Who's Afraid of a Little Enlightenment?

"Looks like you've got some fans," I said.

The buddha chuckled slightly. "You knew that before. Took you a while to mention it."

"Well, you weren't around, so why would it matter?"

"In other words, it let you procrastinate. Like you're doing right now."

"Sure, why not. But apparently there's something worthwhile to decipher from our conversations. And here I thought I was being blunt."

"Or mental, arguing with yourself."

I shrugged. "Nah, if that was the case, there'd be a bunch of other people here too. Instead of just a California Fortune Cookie."

That made him chuckle too. Some people are so hard to goad. "You're procrastinating again. And I thought you liked Arabic."

"I do. But other things seem so much amazingly more important when you have something you should be doing. Especially things that take practice. Hey, I know my habits."

"Then if you dislike them, change them," he said, in that mystical tone people use.

I looked over at him, nonplussed. "How much do you know about neurochemistry?"

He opened one eye. "As much as you do. Which would be just enough to get in trouble."

"At least trouble's interesting. And it'd give me something to write about. So," I said, changing the subject, "What about that challenge, about being more practical and smarter?"

He closed his eye again. "If there's one thing you've learned from Kung Fu movies and anime, it's that the old oriental guy is the guy whom with you do not want to fuck."

"A) You're not old. B) You're not even oriental. C) It's not a kung fu fight."

"That's just how your brain interprets my presence, for the ease of your own psyche," he said.

"Thanks, Cthulhu. Lemme guess, all buddhas are really one, since everything's just an illusion, anyway?"

He opened his eyes and leaned casually against the wall. "Eh, close enough. Though we're really all none, not one, but we hang around here to enlighten people because we're nice."

"That give me an idea for a slogan. 'Buddhism: Nothing's Sacred.' Ba dum dum."

He laughed, a lot louder than it really deserved. He looked a lot like a laughing Buddha statue then. Except, y'know, surfer-ey-er. I let him laugh, 'cause frankly, I'd kinda forgotten the point of what we were talking about. If there'd been one, which I kinda doubt.

"Shouldn't you be a bit harder to amuse, what with the whole ancient wisdom thing?"

"Perspective. Much of life's a lot funnier than people give it credit for."
"Tragedy's when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall down an open sewer hole and die? Isn't that a little crude? Shouldn't you be teaching, I dunno, something"

"There is no teacher who can teach us anything new, simply reveal to us what we already knew."

He'd even LOOKED like he was quoting when he said it. "Thanks, Enigma. But that's kinda, y'know, completely untrue. And I think you misquoted it."

He shrugged. He had several shrugs, but this one didn't really say anything. "Not for me. Unless you know something on some level, I don't know it. This looks like ping pong, but it's really a self-deceiving solo game of racquetball."

It was really the hand motions that made it work. You had to be there. "So much for the fourth wall," I said, "Can we climb outside the panels now and peek ahead to make sure we get the right widget to defeat the boss? Only I can't draw that well."

"Then maybe you should practice."

He wasn't really talking about drawing. "Yeah, I guess. Especially since I have to work in the morning. And I've slacked off practicing most of the weekend."

"What, you thought I was talking about Arabic?" he asked.


These are the voyages of the... wait, wrong intro:
Stories from the Rabbit Hole
Stories from the Rabbit Hole, Part 2
There's a Buddha on My Bed
A Discussion of Procrastination and Buddhism
Buddhablog
Haven't Seen Him in a While
The Illusion of Pain
Stuff that Binds
The Joy of Scrubdom
More About Failure
Book Reviews with a Buddha

Tags: Rabbit Hole, Mindscribbles

The Mating Game

From an evolutionary standpoint, I understand the point of playing hard to get. The female wants to convince the interested male he's special and she won't go around getting it on with other males, so makes it difficult to win her affections. This reassures the male about the probable paternity of any spawn, and thus makes him more likely to invest in their upbringing.

However, speaking as a guy, there's a VERY fine line between "hard to get" and "not interested". Yes, yes, "if it's too hard, you're not interested enough" or similar. Sure. Quite. Whatever you say.

Curse you sanitation and perfume, for you have rendered pheromones useless! USELESS I say! And also TOTALLY screwed up human mating rituals.

You'd think...

You'd think being on the Internet as long as I have, I'd have built up a tolerance toward time-wasting memes and flash games and so on.

It appears not.

Or perhaps the memes just mutate faster than my mental immune system.

Death in High Places (12/??)

Greed looked up. He wasn't as piggish as the last one. Yet. More crocodilian. "Hey. The lady's with me."

Luck sat silent. She's fond of watching men fight over her. I looked at his pile of winnings, they were quite substantial. "Been with you long?"

He eyed me. I've never been terribly impressive. "We've both been right here, winning for the past five hours. Like it should be. Right, darlin?"

That last was to Luck, not me. She batted her emerald eyes at him. I looked over Greed's head to the dealer. He nodded. "Sorry to bother you," I said.


(I even spelled crocodilian right on my first try. Ha! Take that, spell-checker!)

Misapplied Creativity - A Drabble

It's the kind of thing you'd think would come up sooner. That's what roommate interviews are for, y'know? Made it even more awkward.

I looked over at my roommate. "So... you're God."

"Yup."

"Really."

"Really."

"Ah."

Neither of us said anything for a minute.

"So, beetles?" I said.

"Inordinately fond of them, what can I say?"

"The appendix?"

"You know how when you make a model, and there's always a couple pieces left over?"

"Sex?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time. Kinda kludged the engineering there, though. But fetish porn? That's all you."

"So where's last month's rent?"


(I have no idea where this came from. Wrote the skeleton at work the other day. Also, with this one, I think I'm caught up. Not to build a buffer. But first, homework.)