It’s kind of stupid, but I’m an American Buddhist. It’s an easy transition for people like me who were raised Catholic, bells and smells as they say. Everlasting life, weird mystical practices…it’s in there.  I do miss the weekly cannibalism in a Catholic mass but as God himself said, you can’t have everything.

I’ve found myself in the weirdest places thanks to my Buddhist education; eating with the 8th Arjia Rinpoche, singing preschool songs on the beach with a Vietnamese monk, and going through the tightest security EVER to see the Dalai Lama (twice—still got the ticket stubs!). Buddhism is an education, not a religion so you can safely take what you like and leave the rest. And I do treat it like Alcoholic’s Anonymous where I follow all of the 12 steps and just keep drinking. See, that’s the American part of American Buddhism, something for everyone!

Obviously, I’m not yet enlightened. I eat meat, I freely indulge in vices, my compassion runs a little on the thin side for people who aren’t aesthetically pleasing or republicans…it’s hard to be kind. I waste a lot of time I could be using to find a way to help people. Yesterday I spent a full hour at work looking at what Melania Trump wore on her first foreign trip as first lady. Loved everything but the orange leather skirt.

I was complaining to a monk once that I was lazy. He said “what? you mad because you do nothing? You do a lot when you do nothing! You don’t hurt anything when you do nothing!” Instant relief.

Lately, with the end of civility and the US electing a four year old to lead the free world, I’ve been left with this aching hole in my heart. What do I do? Under this benevolent  facade lies the soul of a very bitter middle aged woman with decent’ish credit who wants to smash the patriarchy so so so bad.

I will not smash. I will spend a lot of time thinking about it, but sometimes it’s great to do nothing.

I was listening to a story about Jared Kushner’s company and how they bought a residential building and combed through all of the old leases to find people who had broken them years before his company even owned the building. They sued those people and won back rent. Hurrah the good guys win again!

What a shitty way to make a living. What a lot of work and heartache for a few bucks. If only Kushner would have done nothing. He probably could have done nothing a lot more and the world would be a better place.