For You Know Who,

I hope you have found what you are looking for.

Well I can tell you I really hate writing today. Ok that statement is a little strong but I feel like I have CPS or RSI for generalists. I spent time writing up a paper which incorporated a[book revievw that I wrote and unfortunately said that I was going to node.

People were curious as to the brevity of my day nodes. This is maybe a lack of adequate desire to reflect after a day of reflecting like a mirror also to my extremely hectic life (which limits time noding).

I have really tried to think of a few things that could help.

Good news. I have made some scans of the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and will work on putting them up.

Specifically, they concern the initial journey from the Vermillion River and are of great interest. This of course was after speaking to jaubertmoniker as one of the editors and asking if this was acceptable and of proper content and formatting.

Bad news is that basically the fact is that I really do have this lazy streak a mile long and in fact I have a bad habbit of putting things off. So I will probably be doing most of this work one entry at a time.

Weighing this as a matter of principle of increasing the utility of this database is something that I feel is important and necessary.

Also recently I have started to read a great deal of information about the Balkans and have been impressed at the whole lack of attention and near levels of incredulity that most people had for our involvement in places like Serbia.

I also have been listening to a book on tape of The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan. Now I really hate to have to do this but unfortunately I am getting bogged down in the details of his work, this prevents me from focousing in on the real message which can be interesting. Therefore tapes are the area of choice and the item of chance for this endeavour.

I also have found something really nice a bit of epic Serbian poetry. The Battle of Kosovo is a really nice piece of work and illustrates the problems that the Balkan area has had in their mythology as a perceived wounded person who made a "morally correct choice" about whether to have either an earthly kingdom or a heavenly kingdom. The hero Tsar Lazar basically accepts the heavenly kingdom and with it loss of the battle to the Turks. In the minds of Serbians this makes the ultimately correct choice against people who were his destiny.

I think this meets the expectation that it isn't copyrighted since it was oral tradition and concerns events in July 29, 1389.

Also I have been reading about Art of the Third Reich, dracula, Transylvania, the history of Romania, and Hitler's war aims.

So E2 I think I have spilled my guts about my day and my schemes as much as my hands can take it for now. I bid you adeu for a while.

Memories of Home

The sun was gently setting upon the horizon,
casting pleasing rays of subdued colors across the barn, 
and the sweet scent
          of apple butter 
                    permeated the 
                           crisp evening air...

Then Uncle Jeb got shit drunk and danced naked around the fire again.

Another lonely, sedate night at work.

My vertigo is coming back in slight waves, so I've been taking Klonopin and Antivert to combat it, hence tonight being "sedate."

I'm leisurely eating my way through a package of almond M&M's, and I can't help but wonder why M&M/Mars Incorporated would think that anyone would make such a big deal about something so banal as choosing a new colour to include in future packages of M&M's. I don't mind living in America, but damnit, I get so sick of this mass consumerism shit sometimes. My mind boggles that the average American watches four hours of television each day. Doesn't the average American have anything better, or at least more productive, to do? Apparently not, eh?

While on the subject (?) of ranting, I'm awfully sick of xmms and its little quirks, like not processing playlists correctly. For the past two years, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Sonique for Linux.

Sarah McLachlan's cover of XTC's Dear God is, for lack of a better phrase, wicked pissah. That's how much I like it -- I can say wicked pissah without a hint of melancholy since I lived in Boston for a summer a few years ago and hated every minute of it -- yet I use Boston English to describe something that's really good. Hmm. Perhaps I've had too much Klonopin this evening.

I'm including this bit because I, and I alone, care to do so: this is my one hundredth writeup. Yeah!

On the train coming home tonight I saw one of those little things that make me marvel at Japan. I've been here a long time and sometimes I get pretty weary of the hectic pace and some of the bullshit that you have to put up with, but then sometimes I see something that is so tiny and so normal here and I remember some of the feelings of awe that I had when I first came here.

The train was very crowded (as usual), I mean really crowded, people all pushed up against one another, trying not to breathe on anybody. We stop at a station called Nishiharu and amongst the ten or so people that are trying to squeeze onto the already over capacity train is this guy, maybe 35 years old. Everyone is quietly trying to readjust their position and this guy bumps up against a woman, maybe 21 years old. His bow of apology is almost inperceivable, her silent, non looking bow in response just as tiny. If you didn't know what you were looking at you would attribute their head movements to inertia.

It's nothing big or profound, just two automatic responses from strangers on a train, but I caught a glimpse of it, and it's utter normalness made me smile within.

