The Liquid Kosmos

I was blessed at midnight

Last night after work, I drummed for my prescribed half-hour. An intense practice session with a click track beeping away in my ears. I was fascinated by how, for some reason, now I can keep time. When I played drums every day for a year and a half, my timing was all over the place. Now it seems dead on. Maybe just living in Nashville has given me an innate sense of time.

After that I promptly laid down for a nap. It was 8:00 and I was out for about 3 hours. When I woke up I turned on IFC (The Independent Film Channel) and was in for the treat of my life. The "MC" said, stay tuned for The Ice Storm and its surprising ending. My first thought was, Ice Storm?, no way will I be into that movie, but within two minutes I knew we had a good one.

It is now one of my favorite movies of all time. Kevin Klein is outstanding in a way Will Ferrel tries to be, but could never pull off. His mix of humor with genuine ability to play the "straight guy" is perfect in my book. The movie is based on a novel and the writing is showcased. There are some other stars in the movie, but it is certainly not Hollywood by any measure.

The dialogue and acting is perfect and subtle in its brilliance. Anyway, definitely recommended, but it's funny how I stayed up until 2 am again and woke up late only to run into work and crush my brain because I was in a huge fog and had to listen to idiocy for the first hour.

Today, I was at the gas station and the damn pump couldn't read my card. I'm standing in the freezing rain in a sport coat, waiving my arms at the clerk inside, but nothing. I tried again and it asked for my zip code. (Who knows which zip code is on this card?) Finally I went in to see what was up and the girl behind the counter was one of those trashy overweight chicks with a constantly on-display tongue ring and a massive hickey to match.

"It's pre-pay only," she mumbled.

I said, "Yeah, but I used my card and the zip code thing didn't work."

"They do it so your card is protected."

NO SHIT BITCH.

Anyway... I stormed over to the ATM and pulled out some cake then pre-paid. She looked at me like I was a lunatic. It was then that I realized I'm getting old and turning into someone I never wanted to be. THAT GUY.

It's a good thing I got a nice lesson in Zen yesterday. A teacher referenced E=MC squared as a mathematical equation, but said in Zen we have an equation too. Suffering = Pain x Resistance. So if Pain is 5 and Resistance is 3, Suffering is 15. But if Pain is 5 and Resistance is 0, Suffering equals 0. Now there's something I can buy into.

posted by The Oscillator @ 8:29 PM