Today, I Rise.

Seems like every day he comes to consciousness with a parched mouth and a full bladder. The delirium of sleep has yet again removed all sense of time and space. Garble-headed, he finally realizes where he is and wonders what time it is since it's still dark outside. Well, that useful knowledge will have to wait since his cell is charging on the bathroom counter. More importantly, he's also wondering how long he can prolong getting out of bed while still making it to the toilet without peeing himself a little. Yes, he's really that lazy, but to be nice, we'll call him lethargic.

Finally, with the utmost effort and courage, he rolls himself 1-2-3 out of bed, right onto his bare feet, and prances in the dark, like a blind cavefish in its cave, right to the bathroom. He puts his hand down to make double sure the lids are up and immediately upon knowing he is in a flow state.

He made it! No leakage! 

He'd hoped so, since these were his favorite man panties and he was hoping to wear them one more day, just one day more, as the song goes. 

Standing now, above the painful stream, becoming less so with the release of pressure, wavering to and fro, chaotically, yet on target, he congratulates himself at his skillful aim. He muses how years of such experience have made him a Jedi master of the stream, as he continues hitting the target center while seeming to float around a toilet bowel telescoping in and out, sometimes appearing so far away. He's standing, wavering like this most mornings, always for what seems far too long and a quart too many. Time seems to pass in slow motion as the peeing continues, as does the euphoria at its release. 

Finally, the flow becomes rhythmically intermittent, like someone milking a goat. This is when he knows it's almost over as he lazily reaches his arm to the flusher and pushes it down. He taps the last drops into the vortex as it all disappears and is replenished with 'fresh" water. 

Drying his hands (after washing them in the sink, not the toilet, mind), he checks his cellphone for the time. When the screen comes on he's squinting at the light, chiding himself at staying up late yet again and eating far too many snacks. It's 5:48, no time to get back in bed. Besides, the alarm will be going off in 12 minutes anyway. He turns on the light and groans at the finality of it being morning, feeling the ongoing exhaustion at burning too many candles at too many ends as he opens the mirror and retrieves his toothbrush, dabs a squat of paste, and begins brushing his teeth while putting the paste back and closing the mirror.

Staring at his messy hair and tired face in the mirror, he tells himself, "I am a warrior with a fierce spirit!" as he raises his electric toothbrush lackluster into the air, punctuating the word spirit. "... who gets to live one day more!", he grins with a rabies smile.

Spitting the toothpaste into the sink, and rinsing his mouth, he rises from the tap and sees his face rising in the mirror with him. Smiling at himself, he winks "lucky sucker!", and pulls a wide-eyed expression at himself in hope of some sort of revival. He stretches his eyeballs out a few more times while brushing his hair and laughs a low energy belly laugh which moves his shoulders slightly up and down.

Yet, underneath his silly steely facade is a heart that continues to get the shit beaten out of it, yet somehow seems to keep brimming with love and ... Oh, God, that bowl of split pea soup he shouldn't have eaten so late is now ready for deposit.  Turning on the fan, he goes back for round two... while hoping this doesn't make him late for work, which it probably will, since he'll likely need to take a shower ... which means his favorite man panties are going in the bin after all. 

"Today, I rise.”

Just Another Day

If You're Bugged - Speak into the Mic.

When I die, I hope death is the end, not because I don't enjoy existing. I just don't like the options presented. 

When I was young, I was told, always a bit too convincingly asserted, that we have a soul which lives on after death, by what turned out to be some pretty insecure people on the subject. That's understandable, and I don't fault them for all the wishful thinking, life is scary and beautiful. It's easy to form an addiction to it, especially with an escalated sense of survival instinct brought about by fear or trauma. Most people don't want to die. Some people do at some times, sure, but mostly, most people, most of the time, want to live. If death isn't the end, like most people hope it's not, I know I don't want to go to heaven. It seems a far too competitive place that everyone wants to go, to commune and vibe with god (goodness). My religion even taught me that there were multiple levels of heaven - like that of a concert ticket, even a nosebleed section ... Nah, no thanks. I'm done with the ranks and the rankings.

Besides, I wouldn't want to hang out with most of the people I know who believe in heaven in the heaven they believe in (and by default then, hell) I also don't care to go to hell, that seems to be a place that is way overcrowded as well (Maybe even by some people who thought they were going to heaven).

Many a religious believer would tell me right now that it's not up to me what happens when I die or where I go. But, the thing you have to understand about my religious upbringing is that I was taught the primary law of the universe, above all other laws, is agency. This means that neither god nor his evil counterpart (nor his trusty sidekick) can force me to do anything against my will, nor do they control the consequences. I always have a choice, and thus I am always completely responsible for said choices and fully accept the consequences - no codependency here! There's no need for further suffering from my bad choices by putting it on someone else.

So, if it turns out by some great surprise, that I'm still around after my body bites the dust, I'm not going to heaven. My life has been so full of both wonderful highs and terrible lows, I feel it would be a bit like putting the guild on the lily. I really don't deserve either, having had so much of both. I'd be okay hanging out around the universe though. I might even revisit some of my old haunts and spook the living, or tiptoe across the backs of frogs croaking in the receding light as day turns to dusk and the insects stand out and glow in the angle of the evening sun as they fly about. If I really had a choice, I'd come back to earth, not as an ape again, but probably an insect, with wings ... I guess in that sense, with my former consciousness intact, or maybe blurred a bit, I'd be an angel. 

I think a lot of people would choose to fly on their next incarnation of life if that's as much an option as going to heaven or hell. Anyway, you must concede that if the other two are actual options, why not reincarnation? Can we really place limits on fantasy?

So, and here's the best point I'd like to make, if you're sitting, standing, or meandering along in your life, wasting time and pondering the depth of your navel, and if that pondering is seeking an answer, maybe even needing a sign or a message from God or a higher power (maybe even your own) ... don't swat a flying insect that comes to you! The damselfly, ladybug, moth, or hornet, or any other flying insect for that matter that comes and flys about your headspace, maybe even alights on you (if you're lucky), that wonderful flying thing may be a reincarnated angel. It might just be some dead person previously, who chose to be an insect on this go about, maybe even your grandma.

 Commune with it, listen, observe, maybe even speak into god's microphone if you feel like you're being bugged. It may have a message for you, from the divine ... even if it is to say, you are heard, noticed, and loved by some part of the universe. I've experienced this so many times that it feels as true as heaven.

The moral to the Story: Never squish an insect! - you may be killing the messenger... and there also may be unavoidable consequences to the act, like becoming what you most hate in your next incarnation (that which you would show no mercy) because you lack empathy and understanding for life, all of life, and what it truly is, in all shapes and forms that it may come to you ... that is unless you'd rather go to blah blah bland old heaven, where nothing bad ever happens, and by default, nothing ever all that good. Every form of life is equally valid, even the bugs.  And guess what?  Maybe God loves insects too.  He certainly loves beetles more than humans and all other insects, if we're going by quantity (Beetles make up 1/3rd of all insect species, and 1/4th of all species on the planet!). ;)

God is said to have told us, "Thou shalt not kill.". No clarifier as to what we shall not kill (most egocentrically assume human life, but god never added a human clarifier to that - we did).  Thou shalt not kill, period... and don't fuck with spiders - seriously bad karma there! *

* The US is home to around 3,500 species of spiders. Most spiders in the USA are not dangerous for humans or larger pets. In fact, only two types of spiders in the US can be dangerous for humans: the black widow and the brown recluse. So basically, odds are, when you kill a spider you're taking a life that did nothing to deserve your ignorant violence ... and most of them were doing you a favor by preying on insects that really can be pests.