taking a sip

what's the harm

who will know

just a taste

after the dance

just a touch

no pain all gain

we can manage

a single kiss

ain't no trouble

have one more

just a sip

give it time

give us time

for one last hit

before the slip

lurks a lie

has a name

shiny bauble blaze

sends a scent

and hides a truth

of fire and rain

flame and fury

crashes to ashes

rust to dust

hole in the donut

Waiting to board an Adirondack Trailways bus bound for New York from Syracuse, I spied a sign in the distance at the Dunkin' Donuts in the regional transportation center. 

The sign read, "DO A DOZEN."

Or did it?

Now picture a doughnut, or donut, if you will, in place of each letter "O."

"D A D ZEN." 

I pointed out this oddity, coincidence, novelty, or providential message to the prospective passenger sitting in front of me on a metal bench.

"I've never been on a bus," she felt compelled to confess.

"Never? How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"How about a train?"

"No."

"Plane."

"No." Self-conscious chuckle.

"A school bus?"

"Yes."

What Dad Zen wisdom could I impart to this brave-new-worlding daughter of her dad?

A smile, a reassuring voice.

"I wonder if it's late. I'll check," Zendad offered.

What is Dad Zen? you might ask.

If there is no self, wouldn't that rule out Dad Zen, as well as Mom, Son, Daughter, Brother, or Sister Zen?

Having no self, do we become the hole in the doughnut? 

But in doing so, are we made whole?

In Step Three of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson observed that someone, especially a fledgling seeker, might be afraid of taking a leap of faith, a surrender to Somebody or Something. Such a BraveNewUniverser might be afraid of becoming "the whole in the doughnut."  

Becoming a doughnut hole isn't just a clever Dunkin' marketing ploy.

Willing to risk becoming the hole in the doughnut takes a leap of faith, as Soren Kierkegaard put it.

Who wouldn't be afraid to take a leap of faith? Where do we fall to? Who or what catches us? Are we bruised? 

And what or who are we after The Fall?

There you have it.

It?

Alan Watts says, "This is It."

So be it.

Later, having arrived in NYC, I see In front of La Mode cleaners on Broadway near 109th Street, an Asian man wearing a black baseball cap emblazoned with the word "DAD."  

Was he practicing Dad Zen? 

(Or subliminally advertising DO A DOZEN?)

I've been staying with friends on 108th Street.

There are 108 mala beads.

A baseball has 108 stitches.

It's Opening Day.

I'll have a bagel with a schmear.
 

Acute Abysmal Chronic Human Wasting Disease (AACHWD)

Acute Abysmal Chronic Human Wasting Disease (AACHWD) is a progressive yet rarely fatal condition classified as a transmissible modern malady (TMM). Symptoms include obsessive-compulsive repetitive behaviors, such as rapid thumb movements, frequent finger-tapping and swiping, bursts of excitement, aphasia, and neuropathy of fingertips. Other observable phenomena linked to AACHWD include voluble cursing at video or digital-device screens, memory loss, insomnia, and rapid heartbeat. Withdrawal attributes include adrenalin letdown, irritability, sullenness, anxiety, moroseness, lethargy, poor appetite, restlessness, and social withdrawal.

Geographic Distribution and Origins

The geographic extent of AACHWD has changed dramatically since June 29, 2007, the date of the inception of the iPhone. Since 2007, the disease has been found globally in free-ranging humans in loci with either concentrated or sparse concentrations of adult homo sapiens. The disease has been increasingly identified outside of the original endemic areas of the United States and industrialized nations. Earlier manifestations of the disease were seen in 1980, first in Japan, coinciding with introduction and popular use of the video game Pac-Man. Designated “eradication zones” around the areas where it was detected have proved ineffective and fruitless. Scientists doubt whether such aggressive management will succeed in eliminating free-ranging foci of AACHWD.

Transmission to Other Animals 

Concerns have been raised about the possible transmission of the AACHWD agent to domestic animals, such as dogs, cats, parakeets, canaries, fish, salamanders, cattle, and sheep, which may come in contact with infected humans. To date, no such transmissions have been observed or reported.

