Battle wand!

So, I was just trying to think of the coolest Pretending game I ever played as a child. It was probably the Make Your Own Radio Station game (I have hours of tapes where me and 3 friends sing disastrously off-pitch Disney songs interrupted occasionally by commercials about farting and tampons - forsooth, the unabashed innocence!) OR the Flea Junk game.

Flea junk was what I (and eventually everyone else, by my own clever machinations) called the pods the fell off the huge maple tree in my yard. When my dad raked the leaves, he made a very tall pile, that eventually was big enough to have crazy jumping "Sears Portrait Studio" style fun.
But inevitably we rolled onto some of these pods, which were often oozing a thick white liquid and they stank (I guess they're sort of the embryos of the tree and therefore all fertile and hormonal or something). So I had kind of a strong adversity toward them and their constant attempts to tree-mate with my jacket.

Eventually, I set down some ground rules to what had previously just been a jumping and flailing game.
Flea Junk (this name was pure propaganda to turn everyone else against the pods) was an evil, poisonous, fully sentient entity that wanted to attack us, and we were the Utopian ideal of pastoral goodness just trying to live our lives in this big pile of leaves and always do the right thing, but the Flea Junk would always be there - the classic Trickster - to try and corrupt us from the inside out and make us do things like not recycle our bubble wrap or slouch.

So of course to counter this Machiavellian chicanery, I had to use magic.
But not just any magic. It had to be a righteous magic of bravery and honor and Air Jordans. And so I developed the Battle Wand.




The Battle Wand was a piece of bendy bark that I found in the pile of leaves one time. And it was miraculous because you see the Battle Wand is not so much a physical thing, but an energy. It can travel through time & space and will arrive precisely at the moment it is needed, in whatever form is convenient for the Battle Wand at the time (I've found the Battle Wand can be a little on the lazy side when it comes to assuming physical form).

First of all, it basically has Undo powers over all of the Flea Junk's deviance. And if I had to, I could do some pirouetting to really take care of business. That Flea Junk never stood a chance!

The Battle Wand changes form, but always remains a beacon of truthfulness and friendship. Should you ever feel corruption is at your heels, simply cry out in your heart for the Battle Wand and it shall disperse all fleak junk style evil forthwith!
Probably in the form of something like a steering wheel or an iPhone - the Battle Wand is not that high-ranking on the creative thinking spectrum, either.

MILLION DOLLAR IDEA OF THE WEEK

Hot Hobos!

Maybe in calendar form, like in that British teadrinking naked ladies movie, where they're like, "We're doing this to save our friend from cancer...even though we're a group of at least 15 people so couldn't we just take up a collection instead?" ? (that punctuation is correct. Check the Nasdaq if you don't believe me. And yes I know that movie is based on a true story. Suck it, cancer!)

Or maybe a quarterly publication with hobo interviews and steamy pics (for fan service)?

HOW TO THROW AWAY YOUR BILLS

That sounds a little more responsibility-avoidant than I intended; I just mean, once you've paid them and now they're trash...or if you're getting those
“Pre-Qualified – you get a million dollars free of interest if you sign up for this crap credit card and then, as soon as you have the cash and/or stuff you so ignorantly thought would distract you from the true emptiness of existence, we will promptly begin to hound you ruthlessly and transmute the shame you could possibly have learned from, into utter defeat that will probably cause you to self-mutilate” credit cards ads
or
“this is not a coupon, it's a subtle lure for you to come into this junk shop that we abbrv BB&B and strain your eyes until you find something you could kind of possibly need someday if there was a zombie apocalypse and all of the answering machines in the world were broken, so you should buy it because today only you'll get almost $0.40 off...just buy it!" coupons


or cell phone ads, all of which probably have your name, address and social security number on them somewhere, and you just want them out of your foyer. Slash off the floor of your living room. In a neat stack. Slash thrown behind the couch.

So I have a step-by-step solution to rid yourself of this paperwork.

1. Recycle it! Okay, harder than it sounds, because if you're like me, you live in a ridiculous city that doesn't have a regular curbside recycling program and it costs like an extra $300 in civic taxes if you do want to get the special blue bin for your trash pickup, but if you don't have that kind of skrill just lying around (and your dumb city still doesn't recognize the Barter System) and there is a recycling plant, but it's 20 miles away in a scary, wobbly part of town where hobos with patchy facial hair hang around drinking their moonshine!

