Standup Comedian

...I have learned not to question. My suffering ends sooner if I just do, but seriously, can’t one use unfamiliar detergent for four weeks without having to replace a wardrobe? A positive I suppose is I learned that Stay Puff has nothing to do with a woman’s breasts. I had to put it in the cardboard box anyway; a box that grew from the original small one, to a medium size, and then to hernia size.
 
…On the twenty-sixth, I was up early as usual. As I heated my morning cup of tea, the glass sliding doors began to rattle furiously as if being violently shaken by an angry spirit trying break in. I immediately looked out to sea, but the surface was calm. I glanced at the coconut palms; the palm fronds were limp. The shaking continued for about thirty seconds, maybe more. With my teacup in hand I walked over and studied the doors. I thought of poltergeists.
    My house was brick built on a concrete slab. The day was beautiful and absolutely calm except for the rattling doors; the event was a blank sheet of paper with an inexplicable question mark in the middle. The answer turned out to be a morning I will never forget. Tectonic plates moved and the devil rose from hell, slipped through the crack, and sent the sea pushing out in all directions bent on death and destruction.
 
…My cousin was laughing, Honeybee was cussing, I was screaming and dancing trying to get away, the chickens were squawking and whomping their wings, Honeybee’s mother was yelling, “Girl, what ails you?” and grandmother was screaming, “Boy, what have you done now?” It was bedlam. But it got worse.
    The old toilet belched smoke. My cousin and I started pushing dirt down the holes and grandmother galloped to the fire bell. That would have been funny if I had not been so scared. The dinging and donging dang near busted my ear drums, but flames had already started gobbling up that old privy like my uncle after fried chicken.

…One could say of a female co-worker, “She is scheming, argumentative, opinionated, and will stab you in the back.” About a male co-worker one could say, “He is scheming, argumentative, opinionated, and will stab you in the back.” Or one could say, “She is a bitch,” or, “He is a bastard.” It’s all words so if it is true, what’s the big deal? True is the operative word here. Just because a female happens to be more capable than her male counterparts does not make her a bitch; however, the man who calls such a one, bitch, is indeed a bastard.

…Did I tell you about the car ride up the mountain in India? It was in the town of Shimla, in the Himalayas. The town overflows from a ridge and pours down the mountain. On one road leading to a temple there were many switchbacks, and the road accommodated only one vehicle except in strategic places. The switchbacks were so tight that the driver had to turn, stop and back up, turn some more, stop and back up, and finish the turn. No wonder India is the birthplace of religion. Diarrhea may have its origins there too.

You do not need to believe that thoughts are things; that your thoughts bring into experience your joys and your sorrows. You do not need to believe in the dogma of established religions, but logic suggests that if you concern yourself with the wellbeing of your fellowman you will in turn provide for your own.

If you accept the notion that positive and negative thinking do affect outcome, then, expressed simply, you believe in mind over matter. You believe that matter dances in concert with mind. It helps to picture your thoughts as rose petals or dung drops. When you apply physical constructions to the abstract experience of thinking it helps to illuminate where your thoughts are taking you.