Diagnosis and Treatment
 

To date, no histopathologic, immunohistochemical, and Western blot testing of brain biopsy and autopsy samples have confirmed a AACHWD diagnosis. Clinicians have relied on anecdotal observations of the aforementioned symptoms, but no accurate measurement protocol, regime, or scale exists, leading some scientists to doubt the existence of a verifiable disease.

 

Recent studies have shown limited treatment success correlated to separation from environmental sources of infection, including exposure to smartphones, tablets, laptops, and gaming devices. Even in clinical trials of treatment, however, some patients continued to exhibit progressive aphasia, memory loss, social withdrawal, vision disturbances, and seizure activity leading to status epilepticus or induced coma.

'No' Is a Complete Sentence. Or Is It?

You can debate it. You can logically and persuasively argue yes or no as to whether "no" constitutes a complete sentence. Your answer depends on context, communication theory, and linguistics. (Go ahead and Google away at "the Gricean Theory of Conversational Implicature" as you're waiting for your Americano at the coffee shop.) Also entering the equation (oops, that's math; wrong subject) is whether you are a strict or loose constructionist in how you define a sentence.

Yes or no, either one works for me. I don't care, as long as I can continue to say "'No' is a complete sentence" and apply it to the matter at hand.

And what exactly is the matter at hand?

Two matters come to mind:

1. People who have a hard time saying no to demands imposed by others
2. People who feel the need to explain, defend, or justify their refusal of a request they want to reject but can't 

Enter a play within the play, as in Hamlet:

Can you lend me $500?

No, I can't because my counterfeit money-making machine in the basement stopped printing when the black-ink cartridge ran out, plus I need to reorder the special paper from my 'friends' at Treasury.

No, the triplets need formula, diapers, binkies, onesies, and meds. And I owe our upscale, artisanal photographer a down payment for the quasi-royal official portraits of the triplets.

No, not today; can I get back to you after I check with my accountant, my lawyer, my therapist, my Zen roshi, and my local arms dealer?

How about $300. Can you lend me that?

No, I'll never get it back.

No, I just spent my last $275 on Mega Millions, and I have no gas in my car, and I forgot to buy my pain meds.

No, I won't. I would but I can't. No, I might but might not. Not sure. I sometimes can and sometimes do but I usually can't and don't. 

Dude. Just give me fifty effing bucks until Monday when my effing ship comes in, okay? Can you do that?

No, my ship is coming in too, at the same dock.

No, because when your ship comes in I'll be at the airport.

No, because Monday I'll be tied up all day in bankruptcy court.

Dad/Mom, can I have the car?

No. Dad has a date.

No. Mom has a date.

With each other?!

Now, answer each of these questions with the monosyllabic no.

Start with an interior whisper to yourself.

No. 

Practice it.

Out loud now.

Mantra it.

No. No. No.

How do you feel now? Feel better?

Yes. 

"Because if you can't say no, your yes doesn't mean anything." Regan Walsh

why 12 Steps?

I wonder
why 12 Steps
no, I don't refer to denial and all its discontents, its dis-
contents
I mean why 12? not 11? or 13? or 9?
Why any number in certain civilizations?
and all I can figure are
12 months
12 inches
12 apostles
any other 12s come to mind?

12 steps, pondered anew

This time con brio, with adjectives:

1. powerless

2. pliable

3. decisive

4. searching

5. voluble

6. imperfect

7. trying

8. mending

9. connected

10. daily

11. silent

12. awake

12 steps, plus or minus

12 Steps as one-word verbs

1. admit
2. believe
3. surrender
4. search
5. tell
6. prepare
7. ask
8. list
9. mend
10. readmit
11. pray
12. live

or your own version, below

12 Steps of Marketing 101

1. Last November while awaiting to get my rental car from Enterprise I struck up a casual and commiserating conversation with a customer more disgruntled than I.

2. I recognized the name of her business advertised on her baseball cap; I told her I knew of the firm, that I had once inquired about working there.

3. I offered to exchange business cards. She did not have her cards with her. I gave her my card and wrote down her name and email.

4. Days later, I sent her an email reminding her of our brief chat and introducing her to my website, etc.

5. Days after that, I sent her my linecard or brochure or handout or whatever we want to call it, with a handwritten note.

6. Time passed.

7. A little more time passed.

8. Then I sent a brief follow-up email, suggesting lunch or a cup of coffee. She was on vacation, the quick reply stated.

