Saturday, March 30, 2013

If religion were only as simple as baseball.

The path to salvation is narrow; and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge.

But for those that believe that this place is NOT the end, there is a certain path.  I believe this.  And I believe that the difficulty in walking that path is that it takes work to walk the path pointed out by the Prophet all those years ago, which we are celebrating now.

For me, it does not matter if he was the Son of God; he was Touched by God, and that's enough for me.  And although I love you as friends and relatives, I don't care what you think on this particular subject.

Because that's the thing that came to me in the midst of the worst, and almost unbearably sustained pain I have ever felt*:  the path is narrow, difficult to walk.....and unique to every individual that chooses to believe.

Your path and my path to salvation are not the same.

You can't get me to the next destination, be it Heaven, or a new and better version of this place.

Your beliefs cannot get me there, as noble and as cherished as they are.

Mine only can.




*The pain has eased, thanks to some assisted stretching.  Physicians are touched by God, as well, I find.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

When the valve begins to whistle, the proper response is to evacuate.....

There used to be a rule among the students of mine, back in the days when I spent my time in a classroom with my long hair and my moccasins.

The rule was simple:  you could tell the weather by how I walked.  If it was cold, I was walking slowly with a bit of the crippled-up.  If it was warm, I moved more quickly.  And the standing order of the day was, if I was moving slowly and crippled, do not approach if you valued your skin or your self-esteem.  I was known to be kind, most of the time....and I would always apologize for a bitter invective...but I WAS able to lash out, if the day was cold, the pain in my joints was high, and my self control at low ebb.

I was diagnosed with the beginnings of arthritis at a fairly young age; I was 28.  I tried to take care of myself, keep myself reasonably limber, pop the really good pain killers, and laugh when I could.

But there were days when it would be ALMOST overwhelming.

I'm sure there's something to be said for simply GIVING IN.  Just giving up that well-tuned self control, lie down on the floor, and just groan and scream for awhile.  Let it out; it'll be good for you and you'll feel better.

And there have been moments in the last couple of days that have sorely tried my patience.

I woke up a few days ago with a nagging pain near the base of my spine; it made it difficult to walk, naturally, and the resulting compensation for that pain resulted in pretty much twisting everything up into a mess. 

I look like freakin' Ed Sullivan.

And yes, I should be attending to people who know how to fix such things; and yes, I WILL.  Until then, I have my pills and my heating pad and my rapidly increasing feeling of rage.

And an hour ago, a thought occurred to me.

I'm tired of this.

I'm tired of putting up with pain so I can be somewhere, doing something I don't want to be doing at a time in the day when GOD HIMSELF is napping.

I'm tired of twisting myself into a pretzel so I can be considered a "good soldier."

I'm tired of being in recovery.  Constantly in recovery.  I'm not healthy; the damned denial was supposed to make me healthy and I'm NOT.  NOT HEALTHY and NOT HAPPY.

And IN PAIN.

So, come sunrise, I am going out on the roof, I'm going to take a deep breath and I'm going to shout to the rush hour traffic EXACTLY what civilization can do with itself in GRAPHIC detail, and then I'm going to rattle my wrecked ass to the elevator, go down to my car, and either go home and go to sleep or find a tavern that will serve me something large and cold and tasty, along with the LONGEST cigarette ever seen or lit by mankind. 

And I don't care what anybody thinks.


Now.  Which do you think I'll actually do?

State you answer in the form of a question, top it with hot fudge, put it in a box, tie it with a ribbon, and throw it in the deep blue sea.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

...........

I have been feeling poorly lately.

Not physically, mind you.  Yeah, I overdid a little on my vacation......but you can't live paces from a beach, and fewer paces still from great food and drink without attempting to turn yourself into something that has its own gravitational pull.

So, I indulged in a deep fried hot dog, loaded to the rafters will all manner of goodness, and yes, Guy Fieri, I ate the whole damned thing. 

And yes, I had a scoop or two from Big Olaf's Ice Cream shop.

And oh, HELL yeah I would have bought stock in Heavenly Cupcakes if I could have; at the very least, camped out in the store and inhaled the lovely morsels.

And you can't go to a baseball game without the various edible props.

So.....I'm a little bigger.  But I'm workin' on it.

Baseball.  I can't say enough about Grapefruit League baseball.  There's a kind of purity to it.  Most of the guys you're seeing in the early days of the Spring are hungry to advance; and without a decided goal, there's a remembrance that it's a freakin' GAME.  And I swear to GOD I saw the ghost of Clemente.  And Puckett.

And no, there's not many better sounds than the sound of a wooden bat on a white ball.

But back to the point.  I've been blue.

I get that way, from time to time.  I call it being, "beyond the capacity to care."

And not caring that I don't care.

So, you hunker down and wait for the storm to pass; and it does, my friends.  No storm I have ever lived through ever lasted forever.  It's only in hindsight that it merely SEEMS to last forever.

So.  If I'm quiet, you'll understand.

Talk to you soon.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Not feeling the writing, but do like the video.

Sometimes, when I think I'm pretty good and pretty creative, I see something like this.
 
It simultaneously makes me want to get up and work harder, and just give up.
 
But within that mental tumult, I thank the God of my comfort that there are people out there that create so that I may envy, and dream, and strive.
 
And to top it all off, it's funny.