Karma, continued

Blondish, I think I have a hunch about one of the reasons for my sinus headache.

First, when I am in town, I like to go to Jubilee, a hippie spiritual community/church here in Asheville. It is a fun place and the leader, Howard Hanger, is an amazing and inspirational speaker. It's not churchy, but rather like listening to a TED lecture or something... (okay, maybe not THAT good) they also have a great service outreach program, which I think is cool; for all of their "love and peace, man," they also acknowledge what is going on in the world and actually take steps to make changes.

Sometimes there are crazy interpretive dances, poems or songs that people perform and I think, "Ah, shit, here we go again." But it's amusing and I try not to mock people's art in my mind.

So last Sunday I went to Jubilee and I was in some sort of funk. Freezing rain was coming down and the main message was about trusting... whether the outcome you want happens or not, trusting that all will be okay. I guess I have been trying to think this way about my grad school application, but for some reason I didn't want to hear it.

I think my main distraction, however, was the man who was sitting next to me. Here's a description of him: bald head and that "border hair" that is below the "bowl of bald" was about page-boy length; big square glasses; smelling like a combination of cigarettes and bad breath. 50ish.. Maybe had a fanny pack on, but not certain about that.

I should not be there to judge, and in most cases I wouldn't care what the person next to me looked and smelled like. But this guy was in my personal space.

A little too close, even though our chairs were separated by a little aisle; even though I kept inching away from him and closer to the woman next to me.

A little too loud when singing Desparado (which Howard put into his sermon at various points... We also sang "Three Little Birds" and some Grateful Dead... this isn't really the reason I go there... but the guy swayed and sang as if he were a rasta or Jerry Garcia's little brother, Sigmund). A little too loud laughing at the jokes.

A little too much hand massaging when we were supposed to hold the hands of the person next to us. It grossed me out and I didn't want to be near him.

I was being a bitch.

So I scowled and stayed for most of it, but conviently went to the bathroom during the "greet your neighbor" hug fest.

Then, to easily escape, I stood by the door as the service was ending. I went out into the freezing rain and started to feel my chest and head tighten with congestion. Even the hippie god smites scowling twenty-somethings.