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I look out at the hotel maids cleaning the rooms across the street and I pretend they're murder investigations. (It's easy to pretend because of the maids' short sleeves and plastic gloves.)
Tom August 22, 2007 10:33am
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- In China, you have to be born into a family of skilled beer trayers to even get near one. The ancient art of beer traying is passed down to each generation and you spend years training with masters before you're actually allowed to do it in public. In really ancient times, like during the Yuan dynasty, it was an art practiced only by concubines for the royal family. It's funny though, because it was during this dynasty, when there was increased traffic between the West and East, that the art of beer traying was introduced to places like, oh say... Wales. (Incidentally, Marco Polo raved about the delight and wonder of Chinese beer-traying. He thought it was terrific stuff. He's quoted as having said, "Beer traying makes me glad to be human.") It was banned during the Cultural Revolution, naturally, and never really regained its former popularity, although I think Ian's leading the movement to bring beer traying back to the people. It's his dream to have casual beer traying on street corners and as a self-esteem-boosting, after-school program for inner city youth. His motto is: Beer traying belongs to everybody, not just Cirque du Soleil.
- Susan
August 17, 2007 5:59pm
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I sat quiet last night on the bus as a mosquito bit the bald head of the old man in front of me. I didn't want to swat at the man's head, but now I'm wishing I would have at least told him he was getting sucked on by a parasite. Hrm.
Tom August 14, 2007 9:35am
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We think the Day of Judgment was today, and that everyone got left behind.
Tom August 8, 2007 1:39am
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My cell phone's autocomplete doesn't know pretzels.
Tom August 7, 2007 5:36pm
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Lots of bLoNdcHiLi on YouTube.
Tom August 7, 2007 3:46pm
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It's a wonder Susan's mom objects to the Blues so much, what with the Songs for Jehova being so dismal. Anyway,
as the speaker started on about the Devil being everything, the man beside me started snoring. By the third snore he was already embarrassingly loud and so I nudged his knee with mine, concealing the action as part of me re-situating myself in my seat. I will have to wake this man up often throughout the service. To disguise the fact that it's intentional, I'll start to apologize.
I only got a few hours myself the night before, but am too unsure of my surroundings to be anything but awake and alert. I can't say I trust the people I'm amongst. Not all of them at least. The speaker. He just said that the Devil is sex and violence on TV. I work on a show with sex and violence in it. The speaker would think something was wrong with me, if he knew, and the fact that he doesn't know doesn't help me either, because afterwards he'll probably want to shake my hand, but the facts won't all be in. Is that my responsibility? I don't want him to do something he doesn't want to do. "Good afternoon, thank you for coming to Kingdom," he'll be like. And me: "Are you sure? Because saying 'codename: pussyface' like a military general makes me laugh out loud." I notice across the room another man is now dozing off. We're not even an half hour in.
I think, This is gonna be long.
Entering any churchy environment, I'm most likely gonna get that lightheaded feeling and this was no exception. The people were all speaking softly, like they do to kids or puppies — not quite puppies, but children about ten years of age — staring me in the eyes, and the air smells a little musty and it tastes stale. Maybe it's the old people? I'm being serious, the smell of dying cells? I don't know. And for whatever reason I'm acutely aware of the sound the carpet is making under my shoes. Is there plastic in this carpet? It sounds like I'm walking on diapers.
The dizziness eventually fades, or I get used to it, and then, I can't help it, I find myself mocking the place. It seems like that's always the way it goes. I keep it to myself, and my thoughts aren't anything bullyish, I don't think, but I am making fun. It's maybe because I feel isolated? I want someone to share in the things I find funny. Hi Susan. Susan's to the other side of me and our eyes keep rolling towards one another. A little later on she will write in the margins of the Watchtower that she thinks the microphone passing takes too long, it's not brain surgery.
I wrote that it helps to think of the microphone as Jehova's dot dot dot and already our communication had gone farther than it should. I was being disrespectful. We stopped.
I thought about taking this man's speech so literal that I show up to next week's meeting in an actual suit of armor, like, "What?" Anyway,
Knee surgery's also really complicated too though. Anyway,
once the funny runs its course, I just get angry. We're approaching the first hour and this guy's still going on about the dangers of entertainment. I think he actually told us to not entertain ourselves. I think he actually said, "Be careful not to be entertained." I think, Ridiculous! And now I'm pissed. I fantasize about raising my hand and getting called on and then going into my all-you-have-to-be-is-not-an-asshole philosophy schpeel. I want to point out that these people take the idea of the outside world being evil so far that they spend over two hours of a sunny Saturday afternoon inside a building with no windows. I think of turning the service into an argument about whether life imitates art or art imitates life, and to insist that there is a definite difference between crude stories and stories with crudeness in them. I write these people off as extreme and totally confused ignoramuses. I very quickly feel bad for getting angry, and with that, guilt and sadness sets in.
I feel bad for making fun. I feel sorry for people who believe they're not supposed to be entertained.
This is so depressing.
One thing I couldn't help but smile at was when one kid took the microphone and read an excerpt from the Watchtower and, reading like kids do, ignoring punctuation, skipping words and not planning his breaths, he turned: "We don't want to be anywhere else. Where God's people are, that's where we want to be. Where we feel comfortable." into: "We don't want to be anywhere else where God's people are. Where we want to be'swhere we feel comfortable."
Subtle, yeah, yeah, but haha- Anyway,
afterwards Susan complains that the speech wasn't specific enough and I agree. It felt like an overview. Like next week will get to the nitty gritty. But next week will be the same. And they don't even try to deny it. They don't try to avoid it. Sameness is what they want. But come on, ritual's one thing, but so is progress! Near the end of the meeting, aging was discussed and the experiences of an old, forgetful man were cited. This old, forgetful man was quoted as saying he feels blessed to re-learn the truth time and again. Because when you get old, your brain starts to lose things, but the beauty that studying the Bible brings is that when you're forgetful, every time you read it is like the first time. The Witnesses took this idea of re-learning and ran with it until the second hour was up.
You know if groups gathered every week and talked about the advances being made in science, world events, the happenings within the government, and if excerpts from the local newspaper were read, I bet communities would benefit a whole hell of a lot more.
Here nor there, I know. Sorry.
You could tell when the first speaker, a former National Geographic reporter I'm told — which I still can't get my head around — was wrapping up. He was really acting like someone with a point to make, more than he was before. He was louder and back to what sounded like rehearsed lines. He's going to leave us, he said — before we head out into the sunny Saturday afternoon — with a final note of optimism. Another passage. And it comes from Psalm 37. The beginning of verse 10. And it reads:
"Just a little while longer and the wicked one will be gone."
But wasn't that written a couple thousand years ago?
I think, This will never end.
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