(Lunar eclipse, Grand Cross,

full moon in Capricorn...I rest my case)

(Broke down...

...waiting for a tow)

As Seen in Real Life

For Mother's Day this year I considered putting myself on a plane to Moscow. It was cost-prohibitive, so I queued up "Doctor Zhivago" and settled in with a bottle of vodka.

I can now add Netflix-Play-Instantly to my list of addictions. My husband gave me the hardware for my birthday. I'll say he did. He also gave me the hardware to enable the upstairs television to stream the aforementioned Netflix-Play-Instantly, and it's been streaming ever since.

My favorite genre is "Thrillers," though I'm not averse to the occasional romantic comedy or an award-winning documentary. Netflix also allows me to combine genres, then do a search, but when I enter "Comedic Romantic Thriller Based on a True Story," I get the usual "Item not found, check that all words are spelled correctly and try again."

Obviously there isn't yet a genre that adequately mirrors my life, but Netflix is working on it. They care about me.

I've been watching on average seven movies per night. I'm exhausted, I've lost weight, my right eye won't stop twitching. This has nothing to do with the vodka. Last night I watched "Brideshead Revisited," "Brokeback Mountain," "When Harry Met Sally," "Silence of the Lambs," "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Serpico," "Uncle Buck," and was halfway through "Eleven Questions to Ask the Dalai Lama" when I fell asleep at Number Six ("Why aren't Westerners happy?").

A table saw woke me at noon.

As soon as the snow melts, the Asshole nextdoor drags his table saw out onto the patio and proceeds to make furniture for the next six months. He's not even Amish, he's an Asshole. He's also a stay-at-home Attorney. Meanwhile the wife and kids go shopping, obviously not for furniture. I think the sound of the screaming table saw bothers them, to say nothing of the screaming neighbor. The wife should get the stay-at-home a prescription to Netflix-Play-Instantly, which should put him back on the road to enlightenment in no time.




Rumor has it the Dalai Lama doesn't suffer fools gladly, which should put my chances of ever having an audience with him in this lifetime at one in six trillion. Still, I've assembled a list of questions, should I perchance run into him in another lifetime:

1. Can Asshole stay-at-home Attorneys enter the Kingdom of Heaven?
2. That last was a trick question, Dalai, you and I both know there is no Kingdom of Heaven. Right?
3. Can one choose what one wants to be in the next lifetime?
4. Or is the next lifetime a crapshoot like everything in this lifetime has been?
5. How does one go about getting a better job in the next lifetime?
6. How about better hair?
7. Is there a limit to the number of times one can come back as an Asshole?
8. Is pretty much everyone in Chisholm an Asshole?
9. Will I ever speak French?
10. Do BP executives come back as game animals?
11. If that last is true, Dal, I'll join the fucking NRA in the next lifetime. Right?
    

I myself practice the infomercial version of Buddhism, as seen on TV. While shuffling my way along the Noble Eightfold Path, I took a slight detour at the Twofold intersection, and ended up at this sleazy roadhouse near the Canadian border. Being a Westerner by birth, I was looking for a shortcut to enlightenment, who can blame me.

Turns out this roadhouse suits me to a T. I can practice mindfulness by way of staying centered on my barstool for weeks on end, and there's a television to assist in this pursuit. It's a very Now place. In fact, dig the name of the joint: the Present Tense.

My Present Tension has to do with the Asshole next door and his infernal table saw, but in the great scheme of things, it's small potatoes. There are so many other possible scenarios. I could, for instance, be a 90-year-old bald hasbeen with elevated liver enzymes living in a padded cell with an adolescent serial killer whom I'd like to put on a plane to pretty much anywhere. (I wonder what Netflix genre that would be?)

But instead, Play-Instant-Karma notwithstanding, I find myself in this nice out-of-the-way hole-in-the-wall with this nice barstool and this nice television and this nice endless queue of movies to last me until eternity, or until the next lifetime, whichever comes first. All of which makes me wonder what I did in the last lifetime to deserve this. Right?