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I see that this blog has been viewed 24 times, and yet NO comments!

So, as of right this very moment I'm going to place a single pumpkin seed, up deep inside my ass, for each day that passes without a comment on one of my posts. I will discontinue planting these seeds when a comment is finally made, or when the first tendrils of pumpkin greenery make it out of my bunghole into the bright sunshine of that glorious day.

That is all.

(NOT) Wrapping Presents

I cannot wrap gifts, and I strongly prefer GIFT BAGS. If I could please be excused from presenting my gifts wrapped in neatly folded paper taped cleanly and finished with a bow, it's ends curled with scissors...

My dear Jaime is a precision wrapper and I have relegated myself to the tape master position. I can also hold fast the folded paper and make supportive comments about the fine quality of the wrapping and the overall goodness of the person doing the wrap-job.

Recently.

I stopped being a muslim, stopped never drinking (with 3 beers over 3 hours) and stopped looking for reasons to remain a bitter and unhappy fucker.

I still occasionally find reasons to be a bitter and unhappy fucker, but less so. I am grateful for this, and so is my little proto-family, as well as the greater kindred. When the rage and dismay rise, it's somehow possible for me to pull it back together within minutes instead of days. I too am grateful, but I don't know who or what to thank for this...my loved ones, my doctor, myself. I guess I'll thank all of us. It has been a long year.

About Islam. When I get especially manic, the centers of my nervous system that organize rational thought get to humming about the Big Questions and I have habitually turned to religious preoccupations to soothe the Great Emptiness caused by the Big Questions. I turn to one tradition or another and like Chris Piepenberg so aptly put, "I tend to yearn for a solid conceptual ideal and upon grasping it find that the ideal is often pockmarked with pragmatic pitfalls" Once that happens, I immediately sever all ties to that tradition and all the kind, well meaning people who welcomed me, a stranger, into their spiritual haven. I should probably admit to myself that no one way to skin that cat will predominate for long. I am to date, still a spiritual nomad, and I may as well claim that this will always be so.

On drinking. I missed Chimay. I missed Stouts of every denomination. I missed freely stopping by a charming little hole in the wall and having a few glasses of beer. I almost never got to do that with Jaime and I am looking forward to it. I am also looking forward to having a beer with my dad, and a cigar with my brother.

I don't miss the wicked black rage, the dark passenger taking the wheel, the "co-pilot" as Micah calls him. I don't missing being told what I did or what I said 12 hours after I did or said it. I don't miss the crusty chafed hollow feeling of a hang-over. I don't miss losing control.

I think I can moderate. I can restrain myself. It will take practice, but practice can't come if I completley disengage from any one specific vice. I do need some insoluble limitations. If I'm buzzing, I should get very nervous. I did actually. I have partied enough for two life times, and wasted enough time on this earth pissing into the wind. Tana said, "the truth is usally in the middle" I like to think she's right. The middle.

I read a funny version of the serenity prayer as I researched how to abuse Vyvanse. It goes like this:

God has granted me the serenity to avoid the drugs I can not handle, courage to do the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

Here's a favorite quote of my own, I just launched at Dennis the other day, as he faces a tough break-up, and is reconsidering his freedom.

Africa is one of the last places on this earth that a man can be eaten alive by something other than his anxiety.

My Job is a pride guzzling siege (Jerry McGuire quote).

I promote a broken system to people who desperately need something I don't think exists any more. It's exhausting and I feel it gnawing away at me. I see what it's done to all the vets and it doesn't look pretty. A few of them are brilliant but they must feel out of place in a system that promotes blind, silent obediance to a series of pointless cyclical morbid objectifications.

It pays the bills. Other than poisoning my soul and haunting my scant and terrifying dreamscapes, I find it rewarding even.

I keep finding myself in positions I would never have expected to be in. It happens so often I am beginning to stop expecting myself to be in positions at all. It serves me better to go in 4 hour spurts. 4 hours to lunch. 4 hours to home. 4 hours of house work. 4 hours of sleep until I wake up to have a piss. 4 more hours of sleep until I need to wake up and face the day. 4,4,4.

Now I'm just rambling.

Quasi-fatherhood

One of the joys of parenting is reliving childhood, and Mitchell has given this gift to me again and again.

The other day, I built him a sort of space jet-ski with a roatating multi-laser to be used by farmer smurf (we collected all the McDonald's Smurf figures when they we available), in his assault on the various enemy magnitudes he and his buddy Colby had for like an hour, assembled against eachother.

He has also introduced me to the joys of Monster Trucks, Drag Races, Little League and football.

  

Today, I found myself rushing to Shopko to buy a Lego City Police Station that they were harboring for me in their backroom, after I had actually been to that very store where they claimed they were out, just last night. It was like half off, and even online, their going for like 20 bucks more than what Shopko sold it for. I called every Shopko last night, in a 50 mile radius, intent on getting what the nearest Shopko had in stock. I discovered this only by returning home and looking this all up online.

If you're wondering how rad this thing is...here's a link. I got it for 20 bucks cheaper, and this is the last one anywhere for miles around...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004478GMO/ref=asc_df_B004478GMO1794157?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=B004478GMO

So. Today, with Black Friday looming, I sit sated, knowing that I have slain the behemoth skillfully, and with poise and heart. I have bought Mitchell the Lego City Police Staion. I am pleased by this in a way I could never have anticipated.

