Well?

Top five ways to be a Detroit Lions fan for the rest of the 2015 season.

1.  Live at least 7000 miles away from Detroit.

2.  Listen to the games on a very very small transistor radio.

3.  If you have to watch them live take a few Psilocybin mushrooms.  Counselors will be waiting to guide you back to the 1950’s.

4.  Light candles for Martha Ford and pray she converts to Catholicism and confesses any sins going back, oh I don’t know, 52 years ago this month, sins she may not be aware of or maybe has forgotten, for the sins of the father have a way of remaining in the blood.

5.  Wear your Franco Harris jersey under your Barry Sanders jersey and you’ll always feel like a champion.  

11.3.15

4:07pm—A very cool overcast afternoon and I am fighting some kind of emerging bug, fatigue, runny nose,  the yuckys to summarize.  What can I take, the grapefruit seed fights to keep my throat free from illness.  I need to stay warm, I need to eat healthy food, I should stop drinking whiskey, ha ha, what is that, shoot, a shot of something might help but that ain’t gonna happen.  

 

At the ten o’clock hour Dire Straits keeps me afloat, where did the last two hours go, a letter to the Free Press, a low cal cigarette outside in the almost warm and wet evening.  Ya, I am mad. I won’t give it up, this curse nonsense, what’s going on, why can’t you rid yourself of it, simply because there is still the possibility.  If my letter inspires a sportswriter to ask a few questions and discovers anything, I am vindicated but if he comes up empty handed then I will give it up.  For how long, Lord help me. 

Does this last paragraph sound weird?  Should this paragraph sound weird?

11.4.15

A seamless gray sky, brisk winds and the smell of rain on this Wednesday morning, a morning that has seen Saffi and Said Wali fly to Kabul for four days.  Shit, who’s in charge?  Classes will continue and if Rezak is around the general maintenance of this place should operate normally.  In the meantime, lesson plans beg to be written.  How many words  rhyme with earth? 

11.5.15

The chilliest of mornings it is, Fezel made parathas and Rezek heated up thick fresh milk which knocked me out for an hour and it’s almost one in the afternoon and I work closer to being ready for a somewhat challenging conversation class in four hours.  The sun has returned, thankfully, for it is in the low sixties outside and low fifties in the blue room.  Congestion plagues me still with the kind of coughing that endangers the hernia I suspect. 

All is quiet now save for the afternoon call to prayer and now they are quiet.  My right nostril allows no air in or out.  Here’s something funny.  In the desert I rarely get ill like this, it’s only in cold weather and sure enough I brought to Afghanistan  five small ziplocks full of medicine, just about something for every over the counter malady.  Thank goodness for the Robitusson and Actifed.  Even the expired Symbicort is being used and with excellent effects.  Is there anything else?  Whatever helps to dry up nasal passages I have discovered  the aromatic wafts of organically grown cream helps dry the cavities.  How much do you need to dry up the nose?  Well that depends if you have internet access, if you got no students so there’s nothing else to do except continue making lesson plans, if you want to listen to nothing for a while.  The tv in the cellar here is off, the room is dark, it’s after one and I’m wearing sunglasses.  I know I couldn’t resist.

7:41pm—‘I can’t get along with my brother, he’s always trying to control me and says he will beat me if I don’t listen to him’, a candid response to my question to the young woman about who she practices English with.  ‘I like Americans.  They are independent.’  Shazaam!!! Damn straight honey, Live Free or Die.  And I asked the class as it came in what kind of English music they like and a there were a few names I never heard so with the speakers on full, and the first song to come to mind, I chose a Tianjin favorite and wrote the title on the board:

Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Right now it’s the Who getting in tune through the straight and narrow.  And what does that mean I guess I’ll have to listen and understand more of the lyrics.  It’s a who song, dude, just enjoy the music and turn out the lights, it’s been a hellava week.  Enjoy the day off tomorrow and do laundry.  But wait a second, new life, the Who can do that.

In our Art of Conversation part two roundtable we discussed five principles of good conversation

1.      Put others at ease

2.      Put yourself at ease

3.      Weave in all parties

4.      Establish shared interests

5.      Actively pursue your own

And what felt like a foundation for later discussions that could be helpful in finding a way to make this country secure again.  Such as?  Such as having a talk with the Taliban, who the hell else.  I am encouraged there are some in this bunch who are optimists, a theme throughout tonite’s exploratory into the minds of my hosts. 

Meanwhile I laugh because I do not remember the last time I listened to the Rolling Stones. 

You can’t always get what you want

but if you try some time you’ll

well

you just might find

you get what you need.

Well? 

Well what?

Are you getting what you want and need?

yes and no, of course, but that kind of summarizes the narrative for the last fifty two years I reckon.