Brainsprain.net

My greatest challenge of late is becoming more tolerant of intolerance. I find it very difficult to deal with groups that rely on exclusion or judgment of others to build themselves up. I want to develop more compassion for people who spend more time trying to limit the choices and actions of others than to really understand their own choices and actions. I also realize that this is a contradiction because I am spending time right now concentrating on the actions of others instead of finding peace in this moment.

Western society encourages fear-based living. Most commercials are formulated “product x” is here to save you from “enemy y”. Even feminine hygiene products are referred to as protection. Protection from what? Embarrassment over our own bodies? Ruining a very expensive pair of designer pants? Why did you spend that much on those pants? Are they really THAT much better or was it a purchase based on fear of being uncool? Recently, I heard a girl say “I feel sorry for people who don’t understand how important this Louis Vuitton handbag is.” I believe that attitude is where my compassion must originate. It must be very frightening to live with that kind of fear. I hope that I can transform myself to become more accepting of the unaccepting. I hope I can find more tolerance for the intolerant. Most of all, I hope to find more love for all creatures and know that we are, none of us, better than the other.

In a disused field
at the end of an untraveled road
sits an abandoned warehouse
a forgotten boy
gives an unseen performance
he has practiced for weeks
charted the progress of the sun
across the gritty floor
so the light would be perfect
he plays all the parts
he is riveting
and captivating
and his audience
which is also him
gives him a standing ovation
and when he bows in gratitude
a single teardrop
hits the floor
and mixes with the grit there
and dries
and is also quickly forgot
and the flowers outside
which are not beautiful
because, he was told once
by someone who knows
are merely weeds
nod their indifference
to the dry unfeeling breeze
are his harshest
and only
critics

gentle wind on velvet skin
fertile moon of glow-stick blue
sated geese settle in beside the waving mirror

cool air caresses grateful lungs
gravel footsteps pass behind
hands entwine and then relax
a distant train howls unseen

a carp erupts and then returns
two travelers love without words

Colleen Miller 2-27-09

Ivory skinned, doe-eyed devastation.
A slight tilt of her head elegantly murders time
she sighs
We again exhale.

Yet for all the grace in her delicate, musical fingers,
happiness seems to slide through them – unclaimed.

She runs from desire, but baits it.
It is her wound and balm.

So quiet is her heartsong
muffled by trivial distraction, demanding patrons
and whiskey-soaked comfort.

Though her true worth is in the melody,
she fears the fleetingness of form and
desperately claws for purchase.

To many, she is cast in marble.
flawless, feminine and frozen.

To those who listen closely,
she is friend.

copyright cmiller 2-27-2009

Read this:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-stocks-tumble-biggest-drop/story.aspx?guid={01F6F134-2ECE-4D6B-8829-18D411D5FD94}&dist=msr_1

Or maybe just this excerpt:

“Everybody is looking for the silver bullet to fix the economy, but there isn’t one,” said Chris Johnson, chief executive of Johnson Investment Research in Cincinnati. “I think what they’re doing here is too little, too late.” Johnson has recently been using options contracts and exchange-traded funds to go short, or bet on a general decline in the stock market.

Okay, I have a REAL problem with this, Chris.  Get it right.  Silver bullets kill lycanthropes.  So, if the economy were rampaging through the village terrorizing innocents, as it did before the tech bubble burst, then this analogy might have been appropriate.  In its current lethargic state, however, shooting it with a silver bullet would, presumably, cause it to moan and die.  Aren’t we worried that it’s not well as it is?

If you’re searching for an analogy, here’s a better one:

Everyone’s hoping for a crack pipe to pass to the economy to really pep it up and make it feel great and like nothing is wrong, despite all the evidence to the contrary, but the main dealer left Washington in January.

There has been much speculation in the press today about what W might have said to Obama in the letter.  I managed to get a copy of it, and am sharing it here in a world exclusive:

Dear Mr. President,

Make three copies of this letter and send them to three other world leaders within twenty-four hours for eight years good luck!  If you don’t, terrorists will attack, natural disasters will strike when you’re not ready, and people will give you horrible approval ratings.  TRUST ME ON THIS!

W.

I saw him again today, way off in the distance

Under his rainbow, his lawnmower pushing him higher

Does he know how it makes me feel to see him

Way up in the sky, doing donuts around zephyrs?

Like singing in joy at his freedom from the ground

His distance from it measured not in humdrum x

Or boring y… But in the unexplored dimension of z

And cursing his name for reminding me that my feet

Are ungratefully stuck to the nurturing ground

As I trudge from my car to my door

My load at once lightened by his joy

And immediately weighted down by my own lack of flight

So he has no net effect on me

And I don’t write this

And I don’t yearn to fly

I finally found the a great example of irony. It is the titanium or “Centurion” American Express card. The card carries a $2,500 annual fee and requires the card holders to charge more than $250,000 a year. Word is that since they are so new, many Titanium cards are being refused by some merchants who think they are not real, and some customers have had problems with airport metal detectors.

If you are so much into status that you need a credit card that can double as a weapon, I have a new line of DESIGNER puppets to sell you.

People who act like the rules do not apply to them make me crazy. There was a man in front of me in line at Walgreen’s and he had a coupon for $1.00 off transferred prescriptions. The coupon said “coupon valid only once per transaction”. The fellow decided that this meant he could ring up all six of his meds separately and get a dollar off each time. What you may not know about Walgreen’s is that they have a “just say yes” policy where the customer is never wrong. ever. So, me and an octogenarian had to wait for 25 minutes while this schmo got his $6.00. The nice old lady was wobbling at one point and I nearly gave the guy the money to go away. Arrrrgh!

What if everything I know is illusion?

Nothing more substantive than images on a television screen?

The things I worry about are empty nothings?

The things I hold dear are hollow promises?

What if the illusion is me?

Then so is my worry and so are my loves.

And the empty hollow nothing is

unworthy of self indulgent

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poetry