Tuesday, July 29, 2008

TUESDAY BIRTHDAY

It is my! Tuesday Birthday. Am killing time until flatmate comes home from Auckland with wine & presents (hopefully). I do plan to have a shower (BIRTHDAY SHOWER!) and do the dishes (BIRTHDAY DI- sigh), but not quite yet.


Three Beautiful Birthday Things:

1. My colleague got flowers from his partner yesterday and I complained that no-one ever bought me flowers. Today the same colleague had a lovely bouquet delivered to my desk.

2. A Serious Businesswoman came into the office to have a 'face-to-face' (normal people call them 'meetings') this afternoon, and she decided to sign up. As she left, she turned around and giggled, "Starting a business is so exciting!"

3. We had a morning tea with a large chocolate cake for me and the other guy in my office whose birthday is also today. This, although nice, was not as heart-warming as the e-cake that was sent to me this morning and which I have saved to my 'personal' folder.

Bonus story: was accosted on the way home by a young man called David, who was training to be a monk. I found this out because he opened the conversation by saying, "Hello, my name's David, and I'm training to be a monk. Have you heard of monks?" I was still walking at this point but my interest was momentarily piqued by the word 'monk' and a momentary interest was, apparently, enough for David The Monk-in-Training (Monk-to-Be? Monkolyte?) to pounce on. I admitted that I had heard of monks. Then I admitted that I had heard of The Soul (David the Monkolyte (Monkprentice? Studonk?) mentioned The Soul several times during his spiel (or our conversation, depending on which way you want to look at it, although it was a fairly one-sided conversation as most of the time all I said was 'mmm') and every time he pronounced the capitals), and then I admitted that I had heard of Krishna. Around this point I began to get more of a picture of what sort of monk David the Monkprentice was training to become - a Hare Krishna one, not, as he said, 'your textbook monk.' Just what your textbook monk is I am not quite sure, but think it looks something like St Francis of Assisi is supposed to.

Then we talked about The Soul ("What do you think of The Soul," asked David the Monkprentice. I said something very pretentious out of spite, which in hindsight was silly because it spurred DtMprentice on - "But what do you think happens to The Soul when you die??" I said I didn't know), and then DtMprentice told me a nice little story about some chap whose name I don't remember but who was 'an administrator, of the kingly class' (makes no sense to me either; one can only assume that a) class structures were very different back then or b) he was an administrator in some spiritual sense of the word or c) processing paperwork prominently produces prodigious power, plus prestige (perplexing)). Anyway this kingly administrator (still not a concept that sits well) was caught in the middle of a war and had family on both sides or something and he was at his wits' end! And so he asked Krishna. The story got a bit fuzzy at this point (suspect DtMprentice hadn't been allowed to make it this far through his spiel before - he got a bit flustered and lost the thread of the story) and I never did find out what Krishna said, but it had something to do with a book that DtMprentice would have liked me to make a donation towards. It sounded interesting, but I had no cash on me.

However despite my inability to donate David the Monkprentice invited me along to their next evening of meditation ("not textbook meditation," he said, "it can get quite loud" (the phrase 'not textbook' is obviously a favourite of DtMprentice's mentor. My view of the soul - sorry, The Soul - was also 'not textbook') and said that I could stay for a lovely vegan dinner afterwards, and that if I was interested there was also a class on interpreting The Book Which I Did Not Buy (not its actual name).

Unfortunately, Krishnafest Evening (its actual name) is on a Sunday night. And on a Sunday night, I have band.

Once again, band is the...the speed bump on my path to enlightenment.

(Better than 'the bunker in my golf course of enlightenment,' which was the original analogy.)

Off for BIRTHDAY SHOWER and BIRTHDAY DISHES!

2 comments:

Andrea Eames said...

HAHAHAHA! Monks.

"Have you heard of monks?" is a weird opening question.

Although perhaps some people haven't heard of Monks?

IT IS ALLY said...

If they hadn't before, they certainly would have by the end of the conversation