Saturday, February 19, 2005

it wasn't because i was bored

there was something nagging at me today so i had to find out. the results are below. interpretations are open, i think, we think, they think...

so i took a personality disorder test. and i'm sure if i took it again next week it will be different, well it could be different, okay it might be different...

the results:

Personality Disorder Test Results
Paranoid |||| 14%
Schizoid |||||||||||||||| 66%
Schizotypal |||||||||||||||||||| 86%
Antisocial |||||||||||||||| 66%
Borderline |||||||||||||| 58%
Histrionic |||||||||||| 42%
Narcissistic |||||||||| 38%
Avoidant |||||| 22%
Dependent |||||||||||| 42%
Obsessive-Compulsive |||||||||||||| 54%
Take Free Personality Disorder Test
personality tests by similarminds.com


you too could take the test...

Friday, February 18, 2005

bishamonten (lord protector of the north) at 5 a.m.

i was dreaming of walking through a garden, contemplating a statue of bishamonten (japanese) or vajravana (sanskrit) when i was rudely awakened by a loud rapping sound. it was 5 a.m. time to wake up but turning on the lights would have been sufficient. when i stood up, i had the thought in my mind that i would have liked to have had in my hands the bow and arrow that bishamonten often is seen depicted with to use in fending off demons from the kingdom.



i looked around for targets but they had already quickly vanquished themselves from the sanctuary. i suppose they don't believe that they would be safe on sanctuary grounds. they generally exhibit some signs of intelligence before they head to the kitchen, turn on the tv and start talking crack. crack talk and testosterone in the morning...my nemesis. i try hard to recall what little mindfulness instruction i have and breathe out the growing impatience accumulating. i remind myself that they are just empty shells reciting empty mantras of kitchen table, over-sugared cereal, shallow morning tv show philosophy and discourses on what the female meteorologists look like. that is not even to mention the fact that they are middle aged males flouting the departed audacity of their past adventures. why do men feel that there is something positively affective in boasting to other men. do they think the "guys" are impressed? by boasting as such, do they think they are going to "score" when they go out in public today?

wow i woke up a bitch this morning...

but i was having wonderful dreams of going back to the old country and visiting old places and homes of my grandparents. there were lush gardens and many buddhist sculptures and artwork on the walls that i don't quite recall. the dream reality was a split vision of a temple and an old house. curious that my mind was blending the two. perhaps old influences from the ancestors' altars in the house in saigon surfacing. anyway, to be awakened by loud rapping started me as a knife's edge...

a hot shower and coffee away from the sapiens imitating parrot teachers changed my mood. outside there is a pale blue sky playing hide and seek with grey and platinum skies. the low clouds glow differently when the earth is glossed by water, reflecting gleaming asphalt and verdant borders.

i need still waters and intelligent conversation. give me this and i'll write you a poem.

--

evening. 9:21 p.m.

back at sanctuary with the crack talkers. there is strange behavior going on, but they are others' strange behaviors and not mine. this is a good thing. there are definitely people here who ought to go to emotions anonymous. no kidding.

they walk this life without living, mimicking the motions from moving screens and muttering the phrases of talking heads.

II

"The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.
 

III

You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands."

--T.S. Eliot. from Preludes

Thursday, February 17, 2005

coffee cups

so rob and i were walking back from the cafĂ© to catch the bus tonight and we were talking about coffee. and that led to good vs. bad coffee, folgers vs. starbuck’s, disposable vs. commuter cups, etc...

somehow it led to rob making a comment that at a particular starbuck’s nearby, “after you put on the lid, you have to give it like a half a turn otherwise it always leaks.

there was a moment of silence then i blurted out, “what do i have to do? put vaseline on the rim or something?”

we then realized we were walking in public on the sidewalk with people ahead and behind us. suddenly, we felt terribly conspicuous at which point the only right thing to do was to burst into raucous laughter.

--

so i took a white trash test and here are the results:

I am 12% White Trash.
Not at all White Trashy!
I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. . I am more than likely a monarchist (you can be my serf), and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box.


--

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

let us go then

LET us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats         

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …         

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

--T.S. Eliot from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


so let us go and make our visit. make a visit into the fabric of today to find what can be brought forth. what tales, discoveries, and secrets lie within the yarn? how many unknowns are there and should they be kept track of?

--

so my brain started to try and talk to me. dredging up all these complicated to do lists, things to be apprehensive about, people to avoid, people to contact and so on. i looked for the standby switch. it didn't work. i looked for the off switch. it had been removed.

i was left to deal with the reality of the situation. so i let it have its say, acutely listening, contemplated the message, its intent and pondered its true nature and then let it go. they say the mind has unlimited capacity to asorb and learn and its potential memory is limitless. i am making it a point to reserve enough space to remember how to learn a lesson on how to do something. i think that is where i usually lose it. if it is a how to then it is not so tough but a how to on a how to can start to get tricky. i always have had the suspicion that i have difficulty thinking linearly. just can't think in a straight line. maybe that is why i sucked in math. hmmm...

or maybe it was because when i was a child in school i used to get my hand rapped with a ruler by the mean french teacher whenever i finished my math problem quickly and then flipped the chalk slate over and started drawing airplanes. i probably looked like i was never doing the math problems. belated clarity?!

possible, but unlikely.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison

but i'm not going to do it today. with all this rain, i rather watch others and learn. then i will try to do the comparison part without the madness. i wonder if that would really work?

someone said last night, "hey, we lost gabriel and his trumpet." ouch. that was harsh, but true. i replied, "well, it was really more of a tuba wasn't it?" the reply was a firm yes. i could expand from this point but i won't. i believe if there is a need for censorship, it should be self-censorship.

Monday, February 14, 2005

red roses are cliche

they are especially on valentine's day. but no matter, there is no participation on my part. but then what is my part anyway? last year i sent blue irises. i would argue that that is more interesting.

rain today, not heavy rain. just the "enough to be annoying" kind of rain.

missed my bus stop cause i was in too deep into the shakespeare i was reading. maybe that nerd test i took was correct.

another change in residents in the abode is imminent. watching others' choices and consequences. it is an unfiltered sort of way to learn the patterns of living life with minimal drag and damage. yes, damage. it happens. we do it to ourselves. sometimes we revel for a moment at other's mishaps but it only lasts a moment. then the heart has an option to soften and feel compassion or let the ego run wild and yell "i told you so." maybe our own suffering makes us aware of our potential humanity, we can empathize even if we don't sympathize.

distraction:

i drove miles
to put leagues

between

your station
and my being.

the time it
took me

to get away

was the time
that one lingers
without regret

--

rain again. let the rhythm be a lullaby