Stuff I realised today....

  1. My ex girlfriend probably lost all interest in me months before she actually dumped me.
  2. Diagnosis Murder is probably under-rated.
  3. Girls are fucking nuts! Based on my ex girlfriend, my mates ex girlfriend and this other bird I know.
  4. Girls probably like giving head much more then they let on (or is this just wishful thinking?).
  5. Corporations would prefer to employ mechanical robots (nah those other type of robots) then living breathing people with feelings, emotions, ambitions, and lives outside of Omnicorp.
  6. Interview questions like "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" or "what are your weaknesses?" are completely fucking pointless. Mainly because I can't think up a good answer to them. No I haven't got any weaknesses = I look like a smug git / liar. Or I say.....yeah Im lazy, my punctuation is terrible, I don't take responsibility for the many mistakes I make, I usually pilfer all I can carry from the stationary cupboard, I occasionaly bring in a loaded sawn off shotgun just in case the boss pisses me off, the working part of my life is the least important to me, and people usually find it impossible to get along with me.
  7. Beautiful people on Tv or in glossy magazines are probably caked in make-up and shot with soft focus camera lenses.
  8. The only way I'm going to make a decent amount of money in life is by growing waccy baccy.
  9. My criminal record for using the wrong train ticket once upon a time will probably prevent me from all the jobs that I might actually have some interest in.
  10. I'm skinnier then I previously thought
  11. I'm the only person on this planet to get spots the size of Jupiter on his back a couple of days before I have to go swimming.
  12. The fact that I can't stop thinking about my ex girlfriend should not be taken to mean that I love her, and is rather a more general need to have someone in my life who I can love and loves me back (get me a sickbag).
  13. The girl at the gym who is fucking gorgeous probably has a boyfriend already, or is a carpet muncher.
  14. I'll never get botoxed because I enjoy frowning at people too much.
  15. The fact that me and my mate communicate with each other through a variety of film and tv quotes, (mainly from Arnie films) is slightly worrying.
    • C'mon...dont bullshit me = dont lie to me man!
    • Your clothes....give them to me = insert whatever you want given to you where "clothes" is, and say it like Arnie.
    • Did you call moir a dipshit? = insert whatever the person just called you in place of dipshit

......and so on.

Dreams, shadows, magic and sleep.

Mini blinds as blackboards, winds blew chalk dust around the classroom. The laugh of a bell swung as a child skittled by, sketches glowed like gold stars and sweet shop pink hearts as the teacher rubbed them into powder. Pushed into the light of day stuffed animals coalesced on the sampler Grandmother had used to teach one of seven daughters how to cross stitch roses on. Minnie Mouse from a dear friend holds a card for me. Hubby beamed and bragged happily about it the day before:

It's just so me!

    To My Wife on Mother's Day
    When I see you
    being such a
    patient, loving mom,
    I can't help but think...
    *open the card and a heart springs out*
    What a Babe!
    (of course, I always think that.)
    Happy Mother's Day!
    I love you ! ! !
Ha! Twenty two years of marriage and he still thinks I'm a babe. Who could ask for more ? Putting on my prettiest red dress the boys took me to the Blue Willow Restaurant. So proud. Number One Son opens the door to the Camaro and waits. Lunch is a southwestern earthy cuisine on an outdoor patio. The rest room possesses a bathtub filled with dirt. Green fig leaves, juniper berries and cassias join in a cacophony of fragrance. My card from the boys reads:
    When I think about
    how much love and effort
    you put into being a mother,
    I realize I must be
    one of the luckiest sons
    in the world.
    Happy Mother's Day
Number One Son lets me give him a big smoochies on his cheek, Number Two Son shyly shakes his head no and says later. The artsy gift shop catches our fancies with ceiling fan fobs, painted switch plate covers, and sculptured turtles hanging over the edge of a bowl. The pictures on switch plate covers are copies of ones that have done by the likes of Warhol and Van Gogh. One is The Scream. The boys joke about putting that in their bathroom something about smelly green fogs. Pretending not to hear a smirk makes its brief appearance. We settle on one for the kitchen, painted yellows oranges and and greens it will match the colors I want to paint the walls in the near future. We snapped a few pictures out front and headed home. River Road (don't laugh we do have rivers that rage white water rapids out of no where during flash floods then disappear just as suddenly) runs across town east to west and the new section is an undiscovered; a divine drive for now. One can watch the untamed and frozen ocean of coppery desert stretching across to the horizon where mountains seem to roll on a stormy sea. The scene is irresistible and the little deuce coupe has her top down. Playing the Mother's Day card I charmed the boys into listening my favorite radio station 101.9. Other Sir Lancelots on cell phones squire their mom in a rented limo. Raising my white scarf it flutters hot, fractious under the sun bleached and sexy sky. I salute my sister in motherhood in passing. Corny disco plays. We Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh along with Mick and Keith familiar pulse of Miss You. Number One Son grins under his ball cap, shakes his head when Mom and Jagger point and sing :
    What's the matter with you boy?
Motherhood is untamed splendor in a land full of song. At times bone shattering heart breakingly bumpy yet composed as strangely beautiful.

