avoid the palm readers

February 1 2013

Negotiating with a ten year old to use this computer is long and arduous but it wouldn’t be long and arduous if I wasn’t the uncle who’s spoiled her more than anyone else in the last six months. And now the polyps return in the same place under her lower eyelashes, too much sugar, too many grape gummies and she knows they are definitely the last.

A few seconds of spit can’t be considered a rainy day on the first day of the month, oh Lord, the wind is cold and the sun strong enough to dry the pashmina I washed this morning and laid out on the two towels used by the German newlyweds who left.  I tell people how helpful it was to have when I slept on San Diego sidewalks three years ago just to see their response but it really is no laughing matter.  Does your imagination see you doing it again if you don’t find a job by the end of May? 

Manab finds entertainment with anything you give him.  The box from the new thermos is a rocket and he’s swinging it with the plastic twine wrapped around and now he’s gone, why the fuss about giving this tiny hobbit a throat lozenge I don’t understand. 

I see a lot of jobs I am just not qualified for or I am overqualified, I see, a new generation is taking them.  Oh if there ever was a time to reinvent, I need a spark, a lightning bolt bam! Right between the eyes. This is the first night in two weeks all the rooms are vacant.  It was an excellent latter half of the month, unthinkable four years ago, how will this measure?  I checked to see if there was anything in the Salalah account, of course with minimal expectations, smart, it’s empty. 

2.2.13

Inside the broken tooth far in the back food is stuck.  With no toothbrush within reach my tongue tires.  Maybe it’s just the gum, my tongue wouldn’t be feeling this if there was a tooth there.  I started the application on the San Francisco school district webpage and stopped pretty quickly.  No credentials aren’t going to take me very far though I’m sure showing up in person would give me a better chance. 

For three hours under cool and cloudy skies Maya and I gathered, cleaned and cut about two dozen tree vine squash, now drying under the radioactive my ass tower.  Didi and her daughter Sumjana and her friend Shandra sit outside and eat spicy flattened rice and black tea.  Shandra is kind of cute, a student like her friend, she’s studying management.  Management is just what I need.  I need to manage a better way to make a better life this next 31 bloody years.  I’ll need another puja in 31 years, Nyima’s spirit said.  I really hope he is wrong.

"I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life."

The only tension that exists is coming out of my poor scalped right thumb.  What really worries other than the usual mashing of all things normal and communicating in the second dimension.  If only we could talk in person.  Biswah comes in, his mother is doing hired work somewhere on the mountain today.  We met last year, he goes to the school where the trail down to lakeside begins.  Maya gave him some tea and spiced rice.  His English is better than it was last time and if it’s possible to say thanks his disabilities haven’t worsened, well he can still smile and that’s ok.

I don’t know what people think of me when they figure out I’ve deactivated their facebook account, it’s usually nothing personal, it’s either I am simply not interested in feeds that I don’t understand or I spoke of insanity with such conviction my shame had to end it with some.  So, am I on this mountain the same  person in social media?  Well, ask the kids on this mountain about John dai.    

2.3.13

Another broken tooth verified, the back one I can see one side of the tooth just gave way.  Was it from biting on the bone of mutton in order to suck the marrow, by far the most deliciously savory part of any animal on earth?  Serves me right.  Who deserves such flavor not I, I tire and wane, I look for a hammock to swing.

Another see-vee sent. The Arabs will wait me out.  I’ll hear from them in six months, maybe more and you know I’ll be somewhere else by then.  The Koreans and Japanese delete my application when they know I am old.  I think it’s official I am old now though I don’t feel any different when I was thirty.  At forty it was a bloody marathon.  Any feats in store? I’d rather not see it or be reminded of the date so let’s just let it slide by as quiet as a mountain breeze.

A Pisces and an Aquarius get together for a chat under the sea and the fish remarks how unfortunate and fortunate people born in their cusp live.  “Everything is black and white, fence sitters they are indecisive, it makes for anything other than a dullness in life.”  The Aquarius sighs in agreement.

In the house above Ramesh’s sister in law washes her hair every morning.  She has a special talent Nyima warned me about six weeks ago; avoid the palm reader.  She talks to spirits.  I’d like to take a few spirits out to the woodshed and remind them how fragile is the human psyche.