Happy to be here

Hadn't posted on this one in awhile, so here's a note I made a few weeks back...


Monday I biked along country lanes, through fields where horses, sheep, a couple llamas, three ostriches, and what sure look like deer to me were grazing while a 3-legged Doberman ran around a yard, then had lunch and dinner with a remarkable woman.
Tuesday I got up early for the return bike ride, saying hello to elderly Belgians bicycling patiently along, and stopping on my way to look at remnant train tracks, a muddy river, and commonplace local birds that look gorgeous to me.
Wednesday we are going to Mechelen, to have a special Moroccan dinner and go shopping in a big used bookstore, then are going to stop by a doctor’s office where for relatively very cheap prices I hope to get help with any vaccinations for the trip to South Africa I am hoping to take this summer.
Thursday I took the train to Antwerp, walked around for a couple hours, then had dinner with a couple of excellent new friends.
Friday we went to Antwerp, followed the free map of interesting things to see, and had an amazing meal at a Japanese restaurant.
Saturday night I went to a fashion show in a small town hall, where they gave out free chocolate Easter eggs that unexpectedly contained Pop Rocks.
Sunday afternoon I made a bird house for my girlfriend.

Okay, so I combined a couple weeks there, but as I fell asleep last night I couldn’t help but feel an immense satisfaction with the universe.  Sometimes you are going through a stressful time, and then you realize that life is just about always a stressful time.  Mistakes are made, and pain is a fact of life.  But any mistakes I’ve made, any pain suffered in my past, it all went into me being here, and that is alright with me.

Happy Easter!

My “year without holidays” was last year (I had a very nice Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve 2009, thank you very much) but today was kind of a return to it…in a new and current way.

Factually, I biked in to town and spent the day at one of the bars where my girlfriend works on the weekends sometimes, biked home, had dinner together and watched a movie.  Not exactly typical Easter celebrations.

I’m not particularly religious (as I suppose I revealed in my ranting about Catholic priests in my last post) but I like the idea of being spiritual. (Forgive me if that sounds like something you would hear in a dorm room while smelling nag champa, hearing Bob Marley, and passing the bong.)  I succeed in being “spiritual” to varying extents at various times, usually directly proportional to my nearness to the ocean, the mountains, the desert, a living river, or any other temple of natural Beauty.

But today I was pretty far from any of those (no offense to this part of Belgium, but it’s loveliness is entirely separate from that of the natural Earth).

While riding in to town it was frickin freezing, and raining, and there were nearly no places to huddle under cover until I passed a gas station, which advertises in English “All American Car Repair” in front of a big American flag background.  While huddled there my Ipod played “Here Comes the Sun” and Ella Fitzgerald’s “Summertime.”

That was the spirituality.  The sun was not on its way, and it was very definitely winter, and it was funny.  The Universe has a sense of humor.  That is some seriously spiritual shit if you think about it.

I already knew God/the Universe/Divinity had a sense of humor (have you ever seen a hippo shit?  That is clearly the work of something with a sense of humor) but to have a reminder come from my battered little Ipod of all places?  Divinely inspired.

So happy Easter everyone; music is a good thing, life is risen, and the Universe is laughing.

American danger

I saw this today:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8601479.stm

Erykah Badu is being charged with disorderly conduct for taking off her clothes in public while filming a music video in Dallas.

The village police Sergeant says their department has had "people calling from all across the country to express their concern."

Tea party.

Really, they were bothered by the idea of a black woman who was confident enough in herself to take off her clothes in front of others?  I'd love to know, and broadcast, the full thoughts (such as they are) of these people who felt the need to call from the other side of the country.

Good Old Boy Cop also says "after much discussion, we feel that these charges best fit her conduct.  She disrobed in public without regard for individuals and small children who were close by."

You know what surprises me?  That we don't file charges against mothers who nurse their babies.  Those poor infants, being exposed to a breast.  Traumatized from the start, it's just not fair.  Since it is obvious that seeing anything within the Bikini Zone (i.e. the Devil's Art Studio) is horribly damaging to the human psyche.

I remember I saw part of a breast once and I felt a sudden urge to molest farm animals and eat children.  Good thing there was a Catholic church nearby that I could go confess in.  I told the profoundly sexually-stymied man on the other side of the screen all about my lascivious thoughts, and he, in his divinely-bestowed purity, healed me by making me annoy myself and erase my thoughts with repetition.  Good thing his divine purity made him immune to any sort of repercussions from totally ignoring and neglecting his sexuality.  Catholic priests: the models of ideal sexuality in humans.  There is a powerful argument for abstinence education and guilt.  We're learning.

Now, I haven't seen the video, or thought of Erykah Badu in about 10 years, but it seems to me that the only thing worth discussing here is whether it is pretentious and tacky for her to be drawing comparisons to the Kennedy assassination.  Taking of her clothes off is this big of a controversy?  Really?

Blech.  Enough of this crap, I'm going to go make a cup of tea.  Naked.