The ice will break on the Santa Cruz river sometime this week. That means that the temperature in Tucson will beak 100ยบ F for the first time this year. What I love most about this big bad city are escapes into the desert to let the heat of day wax red. A banded gecko lay stretched on a warm rock beneath a mesquite as dry breezes rained motes of yellow flowers on him and somehow that makes it seem cooler.

Returning Dad's phone call I accidentally told her I had called for Mother's Day. Coldness and fear grew in the pit of my stomach as dirty gray clouds piled. Memories streaked like dry lightning across the bottom edges of their torn curtains. I love you .... I love you too, she replied.

As a mother I waited for a long time to feel the same violent rage for my sons that she had acted out upon her children and grandchildren; it never came. Only anger and brittle silence when I finally understood. There was a detachment in relations, after all if not me who else would protect my children ?

On the back of the light switch plate cover I wrote Mother's Day 2002, collected on the IOU smoochies a few times from Number Two Son, then around nine PM my heart was breaking so I went to bed early to listen to it happen. In bittersweet silence the Panic Monster arrived.

The only hope of ever being loved the way you want to be loved comes from a mother. This is one of the hard truths of my existence. I have emerged from a dark forest of childhood as a hero.


God promises rest in Christ :
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness And speak kindly to her. Then I will give her her vineyards from there, And the valley of Achor as a door of hope.
Hosea 2:14 (NASB)

Devotion

It was a month and a day ago that I joined the e2 community. Lets say, its been a wild ride. At first, I doubted that I would continue to "play this little game" longer than a week. I soon discovered that it isn't a game, rather its my duty to contribute to the enormous database, known as e2. I know have 45 write-ups, and I feel that I am doing my part. Although, at first several of my write-ups were "Xed" (a.k.a. sent to Node Heaven), I was not discouraged. I also found out that posting lyrics is not the best way to earn xp. When I hit 25 (writeups) my so-called "power-trip" begun. I was just happy to have 10 votes a day to down vote the people who were still at level 1. I soon realized that, I HATED it when I was down voted and it is very discouraging, especially when you have little or no experience. Anyways, I started to use my votes for the better, improving the way e2 prioritizes its better write-ups. Of everything, I would have to say the best thing about e2 is getting one of your write-ups on the "Cool" list. So far, I have four C!'s. That is all of my $0.02.

I apologize for any of the words that I just happened to make up.

I haven't worked a lick all day. I got my Palm m130 today, and I've spent the whole day playing with it. I have a ton of doctor's appointments for Heather to put in the calendar, business meetings, phone numbers, and all of this information I've collected. It's just fun to have another toy. This month has been a total orgy of consumerism, buying Heather the camera, getting the Game Cube, and now the Palm. I'm feeling a overspent emotionally seeing all the money roll out of the house. But I'm loving the Palm.

If playtime wasn't enough one of my best friends Chris has been emailing me all day about his upcoming weekend. He's going to visit a girl, K, he met the last time he visited CMU.

He's been wrestling with his feelings all day. He really likes K, and he's very attracted to her. But he's got a long-time girlfriend, M, who he cares about dearly. It seems like some cruel-trick of the heart to have him feel so strongly about two women at once. And it's some universal condition. You see it everywhere. I reject the notion that when someone is in love they don't fall in love with someone else, like it's some one-person slot, or some semaphore that once locked, can't be used by someone else.

I cheated on a long-term girldfriend once, and I don't ever want to do it again. I was never caught, and the sex was beyond fantastic, but I ended up feeling even more alone and isolated. Amanda was wonderful in many ways, and once in a blue moon I wonder what would have happened if I had broken up with my girlfriend at the time and started dating Amanda officially and not in secret. I felt very strongly about both women, and loved them both, and it was a very low and confusing time. I don't want to be there again.

I have no wisdom to give him. He'll just have to live this moment through himself.

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