Ten Steps in the Zen of Christmas Shopping

1. Ohhhhmmmm…I am a calm shopper, a happy shopper. If others behave badly, I will refuse to allow them to dim my light. I will, instead, spread my light to them. I will be the very epitome of Christmas cheer. I will smile beatifically. I will radiate patience. I will not become upset or frenzied. I will enjoy the season.
2. Did that guy really just do that in traffic? What a s…OHHHMMM. I am calm. I accept the jerks of the world and only see them as an opportunity to spread my peaceful calm to them.
3. Ohhhhmmm. I welcome the chance to park so far away from the mall! I am healthy and happy, lucky to have the chance to walk this far. I love the exercise! I embrace this bracing wind! No problem that my nose is running and my hair is whipping into what looks like a fright wig! The cooling sleet will mash it down!
4. Ohhhmmmm. I rejoice in the fact that the line was not that little group of people standing by the cash register, but that long line weaving through the barricades like a chute in a slaughterhouse. It will give me a chance to relax and contemplate the joy of the season…as soon as the person behind me stops jabbing me with a coat hanger.
5. Ohhhhmmmmm. I welcome your cart in my path even though you clearly didn’t have the right-of-way in Cart Traffic. If we had been on a real road, I would be on the main thoroughfare and you just ran the stop sign. The Cart Police should pull you over and issue you a rather hefty citation. Why is there no such thing as Cart Police?! No need to say “excuse me” for almost propelling me into the Bacon Bowls display, either. Jerk.
6. O…ouch! Ramming your cart into the backs of my legs won’t make the line move any faster, MADAM, and having an injured body in the aisle with paramedics will likely slow things down…even though you are making it abundantly clear you will roll your cart right over my battered form like a speed bump. Ohhhhhmmmmmm.
7. I warmly embrace the ice on the road as a part of nature. I am communing with the ice! My car is a machine that gently flows with the ice, rather than…OH MY %#*!! Ohhhhmmmm…my shaking hands are calming. Just don’t even think about driving on my bumper right now, Car-Behind-Me! Yes, I know I’m creeping along. You would, too, if you’d just performed an Olympic-quality spin like I just did. Ohhhhhmylordpleasepleasegetmethere.
8. Ohhhh…seriously? Where in the WORLD is it acceptable to hog an entire aisle with your cart like that and then when I politely say, “excuse me,” reply “uh huh” and NOT BUDGE?!! And how am I supposed to respond to that? Wait until you decide you are indeed not legend and don’t live on this earth alone and never have to move over a few inches to share a public space with someone else? Or am I supposed to ram you?
9. Ohhhhmmm…my gosh, are you kidding me? There should really be a separate lane for slow walkers. And why do large families with newly walking babies see the Christmas season as a time to link hands and toddle along the entire path in a crowded shopping area like a slow-moving human barricade? CARRY THE BABY, JERK, AND TAKE IT FOR A STROLL AT HOME!
10. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT’S OKAY TO STOP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ESCALATOR?!!! Does it not occur to you that an entire conveyer belt full of people is being propelled into a big frenzied blob of mayhem behind you?! OHHHH…L%#*! it. I’m going home to order online.

When the thief doubled back to try yanking and twisting the purse from my grasp, my arm simply flopped about and contorted like an angry eel, yet I still hung on. Finally, the thief gave up, and the disgusted onlookers recommenced their strolling. One gentleman and his companion sidestepped me like a pile of poo. ‘Her bag must contain something very valuable,’ he said in a tone that revealed he thought the opposite. ~ Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood by Hollis Gillespie

Improper Poll: Full of Rocks

I have a small hobby that most people never notice—except, ironically, middle school aged boys. It’s ironic because I imagine middle school boys don’t notice much about me at all. But what they invariably notice is that I often wear…rocks. Sometimes it’s been a little game, to see which rocks I have on today and if they can name them.

While many of my friends grew up dreaming of diamonds, I dreamed of jaspers with distinct veining. And now one of my personal indulgences is wearing rocks. That’s why my little avatar wears turquoise (or more likely dyed howlite or aventurine).

Do you have a weird hobby most people don’t know about?