9. Some time passed.

10. I received an email from her not only agreeing to lunch but outlining possible areas of need and professional common interest and opportunities. She offered to bring a colleague to lunch.

11. All three of us had a brilliant lunch today reviewing specific needs and potential scenarios for collaborating. Their firm graciously paid the tab for lunch (in my neighborhood incidentally).

12. It is virtually certain that we will work together in 2010. It works if you work it.

Twenty Questions

. . . but not the usual, of course.

1. Why do square bullets introduce each question even though a number shows up on my screen as I create each interrogatory?
2. Why twenty, anyway -- is it related to 10 fingers and 10 toes?
3. Why the sloppiness of style, not paying a copyeditor's (or copy editor's) attention to consistency regarding words versus numerals?
4. Huh?
5. Would you make it "healthcare" or "health care" as a noun?
6. Does it bother you that the majority of Americans could not diagram a sentence on the blackboard or whiteboard or greenboard?
7. When?
8. What is my fixation with Soren Kierkegaard?
9. When was the first time?
10. When was the last time?
11. Why do many readers immediately assume that questions 9 and 10 are latently associated with sex?
12. Why is twelve, or 12, so rich in connotation, ranging from Apostles to months to inches to Steps to lists?
13. When was your last act of not only random but anonymous kindness?
14. Or mine?
15. Why is it so hard to pronounce "anonymous"?
16. What is 20 times 20 times 20, which would be 20 cubed, or does the cube melt in the dog days of August?
17. Why don't they teach Latin in public schools?
18. Who is "they"?
19. Isn't it truly difficult to change ingrained habits?
20. Are you relieved this is over?

Runes of Ruination

Maybe my note-taking skills (or lack thereof) kept me out of Harvard, Yale, Ox-bridge, Stanford inter alia. Maybe my aversion to linear progression (well evidenced in this forum), be it attributed to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or attention surplus-intensity syndrome (AS-IS), is the root cause of my hieroglyphic notes.

Case study: I was on the phone a lot at work today. It's a significant part of the job, some days more than others. Deals, no deals, teaming, partnering, quasi-partnering, exploring, overcoming hurdles, assessing, flirting, filtering, figuring, eavesdropping, handshaking, handwringing, salivating, and palaver-ating. You know, "The Office" in real life.

Then I looked at my notes.

Runic scribblings.

Runes of my ruminations.

Gawd, help me!

Cross-outs, single circlings, arrows, loops, squiggly lines, wavy cross-outs, yeses, nos [correct? I don't know; I'm not into proper spelling or grammar right now; I'm off the clock], question marks, underscores, rectangular doodlings, imperatives to myself, triple circlings, karots, purple ink, orange ink, black ink, reverse and forward arrows, glosses, margin notes, names, phone numbers.

This scrawl on one page of standard yellow legal pad will make no sense to anyone if I get hit by a bus tomorrow morning before entering the portals.

It barely makes sense to me now!

Get me to an organizational rehab.

"Hi, my name is Pawlie. I'm a helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy nonlinear, chaotic, ADHD-, AS-IS-riddled feckless factotum."

"Hi, Pawlie."

"Are, um, your 12 Steps in any kind of order?"

"That's a start, Pawlie. Why don't you just sit back, relax, and listen."

"In that order?"

Maybe it's all because I'm left-handed.

And I was a preemie.

Yeah, that's it.

And not any German-Austro-Teutonic lineage, either.

Uprooted (Not)

So, the endodontist (doesn't that sound like what a proctologist should be called?) taps on teeth, tickles my ivories, puts cold citrus juice on 'em, has me grind my chompers, et alia et cetera ad nauseam et saecula saeculorum amen (in English, not Latin).

No dice, meaning no excruciating pain.

Ergo (more Latin), he declines to perform the root canal. Not-specific-enough pain.


Is this the first time in the annals of Christendom someone was disappointed at not being the recipient of a root canal?

Of course, at lunchtime, agony revisited. This is a new development. The pain used to occur only after eating, not during.

I could not do nothing.

I dialed (a nice anachronistic phrase) my physician. A visit to him tomorrow.

Pass me the cyanide, please.

Okay, not today.

"Just for today," as Twelve Steppers are wont to intone.