Because I'm sharing John's "blogstipation" tonight, I'm also sharing my comment inspired by his post Learn to be Still:

"I wish I could recall in greater detail the sensations of my first Zazen session, but most of that 30-minute period is lost on me. What I do remember, and really, the only important thing I need to relay to you, is that when the session ended, I never felt closer to God than I did at that moment. I found him. I found myself."

Ah, exactly. And the book that finally got me to muster the courage to give meditation a go after a couple of years of reading about it and taking yoga classes was Old Souls. That book literally fell on my lap while I was looking for something in my sister's partner's meager shelves to read and kill time, the night before we were to drive to Scripps hospital to be with dad as he was released to go back home, to home hospice care.

And the silence and the closeness to the divine, so, so different from a priest's tirades about atheists and abortionists, and so different from the mass hysteria of the Pentecostal meetings my poor mom was talked into a couple of times.

I sometimes walk by a Baptist church after running, and one night last week I could hear the pastor's booming, angry voice from across the street. As I passed by (only the first row of parking space was taken), I felt sorry for the poor souls in there. It was such a starry glorious night out -- there's a poem I'm trying to remember that was written by a WWII pilot who loved flying and the line "touch the face of God" comes up thinking of how close the sky was, how sweet the silence.


There -- blogstipation circumvented! Thanks, John! And the Maná video needs no stinking explanations; simply the latest heavy-rotation hit from Mexico's greatest rock export.

The owls, watching me watching them tonight.

The owls on this tree are both well over a foot tall. Even clicking to enlarge on the first photo doesn't do them justice. They played this game with me where they'd swoop and stand motionless on the green next to the pond, doing a 360 with their heads in unison as I slowly approached them trying to get a close shot; then as soon as I readied my camera, they'd swoop back up to the tree. I gave up, laid out my blue mat and carried on with yoga in the beautiful old neighboring country club. They watched and cried encouragement now and again. Yoga studio al fresco.

Ah, and the following shot of Mount SJ past sunset doesn't do the mount justice either:



San Jacinto looms larger at and after sunset; it appears to creep up higher and wider against the horizon, breathtaking.

Work was insaner than usual; needed to get out and just couldn't stand more driving and small talk even with the good people at the PS studio. Finally feel clear-headed enough to think and call back on my phone messages...exciting post, I know. Oh well, good night & namaste.

It's getting hot out here.

But it's a dry heat, y'all! Whoop.

This is the silver lining in the larger-than-expected workload at the office this summer. Besides the long seconds in park when I'm broiling in the car as I blast the air conditioner with the windows rolled down to push out the convection-oven hot air, this month has literally flown by. I have a wonderful someone with whom to wrestle off the post-menstrual hornies, and I may be overseas by next summer, maybe even next winter.

I had an unexpected early response to one of my applications and résumé submissions to several NGOs last Monday. I arranged a telephone interview during lunchtime Friday, and it went very well. So now it's a waiting game. And makes me give serious consideration to just how culture-shocked I will feel in the country I may be in next year or sooner.

It makes me look at the horoscope I put up behind my desk and on this site for New Year 2008, the one that made me screech to a halt all these must-do resolutions that made my heart sink. That horoscope made me realize that I'm always pushing myself to set all these self-improvement goals, and then I let the years fly by working and finding more work on top of that, and never use my mad Virgo planning skills to search for and plan fun, pleasure. So my desert fun must-dos for this year have been pushed to the top of the agenda, literally. I must take a ride on the tram to the top of my beloved Mount San Jacinto soon; that Die Hard man better be up for it.

Oh, and here's another addition to my blogroll that's a great resource for wrestling the hornies and it's written by by one savvy, intelligent blogger. Depending on your tastes, some of the items may be a personal "aahhhh" or a "ewwwwww" but it'll have you coming back for more. And it has some pretty decent freebie porn links ;)

Not safe for work, of course, but very satisfying libido and brain candy, as is my golden oldie Missy E video above. ... "I got the magic stick, I can go for hours, from the bed, to the flo', to the sink, to the shower!"<-- LYRICAL GENIUS.

¡Buenas noches, camaradas en cabronadas!