Chakras Again

I haven’t mentioned chakras lately because I’ve been on the solar plexus one. It seems that, instead of requiring yoga positions for proper chakral tuning, this one necessitates some actual abdominal exercises. So I ran some off from an exercise website, and that was plenty exhausting, let me tell you. Am thinking this one could take a while.

Is it working, though? Well, I had several great weeks at work, got offered a good—if temporary—job, have had fun weekends, and got asked out by someone who didn’t mention steaming his brain fungus or start a conversation discussing his close encounter with aliens. And I suddenly can’t quit writing. Hmm....

Everything You Do Or Don’t Do Is An Expression Of Your Walk With God. ~Robb Thompson

Those Magical Orange Orbs

My next (sachral) chakra is supposedly associated with sweetness, the little book tells me. It is important to savor food in order to unblock the orange chakra. This reminded me of my tomatoes.

It’s been a bad year for tomatoes here. I don’t know if it’s the cool spells we’ve had this season or what, but I just haven’t had any. Now that it’s almost fall, I finally have enough cherries that I could make a sling out of my t-shirt and pile them in.

There is something almost spiritual about eating tomatoes right off the vine while they’re still warm from the sun. They are sweeter, but it’s something else. It’s as if they hold a little magic. Star magic.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. ~Thoreau

Searching for My Root

I’ve attempted to begin the chakra opening process by starting with the root one. I’m having several problems with this.

One is that my instructions aren’t explicit enough. I’m a Westerner. I need to be told how to meditate and for how long. How long does it take? How do I know if my mission has been accomplished?

One thing they did tell me was to wear my little necklace over the body part that’s being repaired. But the root chakra is located in a place where I wouldn’t even know how to wear a necklace. And plus….eww. And...ow. So I’m wearing it around my neck and hoping it doesn’t jumble up my chakras.

The other problem is one of the yoga positions I’m supposed to do. The illustration shows the model bent at the waist so far that she’s actually folded in half like a wallet. Her stomach is squished against her thighs, and she has sort of locked herself in place by reaching behind and grasping the backs of her legs.

Um…right.

“Many men spend their lives fishing and never realize it isn’t fish they’re after.” ~H.D. Thoreau

Merry Belated Chakra Unblocking

Blogs are supposed to have pictures, so I am trying one. It is a picture of my chakra stones, which are sitting in the sun in order to “neutralize the stones’ energy palette.” I hope it isn’t possible to over-neutralize, because although they were supposed to sunbathe for a couple of hours, they’ve been there...um...since Christmas.

But first, here’s why they are there in the first place.

I've been on a self-improvement kick, and I had someone tell me that perhaps my chakras need to be unblocked. This was an older man, and he offered to unblock them for me. When I asked him about my chakras, he produced a picture of them. Only this picture looked like a smiley-faced Homer Simpson drawn by a little kid. Homer had a bunch of dots on him.

I didn't ask how the chakras were unblocked, but I couldn't help but notice there were naughty bits chakras.

Ordinarily I would think no one would want to unblock my naughty bits chakras, as those particular chakras are simply not what they used to be, and they never were that wonderful. But this guy was older than I am, and who knows, maybe he isn’t particular.

So I politely declined, but the whole thing made me laugh so hard that I felt wonderful. So I started to think chakras must have a great purpose, after all.

Fast-forward a few months to Christmas day. I was taking my garbage out when I looked in my mailbox out of habit. And there, in the mailbox, was a little present from a friend.

The weird thing is that I remember bringing in my mail on Christmas Eve. So all I can figure is that it originally went to a neighbor’s house, and they re-delivered it. Or my friend suggested that my mailman might have brought it out of niceness. She says hers does things like that. Mine’s nice and all, but that’s practically a saint in my book.

Anyway. It turned out that her gift was a tiny kit so that I can unblock my own chakras. It has these pretty stones, and she knows I love polished stones. The stones are mounted like a little necklace even though they are really supposed to be placed on the body part where the blocked chakra resides.

I'm still not entirely sure how that works, so that’s why the stones are overbaking. I mean over cleansing. But I've decided I am officially going to begin the unblocking process. Will let you know how it goes.

Tell me all your thoughts on God/'Cause I would really like to meet her/And ask her why we're who we are. ~ ”Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla