![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Never Drive a Car When You're Dead
Nov. 25th, 2020 05:43 amUp at 4am to hammer out the 4,000-word white paper before I journey to Ithaca tomorrow.
But as it turns out, I really can’t concentrate on anything until I’ve plotzed for an hour or so, sipping coffee; wondering what kind of story might be inspired by Tom Waits’ great throwaway line, Never drive a car when you’re dead; sussing out the sleeping habits of various neighbors revealed by leafless trees: The lights in the big ugly house on the hill finally blink off at 4:30am just as Buff Ken’s lights flicker on.
Such a lot of work to do today. And cleaning. And meal organizing.
I do hate Thanksgiving.
The real holiday is Black Friday.
Obviously, the latter was invented to fill out the four-day weekend. Still, the two do coexist in a kind of yin and yang symmetry: the one day devoted to bleatings of gratitude; the other to satiation of greed.
I’d say their order should be reversed: Gratitude should happen after you satiate greed, right?
It’s only logical.
###
I first got involved in doing English as a Second Language when I lived in Ithaca, and for whatever reason, I quickly became the ESL Tutor of Choice for the Tibetan colony living there. Ithaca’s Tibetan population isn’t terribly numerous, but it is one of the largest outside of New York City; Courtney Love actually donated a portion of Kurt Cobain’s ashes to the Namgyal Monastery there.
The Tibetans were awfully interesting and amusing.
You’d be having a regular conversation with one of them. “Last summer, I went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean,” you might say.
And they’d say, “You know, two reincarnations before this one, I went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean a lot.”
They were also really into Black Friday!
I’ve never seen people who had so much fun standing in line to spend money and score deals on cheap electronics!
Tibetan Buddhism is not an ascetic religion at all!
Maybe I’ll visit the Namgyal Monastery while I’m up there.
But as it turns out, I really can’t concentrate on anything until I’ve plotzed for an hour or so, sipping coffee; wondering what kind of story might be inspired by Tom Waits’ great throwaway line, Never drive a car when you’re dead; sussing out the sleeping habits of various neighbors revealed by leafless trees: The lights in the big ugly house on the hill finally blink off at 4:30am just as Buff Ken’s lights flicker on.
Such a lot of work to do today. And cleaning. And meal organizing.
I do hate Thanksgiving.
The real holiday is Black Friday.
Obviously, the latter was invented to fill out the four-day weekend. Still, the two do coexist in a kind of yin and yang symmetry: the one day devoted to bleatings of gratitude; the other to satiation of greed.
I’d say their order should be reversed: Gratitude should happen after you satiate greed, right?
It’s only logical.
###
I first got involved in doing English as a Second Language when I lived in Ithaca, and for whatever reason, I quickly became the ESL Tutor of Choice for the Tibetan colony living there. Ithaca’s Tibetan population isn’t terribly numerous, but it is one of the largest outside of New York City; Courtney Love actually donated a portion of Kurt Cobain’s ashes to the Namgyal Monastery there.
The Tibetans were awfully interesting and amusing.
You’d be having a regular conversation with one of them. “Last summer, I went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean,” you might say.
And they’d say, “You know, two reincarnations before this one, I went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean a lot.”
They were also really into Black Friday!
I’ve never seen people who had so much fun standing in line to spend money and score deals on cheap electronics!
Tibetan Buddhism is not an ascetic religion at all!
Maybe I’ll visit the Namgyal Monastery while I’m up there.
