DLand - Words Not My Own

A distraught mother came to the Buddha and begged him to heal the dead child in her arms. He did not perform a miracle but told her, "Bring me a mustard seed from a house where no-one has died."

She returned without the seed, but with the realization that death was universal, and began to follow the path.

These words keep me mindful.

" ... in my own case, our Chinese brothers and sisters are destroying Tibetan rights and, in that way, more suffering and anxiety develop. But no matter how forceful this is, it cannot destroy the supreme source of my happiness, which is my calmness of mind. This is something an external enemy cannot destroy. Our country can be invaded, our possessions can be destroyed, our friends can be killed, but these are secondary for our mental happiness. The ultimate source of my mental happiness is my peace of mind. Nothing can destoy this except my own anger." - His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

These words give me solice.

"The parking lot is full of blood donors. I have never seen this many people before. People are willingly waiting in line for hours to donate." - radio announcer

These words give me hope

DLand - Faces in My Head

Faces keep running through my head. Faces from New York and DC. Faces of people I've never met. The grief is overwhelming. But then I see the anger. So many people I've talked to express such "quite, unyielding anger." They stand behind those who would "hunt down and punish those responsible." And then I just seem to see more faces flash through my mind. Faces of people who aren't dead yet, but may be soon.

I make no pretense to be one who could render justice in matters like this. It's unimaginable. But how many more corpses would be enough to keep us safe?

My father says there are three things that you will never understand unless you experience them firsthand. One is war ...

DLand - The Undie Fairy

Scene opens as GenieAlisa and Sweetpea drive back from Olive Garden: Jer: (staring at me while I drive) "... and?"

Me: "And what?"

Jer: "I've been very quiet here trying to give you a chance to talk and you're not saying anything."

Me: "I tried talking in the restaurant. I started to mention how I was feeling kinda melancholy and you basically told me everything I said was silly and unfounded and got out your little man tool box to fix all my problems. That conversation was a flop, so I'm sticking with silence for now."

Jer: "But that's what guys do - fix things." (very cute grin and arm flexing from the passenger seat. I think I even saw a sparkle from his teeth.)

Me: "Uh, huh. Well, here, you go. Fix this. I'm melancholy about how tomorrow is trash day and EVERY trash can in our house if overflowing. I'm melancholy about how there's three inches of water missing from the fish tank. I'm melancholy about how we have 10 loads of clean laundry piled up in the garage and 8 loads of dirty in the floor of our bedroom so when I get out of the shower at 7:30 in the morning while you're still under the covers I have to dig through said laundry - NAKED - to find panties for the day. Why don't you work on fixing some of that, Mr. Fixit?" (about the time I got to the word "naked", I had started to lose it and was snickering uncontrollably)

Jer: "Oh, no! This is a trick. You're not really melancholy about that stuff. If you were you wouldn't be laughing. I'm wise to you. And even if you were, I shouldn't try to fix it. That's another trick. So I'm really sorry you're having a hard time finding panties in the morning. I have that trouble sometimes too with my undies. See I'm being sympathetic."

Me: "Oh, yeah, I'm sure it just tears you up inside when you go to your underwear drawer and find the Undie Fairy has not brought any more clean folded undies to your bureau. You just stand there wailing 'Oh, Undie Fairy, why have you forsaken me?! What did I ever do to incur your wrath? If only there were a sympathetic ear for my Froot of the Loom failure.' Yeah. I just know it."

Jer: "How did you know?"

At this point we both just dissolve into snickering. Hee hee ... Undie Fairy.

The other great thing tonight was when we sat down for dinner the guy at the table next to us knocked over his glass of water and broke it. There was glass and ice water everywhere. The waiter comes and brings all these napkins and stuff. Then we're about to leave and the kid (maybe 12 years old) at the table on our other side knocks over his water and dumps it all in his lap and the floor and the table. He starts to look embarrassed but the big redneck from the first table says, "It's okay, son. My friend here is a grown man and he did the same thing." So the boy looks at this big redneck and says, "Yeah, at least I didn't break my glass." It was priceless. Big Redneck says, "You know in other countries, they break their glasses on purpose. They just throw them against the wall and laugh!" Our whole section was laughing. Sweetpea said the waiter was gonna kick us all out in a bit.