   So, you know, recycling isn't always the first option, although it SHOULD be. Sorry to SHOULD all over you, but it's true.





2. Throw it away! Okay, again, harder than it sounds for a few reasons.

   a). Aforementioned hobos (if you live in the wobbly parts of town) are probably sorting through your trash regularly and looking for items they can eat/use in some kind of internet pyramid scheme using your good name and (questionable) credit history.

   So how do you avoid this?

   b). in the kinds of dumb cities that don't have regular recycling programs and would get you to this Stage 2b level of a predicament, it is a given that anywhere you go, teenagers, hobos, children, orcs, telemarketers or other minions of evil are looking to steal your sensitive information and use it in online pyramid schemes. So you have to protect your trash pretty much everywhere you might live. Even nice, non-wobbly parts of town.

So, to keep all of us from going through the horror of having our good names dragged through the mud by guys in suits with dollar signs all over them, I have developed a step-by-step guide to safely dispose of unwanted paper documents with your personal informaysh all up on them.

Note: this is only to be used if you absolutely, positively cannot recycle your papers. Don't add to the gyre! Please, think of the children (the non evil ones).

1. Locate documents of Trashfulness:

2. Open and empty contents of regular plastic bag.

   Note: this is to be used only if you cannot recycle the plastic bag, which can be done at any Whole Foods grocery store (and most other grocery stores nowadays).

   
   
   

3. Obtain additional items whose use has expired. Things such as:

• triple-used kleenex

• egg shells

  





• 46 year old 3/4-drank (drinken? I'm never clear on drink's past tense in the genitive) iced coffee with half & half and sugar in the raw and possibly honey that has been in the fridge for 46.8 years and is somehow not a fully sentient being by now as it is basically a creepy crawly bacteria cesspool.

• crumpled receipts (not only good as distracting filler, but also need their own place to hide since possibly sensitive information is reflected therein regarding your proclivity for Jones soda)

• pieces of sock felt (probably some between your toes right now!)

• carrot, lemon peel and spinach “feces” leftover from juicing





• band-aids that won't stick anymore

• used tea leaves (used here means the leaves have been re-brewed maybe 11 times over the past week and if a British person so much as smelled them, they would shrink back in horror and then look at you crying and saying, “Why?” with their hand on their chest)

• incense ash

  





• empty jumbo-size South African wine bottle (this is more just to maliciously taunt hobos)
  

Mix any iteration of the above in with your sensitive documentation – making sure that the ugliest items are poking out of the top of the bag.

4. Dispose!

You can now sleep at night with the confidence of knowing your sensitive junk mail and old bills are safe from being perused due to your odd and disgusting rubbish.

I am so confident in this procedure's effectiveness, that I am giving it to you – Absolutely Free!

If you are not completely satisfied in the next 30 days, you can take me to court and sue me for a Million Dollars and the judge will throw it out of court because that is a ridiculous sum to sue over bad throwing away your garbage instructions. Express contract though it may be, you're asking for too much in compensation and besides, I'll tell you upfront I am basically only good for consulting on One Thing – starting an ice cream delivery service. Check yourself!

Watermelon Survey

I feel it is my duty to fill out this survey as a representative of the human species. It's only fair.
  (note: Lunch ladies do not count as homo sapiens sapiens. Lab tests have concluded they are made only of hair nets, pudding and steamed up spectacles resting on broom handles, operated by highly adapted mice. DON'T BE FOOLED)

MILLION DOLLAR IDEA OF THE WEEK

I actually have a few today. Seriously, we're all gonna get stinking, filthy rich.

1).Meat Shakes.

Sell themselves, right?

2). Ice cream delivery service. It’s like pizza delivery, but instead – it’s ice cream. Ice Cream takeout. I am just blowing my mind with outrageous brilliance right now. Why hasn’t anyone done this? Let me set the scene.

It’s Thursday night. You’ve had a long day, your feet hurt and you just finished your Hamburger Helper while catching up on some work emails. (you workaholic!...but lovely shawl)

You need to relax and your favorite Marx Brother’s comedy just became available on Watch Instantly. Some ice cream would really help you unwind. In your mind you see this

It's tantalizing you like some kind of oasis mirage in a desert (plus, I think Hamburger Helper has hypnogogic properties - you need to start eating real food, OK?). But there’s no way you’re going back out again into the fray…it's insane out there. Everyone sweaty and mean, brazenly grabbing and pushing - ready to death-fight you for Ice cream! Everyone!

