what is your lot is your lot

5.13.16

4:18pm—I didn’t realize it was this late.  In forty minutes I’m taking a walk to Yummy’s, a popular pizza joint for dinner with colleagues.  I still don’t believe Xanax makes you sleepy so I just took two.  I mean, they’re from Pakistan, do I think they work the same as the ones in the west?

At CVS a box of 30 0.5mg tablets costs $77.17.  Mine cost $1.  How can they be one and the same? 

‘Silence like a cancer grows’ 

I’m leaving in ten minutes and I don’t know if I should wear a long sleeve shirt or a t-shirt, it’s been a warm one today though clouds made it a most pleasant day.  I wear a t-shirt which is what I have on now and I expose my European colored skin to thugs and gangsters driving up and down in anonymity looking for people like me to harass. 

Should I take a few more Xanax like right about now?  Think about this, if you know you’re get kidnapped or mugged, at least be happy about it.

9:33pm—The blue eyed 45 year old shaman in the ground in Xingjiang Province could be a relative, if he were to be a grandfather he would be my 113^th great grandfather if one assumes a generation is 25.  Ok, and if way back then a generation was only 16, then my grandfather would be almost 168 gg's between us.  I’ll go with the first number thank you.

Your biggest and most obvious problem is connecting the 113 between me and that dude in the ground.  I don’t know, lets see how far we can trace Job to anyone.

We do know at the beginning his family was slaughtered because of a bet but at the end of the game he was restored to great riches and probably had a few offspring. 

“in the Greek and Latin versions of the Book of Job. There, it states that Job dwelt in Ausitis on the confines of Idumea and Arabia. It continues that his original name was Johab. He married an Arabian woman and fathered Ennon. Job's father was Zerah who was from the lineage of Esau – five generations from Abraham.”

Job's father was only five generations apart from Abraham.  Wow, get close to the source and it's making me think crazy shit.

So, we don't have to go in that direction.  I wonder if I could use the Kevin Bacon method and use my great-grandfather, Francis O’Neil as a starting point because that would only leave four people to identify, actually two because we know Ennon. Yikes, two people connecting 2500 years.  I think I’ll have to sleep on this one.

Enon, in Hebrew means having eyes.  Aenon, a village along the Jordan River.  Go to bed already!

5.14.16

7:59pm—I think I have to sleep.

5.15.16

7:19am—I woke up twice during the night and was thankfully able to return to sleep.  The RLS is gone, teaching at Roshan is done, the last week of going downtown as I understand coincided with the insomnia and all its symptoms. 

This afternoon I give test two to the afternoon classes.  May they not cheat and piss me off and there is paperwork to be done in the office which I don’t have to go to for another four hours!  Wow, how about the tread mill, it’s tempting.  After I finish my toasted walnut bread. 

I think the Nyquil acted stronger because I took it after four nights of sleeplessness but I don’t know about the Xanax and even now I don’t know if I should take it because I do not like feeling drowsy unless I can crawl under the sheets.  Well?  No, I’m not crawling under any sheets right now.

I started ‘H is for Hawk’ again.  I think I need good lighting and one has to be mostly to partly alert to follow her narrative.  Good luck with you, then, because Melville is next.

post:
After the certificates were passed out and congratulations given the managing HR director pulled me aside and told me how angry and frustrated and embarrassed he was when Cameron off the record told Queen Elizabeth Afghanistan was one of the most corrupt nations on earth.  It wasn't something he hadn't heard before, everyone knows this, but to hear something that was supposed to be a private moment smarts a little worse.

I told him we can't look to our leaders and expect all of a sudden they're gonna stop cheating and corrupting, ending corruption begins with each of us.  Take me for example, I gave a signed certificate to a student who never came to class, who didn't deserve the certificate.  I committed corruption and you, I looked at the man, you are complicit because you told me to sign. I objected at first but what would be the cost of causing conflict in a city that lives it.  I know I shouldn't have signed it but buddy we got bigger wars to fight and if they know I wasn't happy doing it, that would be enough for them to understand earning what you have done ought to be better than receiving something you didn't earn. Of course some might step in and call that 'grace' but that's not what we're saying here.  How do you feel about that?  Guilty? You know what your Koran says and that is not helping too many people around here it seems.   If you feel guilty, that is a good thing.  If you don't then you gotta meditate and somehow practice charity a little more than is normal.

His eyes squinted and he was thinking, did he just insult me, is he right i am part of the problem, in any case, nothing more was said.  Ending corruption means being honest and accepting what is your lot is your lot.