Go with the Flow
Osborne Reynolds, the Ninteenth Century scientist, lived his life in turbulence.
His "number," i.e., the "Reynolds Number," is the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces within a fluid subjected to different fluid velocities.
You don't have to remember that.
At a low Reynolds Number, flows tend to be laminar—sheet-like; alternatively, a high Reynolds number portends for a flow that is turbulent.
You don't have to remember that, either.
Any bonafide turbulence involves intersection of different fluid speeds and directions. The chaos that results can even counter the direction of the flow, creating eddy currents.
That's funny, because my name is Eddie, and I am unable to go with the flow.Like my name, eddy currents churn the flow and increase the risk of cavitation. Not good.
That's what you should remember!
I take blood pressure medications because the eddy currents in my arteries risk cavitation, especially in my brain—relevant because of something that happened to me just this morning.
Right after my morning coffee (which, unfortunately, raised my Reynolds' Number), I was minding my own business, walking the short walk to work. Distance from work, pursposely orchestrated when considering a mortgage, can favorably impact one's Reynolds Number. Mine was short, countering my coffee-induced Reynolds Number increase.
That's when I crossed paths with my ex-wife.
It had been a particularly acrimonious divorce, fraught with bad arithmetic relegating me from the royalty of my castle (as, per Sir Edward Coke in 1604, when he wrote, “Every man’s home is his castle").
She approached. With another man on her arm. They looked good. Even royal. I retreated into my serfdom and my number rose.
"Hey," she offered with a wry smile, "how's it going?" For the record, wry raises the Reynolds Number.
Turbulence ensued.
Cavitation began. And while a cavity in your tooth, among the teeth you gnash, can be filled to make the tooth right, especially the eye tooth I would have willingly given up to never seen her again, cavitation in the brain is not so remediable.
I could have recovered from my stroke, but the fact that if I died, she'd get over it fast, pushed my number to the point where I did just that.
The Baptism of Judas Iscariot
We all reached over to help Jesus into the boat, just as a large wave rocked the vessel.
“Please, Jesus,” Judas pleaded.
The wind calmed.
“Oh you of little faith,” Jesus said.
“Who me?” Judas asked. Jesus didn’t answer. “However did you do that, Master?” Judas asked. “That walking on water.”
“It’s easy, Judas,” Jesus explained.
“How so, Lord?” Judas asked suspiciously. He was calm but still shot a nervous glance here and there for waves.
“Anyone can do it. Even you. It just takes practice. Rocky almost had it.”
“Probably a lot of practice,” said Andrew.
“That is so, Andrew. But if you try it over and over, a thousand and another thousand times, you will do it.”
“A thousand and another thousand?” Andrew asked hopelessly.
“No, really?” exclaimed Judas. “I gotta try this.”
Judas was always so envious of Jesus—wanting to wield his powers to “do things right.” But his envy didn’t wish for the power to teach; or the power to cure; or the power to love; and certainly not the power to forgive.
A Zealot, he was always wishing he could have Jesus-like powers to bring down the Romans. By force—heavenly force.
He was too poisoned in his ambition to bring down the Roman world to realize that heavenly force was an oxymoron. And I think he definitely was cheering for the bad angels in the fight, wanting a piece of the adoration pie himself. And now here was Jesus telling him how to do something that the rest of the world thinks only a Messiah can do, so Judas is on it like stink on shit.
He takes a step overboard, and for just a moment it looks like he may have the knack—but just for a split second, because he immediately starts to wobble, and guess what? That’s right.
“Man overboard!” shouted James.
“No shit, Socrates,” I said. Jesus just stood in the boat, unconcerned.
“Uh, Lord,” stammered Rocky, “Judas can’t swim.”
“Yea,” said Andrew, “shouldn’t we fetch him out really quick?”
“Nah,” answered Jesus, “let him stay down another minute. Consider it his baptism.” We sat impatiently until we couldn’t take it anymore.
“Lord, please!” James shouted. “Save him.”
“He’s already saved,” Jesus said, “if he’s been baptized. If he's renounced Satan and his pomps.” Another moment passed. “What’s the worse thing that can happen?” asked Jesus. “What? He could drown? He could die? And then I’d bring him back to life?”
“Maybe,” I added, “but not without debate. It’d be unpleasant.”
“That he died? Or that he’d come back to life?” asked Rocky innocently.
Jesus, as usual, had a point. How bad could it get with Jesus around? He knew cardiopulmonary resuscitation millennia before EMS. He was cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
“OK, fellas,” Jesus signaled. “Now.”