...at least the agony is over


... Ah, and both my Die Hard man and my sister are now saying that at least Kobe won't get the ring before Saint Shaquille O'Neal. Can't blame them, though, love the Shaq, too. But I don't understand this thing because Shaq had his with the Miami Heat in 06 IIRC, oh well, I blame the Brazilian sunsets imbibed while cringing at the bar...going to bed with these lofty matters in mind.

Lakers survive Game 5, stay alive

... the televised water torture continues.

Esta es para usted, papá.

Friday the 13th hits hard.

"Was Mike Bibby holding his nose in pain after he ran into Kobe Bryant's elbow? Or did the Kings' performance just stink?" -- Caption from ESPN.

Someone say this is NOT SO.

First Tim Russert dies of a heart attack while doing voice-overs, next R. Slime Kelly is ACQUITTED (!), and now this?

I didn't want to post about basketball again because thinking about the Lakers not climbing out of the hole the Celtics dug them last night is PAINFUL, but here are the leading paragraphs from the article linked above, because if any of this is true, LA losing that historic 24-point lead could be karma striking a painful blow:

LOS ANGELES: For an NBA player, it was the kind of loss that can take years to get over. Now the Sacramento Kings are dealing with it all over again.

A foul discrepancy so lopsided they couldn't help but wonder if they were being cheated. And this week, six years later, accusations that, in fact, they were.

On the verge of playing for a championship they would have been favored to win, the Kings lost Game 6 of the Western Conference finals to the Los Angeles Lakers, 106-102. Los Angeles shot 27 free throws in the fourth quarter, scoring 16 of its final 18 points at the line, to even the series.

Former referee Tim Donaghy alleged in court papers filed this week that two referees, known as "company men," purposely ignored personal fouls and called "made-up fouls on Team 5 in order to give additional free throw opportunities for Team 6."

NBA commissioner David Stern, and Kings owners Gavin and Joe Maloof have rejected the claims from Donaghy, who has pleaded guilty to betting on games he officiated and taking cash payments from gamblers.

But Doug Christie, remembering how his teammates felt after the game, said he still believes they might be true.

"What's been in the dark comes to the light, and the truth can squash a lot of things. And so if this is the truth, then all of a sudden now it adds validity to things people were thinking, things that our teammates and I'm sure the coaching staffs and the Maloofs were thinking at that particular time," Christie said.

"Just the other night they complained about 38 free throws vs. 10 for Boston vs. L.A., and we're talking about 27 free throws in the deciding final quarter of an elimination game that has such the big, big stage from the standpoint that the defending champs are about to be put out. I mean that's just an incredible number, and when you look at the fouls that were called, players fouling out ... I mean there's just so many different things that magnify that situation. It's crazy."

Christie was a starting guard on a team that won an NBA-best 61 games. Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic, Vlade Divac and Mike Bibby were the other starters for the Kings, a high-scoring group under Rick Adelman who felt it was their time to finally get by the hated Lakers.

"We thought we had the best team," Gavin Maloof said. "I know the Lakers had a great team. Remember you had Kobe and Shaq in his prime, I mean that was a tough combination. But we had a lot of great players, too. We had what we felt was the best team in the league."

The Lakers went on to take Game 7 in overtime at Sacramento before sweeping the overmatched New Jersey Nets in the finals. Webber tore up his knee the next year, and the Kings never came close again to winning a title.

Now, Donaghy's allegations have them thinking about what might have been.

"You never get over it," Maloof said. "It was a tough loss and to rehash it all, to have everybody calling from years gone by, it is tough because it brings up bad memories."

-- or, it could be the refs doing dirty for Boston this time, some kind of payback, or...maybe this guy is the real owner of the Celtics these days:



Oh HELL, I'm BEAT. This week felt like two, kind of like the pastor's-son's freakout week but without anyone breaking ugly "artwork."

Poor CC is still living down that incident, along with the big guy, who's taken a bit of flack from the property owner and management about security issues and controlling proceedings in our offices...pretty much an excuse to ramp up the lease payment when the current lease agreement expires in September. Just yesterday, CC's clients Bert and Ernie looked up at her like they just gazed upon Athena striding up to greet them in the lobby, and Bert said to Ernie, "See, we have the best lady lawyer in the business, made a grown man cry I hear!" Yep, he said the "lady lawyer" but it was nothing but love from Bert and his strange forties-loving ways. Bert and Ernie were dressed in their swing WW II-era suits for their dance lessons that evening. CC winced but grinned extra-wide and with a "come on in, boys" marched them to her office.

