Tiny Bubbles

The guys are here today finishing up the bathroom and putting up the backsplash in the kitchen.  They're also fixing the paint where they used Ceiling White instead of Decorator White semi-gloss to touch up the woodwork throughout the apartment.  Sadly, Richie the cute painter isn't with them.  He hasn't been here since well before Christmas which is how the paint on the woodwork got fucked up in the first place.  But whatever.

I can't seem to get excited about much these days - whether I'm happy about something or thoroughly pissed.  Seems like everything in the world has been one big shoulder shrug since the inauguration. It's hard to understand how so many people find so much to praise about Obama when it's clear he's just another liar in a long line of liars.  Even liars have their good points, but that doesn't change the fact that  they're liars.  The big lie, in my view, is that Obama is trying his best to protect workers and the environment - but I suppose it's more comfortable for people to believe some sugar coated bullshit than to face the fact that Game Over with climate change has passed.  Even though it will take some years before the full impact of global warming hits us all, it's still a drag.  And it's especially disheartening when people who remember Richard Nixon think any president is going to "do the right thing" and put human need over corporate greed.
But whatever.

Even though the vast majority of people in the US seem to believe the propaganda that passes for news in the mainstream media, plenty of folks have already woken up and smelled the proverbial coffee - thanks to projects like this one:

from the documentary Chasing Ice (http://www.chasingice.com)

My overall position on all this stuff - like climate change, endless wars, ecocide via the O&G business as well as the general foolishness that passes for governance in Washington DC, including the way "obamacare" opens new gateways for private insurance companies (Corrente, 03.01.13) -- is that as long as we're heading to hell in a hand basket at warp speed, I might as well be getting laid.  To that end, I've been working on clarifying my criteria for a mate.

Max (who I will continue to think of as Max the Psychic Life Coach and Hairdresser even though he's got so many private coaching clients and workshops happening that he hardly does hair anymore except for a few lucky old timers like me) recommends doing a Clarity through Contrast exercise where you write down everything you don't like about a situation and then figure out what you DO like.  For example, when you're sick of dating guys who are stuck in divorce limbo, you may start out by saying that you don't want to date anyone who is still married.  On the Clarity side of the little chart, you write SINGLE as part of your criteria.  Once you've developed a clear list of positive attributes, you then write a few paragraphs. Max calls that a Desire Statement.  It's all part of a workshop he does based on Law of Attraction stuff he learned from a fellow named Michael Losier.  Sometimes, he offers some videos for free called Manifesting with Max (http://www.maxryan.net).  I'm pretty sure there's no airier fairer fellow on the internet than Max - which is part of his charm, if you ask me.  If you're going to get fully airy-fairy new agey, might as well go to the Max.

A few weeks ago, Max recommended that I start doing this Rising and Falling meditation technique.

I kind of suck when it comes to meditating, but this Rising and Falling has really helped me get back to sleep if I wake up briefly in the night.  You're supposed to use meditation for enlightenment and stuff, I guess, and sit up when you're meditating so you don't fall asleep.  Personally, I like anything that helps me sleep - and Rising and Falling does the trick.  It's also been fun to do Rising and Falling in the bathtub because now that I can float, my body really does rise and fall as I inhale and exhale.

Naturally, I recommend smoking a little weed first.  It's especially fun to listen to yourself breathing with your ears submerged - which is fun because when your ears first go under the water, the air in your ears comes out in a rush of little bubbles.