Being Impeccable With One's Word

Check out the book The Four Agreements. It is an exploration of ancient Toltec wisdom to help one live a more actualized life. One of the things it proposes is always doing what one says one is going to do. I SO SUCK AT THAT! I'm big on talk but low on walk, even though I try daily to skew the proportion in the opposite direction. So one of the things I had made a promise to do was blog more frequently. I was being prevented from this by not having internet access at my house and not having a job where internet access would have been readily available. Now that I am on a job again, however, I have the capability of fufilling this promise to myself and so I am going to both do so and try and make up for the lost time.
The truth is that I had attempted several times to work up posts at home in word with the intent of copying and pasting them into blogger. I started a couple, which I have included below, but I apologize that they may be incomplete thoughts.

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING

When did the erosion of human society begin? I don’t really have the time here to analyze the actual progression of events…the point is I’m just sitting in my apartment being pissed off about my neighbors as they blast hip hop bass lines into my cranium. Its 1:40 am. They show no signs of stopping. I’m going to blow a gasket.
Here’s the real crux of the issue: When I moved into this apartment, my first night spent here was interrupted by very loud tejano music and a rowdy party going on next door. Though I repeatedly asked them to turn down the music, they did not, and I spent my first night wide awake. Those neighbors moved out but were quickly replaced by a young couple who spent 98% of their evenings throwing loud parties complete with music, yelling, beer bottle throwing, and barking dogs. This would go on from around 10 or 11 pm every night and continue ALL night until the next morning when I would be getting up for work. I also asked them to stop repeatedly and ultimately had to write a cease and desist letter and inform the landlord of the situation. A few days later they were arrested for firing a weapon and possession of drugs. So now they’re gone and I have new neighbors who are keeping me up. Joy.
So my question is: at what point did it become acceptable in our society to stay up until all hours, yelling, listening to loud music, etc.? I could go and speak to them, but I shouldn’t have to do that. Also, they’re a little scary, and I’m afraid to go bust up their fun. The first time I had an experience like this was when I moved into my first apartment when I was 17. My upstairs neighbor was a frat guy who had parties several times a week. They were so disruptive and I didn’t know what to do, so I called in a noise complaint to the police and they came out to bust up the party. The next morning the guy had keyed my car, and of course I had no way to prove this so I just had to suck it up and keep my mouth shut. I guess it would be different if I didn’t live alone, but as it is, I feel the need to be careful about who I piss off.
My firm belief is that it should be written into every rental agreement, whether it be an apartment or a house or a trailer, whatever: If you are loud enough that your neighbor can hear you and you repeatedly invade their sanctum with your loudness, you should be evicted onto the cold, hard pavement. No exceptions.
Don’t get me wrong, I have an occasional gathering at my home, but I take the necessary steps to ensure I don’t bother my neighbors. First, I make sure the neighbors know that I plan on having people over. By making this precaution I make it easier for them to approach me to tell me to take it down a notch if necessary. Second, I don’t play loud music. It doesn’t need to be at nightclub levels for people to hear it, and music should not be at a level requiring shouting above it to be heard. Last of all, I try to have gatherings on weekend nights and to get everyone out by a reasonable hour.
Okay, so as I type the noise is escalating because a guy and a girl are having an altercation, and she just slapped him…audibly. So at this point I’m definitely not going over there.
Of course, these environments lend themselves to altercations. I wonder sometimes if I’m really just missing out on all the ‘fun’ everyone else seems to be having. I mean, I don’t listen to music until the wee hours, have yelling matches with my friends or boyfriend, or play horseshoes with the trashcan and beer bottles. Yet my life is good and stable and relatively happy, so maybe I’m actually on to something. Quick, alert the friggin media, I’ve discovered the secret to success in life: Don’t act like degenerates and piss off people around you. Go to bed early, live a relatively quiet existence, and if you feel the need to break it down, go to a nightclub or social spot, hell, even a bingo parlor. Above all, keep your home a sanctum. A place of peace and security. Be mindful of others and shut the hell up.
I live in a relatively poor area of town. The houses are a little run down to begin with, but mostly it’s the people who live here that make this area mildly unbearable. Their lives seem so empty and they’ve ceased to care about not tearing the fabric that cloaks the ugly truth of life. They leave trash in the yard, tape up broken windows instead of replacing them, pave yards and chop down trees instead of cultivating them. The streets resemble their souls. My generation is a generation that was raised in environments like this (hey, obviously I wasn’t, but I knew plenty of kids who grew up in shanty houses or trailers with rusting paneling). To them, the lines between acceptable and substandard have moved or blurred. They have no precedence of decency. It’s a tragedy, the tragedy that will ultimately be the downfall of our nation and society.
For fucks sake people, just go to bed! Shut up!

