To Fill Your Gaping God Hole

March 6, 2013:  It seems like the more I ignore this Blah-ugh!, the more people read it ... I'd like to know why that is, and I'd like to know who's reading it ... I mean, I'm not! I come hear every so often and ... Oh, never mind!

I'd like to say I have some passionate opinions and ideas to expound on, but I really don't. This is one of those rare times when I have next to nothing to say. To quote -- or perhaps paraphrase, for I'm too lazy to actually check -- Jack Kerouac in "On The Road," "I had nothing to offer anyone except my own confusion."

That said, if you're here reading this nonsense you're probably more confused than I am ... And I am confused, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm pretty much confused about everything tonight, including why I have this never-ending rash on my neck. Still, ironically, March has always been a month that for some strange reason provides me with answers. So hopefully in three or four weeks I won't be as confused. But who knows what I'll be at the end of March. I could be pregnant for all the way things have been going so strangely this decade ...

I'm also hungry. And I just ate. But I jogged this morning. That's probably accounting for some hunger, but more importantly will account for my justifying eating three corn muffins before too long. I don't know why I always get so hungry at night. It probably has something to do with not eating enough during the day, but also that unending attempt to fill what my friend Wendy Mole' once referred to as the ol' gaping god hole. In fact, that's become an understood part of the lexicon in our demented household, and I blithely explain to my kids on a regular basis -- usually in the later hours -- "I've got to get something to fill my gaping god hole," and they understand know ... Of course, sometimes I backtrack and explain the reality that nothing can really  fill our gaping godholes except positive spiritual energy, or something like that, but depending on how much my gaping godhole needs filling, I may or may not bother to say much of anything constructive; instead, it's off to the kitchen again to get another frozen pizza perculating in the oven ...

As I said, I don't really have anything else to add to the discussion, or to your own attempts to fill your gaping holes with whatever weird wisdom you seek from this virtual dissertation ... I can assure you that the answer doesn't lie in frozen pizza, though I'm not entirely convinced it doesn't lie in homemade corn muffins ... But I want you to know that I'm thinking about you, and while the cold, wet snows splash your window tonight and you feel restless and irritable and discontented, I'm thinking of you, and what a fool you ... nononono I'm just kidding ... See, that's what I do ... And while it may not help your pain, it certainly assuages mine at your expense, so at least somebody's healing in this scenario ...

But seriously, I'm thinking of you tonight and how you're alright, and everything's gonna be alright ... I want you to know that ... Everything's alright ...

Start passing rumors that the world is getting better ... Don't believe that danger's lurking ... The communists are gone ... The most dangerous gun nuts are aberrations ... The economy is improving, or at least improvising ... The globe is cooling down again ... Say it with me ... All is well ... All is well ...

G'night Folks ...

Yes, We Need a Little Naked, Right This Very Minute

January 7, 2013:  Monday morning, and the remaining bounty of Christmas decorations demonstrates the continuing—dare I say growing—need for spiritual fulfillment in America (or at least my little corner of it). Yes, it turns out I’m not alone in the satisfaction I garner by way of the holiday season, and despite my heathen leanings, there are few joys in my world like the magic I project upon December.

No, I’m not alone, except I suspect many people don’t acknowledge their hunger. In fact, we as a nation—a world, perhaps, but I wouldn’t know—are starved for spiritual connections and fulfillment. But we’re too embarrassed to know what to do. Yes, I said embarrassed, because in my definitions of spirituality, it’s our own cloying discomfort with ourselves—everything from our outside appearance to the personal stench of our inner assholes—that keeps us from letting our guard down enough to allow spiritual satisfactions in.

Why so serious indeed? Simple. It’s just fear—fear of … well, everything! Fear originally cultivated in our respective demented families of origin, but blindly perpetuated by a demented society, drives us, controls us, and—to this point—prevents us from allowing ourselves to experience the pleasure of a free spirit.

You must understand—in fact, I insist, if you’re going to read my Blah-ugh!—you understand that spirituality is not synonymous with religion or religious practices—though these can offer a means to the valuable end—but more importantly describes—identifies, in fact—who we really, authentically are, despite what our thinking muscle keeps insisting. If you’re able to set your thoughts aside for a moment—a delightfully simple yet simultaneously hard motion—and allow yourself to fully wake up into the moment of this very moment—you may just understand in that instant that all that you are right now—that whole awareness and consciousness—is everything about spirit, and that spiritual relates to all those things that aren’t centered with your physical body or your calculating mind.

That said, getting in touch with your authentic self thus demands—at some point—that you honor that self by letting it be itself. (My god, even the grammar checker on this stupid computer couldn’t digest the heady tone of that line!) The problem is that, so often … too often … we’re constantly bombarded with societal messages that prevent us from risking being ourselves, mainly because we live in fear of what other people may think, or that exposure of being ourselves will somehow prevent us from getting something we think we need.

