2011年12月10日 Wait what? A tattoo

Try explaining this
to your mother in law.
By the way, imagine having
 this above your cock or vag.

I think Tattoos are pretty cool, but I wouldn't get one. 

Why? Because for some reason I feel like I'm violating my body, yet not because I'll grow old and it might look like shit later on. Without shaving I look like shit anyhow. Rather it is because I believe in something that goes against getting a tattoo. No it's not because I'm insecure. And not because I don't believe I can subscribe to anything on a permanent basis (i.e. I'll change my mind later or regret it), as I already believe in certain things on a permanent basis. So for me, I don't want a tattoo since it will interfere with my spiritual and religious beliefs and obligations. However, if I had a significant other and they had one: I'd think that's kind of hot. Not having one is fine too.

With that said, I got the following offer for a tattoo. It's in regards to my iPod which I listed on craigslist. Even though I had already planned to sell it to Fozzjnen, - Foz saw my ad and knows I have to pay for certain things, as I need to bus everywhere now that the car is dead. It doesn't help that I live out the boonies, but whatever.

So I decided to reply to the following email, even though I already was sale-pending-funds with Fozzjnen.

I will trade you a tattoo or a tattoo gift certificate for it [iPod].

See my work at: [omitted] 

Give me, [Dave], a call at [omitted] to make an appointment. This is offer is with [DAVE] only! I work seven days a week noon to close. No one under age 18 please... yes, bring your [...] State ID or US Passport. 

I work in an [...] State Licensed, Clean, 100% Real Tattoo Shop, [address omitted,...] and I use hospital sterile (one use) disposable needles and hospital sterile tubes.

Wait what? "Real Tattoo Shop" compared to a "Fake Tattoo Shop"?

Seems kind of redundant to say, "I'm licensed and real." Wait, so if you're not license, you're.... Imaginary?

Here's what I said:

Hi [Dave],
I must say I am tempted by your offer, but I cannot have a tattoo. :|
Sincerely,
Eric

I did not expect the reply he gave [sic]:

I promise you wont go to hell for getting a tattoo.... they just tell people that. 

Its not true. Really.

His work isn't that bad either,
but skulls and shit seem like they're for 18
year old kids in the Navy or USMC

Wait, what?

First, how the hell does he know I won't go to hell? 

And second, who is they? Is that like "Who is we you sucka?" [Link] 

I couldn't understand what this dude thought he was saying to me. I'm sure he thought I was fresh fruit, unblemished by anything other than fundamentalist Catholics. Well, considering 3 of 5 people in my immediate family have tattoos, I think I'm doing well with not having one. My dad and I being the only two left not to have any voluntary tattoos.

So I said this, and did not get a reply:

Well, actually it's against Halacha so I can't. I'll have a hard time explaining it to my Rabbi when I do mikveh next (ritual bathing for purity purposes).

Eric

More stuff by the guy

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I would have traded my iPod for him getting circumcised by a mohel.

I also have yet to explain to most of my friends that even though I'm already circumcised, I still have to have blood drawn from my cock to fully convert to Judaism. The only thing left to circumcise is the heart. Without doing that, callouses could build and I'd lose emotional and spiritual sensitivity. Ha-ha!

He did have a lot of impressive stuff, but I'd have to re-upload it to protect his identity.

2011年12月9日 Wondering

I enjoy wondering, but these days I find wondering (over the past 2 years or longer) to be difficult when I cannot bounce ideas off another person, who doesn't pull punches yet doesn't give condescending remarks out of malice. Is this too much to demand? I doubt it, but it is rare.

So far shul helps.
So do a lot of other things, but at the end of the day I'm still left with more questions than answers, and I do not think I'll be satisfied with just speculation alone.

It would be like having sex with someone, and you ask, "How was it?" And you get a question back with a puzzled face that says, "That's irrelevant." Or worse, "There isn't a definitive answer to that, [b]ut still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General."

I did however end up emailing my rabbis about questions I've been having about life and mitzvot, but so far I have yet to get an answer to my emails other than, "[The] explanation is to long for an email." I guess he hasn't read some of my posts here.

So nothing of great merit, but whatever I do have regarding such might not be brought up here anyhow!

2011年12月8日 Praying for the unborn spirits

I had a chance to email someone I who is neither my friend or adversary. 

I got a lengthy email back.

I was happy about that, or rather engaged.

It was a challenge, not of rivalry, but more of that from this colleague, who is either entertaining my thoughts due to sheer boredom or is vying more information about my own my thought processes.

Challenge is a good word. What does this mean? When I was a kid, a challenging stage in a video game was something I didn't know if I had the personal capacity to overcome. I suppose varying degrees of life are the same. Do we compromise the challenge for comfort and security? I believe we do. I believe society is conditioning us, to accept that we ARE our khakis, our cars, and our jobs. However, I disagree.

Over time I will have more information to figure out the specifics. It is clear emotionally this colleague and I are not on the same page, and yet this person seems to be making an effort to sit at an imaginary and intellectual table. Talking to me about issues of concern or interest, without disregard or disrespect towards my interpretations in life. Ideally I'm doing the same.

