the word is paradise!!

That's right, paradise. It comes from two Persian words, pairii (around), and idaeza (a wall), according to Dalrymple:

"The word was brought west by Xenophon, who introduced it into Greek when describing the fabulous garden built by the Persian Emperor Cyrus at Sardis; from the Greek paradeisoi it passed into Latin as paradisum; and hence into Middle English as paradis."

Funny that our vision of Heaven actually derives from an enclosed Persian pleasure garden. Paradise means enclosed by walls, which is not really to my liking. Perhaps that is the reason I don't want to go to heaven. Sounds so boring. God's watching you all the time. Everything's all ordered and good and right. Don't you see? It's all balance. Perfect white is no place to live a life. And you can't see in pitch dark. That's why the blend is so important. A little good, a little bad, a pinch of order, and a handful of chaos. Why strive for perfection when you can strive for life.Live to Learn. Learn to Love, and Love to Live (and all the other permutations).

Hey! Sometimes, you need your cheesy Zen entries. No?

The car needs a steady supply of quarters in order to function. It makes a syrupy cough sound that lets you know to pop another in. There was more to this dream but...

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will monitor the American presidential elections iin November . Think it'll make a difference? Will the people who elected George in the first place (the 9 in black) give a darn what the international org. thinks when it decides the race this time?

I wish I had a video of my gandma dancing.

Keith, I'm doing the naked picture thing too.

what more can a boy ask for?

Today we went for a trip to devil's hole in Niagara Falls. Paul's like, I know where it is, no problem... Paul sat in the back with Matt. I was shotgun, with (e:lilho) driving. We get to the first questionable part...which way Paul?...Paul...PAUL...bPAUL...oh ummm...left.... The choice has unfortunately been made. And it was wrong, and the situation would repeat...4 or 5 times. We went to Niagara Falls...we went to the love canal...everywhere but devil's friggin' hole. Three hours later, we've spent 15 minutes outside of the car. Very fun. I guess the moral is: don't pretend to be no naviga-TOR if you ain't no naviga-tah. WTF?

I am publicly apologizing for the two errors made last night while judgement was somewhere left behind:

To (e:diana): My comments last night were purely jocular in nature. There was no harm intended. My humor gets dumber as the night goes on, and the quips leave my mouth without traversing the terrain of my mind. Though I still think that if you're gonna call me T-bag, I can call you D-licious or Di-uretic, but I won't again.

To becka, sorry for confusing you for Nicole. It's just that just about everytime I see you you're together...lame excuse, but yeah...

and so very adaptable.

I mentioned that the latest novel in my India phase is City of Djinns by William Dalrymple, and because I've heard that my journal entries are too long, I'm just going to post a couple random bits of triivia. All the following words were exported for English use by those great chaps at the British East India Company, but have their origins in a variety of India's languages:

• pyjamas (apparently this is how you spell it in high-falutin' England)
• cummerbund
• veranda
• bungalow
• pundit (how did that get in this list, I wonder?)
• candy
• ghoul
• thug
• [/list]
• And here are some that crossed-over and were used colloquially but didn't survive the journey back to the motherland and thence to us:
• [list]
• goont-from the Hindi meaning pony (don't look a gift goont in the face?)
• shikar-sport(s) (I am constantly amused to hear how Brits say sport instead of sports)
• cheese (as in it's the real cheese)- from the Hindi chiz meaning thing
• chummery-bachelor quarters
• rum-johny- mistress, from the Hindi ramjani meaning dancing girl
• goglet-water bottle