Oh yeah, and the murdered burnt pizza was a "treasured gift from a dear friend" of the landlord -- yes, my eyes are still rolling. But at least CC and the big guy got major leverage on the case. Pastor's son is naturally on leave and a partner has taken over and unusually favorable negotiation points have been floated. The case went from full-on contentious at every point to let's-get-to-that-compromise-and-release-walk-through from zero to 60.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

....HOW do you BLOW a 20+plus lead?! ...biggest one in NBA Finals HISTORY??? HOWWWW?????!!!!

why did I even type that? I saw that mess go down: It happened about when Will Smith hogged the effing camera while play was going down (with his next cookie-cutter movie captioned below his laser-white teeth, of course) AND THEN Justin DoucheNozzle TIMBERFLAKE came on the screen happy-clapping like Tom Cruise on crack at a Scientology rally GAAAAAAHHH!! And they had the indecency to NOT give Jack Nicholson camera time at that crucial halftime -- Jack the most loyal celeb fan -- scratch that: the ONLY true celeb fan of the Lakers, there day in and out in his season-ticket-holder seat, rocked with emotion by every move and play Tuesday/victory night!
Poser celeb fans need to find a hole and stay there!



... My Lord and Savior Mr. Phil Jackson was MUCH too benevolent on his charges


... must eat baked beans now -- or is that crow or humble pieAWFUCKIT!!

LAKERS BETTER WIN THEN NEXT THREE DAMMIT -- CANNOT LOSE TO A TEAM WITH A PERVERT LECHEROUS LEPRECHAUN FOR THEIR MASCOT GAH!! ...crawling back in bed now ~_~ ...wah

... But Kobe owes a lot to Vujacic

Sasha V played like a man on fire, chest-beating passion that followed Kobe's lead in the last white-knuckle minutes of the game!!!

OK, will shut up about hoops now!

And lest Bean Town forget ...

Yes, y'all have great game, but my heart belongs to Crazy Town.



And Phil Jackson is GOD, period end!

UPDATE:

AAAAHHH YES! Have to give Kobe Bryant's smug mug some love now, I guess :/~

We really might know what it's like ...

Damn.

Believe it or not, 'liberals' aren't all lock-step behind Al Gore regarding "global warming." I've been planning to post for a while about why I think we may indeed be in a Maunder Minimum which may bring another "small Ice Age. The disappearance of this man-made Lake Delton outside Chicago and some of the whacked comments under reminded me of this debate. Will be back with more to say.

...OK, I'm back. The photo above is from the Chicago Tribune, and it's giving me flashbacks to my childhood in Imperial Valley, which is criss-crossed with irrigation canals feeding off the Colorado River. At 12, before we moved to the city that Frank Sinatra built, mom and dad loaded us on the truck and off we went with other families to two large canals that were drained for upkeep. We brought coolers full of ice to haul away with as many flip-flopping catfish and tilapia from the exposed sandy bottoms as our garage freezers could hold. YEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW :)

Anyway, the article points out that many Lake Delton residents appeared to have forgotten that their lake view was courtesy of a man-made dam, and not a dam built for longevity. And a dam that maintenance had been skipped till 2009. Infrastructure maintenance has been overlooked in my fair country with catastrophic consequences; sadly Katrina appears to be a lesson lost on politicians and voters alike.

About the Maunder Minimum, what looks like an overdue ice age, and the global warming debate, I think this event shows how little we appreciate the impact of the sun's cycles as well as eons of variables that have not even been taken into account yet. From what I've been reading about global warming, too, a good case is made that hydrocarbons do increase heat, but just how big a factor is it in the long run?

Climate alarmists grabbed an as-yet unproven ball and ran with it. And their head-in-the-sand counterparts on the right can now cry "TOLD YOU SO" while trying to ignoring the consequences of petrochemical toxins and overpopulation, etcetera, in one fell swoop just because the greenies are wrong on the longterm or short term impact of global warming.

