The Church of Ben Harper

This past Wednesday night, I had the thrill of
seeing Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals for a
2nd time at the Ryman Auditorium. Seeing a show at
the Ryman is an intimate and joyous affair, made
even more so by the beautiful, soulful voice of
BH. Now, I'm no church-goer, as many of my friends
know, but I love seeing shows at the Ryman: the old
wooden pews, the stained glass windows; yes it is
exactly like being in church, because it was once used
as a church. And yes, BH is a very spiritual person,
but not preachy, not overbearing about it.
So while I am not religious nor even a believer, I
am into spirituality and passion, and BH has both.
His voice, his music brings me to tears, it is just
that great of an experience to hear him play.
This was also the first concert I've attended alone,
and I had no anxiety about it whatsoever, which is
a bit of a surprise.
I do wish one thing: I wish I could have heard BH
sing "Beloved One" again. He sang it when I saw
him the first time, and now it is stuck in my head.

an excerpt:
you were meant for me
i believe you were sent to me
from a dream straight into my arms
hold your body close to me
you mean the most to me
we will keep each other safe from harm

my beloved one

Suicide and Mayonnaise

So there are two things on my mind I need to
rant about a bit: suicide and mayonnaise.
Two separate issues of course.

So over the weekend, I found out that a cousin
of mine had shot himself, an apparent suicide.
I was not close to this cousin, we did not grow
up together or anything but it is disturbing to
hear of a suicide in your own family. And this
event has triggered in me two things: one being
that I am obsessing over the word "suicide", it
keeps popping into my head all the time, and two,
it has also triggered some superstitions in me, one
being that death always seems to come in three's
in my family. I can't get my mind off of these two things.

Now, the mayo thing is just something that has
irritated me & made me realize how completely
uneducated our general public is about the nature
of OCD, and specifically, what is/is not OCD. So
today I was at work (1 of my jobs is in a vegetarian
cafe) and I was discussing my OCD with two coworkers.
And both of them immediately were like "oh well I do
this and I do that...", telling me they both had
these little things that bother them, more phobias
in my opinion, but both were convinced they had it
too. Now the thing that one person told me was
that he hates mayonnaise, hates to touch it, has
to wash his hands after touching it. So I thought
to myself, 'So What!!' That's just a dislike or
a preference! HE has NO obsessions or rituals
attached to his dislike of mayo, it does not
interfere in his life in ANY way, yet he thinks
this slight phobia is OCD?? This just proves to me,
once again, that people who do not have OCD,
have no idea what the hell they are talking about.
The ignorance of the public about what is or is
not OCD hurts me, it angers me, it makes me wish
that a person who thinks like that could spend one day
in my head so they could experience this hell firsthand.