But let’s shift back to more Blah-ugh!-related inquiries and ideals, and so move the question of What of the Jews? While the Clausians continue an impotent attempt to prolong vague spiritual stirrings through light bulbs, the Hanukkoids are hunkered down in customary defense, waiting for the next uprising. Some smart Jews—like myself—make a big show of endorsing Christmas in order to thwart suspicion and keep the Nazis off the trail. It’s pretty sneaky, I know, but what do you expect from a Jew? The sneakiness is in our blood. (Boy, this computer doesn’t like anything I’m doing today!)

But all kidding aside—and I want the B’Nai Briss to know I’m kidding—we’re never going to come close to achieving that much-desired spiritual fulfillment as a society until we lighten up and start running around naked, even in the cold weather. The upside of tragic events like Newtown is that they provide people an excuse to fall apart. That’s why so many people tend to wallow in these kinds of events, if you will, because it affords an opportunity to be naked without fear of reprisal, because for that window everybody’s naked and they won’t be singled out. People hate to be singled out, even me; it’s just that some of us, through necessity, grow used to it.

I propose that starting this year people begin an informal competition of displaying the most outrageous lawn decorations they can imagine—no holds barred. I think this will be a good spiritual practice for a culture desperate to have the stick yanked out of its ass, but too self-conscious to even acknowledge that it’s there.

Tong Etiquette and Ass Bacteria

January 5, 2013:  Huzzah, huzzah! Yes, I'm fooling all of you by posting another post, right here at the Blah-ugh! ... And I'm doing so because it's important, you see, for despite the good turns America is taking in this millenium, it's certainly not practical for me to be sitting on my laurels -- or anyone else's -- at this point.

For starters, I know people were wondering how my stew turned out, and I can assure you that it was palatable, if not necessarily tasty. Today I tried another attempt in the guise of chicken, and I was very pleased with the result, though it gave me hives.

Actually, I wanted to post a post because of two food-related discoveries I made today, and this chicken was one of them. You see I realized that the secret to preparing chicken -- which I’ve always abhorred and suffered by – is to be really, really hungry when you’re cutting it up. You see, it’s so incredibly disgusting and gives me formidable heebeejeebies (and I’m sure I’m not spelling that right) that I’ve largely kept it off my menu entirely, except for the chicken that comes breaded and frozen and merely requires heating. Anyway, I found myself just throwing chicken caution to the wind today – leaving a remarkable variety of entrails and veiny things intact, and just throwing it all in the pan for consumption, because I was so bloody hungry that I had no compunction about eating any of it. (And let me tell you, over 150 Blah-ugh! entries and all this time I’ve been dying to use the word “compunction” in a post!)

The other food-related item is one I’ve had on my mind for a very long time, but never remember to get down – namely the issue of tong etiquette. It’s a ridiculous and remarkable phenomenon how people use their grubby hands on tongs and then lay them atop food. Have you watched salad bar behavior with the kind of hyper-vigilant fear that’s so much a part of my pathology? If you have, then you must have noticed how people somehow find it okay to lay the tongs directly atop the food. It’s so strange that no one things twice about it, and stranger still that people then pick up the tongs and serve themselves after the bacteria-infested paw prints of some knucklehead have been unsoundly transferred into the group food plate.

I spent some time observing it today at a social event. For a while I’d been eyeing a succulent cheese ball resting innocently in the middle of a large platter of handsome cold cuts. I was close to going over and showing it who was boss when, as if on movie cue, a fat woman came forward, grabbed the tongs and helped herself to a generous serving of salami and stuff, then thoughtlessly, unconsciously, laid the big black plastic tongs right there on top of everything, like it was custom … And it is, sad to say! … Then the next man did the exact same thing. And for one hopeful moment he couldn’t balance the tongs on the pile, but then he solved the little problem by just throwing them right on the middle of the plate, where they touched everything.

Like me, you’re probably thinking there’s a good chance either one of these people may have their hands up their asses, or perhaps somewhere worse, and now we were all going to share in their experience, though obviously without some of the same joys. Not me. This was one of those times when my acute paranoia and hyper-vigilant fear paid off … No ass salami for me!

Over the years I’ve adopted some intelligent practices when it comes to getting a share of group food. I’d share them with you, but in all likelihood it would somehow impede my progress were we to end up at a social event together. Suffice it to say, I’m not falling for any of this …

So that was my day, at least in part. I’m still wondering if and when I’ll ever find time to finish the myriad projects I’m involved in, or when I’ll at least have the nerve to start giving them less psychic energy … Most importantly, at this rate there’s a good chance that I’ll complete 150 new Blah-ugh! entries by the end of the year … But don’t count on it!