2011年12月7日 "Okay no problem"

At work the other day I expressed that there are two things I hate don't like, which are on par with the sucking efficiency of a great white shark applying out-of-water-fellatio to elderly stage-4 cancer patients.

1. Dismissing someone expressing gratitude.
2. Dismissing apologies that include explanations, without giving an explanation.

This tihs confuses me, and frankly I don't understand why anyone would bitch, about things, like apologizing or expressing gratitude. It's only natural, to explain, why we feel the way, we do. Commas, help us express, how we feel. It's good, for now. Until, it grows, annoying. Like an unsatisfied bo-nahs.

That wasn't, 

a typo.

Don't worry, this is a date that will live in infamy! 

2011年12月6日 Giving your soul a place to rest

Today I explained to a co-worker that I love driving at night. Unfortunately the car I'm borrowing from Fozzjnen broke down last week, so I'm immobile at present. That's fine, that's not really why I need money, but mainly for living/school expenses and Jew-stuff. Having "living" and "Jew-stuff" in same sentence is kind of redundant, as Jew-stuff is part of living and IS living. Judaism is life, and everything else is just a part of life.

Anyhow, I'm telling my co-worker about driving and what it means to me. 

I'll try to summarize.

Sometimes at night, when everyone else is asleep, we find ourselves unable to sleep. Sure we can wait around, whack-off, fuck someone, do coke, get drunk and pass out, but sometimes that doesn't always work, unless you're doing it every night and when it gets to that point you are just trying to escape. So instead of that, we have to get out for a drive, at night. 

At night, when the roads are clear and everyone else is asleep, we have an opportunity to let our soul go on a little journey. Some journeys are longer than others. Some are actually only an hour long, whereas others might be several days long (i.e. someone driving from one state to another for sake of their soul).

Before driving at night,
this is pretty much all I did when
my soul couldn't sleep.

What does that mean? Sake of your soul? It means you're doing what your heart and soul tell you to do. And this commentary ("heart and soul") can be found in Deuteronomy's pages, however I won't expound on those issues.

So on those nights, in my case, I'd drive. I'd find a place to let my soul rest, even for just a moment. Through the dark hills, the long dark nights, those nights where God doesn't talk to you or you can't hear him. Or rather, your spirit is dried up: this is when it's time to check-in to the hotel for your soul. You won't find this at home. You won't find it at work. You'll find it in the people you know and see, or know but are absent. The people care about, or love. You find that hotel for your soul, on that journey, through dark hills, and dark roads. And in nothingness of the listless night. 

But if there was nothingness inside you'd be asleep, sound as baby. You wouldn't have dreams that wake you up in a sweat. You wouldn't have nightmares about other times and people. About love, about death, about life. You wouldn't have to worry about those issues if there was nothing. But there is something, and that's why your soul can't sleep that night.

That nothingness is out there, outside of your body, outside of your soul. And it's haunting your soul. So you go out, and you rest your soul. You rest it the best way you can, by moving yourself around the world, letting the world move around you and the Sun, as you drive through dark hills and empty roads. You can do it alone or you can do with someone else with a dry soul. I've done before. Alone and with another. You find just enough time to give your soul a pit stop, refuel and keep going. No racing soul is without a pit crew of friends and loved ones, without these, you can't win your race. No, that's wrong, you can't even participate. How can anyone drive when their soul is already dried up and cold?

And it's not the race, it's YOUR race. I can't race your soul's race, you can't race mine. But you could contribute, and in most cases when someone you love or care about, a friend or family member, when they do contribute you'll feel it. You might not say it, or know how, but you do.

So when you go to bed that night. And not much has changed, you might have to do again: you might have to give your soul another temporary journey into the night. And you should do this, so that your soul sleeps, even briefly. 

You wake up, or rather your soul wakes you up, and when this happens, you'll know you're ready to go about your new day.

***

When I finished my spiel to my co-worker I realized I was doing the right thing choosing God and choosing life. I need life. And I need a place for my soul, where that place is on Earth I don't know, but as long as it keeps my heart warm towards those I care about, I realize I am doing the right thing. And the price is worth it. 

Believing in God, Chuck Norris, Odin, or Waldo, I don't care what you believe. But there is a soul, and you've got it. 

Do you have the long dark nights, where God stops talking?

When you don't hear the sounds of nature?

When you don't hear or feel with your soul anymore? 

What would you do, when you realize your soul doesn't have a place to rest?

No seriously, those aren't rhetorical questions!

2011年12月5日 What it takes

It takes a lot of money to get shit done sometimes. 

And sometimes we have to give shit up too, especially when we make promises, big ones. When getting things done, important things in regards to our goals, we sometimes have to give up things we normally would never want to give up. In this case my gun, ammo, and a bunch of other shit (PS3, etc). 

What am I going to do with this money? Pay for medical bills and survive on it.

With that said, it's time to figure out some important shit.

I feel like part of this song,

Under other circumstances would I have done anything?

For anyone? Maybe a few people, maybe a few.

Eventually I'll have nothing in my way.

2011年12月1日 Hiatus

Things in life right now are truly repugnant and depressing.
Life has become a possibly mendable, but broken-arrow.

I will try to come back to this when I can. If I can't, then things are really bad.