mixedepisodes

Mrs. Drysdale Would be Canonized Today!

2010-08-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

I got a puppy about six weeks ago. He's a boxer mix, I don't know what he's mixed with....maybe American Statfordshire terrier...or in other words, pitbull. He's cute, there is no doubt about that but he is also a pain in the ass. Sorry, he is. I know I'm not supposed to say that. What I am discovering is that among dog lovers any negative feelings you might have towards your dog' behavior are totally inappropriate and indicate that you are means a borderline psycho and need to have your dog taken away. But I maintain, he's a pain in the ass...cuteness is not enough to compensate for the fact that he is flat out, freaking annoying.

See, I like dogs but I like an orderly house better. I will tolerate clownishness, tom-foolery,whining if I take away the shoe you are chewing or take you to your corner while I try to mop the floor because I know he has feelings too. I realize that some of his behavior like grabbing anything not nailed down and taking it away into the corner to chew on , jumping up on us because he is thrilled to see us, trying to get on the couch, barking etc is normal and though I need to teach him not to, it doesn't mean he is a bad dog, he's a puppy and needs to be taught. But what I will not tolerate is complete disregard for what I am telling him. He will be a big dog and if he is going to live with me, he will listen.

For you see, I am the boss. This is my house. Yes dear puppy, if you are going to live in this house, you will follow the rules. It is non-negotiable. This is not a democracy, I make the rules, I own this house, not you. Hear me puppy.....my kids obey the rules and so will you. It will make things more pleasant me, but even more importantly puppy...it will make things more pleasant for you.

You are probably guessing that the dog is basically disobedient and you would be right. Also, the things I do at the advice of the experts, are not working out real well for me. And no, it is not because I don't do anything right. It is not because I don't spend enough time with him or exercise him or provide him with entertainment. It is because the dog doesn't want to listen to me, he is stubborn and exuberant and he is most indisputably NOT anxious to please me. Despite what all of the dog books say about the dogs number one goal in life is to please their owners, it is quite obvious to me that he doesn't want to please me. Did I get a bad dog then? No, I don't think he is bad at all, I think he is a perfectly normal puppy....on the stubborn side, but perfectly normal. What I think is that this whole idea of puppies dying to please you is a bunch of bunk.....they have their own will just like any living creature. Furthermore, if they were so anxious to please their owners then why are there so many dog trainers and obedience classes?

Which brings me to this...I have been all over the internet trying to find advice about what to do about his behavior. And the advice that I find is always the same. Reward him with treats when he obeys, ignore him when he is bad. Know what is age appropriate for a dog and don't expect him to do the right thing until his brain is fully developed. In other words, when my puppy is biting me so hard that my arm looks like an alligator got hold of it, I am supposed to chuckle indulgently and attempt to distract him with a toy. Which for your information didn't work, he was after flesh and that was it!

Okay. I tried the treat thing. As I already indicated, he was biting me. And I don't mean the puppy mouthing and muzzling. I mean outright freaking biting me. I had little puncture holes all over my hand and my arms and legs were covered in scratches. None of us could sit on our couch or walk across the room my 6 year old was completely freaked out by him..... so I got out my trusty puppy training manual with the usual dog training gibberish (at least this is the conclusion I've come to!) which said to watch him and see when he is About to jump. He will obviously tense up and when he does you simply say no and give him a treat when he obeys. Wellllll....Puppy was definitely standing in the front of the line when they passed out brains. Because guess what happened! He didn't learn not to jump. No not puppy! Instead he learned to get ready to jump, not do it and get a treat.

The combination of not having much success with the dog using these methods coupled with the fact that beginning to think that there is simply a lot of flakiness out there in the dog community makes me hesitant to go to a trainer. I already know what they will probably tell me. Because I have been all over the internet and run into this 'politically correct' stance on dogs and dog training over and over without exception. It seems these people seem to think that you should never discipline your dog for anything. You should simply reward him for good behavior. In this way you will be showing him exactly what behavior you expect and because of his desire to please you, once he learns what to expect he will do it. Puh-leese!

I run into people constantly over and over again and ask them about their dogs over and over again and get the same story. He/she doesn't listen, they have gone to obedience class worked with a trainer etc... Now doggy listens a little better, but at the age of nine months is still biting, jumping, taking owner for a walk instead of owner taking him.....they've done the treats, the clicker training but it hasn't taken. But they know it is their fault, something that they are doing wrong because over and over and over pet owners are told if your dog is misbehaving it is ALWAYS the owner at fault....the dog is NEVER at fault. If you don't believe me go on the internet and look.

