religion, pleasure

For fasting, i lent myself to the idea of not drinking coffee. I thought it would be easier than chocolate. I also thought it would be healthy.
So instead, I imbibe copious amounts of black tea. I also eat a lot more chocolate.
Compensation.

I went to gymnastics at the school. Anything, anything to kick myself out of this (see elenangst below). I also signed up for a radio workshop which I kept meaning to do and so am learning how to do little radio reports.
The campus station is based in a little topsy turvy room in the sub levels of the university (this does not mean underground, strangely, so there is light coming in through an entire side of windows). Our team-leader/guide person is gorgeous (I think) with big bright eyes and a relaxed laugh. Crush in the making? Hm
Our first task was to do a short survey and edit it together. I realized, shoving the mic into one person’s face after another, how much I rather enjoyed annoying people. The sense of license, entitlement to, excuse the short interruption into your private comfortable daydream, task or tete a tete, but what do you think of this, hmm? appealed to me
The truth is, just about no one will answer anything if you ask them, would they pretty please like to answer a question? You just have to go ahead and ask right off and risk them getting offended or pissed (which doesn’t usually happen). I could learn a lot from this.

There were adorable primroses at the gardenmarket today, they looked like candy, bright spots nestled in dark ripply leaves. Irresistible, I fell for a crimson one all sungold in the center. It was nice to be in the market around flowers and lushness, it was dreadful and pouring outside.
One the way back the sun finally broke through the mass of gray overhead so we stopped at the cemetery where my grandparents are (are? Do you still ‘be’ if you are dead?) .
The grave was long overgrown, choked by white grass and covered in moss. We felt bad. Why do we take care of graves? I don’t know. In the hope people will remember us?
With my foot, I scraped some of the moss off the stone path in the middle of the plot. Then uncovered a little more of the stones. It was very damp. It had been raining for days. There was a layer of slippery sludgy earth underneath. Without meaning to, little by little, we started to pull grass out between the low hedge planted there, then pulled more and more soft moss aside. Suddenly we were in the middle of a concentrated clearing up, caring for, cleaning up of the grave. A pile of pulled up green moss, dead leaves, grass grew up on the footway. When finished we carried the detritus over to the nearby proper disposal and then stood quietly a moment, fingers cold red, covered in wet and dirt. I didn’t mind the dirt. There was no place to rinse off, so I found a nearby patch of clean moss and brushed them somewhat clean. Water was clinging to tree leaves all around. We used some of that; walking along the path, grasping hands of branches all down the row. The pines were especially good for this. just dripping they were.
The cemetery felt like a forest but with more hedges and rhododendron curving through the trees. Most of the green was very dark and damp and quiet. A thoughtful place for walking. At some point I had to pee, which I have to do umpteen times a day because of all that tea I’ve been pouring in. I wondered if urinating on someone grave could be in any way a sign of respect, like marking it. A recognition among so much anonymity. I decided not to risk unhappy dreams and settled instead in a rhododendron alcove where I could peacefully pee and think about the dead.

blues

I listen to the sputtering of the espresso machine behind me, instead of turning it off.
The pressure is too great, and the machine concedes, unwillingly snorts, short releases of steam out around the valve—which is now no longer airtight.
It is no longer airtight because of perpetual loving abuse by those who like to steam their milk. Or soy milk.
Whatever floats your macchiato
However,
these indiscretions on the part of the coffee machine, I am convinced, are the only thing keeping it from entirely exploding—so painful do they sound. It wavers instead, only gradually nearing the brink of utter self destruction. Luckily, my father walks in the kitchen just then, and with the press of a red button, delivers it from almost certain doom.

I spent the last days wavering, on the verge of tears. This is uncommon, so it was uncomfortable for the two reasons that 1. Being an emotional timebomb is inconvenient and uncomfortable and 2. Being fairly unfamiliar with the state of emotional timebombasity, it means an added discomfort of disorientation. At least, that’s how I see it.
The fact that these states don’t always offer a reasonable ground or justification for their existence is another blow to someone, like myself, who, if they are going to spend any amount of time being a blubbering imbecile, would like to know WHY that has to be the case.
Its not that I’m against short outbursts, or some occasional stint of blubbering imbecility, but these should be a) completed/experienced within a reasonable timespan and b) have a ground, cause or identifiable offsetting event. Otherwise they are indulgent, inefficient and insupportable. All considered, depression be awful.
I have little patience for people who are depressed. No, I should rephrase that. I have a lot of sympathy and am always ready to be there/ be supportive for people who are feeling down, its not their fault, etc. but at the same time, I have little respect for the idea of depression itself. Or for people who are emotionally irresponsible—who don’t at least try to resolve, regulate or take preventive measures in heading off their own down (or up) swings. Just an ounce of emotional self-sufficiency is all I ask. Everyone feels all things at some point. Learn to deal.
Be that as it may, I hold myself to no double standard.

I think it is time for some coffee.

Pop Quiz

Q. If, instead of dipping, i purposely let large pieces of cake or cookie fall past the coffeefoam in my cup so that i have to spoon them back out, am i being messy or thorough? (show all work on separate piece of paper)

A. The dunk timing needs to be just right and adjusted for the size and density of the cookie/cake so they saturate but do not disintegrate.