I wonder who it is I'm trying to parent. Mitchell, or myself?

Larry, my proud and playful mixed maine coon, sits near the cooling gas fireplace of my apartment near where he passed out from a cruel and amusing laser pointer race I lead him through last night. My wife- to- be is sleeping off a Migraine in our bedroom. The TV is silent. My new peacoat came in the mail this morning, and I am at peace with all in the world, come what may. My belly is cooking down an everything bagel with plain cream cheese and a large Americano. My mind is humming with vigor, lit up with the brilliance only 4 sudafed and pint of espresso and hot water could illicit. This is a good life.

Article with facts

http://www.jsonline.com/business/residents-voice-concerns-about-proposed-badgercare-cuts-132362908.html

I can't wait to sign the Walker Recall petition

Man.

Cutting healthcare to 29,000 kids. 65,000 people total. No healthcare. period.

I can't abide by that.

Even if I wasn't very progressive, or lied to, or feeling manipulated, or watching the democratic process being sold (cheap)...even then...in a total vacuum...my values are strongly violated by the cuts to Badgercare.

I'd like to know what the real costs of those cuts will be and who will actually pay them. My thinking is that ER visits will increase. If that happens, and no one pays the ER bill, what does the hospital do with it? I assume the loss gets distributed to the people who are actually paying their bills, or written off, whatever that means.

No matter how you tie the knot, this tangle of contraditions produces a noose.

The Occupy Movement

I have criticisms. A friend of mine brought to light how silly the occupy movement seems for all of its tactics and image. I had to admit, I hadn't really considered if the actual presentation was a worthy one, because I'm so much in agreement with any activity that draws attention to the stupid, brutal realities of capitalism in it's current modality. Micah's an artist though, and he thinks in terms of presentation.

Micah said, and this is why I love him, something like "So how's a drum circle gonna stop the military industrial complex?'

I think we agreed to be satisfied with the idea of the Occupy movement, as trite as it is. It's a mostly predictable confrontation and it looks so much like every other leaderless assembly of "the people" vs. the faceless corporate entities who are, destroying democracy and equality with every breath they hiss into their iphones. There will eventually be tear gas and most of the disgruntled students and hipsters will crawl back to the coffee shop, and back onto their facebook pages to congratulate themselves. The barristas will return to their housing collectives and wall street will continue to buy and sell tiny pieces of each one of us.

But just because it's exactly...like right down to the drum circle...what the whole world expects it to be, I can't think of much else about it I don't like about it. 

 I want David to slay Goliath.

Idolatry

Idols. The reverend offered his definition. An idol is something that attracts attention but fails to actually be "the ultimate"

I've been a muslim now for less than 3 days. We muslims would tell you...the "ultimate" is Allah.

I am now overriding the impulse to preach to you. I'll just go on telling you what happens to me, and how it is I experience the phenomenon of living.

So much of the world is a buzzing, sizzling, disordered billboard for something someone wants you to want. It's probably way less then most of the world, but the parts that vibrate and jingle are catching the attention, and the row of sparrows neatly ordered on the powerline is what I'm missing, or am disregarding, under most circumstances.

Looking at the faces that meet my eyes all throughout the day, I'm struck by contantly wondering what everyone else must think amidst this state, this location, their personhood, their internality, and their externalities. I think I'm wondering about this, because the idol of my self is demanding to know how it's doing and where it exists along the continuum it imagines there to be between awful and radical. It wrings out of every glance, every word, every smirk or blank stare or expression..."who am I?"

An idol then, is what informs us of the answer.

By what standard am I gauging my own situation, and in relation to what? What external impressions am I drinking inward, hoping to fill a void I'm experiencing through my contrary, violated, subjective experience. What am I doing to me?

And upon asking, the answer appears.

I'm thirsty hungry bored tired lonley poor slow dumb average craving greedy selfish loud quiet lazy inadequate in every way dismissible accidental temporary unfortunate disposable junk ornament.

That's where I surrender, give up and retreat into a place below my self. And there, do I pray.

I pray not because it does or does not work, or for peace or justice or insight or forgiveness, at those times. I do it in reflex. Like a hiding place, yet one that makes one vulnerable, exposed, disarmed. I go there to establish or recognize that the idol isn't welcome there, and has no power. In prayer, I establish a state of pure relatability to Allah. If I tried to write about this place, you would read words that make you think of either nothing, everything, or the wrong thing. The place exists so transcendentally that langauge would have no legs to carry the message. But not because there is no message, but because it is not transferable.

The idol needs us to be stupid and bored and impatient. I take note of how I dress and parade and mock myself around like a clown. It's demise (the idol's) demands a simple pause, in order that I might simply consider for a second, what it is I think I'm doing, and that my answer is isn't a conditioned response but a spontaneous and intellegent one occuring from a place of true originality.

My Blog!

Here's the thing. I'm in my mid thirties, am a white male professional muslim american, and I hope I might write something interesting to at least one person if I merely write as much as possible.

I'm a mess.

The following entries will expand on the above.