Bull!!! Dogs (and not just bull dogs, any dog. Har! Har!) are living beings with wills of their own, not empty vessels waiting to be filled or computers that need to be programmed. They have minds and make decisions and sometimes they don't want to do what we say. No-one is going to tell me that my dog doesn't know when I do or I don't want him to do something. He knows perfectly what I want, at least concerning the things I have been working with him on. He wants to do it or doesn't want to, depending on the scenario, and he's going to try to get his way and that's it. I haven't 'done' something wrong. My dog is acting on his will and doesn't want to listen to me plain and simple. Sorry people, sometimes it is the dog and not the owner. So ha!

That being said, I by no means want to abuse my dog or use punitive behavior but unfortunately, as time goes by I find that I am reacting too harshly to my dog. He doesn't listen to me and when I follow the advice in the manuals and on the computer it doesn't work. But unfortunately, when I finally lost my temper and yelled at him, he listened to me for the first time.

When I finally broke down and lost it with my dog and yelled at him, he was as sweet as could be and tried very hard to please me.((While I in the meantime cried for an hour because I was so ashamed of myself.) And guess what? I don't think he was scared of me after that....I think he just realized that he had pushed me too far. For that is another thing extolled by 'dog people'. Dogs don't understand human behavior, when you yell at them, they don't understand what they have done, all they know is that you are yelling and it scares them. Again, I do think my dog knew why I yelled at him. As indicated by the fact that he sure as hell stopped doing it after that.

So what is my point? My point it that I wish I could find advice about how to train my dog that I feel is sensible. I don't believe in all of the sacred cows of the positive reinforcement camp. I believe that positive reinforcement. I believe that with some dogs, it is all you need. But there are other dogs who don't entirely respond to it. They are the dogs that are more hard-headed and willful. While they certainly don't need to be screamed at, sometimes they are because the owner can't find any practical advice on what to do with them outside of positive reinforcement training.

2009-07-10T11:11:00.001-07:00

Something people have always said about me is that I complicate everything. The other charge, that I believe goes along with the first, is that I can be overly-analytical. And I'll have to admit that it's true. I have never been satisfied with half-answers and things only partially thought through. I've always felt the need to think things through to their conclusion.

Life is full of inconsistencies and disorderliness, conundrums and paradox, opposites that somehow magically end up to be the same thing. And I believe that when one arrives at one simplistic answer to explain everything, that you have closed yourself from the truth. Truth essentially involves balancing things that don't really make much sense. Finding the link in opposition.

And I feel an irritating, nagging need to verbalize these things, though it probably just can't be done. I guess it's like the Tao. It can't be spoken.

After careful consideration, I find that I simply can't agree with my detractors, or whatever they are, that it is wrong to be the way that I am. Yes, I complicate things, sometimes I don't let things rest, I keep gnawing on it until people may be tired of hearing about it.

A writing prompt

2009-05-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot about the process of writing lately. While looking through different websites I have come across what they call, writing prompts. A writing prompt is when someone starts a story for you and you have to finish it. It is supposed to be for people who can't find anything to write about.

I think that most of the ones I have seen are very boring. They do not inspire me at all. I think that I could write much better prompts than the ones that I have seen.

As a matter-of-fact, I thought of one last night. For some reason, I thought of it after reading the following sentence in Thomas Hardy's book, Far From the Madding Crowd. "...he saw a cat inside, going into various arched shapes and fiendish convulsions."

Okay, here is my prompt:

Goody Smith has just laid the dinner on the table. Dogood, Amity, and Purity waited for Papa to come in from his study where he was writing a particulary fiery sermon. After they had all gotten settled, said grace, and were just getting ready to eat, their cat Tib suddenly sprang onto the middle of the table, sat down and began happily and noisily licking it's nether regions. Father looked at it for a moment, his face turning red. Then he swiped it violently from the table and said loudly, "...........

Writing again!

2009-05-07T11:04:00.001-07:00

This is the Eliphante house in Corkwood, Arizona. I would put up a link, but I don't know how. You should check it out! It was built by an artist completely out of whatever object they could find. The way things are going for me, the only way I will probably ever own a house is by doing some thing like this. :"

Well, I'm writing again. I have finally started a novel and I think I'm going about it the right way this time.

Let me regress for a moment. I'm not sure that when I tried to write my tragedy/trinity novel before, that I was actually going about it the wrong way. It was more a lack of knowledge about the writing process that stymied me I think.

I know a few things that I didn't know then. I know that I only want to write children's novels, I'm not interested in writing for adults. If I had known that when I started Tragedy, it would have helped quite a bit.

I now know that it is common to start a novel and get halfway through it and suddenly have everything change inside of your head, necessitating in the entire novel needing to be written over again. And I know that if this happens to you it does not mean you have done something wrong.

I know now, that writing a novel is very difficult (al least for me) and that when it was flowing easily for me, that was a gift and I know that the trick is to keep writing when things are no longer flowing.