So what happens after an ice age, if that's where we're headed? How do we keep ignoring what is happening right now: food and water shortages, riots and wars over dwindling resources that advanced society depends on? I think it's tragic that arguing over climate changes that even the best geologists, astronomers, climatologists, etcetera, don't have a handle on is being used as a way to ignore the mess we are in now.

And speaking of messes, and of my catfishing Imperial Valley days, the desert's own floodwater bowl is in sore need of rescue. For now it remains the go-to place if you enjoy the crunching sound of fish bones as you walk its "beach," the perfect tourist trap for Europeans on discount vacation packages in August, or a cheap place to make a surreal movie or music video:



and oh yes, I love this song.

Because I don't intend to be counting every Gratuitous Totally Unjustifiable Post seeing as I'm constantly posting unjustifiably, I've tagged them.

Anyhey, on with the random unjustifiableness.

Remember back in the day, when Diedrich "Till" Lindemann was THIS HOT:



... oh yes, I do ^_^

Well, my old Cal State roomie Heather, who's a sadistic yet fun-loving whooooore, e-mailed me this:



AND this:



ACH! The humanity :O

Eff the haters, Tilly! I'm your forever groupie <3


But on to more unjustifiable randomosity.

Got about two hours' worth of As the World Turns DVR insanity at my sister's house. Speaking of Heather, that was our soap of choice at the CSULA dorms. I'd forgotten why it was so damned addictive, until I got to the scene where this throw-away character called Sofie digs through her hamper for her JIZZY-CRUSTY undies because she wants to frame Paul for rape because he's scorned her for his on-again-off-again girlfriend Meg. And OHMYGOD Sofie CLUTCHES those crusty undies like the holy grail!!

EEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! I was spooning omelet in my mouth as I got to this scene!!! THAT is my karma for posting my booty pics -- but HEY; MY swimsuit bottoms are CLEAN dammit! But after gagging, I laughed so hard I inhaled some omelet particles; so I went to check out some regular soap fan reactions on TWOP, and this pretty much says it all:

"Ah, yes. After a hiatus, it is nice to see that we have the newest incarnation of the Limp Flaccid Penis of Deceit (tm thousands of pages back in this thread). Some things never change. You would think that one of the most prodigal, history-oriented children born in Oakdale wouldn't be one of the most consistent douchebags over the past few years. He is just a tool.

I can't remember the last time someone on this show made me LAUGH.

When Sofie pulled her sauce-encrusted underoos from the hamper, my sides about split open. Am I seriously watching this nobody character in a major(ly attrocious) storyline? Am I supposed to care about this twit? It is laughable. If we wanted to get rid of a dead weight character, why can't we take the Lucy approach and have an unfortunate bus accident instead of dragging this crap out?

And Sofie blew it anyway. If she really wanted the hot beef injection enough, she had Mike standing right in front of her. Instead of making up a putrid rape story, she should have just jumped on that. A woman in need of rescue is a booty call waiting to happen for Mike Kasnoff."

THANK YOU, TWOP poster! I remember Mike Kasnoff from back in the dorm days. The guy who plays him now is smoking hot, and in the scene with Sofie he looked like he would have worked it with her had she just snapped her fingers! A'ight, taking my dizzy head to bed now, and damned proud of myself for doing NOT A DAMNED PRODUCTIVE THING this weekend :D ... I'm gonna miss weekends like this really soon *sigh*

UPDATE:

Found this fan site with clips of the show The scene I'm talking about is under "6/2 -- Mike and Sofie Flashback Clip 5" <-- well worth the fan gooiness of that site!

& more TWOP posts that cracked me up:


"The Lakeview must have the worst laundry service ever, because ewwwwwwwwwwww!!! How many weeks has it been since Sophie and Paul slept together, yet she still has the skanky, unwashed panties from that day? That is just disgusting.

Not only that, but it's badly thought out. Forensics should be able to tell in second that the...DNA sample on those panties is weeks older than the date of the "rape".

... I absolutely love this BSC Sofie story! She's a dreadful character who's leaving anyway. I welcome the crazy angle.
OK, was anyone else expecting/hoping that she'd sniff her Paul-stained panties? Anyone?

