Thank you for the music

I believe that books and songs and friends carry us through
the rough patches in life. Alanis Morissette in particular has
been my saviour at times. If my iPod could wear thin in the places
where I have listened to her amazing words over and over again,
it would have. I love her new album and this song resonates with
me in particular.

Incomplete

One day I'll find relief
I'll be arrived
And I'll be friend to my friends who know how to be friends
One day I'll be at peace
I'll be enlightened and I'll be married with children and maybe adopt
One day I will be healed
I will gather my wounds forge the end of tragic comedy

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete

One day my mind will retreat
And I'll know God
And I'll be constantly one with her night dusk and day
One day I'll be secure
Like the women I see on their thirtieth anniversaries

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete

Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous
And torturous
And never done

One day I will speak freely
I'll be less afraid
And measured outside of my poems and lyrics and art
One day I will be faith-filled
I'll be trusting and spacious authentic and grounded and home

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete

on the wrong side of the law?

Yes. this is one of those things which will happen to me at 5 am
on a Monday morning.

Picture it.
Me, en-route to the airport to fetch my mother. I'd woken
up only half hour earlier, so I look like hell.

Suddenly I see the flash of blue lights behind my car. I pull over.
A guy that I can only accurately guess at around 12 years of age
says: 'License, registrrrration.'

I frantically start shaking out all the plastic cards in my wallet.
Then he makes me follow him to a quieter part of the road. Read:
deserted. His police buddy now stumbles out of the car. He has
clearly just woken up.

I finally locate the damn licence with the bad picture and hand it
over. Then the questions start. Where you going? Where you live?
Where you work? You have businesscard? As I dutifully hand over
my business card, the next question makes me see the light.

'You marrrried?'
Ah. I see. I am being hit on by a friggin' 12-year old policeman
at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Then the ridiculous 'Why your car dirty?' Er, that would perhaps
be because we live in the bloody desert with at least one sandstorm
a day during the summer.

'I call you tomorrrrow, I wash your car.'
Me thinking: WHAT THE HELL?

At this point, I'm seriously starting to lose my patience with the law.
My mother's flight has now already landed. He finally hands me back
my license and registration, but not my business card.

Subsequently, the juvenile policeman has now been phoning me
every day since Monday. I have yet to pick up the call. I mean what do
I say: 'If you call me again, I'm phoning the police?'

no 'BLEEP' in this city

Yes, everyone is raving about the much awaited 'BLEEP and
the City: The Movie'. Everyone, that is, except us.

Fortunately the good residents of the UAE will not be exposed
to such filth, since the dreaded word: S E X, is mentioned in the
very title of this movie. Shock! Horror! This simply will not do!

It is after all against the law of this country to have relations outside
of wedlock.

This would be the reason why there are so many gunshot weddings
amongst the expats. A woman will be deported if she is pregnant
and unmarried.

Clearly nobody here believes in the old 'immaculate conception' story.
Sorry for us.

I guess I will now be forced to travel to a more sinful country in order
to compromise my morals and watch this movie.