No, Really! Ream My Ass Without Lube! I ENJOY It!

No, Really! Ream My Ass Without Lube! I ENJOY It!

Ahh, but let's talk about better things. I just had to justify today's title. Cocksucking bastard sonsabitches.

I had Katie for a day and a half. We watched a lot of MST3K and Fawlty Towers, and went up to Caesar's Creek. Played frisbee for a while by the lake, and walked around some. Well, I walked. She rode on my neck because anything beyond a 12 foot jaunt is apparantly too much for her. I played along this time. THIS time. Next time I'm gonna suggest she spend a day eating box dust in a 105 "heat index".

No, I wouldn't do that to my girl. But next time she's friggin' WALKING.

We had a very nice time, though. And she played along with me on one of my weirder ideas - we drove down a tractor path in the middle of a cornfield looking for a DITCH. I figure hey, why not shake her faith in her father's sanity early on, get the shit out of the way?

The ditch runs into the Little Miami River north of Corwin, a dinky town next to Waynesville. Today it mostly runs through a large cornfield, also passing by the Little Miami Bike Trail (also going through said cornfield at this particular point on its journey alongside the river), large telephone poles marking the place I THINK I was looking for.

I think this field used to be owned by the grandson of the ancestor who came here in 1804 I've talked so much about. I have this guy's obituary. His father - brother of my gggg-grandmother who came here when she was Katie's age, and ended up living and dying on land currently owned by the Indianapolis Airport - built a log cabin that you can see at the Pioneer Village in Caesar Creek State Park. A couple buildings down from the old Quaker meetinghouse that used to be at the cemetery I've been to so many times before, not far from the field. Katie and I saw the Pioneer Village for the first time Saturday as well.

The ditch is named after the family. The tractor trail goes back to it, and a small wooden bridge took us across. A few feet later is the bike trail. Some very old wooden structures - small sheds, apparantly - are falling apart on the other side of the bike trail.

I was really into this shit. Katie was in the back seat making up songs, singing to herself. I think she said something about a corn field. That's my girl, creating in the moment.

The next morning we got up and did something really fucking weird for a Sunday morning. We went to church. Imagine that! Weird thing to do, eh?

I took her to the Quaker church that was so central in the early 1800s, not just for our family, but for Quakers in general. All meetings west of there were set off of that meeting. I've been in there once, for a special service they had three years ago marking their 200th anniversary. But that was a different thing, and they had lectures and stuff. They TALKED.

They don't normally do that, you see.

This is an "unprogrammed" meeting, which is to say there is nothing planned in advance. Anything can happen. Kinda like a good jam at a Dead show.

It lasted 45 minutes. Nothing happened. We sat there. Katie read a couple Dr. Seuss books and passed out on my shoulder. Wanna make your kid nap? Take her to an unprogrammed Quaker meeting.

If somebody feels compelled by "the spirit" to say something, they can. But nobody did. There were 12 adults and 4 kids, and the only one saying anything was a 2-year old, and fuck knows what she was going on about. Speaking in tongues, I guess.

In all seriousness, I found this to be fascinating in a sense. It certainly appeals to my love of the point where profundity and absurdity intersect. I LIVE for that stuff, and it was riding high here.

There IS something profound about it. I like the thought here - as a group, these people sit quietly and allow things to either happen or not happen. They don't worry about whether it will or not. They're pretty realistic, based on the literature I was given. Maybe something good will happen, maybe your kids will fall asleep and you'll end up checking out the redhead a few pews in front of you. They're not trying to force anything, not trying to constrict the moment. They're IN the moment, no matter where it might go.

I think that's not only admirable, it's fucking excellent. Some people think John Cage's 4'33" is a dumb idea. I think it's NEATO. Imagine an extended 45-minute Allman Brothers Live At The Fillmore version of 4'33", and you've got Quaker worship services in a nutshell.

So, with that in mind (let's face it, I'm the first guy in HISTORY to connect Quakers, John Cage, and a really fuckin' kick-ass early 70s live rock album in one paragraph, and for that I am PROUD) there's also something absurd to sitting there for 45 minutes listening to a blabbering 2-year old and crickets. LOTS of crickets outside. They must know where God Has Led Them, because if ya wanna hear the sound of crickets while nothing goes on, you're at the right place here.

I had the sudden insane desire to jump up and yell "What are you people waiting for??? GOD?????? You're gonna be here a long fuckin' time!!!"

But that really isn't what it's about. Reading up on Quaker thought, the thing I appreciate most is their realization that spirituality is a very personal, individual thing, and they are so concerned with that, that they have come to reject all forms, all written creeds, any over-reliance on outside structures. It's about "The Inner Light", and though their non-reliance on set theology means that there is quite a wide-ranging sppectrum of beliefs in their chuches - ranging from the conservative, fundamentalist views I had to suffer through while growing up, to way out to the left end of barely even being recognizable as Christianity in any modern sense at all - they have a nice mix of the individual and the group. The 45 minutes I spent there was as a group. Read up on it, it's pretty cool stuff if you're into religion at all, and while my own leanings are probably farther to the left than any of them are, I felt more comfortable in that place than in any church I've ever been in.

If anything, I felt like I was around people who actually knew a thing or two about the stuff that Jesus guy said, not the shit that confused all that later, invented by others. I rather like Jesus. Seems like an interesting guy, had some cool shit to say. I just don't buy into the shit from the assholes who came later. And I don't feel like "worshipping" as much as I do experiencing.

They're into individual experience. Most Quaker groups value it more even than the Bible itself, which is another thing that makes mondo sense to me but flies in the face of most of what passes for Christianity. Nice book. Nice piece of literature. A few things you can hang your hat on here and there. NOT the only place to go. Shit, I've got my Bill Hicks CDs too, ya know?

Placing value on experience as they do, they're making me interested. I value experience. I've tried to gain a lot more of it, to make up for how LITTLE of it I've had for most of my life. I seek experiences to learn from, to grow from, to attain wisdom by. Experiences that will shape me as a person, and allow me to be a better one. Experiences that bring spiritual fulfillment and calm to my inner being.

Which is why, of course, I need to fuck a teenage girl in the ass.

Don't pretend you didn't see that shit coming.

Love,
Dougie