I know now that if I keep on going, no matter what, I can eventually get something written. And so that is what I have been doing. (25,000 words baby!) I am not writing on Tragedy, I have started something else. I am having a lot of fun writing it. Something tells me I will get back to Tragedy some day.

Now: I wonder if this happens to other writers? My setting took place in the woods... so I started reading about woods and mountains, plant and animal life, etc... so that I could describe my setting more accurately.

This eventually made me want wolves in my story and there will probably be bears too, so I began focusing more on wolves. Well, this led me to wonder about the evolution of the social behavior of animals and wondering what would happen if generations of animals spent time in human communities; in which ways they would change? So this has led me to animal etnology. (Though I haven't read i yet. It's on my list...my great, big, getting bigger all the time list.)

And of course, thinking of a civilization in which mankind and animals interact peacefully and with respect for one another, has led me to put Native American society and religion on my list.

Somehow out of all of this, I have ended up reading about eco-friendly houses and that is now on my list as well. In my perusal of the internet, I came across the house near Sedona, Arizona called the Eliphante home above, and that has been incorporated into my book...oh! And tree houses! That look like gigantic japanese lanterns!

Another subject on my list, though I don't think I need to read about this, just think about it, is how language would influence a society. For instance, a society that had no word for can't orhas 100 words for beauty but only one of ugly. In other words, what words the society I am imagining right now will or won't have.

There are other leaps and meanderings as well but I won't get into all of those. I'm sure you get the idea. Besides, I want to go back to my story!

I'm having fun and I feel good because I think I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And when I publish my book and make millions of dollars, I have learned so much about tree houses, that I am going to live in one! Maybe I'll live next to Angelina Jolie! (But no pet chimps!)

I plan to put an excerpt up soon, I'm not quite done with it yet.

Ressurecting

2009-04-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

Warning! This is a very silly post! If you choose to read it anyway...you have no-one but yourself to blame.

I am getting ready to write fiction again for the first time in a long time. There are probably not too many people left who read this blog who know that at one time I was writing a story called Tragedy. I was very, very excited about it, probably more excited than I have ever been about anything and was very sad when the story eventually left me. I tried and tried to bring it back and couldn't and it broke my heart.

I think I am ready to try writing again and I hope this time that I don't make the same mistakes I made the last time. First of all, I want to have this one planned out a little better before I officially begin it so I don't lose the thread in the middle. Secondly, my Tragedy story amused me but I didn't really have my whole heart into it.. I did when I started but somehow when I was writing it, it changed and became merely a vehicle for some clever, fun, cerebral sort of writing and I somehow lost the core of it. I don't want to do that with this. You never know I might resurrect Tragedy some day and finish her though she will probably be a short story and I will use this following little segment to base my story upon. I think that probably X is the only friend that I have left that would remember this story. This was my favorite.

NOW, Brian used to be part of a dragon singing quartet. If when you hear this, you are imagining something akin to a barbershop quartet, you couldn't be more wrong. First of all, there is nothing in the world like the singing of a dragon. The voice of a dragon is powerful and disturbing in a way that you simply couldn't understand unless you've heard it. Some would call it hallucinatory. Some might call it wierd but if they think it's weird then they don't really get it.

The dragon pipe is the perfect accompaniment for a dragon. Dragon pipes are a wind instrument as the name suggests, which comes in 16 pieces which can all be put together in different combinations. Depending upon which mouthpiece and which chamber or chambers the dragon adds and how many, a completely different sound can be made. It is the most versatile instrument ever made and humans and others have tried to fashion their own but theirs don't have the same effect. The chambers are too small and they simply can't achieve the same resonance.

Now, the group could have been a huge success but they weren't together long because, I ashamed to say, they fought all the time like children. So they went their separate ways. John took over the family business of raising gourmet steer, oxen etc...bred specifically for the palates of discriminating dragons, as the advertisement said. Perry and Bart began experimenting with a new form of music in which the traditional and new music of all races were mixed. This music became become very famous, you may have heard of it. It is called Dragon fusion. One flew across the ocean and was never heard from again. As for Brian, he took a sabbatical to explore different religions and to dabble in the occult.

But tonight 4 of the 5 members were meeting by prior arrangement (they met once a year, somewhere or another) in a pub frequented by dragons. Due to the fact that Dragons need quite a bit of liquor because of their great sizes( though not as much as you would think, dragons become intoxicated easily!) not all pubs were able to acccomodate them. This pub happened to be near one of the Dragon's lairs, Johns, and kept liquor for him there as a courtesy. It ended up being very lucrative decision on their part, as he was a very good customer! As a matter of fact, the other dragons noticed that John had gotten quite a paunch since they had last seen him, though they were all too polite to mention it.