We hurriedly reached for the spot in the water with oars. We jabbed where the bubbles were, and I can tell you they all weren’t bubbles from his mouth and nose. We worked hard to bring him aboard. Judas grabbed back. Finally, when we had him back on board, we thought that that little episode was over, but then he threw up all over the damn boat.
“Satisfied, Jesus?” I barked. “Now who’s going to clean that up?” When Judas finished all of his coughing and hacking, he got a few words out with the greatest of difficulty.
“I’ll get you for this, Jesus,” he sputtered.
“Gotcha,” Jesus said back, then slumped up against the inside of the boat and puffed up some netting for him to lay his head and was soon asleep.
“Was that just mean, or was that symbolic of some complex theological point?” asked James.
“Mean,” coughed Judas.
“Mean…sort of, I guess,” said Andrew.
“So, Judas, why’d you step out of the boat if you can’t swim?” I asked.
“Let’s just say,” Judas said, “I had faith. More faith than the bunch of ya.”
"A fisherman who can't swim!" scoffed James.
“No, it was all symbolic,” disagreed Rocky, “but I don’t get it.”
“I think it was symbolic of you being a big jerk,” I told Judas. “You can’t just let Jesus be Jesus, doing Jesus things. No, you gotta horn in.”
“Shut up,” scowled Judas. “I might have known you’d take up for Jesus.”
“You obviously don’t like him. Why don’t you quit the club? Why do you keep hanging around him? Why do you keep follow him? Especially into the water? Ass.”
“For the chicks,” answered Judas. Such a Judas thing to say.
Judas didn’t mean that, of course. Not all the way, anyway. He was an unsightly man such that even Jesus couldn’t help him in that department. And he had that gimp right hand. And he had bad breath, too. Hell, I think the only thing holding in the teeth he still had was plaque.
It continued to be a bad boat ride for Judas. As soon as Jesus nodded off, the wind picked up again, as if it was his consciousness which held it at bay. Judas had already been through a lot and wasn’t ready to confront his fears again. The man was shaking from cold and from fear. When the boat began to rock such that we had to grab each other to steady ourselves, Judas leaned over Jesus.
“Master,” he whispered in a panicky tone, “wake up! The waves are rising again.” True to the report, a large waved slapped the boat. “Master!” Judas shouted. “You sleep while we drown. The rest of us can’t just walk away like you. How can you sleep?”
“Sleep,” Jesus muttered with one eye open, the other undecided, “is a gift from God.”
“Master, please,” Judas continued.
Jesus rose begrudgingly and the winds fell. He shot us all a look; he was aggravated. He stepped over the side of the boat, and skipped away on the waves. Judas cursed him, so we all started kicking him. He kicked back ineffectively with his own nasty feet.
One time I asked the Magdaline if she had ever washed Judas’ feet.
“Oh,” she said, “I think I get around to most everybody’s feet in time.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?” she asked.
“Is he a regular guy? You know, does he like women?”
“No, I can’t say that he does.”
“I knew it!” I exclaimed.
“Actually, it’s not like that,” she was quick to explain. “He doesn’t like anybody.”
“Oh.”
So he really wasn’t hanging out for the chicks. No, he was hanging around for a bigger payoff. He really did have faith. He had faith that the new world order was coming with Israel as the new boss. He had faith that the legions of angels would come down and kick Roman ass and take names, and he'd be there to supervise. He had faith that when that happened he’d be on the second to highest tier in the pyramid with the rest of the Apostles. He had faith that one day he’d be a Jew with a Mercedes-Benz, and although that’s a German car, that wouldn’t matter.
Judas is always portrayed as this sympathetic character. “Someone had to turn him in,” I keep hearing. Or, “Jesus knew he would do it, so why did he pick him as an Apostle if he knew it?”
Or even, “Judas is the unlikely hero of the Jesus saga.”
That’s all a big history revisionist pile of crap.
All of us had our unsavory sides. We were all uneducated, illiterate drifter losers and reprobates. Rocky denied Jesus, Thomas doubted him, and Mary Magdalene wouldn’t even smile for him.
But Judas turned him in.
Look, Jesus was heading that way anyway. Annas and Caiaphas were gunning for him; Herod was gunning for him; half the Sanhedrin were just waiting to nab 'im. The course was set. This tide that was the future was out, but it was about to roll back in with a vengeance. Jesus didn’t need Judas—the tsunami was coming with or without him. Judas didn’t change anything. Just got it going a day or two sooner.
Because of Judas, it’s Easter Sunday, not Easter Monday, that’s all, although many places make a 3-day weekend out of it anyway.
So Judas in no way had to turn him in, as turning Jesus in at all was so unnecessary.
