As I walk to work each morning, I greet

While I sat in the back of a police car...

Whilst I sat in the back of a police car last night with my bare feet numb from the cold, I thought to myself with much more anger than written words can express, "this is what hell must feel like". Trapped, dark, no sound other than my scared heart hitting up against my jacket. He sits in the front seat, "what is your drivers license number?"
I don't know. I have no idea and even if I did, I was so scared that I would never have recalled.
I tell him, "look at me, I am wearing pajamas and no shoes, please officer, I am not with her, I just live here."
"What is your last name? And your first name??
He pulls up my record and I hope that he does not see the one speeding ticket I got last year for going 50 in a 45 zone.
I don't want to go to jail, not like this, not for THIS reason.
I try to practice the breathing practices we do in yoga but nothing helps the numbness and anger I feel the whole time I am sitting back there while i see them talk and "figure out the situation"
there is not much to figure out. serious. I will explain.

About 1:30 am I am asleep.
I hear the biggest crashing sound that I have ever heard in my life. The kind of crash that makes your realize instantly that you are not dreaming and you shoot out of bed and have to see what happened, if anyone is hurt, if the world has finally come to its end.
I run out, no shoes, no jacket, just crazy little Armenian in pajamas running outside.
It's bad.
There is a girl, very belligerently drunk.
There is a Scion perpendicular to the street, damaged beyond recognition, airbags out, car leaking.
She is scared and rambling and I ask her if she is ok.
She is, but that is not how she responds, "Please don't call the police, I'm drunk. My boyfriend is going to kill me. Do you have a phone so I can call him?"
Ok, so I run in to grab my phone and a jacket, knowing this will turn into a long night.
I come back out and the whole neighborhood is standing around watching.
I try to settle her down while the others move the car out of the middle of the street and into a driveway. She is so drunk she falls and cannot repeat the same phone number two times.
"I live right down the street and I have to go tell my boyfriend" she says as she starts stumbling towards her apartment. I grab her purse and her shoes and follow behind, trying to calm her down.
At this celestial moment of me holding her shoes and purse, the police surround us, start asking us questions, ask me if I was driving the car.
I look bewildered, me? Me? you talkin to me? No, I wasn't driving the car!
Unfortunately, that is the same answer that she gives the police so he grabs me and like I have so often seen in terrible police movies, he opens the door the the back of the police car guides my head and says, "get in".
Again, "ME?" REally? ME???

So now we are back to them talking and "figuring out the situation". There is not much to figure. She is drunk. She hit the car and started walking home. Now please let me out.
The younger cop opens the door and says he wants to ask some questions.
Now a little angry, I say, "look officer. This is simply a misunderstanding. I live here and I heard the crash and I came outside. Look at me, I am in my pajamas and have no shoes."

Wait for it....wait for it....

ooooo, so you just live here and came outside and was helping her with HER things??

um, yes, i believe that is what I was alluding to.

They are sorry. Well one of them is. Why didn't you tell us? he asks me.
Well I am just an idiot. Why didn't I tell them that the girl in the pajamas and no shoes who is saying, I live here and came out when i heard a crash, why didn't i tell them that I was not guilty?

The other cop, a lot less sympathetic, looks at me still questioningly and says,"Well, I just don't trust anyone."
I feel bad for him.
I feel bad for the mistrust that he has for people, for all of the horrible things that he deals with on a daily basis, seeing always the vileness of man.

For being a wanderer, I am also a wonderer. I wonder about his life, about the life that this drunk girl will go on to lead, even about the many wrongly accused people in jail who must have so much anger towards the world.

I tell the police that it will make me think twice before I help people out. It shouldn't be like that, but what if next time they take me to jail? No good deed goes unpunished. But then again, how can you be in such a situation and not do everything in your power to help?

I walk back home and see all the neighbors around the house talking. One comes up and says that another reliable neighbor said that they saw me jump out of the driver's seat of the car and run into my house. That I was responsible for the accident. What is wrong with people? How is that story in any way plausible? I was outside the whole time.

This world is a crazy place.
One day at a time.
I wander and I wonder and maybe I should keep more to myself, but then who would have carried her shoes?

So I am thinking about leaving and this thought of stepping out again, of becoming uncomfortable again in my surroundings makes me giddy with excitement. I want to feel the anxiety of travel, to be dirty and exhausted from a long day's trek, to meet people everyday that are completely different than myself and that makes us laugh because we also cannot communicate our differences. I want to be in a place that has thousands of years of history and of spiritual insight. I want change. That beautiful interaction when a foreigner steps onto soil that is so unfamiliar that all she can do is say take in a deep breath and smile, because she has arrived. She has taken one more step in her journey and for that day, all she will do is smile.
Being in such a foreign land, whether it will be Japan or Taiwan, change will be inevitable and that change is what keeps my heart beating. It is as true as it is cheesy. My pulse has slowed down in San Diego because I am so comfortable, but I know that this place is maybe where one day I will be able to settle down. But for now, let me jump and see where I land and I will tell you along the way, how the journey is coming along.

Confused baby Ant

why was the baby ant confused?


Because all of his uncles were ants.

Badabum Pshh.

My New Life Plan

Taiwan.....


stay tuned

Little Things That Can go wrong in life and Did Today

1. I wore a shirt that shows sweat marks on a sunny day. I now carry Niagara Falls with me.
2. My only bobby pin fell into the urinal



3. My friend that I have not seen in two years is coming to SD one month after I leave.
4. My coffee gift card ran out.
5. I realized that I forgot how to speak Spanish.
6. A terribly rude crazy guy made me threaten to call the cops on him.
7. My sinuses are blocking my hearing, making me deafer than I already am. Yes, deafer.
.......

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint- Exupery

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . ."

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.

"On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on that planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.

But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.