it's just a Catholic thing

9:00pm Last night’s gift of pizza left me on the loo and under the covers all bloody day.  What the hell.   The pizza was cold so I heated it up in the toaster oven.  What happened then?  Heating up cold chicken released something that is poisoning me.  Only now do I  regain some strength and two cups of tea and nibbles of popcorn Saffiq returned with last night are all I’ve consumed today.  Blah.

Did you get much done today?  Must I be thankful for not having to teach on the day I get food poisoning.  I would have been even more miserable if I had had to stand when I felt like total crap. 

11/21/15

And no, I didn’t remember.  Why in God’s name do I want to remember one of the saddest days in my life?  It’s just a Catholic thing for sure, ok, maybe others do it, but I’m not crazy about remembering. 

But do I have a good excuse for not remembering?  I see no coincidence being sick as a mule on this date eleven years ago. 

I took a nice hot shower this morning, hoping it would revive and clean me from yesterday’s bed-fest, it did.  I hesitate to turn on the space heater because I know it’s going to get colder soon.  I will put some socks on though and stand outside in the sun. 

Clouds drift above, a call for rain possibly tomorrow.  I liked the first rain, I was there on the front lines soaking it in but now it’s cold and rain and cold are simply not nice together.  What to do.

Do you think in 8 years your body is suddenly going to fall apart?  Such things to think about on a chilly Saturday afternoon.  No, I don’t think about such nonsense, how depressing. 

A generator across the street ruins the silence and here comes Hanukkah singing to himself.  He composed a poem in his head and shared it a few lunches ago.  No, he never learned to write.  And as far as I can see, he probably wishes he had learned but he is who he is, no problem.  I think he would learn English if a woman taught him. 

11.22.15

I went up to see the dark skies at sunrise and rain began to fall.   The smell of freshness woke me up and got me readier than usual for the morning men’s class where we practiced the pronunciation of numbers and their various forms and uses.  The curious emerged when I heard students saying ‘foint’ when they should have been saying ‘point’.  The P sound is in Pashto, it is just a strange misplacement.  I’d have to open my phonetic book and identify the locations of these sounds in our mouth and then develop a rubric to address and then practice the sound. 

I could do that this morning but I’m not going to, thank you very much.  I’m not exactly ready for the afternoon and evening class looming large ahead of me.  Goodbye.

If you get too close to divinity you either become enlightened or legalized.  Freed from all, bound by the jots and tittles.  Liberty vs Law. 

10.53pm—A pleasant sunset but look behind me and the moon and her clouds gave me a lot more to remember. 

A student in class wants the next movie to have some adventure and action and I laughed because I know exactly what I want to show, now can I borrow it from the world’s digital bank in the next few days.  Of course if I show a movie I’m tossing out ideas for conversation and I’ll be looking for new ones. 

Tell me why Islam is unable to bring peace to Afghanistan and I will, I will…let you choose the next movie.  Well of course the polemic one couldn’t answer.  Blame it on tribal and ethnic who all happen to be Muslims and all use Allahu Akbar against each other.  “The soliders are completely demoralized after 35 years of fighting, they see no end, they see no support…” and so on it goes and I asked anyone if they had seen the sunset tonight. “No one goes to the roofs to enjoy nature. We work, we go home.”   Well, dammit, you can start, it doesn’t cost anything go up on the roof tomorrow and watch the sunset or get up at 6am and watch the damn sunrise and remember, you need nature’s moments to keep close. 

They’re shell-shocked.  They don’t know how to relax anymore.  They don’t know how to find anything good in nature.  This evening’s class did feel like I was there to encourage them and I must have sounded naïve, but maybe not.