When Doves Fly

First of all, I said I wanted to live until the Cubs won the World Series. The suckers are in second place! Does that mean I have until October? They haven't won for two centuries and now, all of sudden, they could win?! But it's early, I know. They have a long way to go. Now, of course, I'm going to have to follow every game. What was I thinking? The minute you say something out loud, everything changes. Like when you tell someone how healthy you are and the next day you get sick. "Oh, I've never had the flu." And SPLAT, you've got the flu. Someone somewhere is laughing very hard. And rooting for the Cubs.

Yesterday I was in yet another yoga class and the teacher told us to turn and face the window. I obeyed and as I glanced out the window onto a beautiful day I saw six doves on a lamp post, sitting there peacefully as doves are wont to do. They looked so calm and serene as I began my tree pose...Until one of the doves started pecking the shit out of another dove. It was awful. Two of them flew away immediately. But the others joined in the peck, taking sides until there were four doves in a horrific fight. And they didn't make a sound as feathers flew all over the street. I wondered if anyone else was seeing this but I couldn't look around because I was trying to maintain my balance pose which was not easy. My focus point was to have been the doves but they were having some kind of gang war and I could not possibly do a balance pose while looking at a feathered version of West Side Story. So I just stood on two legs for the entire asana and watched as all of the birds flew away, except one. And she (he) sat there calmly, as two other doves doves joined her (him). I'm telling you, it is very hard to keep calm on the westside. You do all these things, you meditate, you do acupuncture and you walk out the door and a dog bites your leg. I am not complaining.

Yes I am. And I am ashamed of myself. And I have decided not to even try to be calm. Because what's the point? I think it's much better to be expecting something awful to happen because it's going to! You can count on it. So if you're expecting something horrendous to occur at any moment you can never be disappointed. I'm telling you, this tension is making me much more relaxed.

Now here's a tease...I slept with Bobby D. for an entire year. (And yes, I am Caucasian.) Not every night. But now and then. I lived on the Venice canals when they were cheap and I lived next door to three strange looking women from Appalachia. They made quilts. And whenever Bobby came over he would always point to the bougainvillea and say, "What the fuck is that?" I think I told him fifty thousand times that it was a plant. He was very much a New Yorker.

Go Cubs? What was I thinking?