Friday, September 09, 2005

Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day

It's almost Shabbat! It's a nice and cool overcast day. It's like Fall is getting ready to move into the neighborhood. She found a nice house and her offer was accepted, and now she's checking out the neighborhood and finding the nearest cleaners and Chinese restaurant while she waits for escrow to close.

I feel terrible complaining about things that are totally my fault, but I have terrible acid today. And I have known it for days, and while I have eaten some good food for it, I have also eaten terrible food for it, like pineapple and stuff that's hard to digest, and all the time I have known I SHOULD be eating ONLY mild stuff like a kitchari of lentils and rice. This weekend I promise myself I'll eat well. No wine for me, no chocolate, no tomatoes... just boring food that I can handle, so my body calms down. Right now it's a total acid trip thing in my tummy, man. And this is emblematic of my problem staying on task and living consciously.

I also feel terrible complaining about things that are annoyances related to fancy gadgets that most people can't afford, but I can't help it. My car isn't going to be repaired for a few more weeks. I've been in a rental car that doesn't have a cassette player, so I can't use the cassette adapter to listen to my iPod in my car. So I bought an iTrip. And while it may work perfectly in rural America, where there are a few stations, in LA it's impossible to find an empty band on which I can broadcast my iPod to my stereo. Also, this rental car has a sucky antenna, I think. So listening to my iPod in the car is basically a mild form of torture.

This morning I was listening to the new Israelisms podcast. And I was on 87.9. And all of a sudden, I started getting interference from a Spanish-language evangelical broadcast. It only happens in certain areas, but I couldn't hear what Charley and Carol were saying. I figured, "Well, the antenna is in the back of the car, maybe if I put the iPod in the back the signal will get to the antenna better." So I put the iPod on the backseat, and that worked ok until the iPod slid into a different position and then it was all about Dios this and Christo that in the middle of Carol and Charley again. So then I reached back and got the iPod and paused it. Then I noodled around with the radio to find some empty air. I changed the frequency the iTrip broadcasted on, started up the podcast again... all while driving in stop-and-go traffic. You'd think that being rear-ended less than a month ago would make me a careful driver? Forget it! I had to fix this darn thing and listen to the podcast. I can't wait for my car to be fixed so I can go back to hassle-free iPod listening.

Look at my problems. Static and interference and acid tummy... thank God. Perhaps I have a very weak neshama, so God can't trust me with real problems, but thank God I have such problems.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad it was stop and go traffic. I was getting nervous that we would be the cause of an accident although at times we are an accident waiting to happen. But that's another story! Thanks for listening to us even under less than optimal conditions. Carol

lee said...

you are welcome... and i found a relatively good frequency, so it's been better...