Not to mention you’re already so cozy. Plus, you’re single/drunk/your significant other is as cozy as you are and there’s no way you’re getting any ice cream unless someone brings it to you. You’ll even buy. You would spend $10-$400 if someone brought you some ice cream right now.

But wait!
They Will!...TA DA! Money in the bank. And it’s for such a worthy cause. (me eating ice cream is the noblest of not remotely noble causes)

For me, as I'm sure it is for everyone, the ice cream Roller Coaster is quite an episodic wandering for the soul. Because you really want it, and then you don't have any...but you wanted it enough that you get some!! It's just such a cleansing journey - basically like Dante's Inferno but for the modern warrior. I think I can illustrate:

When I experience Ice Cream, I hear and see exactly this

Ice Cream delivery will help bring love and joy to this lonely world. Forever's gonna start tonight.

SECOND

This is a long one. Apologies upfront for my shamefully childish imagination. And stream of consciousness typing. Also, if you need to reference it again as you read on, Hippie - body/heart; Ashram - reality, experiencing reality; Teacher - mind/wisdom, superhero, mindheart.

So how many times has your body betrayed you? You know, like those examples in psychology where they tell you about four different people witnessing a car wreck and one person says it was a green car and one person says it was a little green person driving a red car and someone else says they like turtles, which are green, so there’s sort of lots of different interpretations to events and we apparently can’t rely on our eyes or our bodies to properly interpret any of that. Really, we have to run it through our translator machine of Mind.

Spiritual teachers say the real source of peace and joy is our mind – not anything physical or bodily can truly make us happy (even green people in red cars ). The mind, not the body or even the supposed reality happening around us is the real controlling force in how our lives unfold and what they mean.

It’s as if your body is some tripped out hippie at an ashram and reality is the ashram and the mind is the spiritual teacher (or “guru” if you are still at the crazy hippie level) and everything is getting turned into this silly, deluded supposedly spiritual trip and all the while the teacher mind is like, “No, you’re just still being fake – being happy doesn’t mean being fake all the time,” and the hippie body is like, “Oh yes, wise guruji, you see right through me” (continues dancing with scarves) and then the teacher is like, “Just sit down and let’s talk about what you’re afraid of,” and your hippie is like “This ashram takes away my problems, it’s like a dream lalala…is that a baby elephant riding a go-ped? I feel so alive!” and the teacher is like, “I reaaaally want to quit you right now, but I can’t because I’m your teacher/mind, so just chill out for a second and I’ll get you some juice,” and the hippie is like “Juice! I love juice! Juicejuicejuicejuice,” and the teacher is like, “This lovable moron,” and goes to the kitchen and everyone at the ashram is like, “Juicejuicejuicejuice,” and it’s perfectly climate controlled in there so you THINK you’re not hot, but actually you’re dehydrated and so the teacher brings what he told you was juice but it’s mostly water because he knows you’re freaking dehydrated you idiot hippie, and you’re like, “I don’t need water! It’s like 68 and sunny all up in this ashram, MF,” and the teacher is like, “Trust me,” and hippie goes, “Ashram, what do you think?” and the ashram is like, “It feels cool to us, dude,” and the teacher is like, “They’re dehydrated, too, just trust me, OK, I’m trying to help,” and hippie body pouts and finally goes, “OK, I’ll take a sip,” and then your stupid ignorant body takes a drink of water that it thought it didn’t want and ashram reality told it that it didn’t want and then you suddenly feel really refreshed and hippie is like, “Wow, I was really thirsty! I didn’t even know it. Thanks guruji, I was probably close to having a freak-out! I wonder how I didn’t even realize I was thirsty…” and the ashram is like, “We were trying to tell you about the water, man,” and the teacher is like, “Let’s all just sit here and read a book,” and the hippie is like “Awww man!”

And that’s how Buddhism works.

Sort of. I may be wrong on a few points, but basically your mind is the only means of awareness – all of your senses and reality’s mirages are just Input that could be completely wrong, and Mind/Teacher is the Receiver and interpreter. Think about it – body without a brain = not reacting or interpreting much. Brain without a body = delightful science fiction movie!