... Really? Huh.

Well, it's still more brain cells than she ever used during the Cole stuff, anyway. I didn't watch that closely. I did see the panty thing in previews, and I have to agree that forensics should be able to tell that the date is weeks off. Then again, this is Oakdale PD we're dealing with."

OK, enough soap overload!

ADVIL LIQUIGELS: DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT THEM.

I've changed my first swimsuit post pics to more anonymous but still relevant pics to keep it seminonimous here, as that gives me the liberty to relate events like what will follow. I've also added a couple of extra pics since I hear that my derriere has fans ;)

So on to explaining this post's title. Our office hosted another deposition this afternoon. The day had already been pretty trying. Everything seemed to be going fine the first half hour or so; the door to the conference room where the depo was taking place was closed, but soon I could hear muffled but louder voices. Almost an hour later, the defense counsel bursts out, nearly slamming the conference room door in CC's face, who's following close behind yelling "WHAT THE FUCK do you mean by THAT?"

Defense counsel swings the front door open, turns back and glares at CC. His green eyes are bloodshot; then he locks them on me for a split second -- I can only describe that look as homicidal -- before tearing out the front door without closing it. At this point he's muttering tortured incomprehensible curses, and then he stops by the front desk lobby. The part-time student behind the desk staring at him has gone bloodless white. Defense counsel proceeds to swing his metal briefcase across the lobby, straight at a glass "sculpture" displayed on an iron tripod; it resembles (or resembled) a 3-foot in diameter burnt pizza. The burnt pizza sculpture shatters, the sound echoing. Heads pop out of offices around the lobby.

CC is at our still-open door; I think she mouthed "oh shit." Our big guy runs out of his office at this point, stepping between CC and defense counsel. "STOP RIGHT THERE" he booms to defense counsel, who's breathing like he's running a marathon in his head, eyes locked to where his briefcase lies on shards of thick glass across the floor.

Two security guards were at the lobby entrance now, but the big guy waved them off after snapping his cell phone shut. Big guy walked toward the defense counsel slowly saying "Come with me, come." And defense counsel followed, as the big guy's cell rang and he answered. From his replies I gather it was defense counsel's firm. The seconds between when defense counsel unlocked his eyes from his briefcase-missile till when he followed the big guy out the building seemed like minutes to me, and to CC and everyone else there I'm sure.

Maintenance was called to clean up the mess; after an admin from another office commented that "I reported that damned glass thing as an earthquake hazard last safety meeting -- guess it's a moot point now."

And defense counsel...well, the man's father is the pastor of a church in a neighboring county flock-full of important or self-important members of its community. Up to now, this guy was one of those people Jim Heynen seems to be be writing about in the poem which follows.

At the end of the day, as CC rifled through her bag and I handed her the Advils from mine and she took them wordlessly and swallowed them sans water, the Beatles song "Nowhere Man" played on the lobby system. Serendipity or what, what to call it? Defense counsel was so shiny happy clean, one of those guys you just can't imagine having more than the one-dimensional life of upper middle class yuppiefied "godliness," as perhaps his pastor father would call it. And this happens.

Anyway, been a long day and evening, so with renewed gratefulness for my relative freedom and for a family that didn't groom me for a staged life, I afix here Heynen's poem, which I copied by hand word for word in one of my "good" journals when I first read it in contemporary American poetry. And the youtube of the Beatles song. Good night, good morning, or good day now.

The Clean People, by Jim Heynen, from A Suitable Church [1981]

The clean people worry me.
Wherever they go, I face the glare
of their immaculate smiles,
their polished demeanor
declaring the good life of order.
Where is the smudged message of grief,
the scuff-marks of pain?
With all the dirt in the world,
who got theirs?

I think I am one
and take my place with the soiled.
We are the others
who cannot balance budgets,
nor wear white to our weddings.
Our garb is the haggard
will to survive.
Our language is the mono-
syllabics of dust.
Disorderly, vagrant,
we make our salacious way,
staining the world as we go.
We sing of flesh and the earth,

while they,
haloed in the absence of filth,
must live near God,
their heavenly songs
lodged in the unmarred
keyboards of their grins.
Here they come now,
their clean mouths open,
spilling light as they go.