But Judas made that choice.
Andrew Lloyd Weber can sing his Jesus Christ Superstar songs about poor old Judas and good ol’ Judas, but if Andrew Lloyd Weber ever had to hang on a cross for even a minute, he’d never forgive the likes of that piece of shit. Did I mention that crucifixion is on my list of things I never want to happen to me? Or going overboard like Judas the Zealot was gonna?
Pressing Engagement
"Mary Claire, please listen to me carefully." He spoke deliberately.
He had her attention. He took her by her hand, pressing it lovingly.
"Yes?" she replied, expectantly.
"I've watched you from afar. I've watched you near. I've been at points between, over and under, to and fro. Here, there, everywhere…and beyond. From every vantage point, you reach into my eyes with only the loveliest of visible grace. When I look at you, I stop in my tracks, for I must not simply see you. I must stare!"
He was still holding her hand lovingly. She could feel the transmission of his adoration through his intertwining fingers.
"Your voice sings to me in a complex melody that harmonizes with the Music of the Spheres. God Almighty, Himself, is involved here. I can hear it. God is Love and you are His love song."
He pressed her hand affectionately, and she felt irradiated in his sentiment.
"Yours is a fragrance that defines my life, my ambitions, my hopes, and my dreams. A scent like yours transcends the most delicious perfumes ever molecularly combined for Woman. I inhale you and become one in your heavenly ambiance — an apotheosis of communion."
Her hand was her concavity to his convexity; the yin to his yang; a softening to his rigidity; and a woman to a man.
"Yours is the taste of ambrosia, distilled by the gods, themselves; such flavor is filtered through decanters of gold, precious stones, and a sieve of the finest cosmic string fabrics left over from Creation. When I taste you, the rest of the world sours, but I take heart, because you cleanse my palate with purity and the sublime. Tasting you is taking Holy Communion!"
Her hand in his — a tandem being, breathing as one: inhaling each other and exhaling the poisons of the world. Mind’s eye gazing into mind’s eye. Believing only a real seeing can consummate.
“When we embrace,” he continued, “I am making love to the Sun! Heaven and Earth stop. The gears of Time itself grind to a halt and space rips in order to bestow and focus the attention a union such as ours deserves.”
She could no longer feel the separateness of her hand from his. She had become one with him, joined at their palms’ lifelines, awaiting the spiritual journey roadmapped within the creases and lines of fortuitous portent.
"It is for all of these sensations and identifications with and within you that I now humbly ask for your lovely hand," he squeezed gently, "in marriage."
"Oh, William," she swooned. "You are my original, my unique, my bespoke partner."
"In the interest of transparency," he added, "all of what I said was written by ChatGPT."
"Oh?” she asked, one lovely eyebrow raised. She paused a moment, then asked, “What about your hand?"
"The hand, my love, was all my idea," he replied.
"Then, yes!"
Euphemisms, Solely for a PG Rating
It's Friday and I'm out of luck
Down and out without a buck
Without a clue, feckless and dumbstruck
It's the thirteenth, so what the hell!
Today I simply I forgot to duck
The trouble coming my way, unstuck
My head's on the floor, rolling amuck
And my body's disembodied, I'm screwed
Smarmy Smorzando
Smarmy Smorzando was a woman to be reckoned with. Her hair was dutifully coiffed daily just so recherché. Her clothes--always--were impeccably, fashionably, admirably haute. She was a bon vivant, vivisecting a ne'er-do-well of derring-do.
She lived an amazing life in ordinary times; an amazing person among the hoi polloi. She was a patrician who pronged, unobstructed and effusively, through the throngs of plebeians. She was condescending with adorers, down-upending with peers, effervescent among the stagnant, evanescent among paparazzi, and viridescent to those she envied.
Smarmy Smorzando was relevant beyond her allotted 15 minutes, influential among influences and discouragers alike, and important among the self-appointed self-important.
She was a perfectionist who refined perfection; an insurrectionist who impressed the impressionistic; a euphamist among the eumorists; an auscultating percussionist striking a beat to a different drum that drummed the heartbeat of an indifference from...
Indifference from the poor, the hungry, the downtrodden, the miserable and suffering, the sick, and the otherwise other-worldly deserving from the underserving.
Smarmy Smorzando had coiff and haute, bling and swag, poise and grace, snide and snark, all wax and no wan, misgivings over giving, and damnation if she did and damnation if she didn't.
She was tall and thin but extended far and wide. She opined widely with her mouth opened widely. Her audience was Gaussian, and she buoyed the center curve highly above the heads of those below it. She got over everyone but could always stoop lower.