So I think peacefulness in life comes first from the big brain tricking the body with watery juice to make sure it stays healthy and alert enough and then worry about the ashram. Because reality is what it is – even if it’s ridiculous or wrong (see: Darfur, the VietNam Conflict, Dancing with the Stars) – and it’s not up to us to change any of that because ultimately, no matter what color people saw, the car in the accident was only one color (sorry, I am running example wild). And our little mushy pieces of body can’t tell what any of that means without the brain.

The mind I think is something connected with the brain and the heart. So it’s sort of a cool hybrid, like a liger only not as fat and lazy. The mindheart is like the body’s superhero that has infinite powers of perception and compassion and patience and Juice-giving skills and can deal with anything! But, if you have a really annoying hippie, any mindheart is going to get a little numb from dealing with that retard after a while, and so you need a way to reset it.

Give your mindheart a spa package. And that’s where the Buddhism comes in. Or whatever you want to call it, I think it's still the same thing - compassion for yourself and others.

In our above example, Teacher Mind would NEVER have been able to deal with Stanky Hippie Body and Ashram Reality without some serious training. And a lot of us expect our mindheart to be able to deal with these ridiculous characters without any training at all, without even thinking, “Wow, I haven’t been trained for this.” We just do things and expect our mindheart to keep up and then get all pissed off at ourselves when we yell at someone in traffic or forget to file our federal income taxes. Yes. Forget...

It’s like asking an 8 year old to operate a forklift.

It’s not his fault when 47 people wind up horribly disfigured and an entire city block is turned to rubble – it’s the people who didn’t train him. See, I’m not saying 8 year olds shouldn’t operate forklifts – I’m saying 8 year olds shouldn’t operate forklifts without proper training. I think. I’m digressing.

OK - mindheart training. Mindheart is like a superhero. Like Bruce Willis in Invincible. Sorry if you haven’t seen it. It doesn’t know it’s a superhero. Which makes it get really caught up in the realities of the ashram reality: oh crap my train got delayed, oh no my wife is a weird ho, oh gross I have a kid – these sorts of mundanities.

However, once it finds out, “I’ve never been sick! I can lift 900 pounds like I was Thunder from American Gladiators!” the fact that it was previously worried about the train delayed stuff seems silly! Screw the train – my mindheart can fly to the gym! Or who even cares if my train is delayed, I’m friggin magical!

But in order to Wake Up to our superheroness, we need training (not everyone can just suddenly be aware of it like Bruce). So what is the training we need to realize our full mindheart superhero potential? Personally, meditation works for me (no, really!) because it’s about letting go of the struggle and constant neuroses that come with body and reality. It’s just sitting there with my superhero mindheart and being great.

It’s not spiraling into the past or future or trying to figure anything out, it’s just giving the poor teacher mind a chance to take a breather, and after you do that enough, I think you’ll see that there is relief in giving yourself some space. Like opening a window in a stuffy room. And while you sit there, there’s no judgment of the little distractions that the mind tries to come up to keep the conversation going, mindheart just has this huge capacity of kindness and patience to let that go. Then eventually, that state of being follows you after you get up from meditation and you feel like your superhero self all the time, despite continued interaction with yourself.

See, Mind by itself is like Hugh Grant. It’s just got to constantly be talking and saying awkward things – it means well; it means the best of things, but sometimes it just comes out wrong because it just keeps going on and on and finally your heart is like Shh please! I’m trying to feel.

And the heart is like a young film student who’s watched Breathless 100 times and cries when they see a flower wilting by the sidewalk or hear the distant rumble of thunder and it just needs to be loved and understood, but if doesn’t get loved in a healthy way it’s just like your sister when she’s on her period – one sensitive bizznite.

BUT if you join the two, the Hugh Grant part has a way to stay alert and show off his educated vocabulary and actually has some pretty insightful things to say once in a while – not the awkward blather that spews forth when he feels like someone isn’t into him. And since the heart has someone to be the object of their affections and reciprocate, it can also show some insight but also keep things grounded in the present and remain patient and understanding with its feeliness.

So I guess I’m saying in a most inept way, test it out for yourself. I have discovered that by giving my superhero a little more credit, I’ve found greater peace and happiness in the hectic silly ashram by listening to my mindheart superhero.

Hopefully, no one was offended by my ridiculous metaphors. I think in pictures, and sometimes they get a little out of control. Mainly the hippies. You know how they are.