AND

January 6-7, 2006 - My Kingdom for a Cheeseburger – Fasting Days One and Two

7 Days Smoke Free – So far, so good. I am on the second day of my fast and the hunger has not hit me too hard. There have been a few times when I have reached into the refrigerator for my lemonade or into the pantry for my cleanse tea and glimpsed all the food inside and felt my mouth water. I pre-empted this temptation by putting both of my cleansing things right in front, so that I could reach in and grab them and shut the door quickly. This also prevents me from gazing into the pantry or fridge, looking for something to eat, without having the evidence of my fast stare me directly in the face.

Today was not as productive as I would have liked it to be. Both yesterday and today I gave into the temptation of sleeping in (I suspect this is also why thus far the no eating thing has seemed easy as I’ve been asleep). I have managed to clean the kitchen/dishes, do laundry, sweep my bedroom floor, unpack a few boxes from the recently vacated office, make two extra gallons of my lemonade, and make one trip to the grocery store for last minute supplies (that was a tough one). I also scrubbed out my bathtub so that later I can have a nice luxurious soak and spend some quality me time. Other than that have spent a lot of time playing with Mr. Cary who is very happy for all the attention, planted a poinsettia left over from Christmas outside (I doubt it will survive the cold), and read some magazines.

For my last meal on Thursday night, my boyfriend and I had pizza in a cup. If you’ve ever seen the Steve Martin Movie, The Jerk you’ll know what I’m talking about. The Alamo Drafthouse downtown was having a screening of the movie in honor of it’s re-release and were serving this dish, but my honey had to work so we couldn’t make it. So I went and rented the DVD. Now, Pizza in a Cup is a made up dish, but I figured somebody out there had made up a recipe for it and posted it online somewhere. I tried to find a recipe for it online but there were none. Really surprising! I did find one guy who had attempted to make it and he listed his various recipes but he said they were not successful. His ideas were basically pizza sauce/cheese with different kinds of pasta (angel hair and gnocchi). This sounded really wrong to me, so I tried the following:

1 can pizza sauce
8 oz mozzarella cheese, crumbled
1 frozen pizza, cooked and cooled

Combine the pizza sauce and the cheese in a glass casserole dish and bake uncovered at 425 degrees for approx 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly and begins to brown a bit. Cut the pizza into bite size pieces. Assemble the pizza in a cup by layering the pieces with the sauce/cheese mixture in a large paper or Styrofoam cup (the wider the better, think the cups ramen noodles come in). Top with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. Serve immediately, or the pizza crust will get soggy. This serves two people with a little bit left over. You can adjust the amount of cheese you use, but I used a whole brick of mozzarella, and it was too much. I also think you could add regular pizza toppings into the sauce mix when you cook it, or begin with a pizza that already has toppings. To accompany it, we had salad in a cup. To make it a full meal you could also have pretty much any dessert in a cup.
Okay, I have to stop now because this is making me really hungry.

January 8, 2006 – An Ocean in My Belly

8 Days smoke free. My boyfriend, Joshua, asked me about that last night. He says, “8 days smoke free of how many?”
“Ad Infinitum,” I tell him. And then he chuckled at me. I think he doubts my resolve. In fact I know he doubts my resolve. Coming from the perspective of someone who has never smoked, I don’t think he’s in a position to judge. Indeed, I’ve been saying I’ve Quit Smoking for the past six months without it being really true, but I have been trying.

I’ve been a smoker for 10 years and it is such a part of my self-image and personality. I’ve used it as a means for overcoming shyness in crowds and stress when I have no control over the situation. I’m sure non-smokers read these reasons, a few among many, and automatically dismiss them as unworthy reasons to poison one’s body. But smokers will look at these reasons and completely empathize.

Today is the first day I’ve tried the salt water internal bath part of the Master Cleanse. I’m about halfway through a quart of water mixed with 2 teaspoons of sea salt. Needless to say it is not D-lish. I keep imagining that it is chicken noodle soup without the noodles or chicken. Its about the same saltiness. I’m having a really tough time choking it back. Apparently, this is the equivalent of hooking a water hose up to your mouth and letting it run through your body. The salt in the water keeps your body from absorbing the water and instead it just goes straight through. Hmm, we’ll see. I’ll try anything once, usually.

This fast has so far been so different than my last attempt as I haven’t been nearly as hungry. I don’t know if I was just more prepared this time or if its because I’m including the teas (peppermint, Yogi Fasting, and cleansing) which I didn’t use last time. Seven more days to go, and I know I’m going to get sick to death of lemonade. But maybe the salt water thing will get easier.


So a quick update: I still occasionally smoke and I only made it 7 days on the fast (close enough to 10 I say). So, again, I obviously need to work on my impeccability of word.