dandelionfiles

I thought I had returned from the dead. Unfortunately, my body had other plans for me.

Once again, I have achieved the state of zombiehood.

I'm in a yoga class with other zombies. Everybody else is rotting all around me, and limbs are falling off during hard twists. I'm intact, smell good, and am having no problems. My yoga instructor is always OK as well.

I ask her why there's a difference.

We're monists, Jules, mind and body are one--the soul is the body--they lost their souls and we didn't.

Hmm...is zombiehood a consequence of being a monist?

Any thoughts?

Here's a story for you!

So I'm working in the wine shop today, dusting the beer racks (you wouldn't believe the dust in that place) when someone comes ambling up. He gets SO excited that we have beer in the middle of the market! He says he loves the beer with all the wheat in it, so I show him that we have some with extra sediment at the bottom. Suddenly, he looks over to one rack and gets disgusted.

"Indian Pale Ale? I don't want me no Indian beer!"

I'm quoting directly here.

It takes all my strength to explain that IPA is a brewing process type and the IPA he is pointing at was from Ohio. Apparently, the "Buckeye Brewing" label wasn't enough to convince him that it wasn't bottled in New Delhi, even if it was the '76 specialty brew, decked out in the American flag. Maybe he lost a job to outsourcing, because he bought a Belgian beer instead of the regional one JUST IN CASE.

I keep hearing about how much of the non-urban life around here is completely farming mentality, but seeing examples on a constant basis keeps unsettling me.

The Catholic church has started exorcism training again. If you’ve read my profile, you’ll notice that I try to admit to as absurdist a position as I can, but you’ll also notice that I mention that people create stories to describe the chaos of life and these stories can make them do various things—some lovely, and some horrible, such as the satanistic case in Europe in which several people were murdered by members of a satanic rock band. It was this case that inspired the Catholic church to start exorcism training again.

I may be a skeptic, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in Headology, as defined by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld series. I’m a psychologist—of course I believe in that. If someone honest to God believes that they’re worshipping a dark force and that dark force wants them to kill I usually would say it’s time for psychiatric medication, but it could be conceivable that the practice of acting out an exorcism could convince said person they should reconsider their story and give them a tool to revise it. Then again—maybe we’re pandering to sickness and maybe making it worse. You have to be careful what stories you tell yourself, and be willing to revise them when evidence starts suggesting they’re wrong. The minute stories become more important than people, well—there are horrible consequences that can evolve.

What brought all of this up? Oh--I don't know--making the mistake of TUNING INTO WORLD AFFAIRS? Reading justifications of torture by the US? My own general crabbiness? An odd phase of the moon? I don't know, exactly--I'm really crabby and need to shake myself out of it for my own good.

So where is the funny entry? I don't know. I was going to ask you guys, actually--anybody who is out there--anybody have a good joke for me? Anybody?