Thich Nhat Hanh is probably not reading your mail.
Greg:
So I'm goin' through some things - life stuff, existential stuff, anger stuff, try-not-to-choke-the-living-shit-out-of-person-x. stuff, knowwhatI'msayin'? - and my wife gets me a book by Thich Nhat Hanh (you know him - short fellah, Vietnamese, spiritual behemoth, Nobel Prize nominee) which is titled The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. She thinks that given my current psuedo-crisis it might contain something that might do me some good. Long story short it's supposed to be a treatise on the Four Noble Truths and how they can be applied to human suffering. You know, some light reading. Or so I thought. In truth this book makes the Principia Mathematica look like Go Dog Go!
So homey-san breaks open 84,000 dharma dams and tries to flood my white ass with oceans of the nectar of enlightenment, causing me to gurgle a resounding "whuh the fuh?" He cross-references so many Buddhist texts both modern and ancient that I have never even heard of that I just throw my flippers skyward and bleat like a manatee. I figure this book will go down in my personal history alongside precalculus, women, microwave ovens, the square root of negative 1, and Every Other Thing I Will Never Understand.
I am as dumb as a trout, I swear. Either I have to circle back to lesson 1 in Buddhism for Dharma-Tards or I have to read a lot more. Or I have to go to the Zendo in Tacoma. I hear this "Zen" thing has a lot of "nothing" in it, so how tough can the required reading be, huh?
Anyway, I'll let you know how that all works out. In the meantime, enjoy three more heapin' helpin's of your public.
Meet Randy Hughes!
A Google search for "Randy Hughes"
returns the image of this rather
dashing fellow, who is not the
Randy Hughes I know. At least I
think not, unless he's putting 10W40
in his hair nowadays.
Hughes consistently wins Best Teacher In The Universe accolades each year from the Gunn Institute. And he shall do so until I cack. He was my history teacher in high school, is still a high school history teacher (with a brief hiatus in the Iowa legislature), and to this day has not flown into a single murderous rage over the neverending shenanigans of his herd of adolescents. I cannot say the same of myself. Perhaps I shall tell you where the bodies are buried in a future correspondence.
What do they call you back home? Among the many things I am called are: RJ, Randa, Scooter, Baby Doll, Mr. Hughes, Huge, (Mr. Huges is not large, by the way. -Ed.), Current Resident, Sir, and The Old Guy Who Introduces The Wrestlers.
What do you...uh...do? Pretty much whatever I want. (It's true. I saw him give citizenship to a hobo once. Naturalized him right there on the floor of the legislature, in front of Gawd and everybody. -Ed.) Additionally, perform all manner of nutritional functions, share-cook-clean perform other household tasks, walk-run-jump -roll over-irritate the sox of most authority figures; live vicariously precariously, tread gently, cry at Field of Dreams and I mean every time, wish that Jeb Bartlett and his staff ran the country.
What would you like to know about Greg? How is he?
Meet Sally Hamshaw!
Sally's got sauce - and she's not afraid to use it!
Pictured: the shack where she stores her excess
sauce in the winter.
Whether you call her Sally or Pony or Who's The Girl With That Certain Jeanie Say Kwaz, she's got sauce. Buckets of sauce. Way too much sauce for Silverdale, WA which is where she now lives with her (no doubt long-suffering) boyfriend. She wants to know where you live, if you're like me, and if you're gay. Regarding that last part, I don't know if she means gay as in jovial, gay as in homo, gay as in heaumeaux, or gay as in Thaddeus, when did you go all ghey for the football? I suggest you ask your wife.
In her own words: I'm a Seattlite, born & raised with a few living stints in Bellingham in a feminist house that didn't allow men, meat or cigarettes indoors, and I've also lived in Chelan 3 times ~ one of those times (the first one) provided me with my high school diploma and my first lesbian experience. And she had the coolest birthmark....oh wait, I've gone too far.
Meet Barbara Pritchard!
Normally a sharp and clear-headed
individual, Barbara occasionally becomes
befuddled and answers the stapler.
I've known Barbara Pritchard since the turn of the century, or Ought Ought as we old-timers refer to it. That's when I freaked out and realized that I had known Barbara since '87. She worked for the legendary C/Z Records back then, and I worked for KJET and had an 18-inch platinum blonde mohawk. It was a simpler time in Seattle. Lattes were only $17.50. Bill Gates had not yet moved to Medina. And you could still pee on or near the floor at the Central Tavern while getting drunk on or near The Fastbacks or The Young Fresh Fellows.
In all of that time, I have never once seen Barbara freak out. By comparison, everyone else I know, including me, has freaked out at least 36^5 times. This is impressive considering the fact that Barbara has done stuff like manage projects that involve having to motivate sluggards like myself. Sluggards exactly like me. Okay - me. She should also be canonized for helping me pass my programming classes. So when you think of Barbara, think of a giant slice of calm floating in a lake of serenity surrounded by a raging brushfire made of craziness. Nowadays she works for Smashing Ideas, a bunch of very nice creative people who continue to hire me for freelance work, regardless of the blazing mediocrity of my copywriting.
Her advice to you? In her own words: Please tell Gregory that it’s not the squirrels nor is it Bambi he needs to worry about. If there’s marmots around keep your boots on.
If John Muir had taken that advice, he'd be alive today!
Cheers, and give my best to Marie.
-Thaddeus
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