Smarmy Smorzando left then laughing when she went but bleeding when she came. The little people so far below her needed her like they needed, so far, a hole in the head, so graciously rendered by her stiletto shoes stepping on their heads to reach her status.
She called her own name as others called her names. She took names as those names took her seriously. But, true to her own name, Smarmy Smorzando followed Gaussian when the time came and merely faded away.
Tomorrow she will be is as famous as Tildon Tessier was yesterday. Remember him? Windows open for raiders and pirates and burglars to steal, but before they get away--and no one in this life ever does--that window closes cruelly and righteously.
A Day in the Eighties...sigh...
Every day in the Eighties, for me, was a lifetime. It was a time when I could still look to touch and smell and hear all of the beautiful world that was still there for anyone still able to see and feel and sniff and actually listen.
Before the great change in the world.
Things today can never be the same as they were back in the Eighties. Today it's as if I've been blinded with cataracts, set afire with pain, unable to smell, and deafened by hearing loss.
Today I turned 90. Oh, to be in my Eighties again.
Sand Castles
"Castles made of sand...
Slip into the sea...
Eventually." — Jimi Hendrix, Axis, Bold as Love
My reputation is built on granite
Solidly planted
One with the planet
Never recanted
Its spires reach to heaven
Its turrets defend my realm
Defying repossession
And refuse the overwhelm
Yet aspirations are wicked
And circulate through pipes
And rise and fall, as liquid
To rot, below, the hype
Granite is not forever
And castles suffer disorder
When acceptance of whatever
Is used for brick and mortar
No castle is perfect
Even one built on stone
We allow the cracks that reflect
To show what we've become
Peanut Butter and Jealousy: 1 Lunchables 13, 1-16
"For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14).
"Some psychiatrists say that people who eat peanut butter sandwiches are lonely...I guess they're right. And when you're really lonely, the peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth." (Clark Gesner, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown)
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have peanut butter, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have jelly, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not trade my lunch, I gain nothing.
4 God is love, but love is jelly. God is omnipotent, but peanut butter is all-sticking.
5 Love is sticky, and it sticks to the roof of your mouth and remains long past the digestion of the jelly.
6 Protein and sugars are the nutrition of love.
7 Love does not delight in tartness but rejoices with the pasty reminders hours later from your teeth. It always sticks, always sweetens, always comes in brown paper bags, and always perseveres as fair barter at lunchtime.
8 Love never fails. But the prophecies they will cease; where the tongues smack and cannot be unstuck; where there is knowledge good and evil, and these are PBJ and broccoli, respectively. Verily, vegetables will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when the alchemy of peanuts and grapes come together, the separateness of them disappears.
11 When I was a child, I ate like a child, I tasted like a child, I digested like a child. When I became a man, I couldn't put the ways of childhood behind me.
12 Yet, now we must watch our waistlines. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: proteins, fats, and starches. But the greatest of these is the love for the sticky and the sweet.
14 And fear not! For there is Jardiance.
15 And the Lord saw that it was good.
16 Like peanut butter and jealousy.
Hanging by Threads
I made my bed and I slept in it.
I insisted on a thread count of 500, at least. And none of that two-ply stuff. I felt I deserved it. I wanted the finer things in life, and I achieved them per every square inch. I slept well. As I slept on, day after day, year after year, and epiphany after epiphany, I self-educated on the important things in life between my nights of respite.
However, I lost thread count over the years.
It happens: the wear-and-tear of living. Nothing lasts. You can only hope to replace the deterioration with something else—perhaps something intangible but invaluable.
It came to be that I willingly shared my bed with another. More wear and tear. But invitation softens the blows. Yet, the thread count continued its attrition. To my shame, she wasn't the only one I had shared my bed with, although she was the one I wanted to keep in it. Alas, the others drove her away. Whether they left on their own or were sent away, they each held a thread as they walked away from me. And she—the one—clutched a handful as she left. The thread count continued to lower.
Each lesson in my life has cost me my threads. Remembering the threads I now miss dearly has become my new self-education.
Each cleansing of the soiling that you allow in your bed continues the threads' disappearing. More like evaporating in a whiff, actually, because they leave an odor when they leave the weave. It can be a malodorous parting gift.
I began my life warm and cozy in luxurious bedding with an extravagant thread count. I lived my life like I had all the threads in the world. And now I recline, toward the end of my life, in the threadbare reality of the mistakes I've made.
My once warm and cozy bed has become cold, stark, and lonely. My thread count days are long over, and I curse those who have woven their own lives comfortably with the threads they've taken from me.
I take inventory on my life by counting the threads I have left. Per square inch. What's left suffices only as a shroud.