automaton. I can watch how I go to my insanity for solutions and quickly be relieved of these obssessions by angelic forces watching over my life and the world. I can have compassion for the naysayers, be afraid that they may be right and not like me, and then see them as children of God too. I can live in a world that transcends these final end days and know, that in my heart of hearts, God's music will reach me through either the free airwaves or Sirius pay sattelite (and he's pretty good at that). When all is said and done, I will pay attention the that tiny little voice that tell's me what's good and what's now and pay attention and honor that voice, no matter what. I will accept more and ask "why" less. I will touch the face of God everyday as I brush up my cats, and I will sing "Lauda Laude" to his praises. Love conquers all. Love is forever. I will return to forever a day at a time.