So there they were, reminiscing about the old days, all the time getting drunker and drunker, merrier and merrier. Having rather loud voices, they were overheard by people and others in the pub who were all drunk as well and they began boisterously encouraging them to perform a few songs. The dragons were reticent and bashful at first but finally agreed to sing just one song.

So while 3 of the dragons, Brian, Perry and Bart, began to sing a plaintive ballad, John flew home to get his dragonpipes. It was a beautiful summer evening with twilight about an hour away. They were feeling very sentimental and once they started, they couldn't stop, it was like old times and it turned into a concert that was talked about for years!

After singing several ballads, accompanied by the dragonpipes which were assembled to sound haunting and flute-like, the dragons rested and and prepared had another drink.

Then John re-assembled the pipes to make a sound that was similar, though more melodic, to that which a foghorn makes. While John played the dragonpipes mournfully, the dragons began singing a sort of martial song. Now, one of the things that is so impressive about a dragon concert is that dragons sometimes fly in intricate patterns while they sing. Dragons are taught these complicated formations from the time that they are young, it is a favorite past-time in their culture and these four dragons were exceptionally good at it as they had a very strong telepathic link. Consider yourself very lucky indeed if you ever get to the opportunity to see dragons fly like this.

So, while John played deep, low, booming notes on his pipes the dragons rose in the air and began arcing gracefully back and forth, criss-crossing each other and crooning while they went. Then as the tempo of the song began to pick up, John began beating his tale against a barrel to provide rhythm and the dragons began to scream in loud agonized voices that seemed to stretch across the sky leaving ragged echoes. Their swooping became larger and grander and faster and then, one by one, they began diving straight down out of the sky into the crowd howling and blazing and wailing eerily and then pulling up at exactly the right moment before they crashed into the people who, as you might imagine, quickly sobered up.

Then the dragons flew off to a distance to let the crowd recover and hummed ominously while John reassembled the dragonpipes. When the crowd had grown hushed and expectant, John began playing his dragonpipes again, making an murky, warbling sound, similar to the sound made by whales underwater. The dragons answered with druidic-like chanting and swooning harmonies and began flying in closer, chanting all the while. This time the dragons flew around and around, always opposite each other so that their voices were coming from all sides and began to scream with ragged emotion, the echoes seeming to wrap around the audience and enter into them.

They were singing as the sun went down and when it was dark they began streaking across the sky, their flames flying behind them. Dragons have a trick of being able to eat certain rocks which change the color of their flames, John had gotten some for them when he went to his cave, so they tore across the sky with Sapphire and and Emerald and Scarlet flames seeming to burst out of them while John's piping grew more and more frenzied.

They were all magnificent, but none so sublime as Brian, for he had seen Trinity and had come undone. He had not only seen her but felt her because he seemed to have some sort of telepathic link to her which normally doesn't happen between human and dragon. And he was singing to her, and for her, he was inspired by her and hoping that she would understand.

When the last echo had faded, the audience paused for a moment and then went wild, yelling and screaming, stomping and throwing their hats in the air. Each and every one of them were to remember this to the end of their days as the most incredible thing that they had ever seen, but none of them were ever able to describe it.

Trinity had noticed Brian as well, he had stood out to her brilliantly. She was deeply moved his songs and felt that she could fall in love with someone who sang like she felt if only he weren't a dragon. So when the concert ended, Brian hungrily caught her eye and Trinity moodily waited for him, waited for him to free himself from the other dragons and the rest of the audience not really knowing what she was waiting for.

And then they began to talk and she knew why she had waited. They talked all night until the sun came up, thus setting the pattern of their affair. They had so much in common! They liked the same books and the same music! They shared the same wicked sense of humor and sense of drama. They both liked to stay up all night, they both found danger romantic and safely dull. They each had a propensity for accidentally setting things on fire when they were mad and that had to be more than just a coincidence. And they could communicate at a level deeper than any words that can be spoken.

Their love was very bittersweet, as their relationship could never be consummated due to their size differences. Theirs became a courtly and satirical sort of love. She called him her troubadour and he called her little dark one. She wove him garlands of flowers to wear around his wrist, (it would have taken her too long to make one big enough for his head) and he brought her pretty trinkets and baubles.He wrote her poetry and she slept curled up inside the circle of his arms. She felt safe for the first time in her life. And most of all, with him she could fly and after that she was never the same!

I would like to point out that I know that at one point in the story, that it sounds like the dragons are farting. I will change that if I ever decided to submit it for publication but for now, as I am rather fond of the image, I will leave it.

Also, something has changed with blogger and I don't know how to manage it and I'm too lazy to figure it out. I don't know how to take these pictures out. When I go into the edit mode instead of getting the computer mumbo jumbo that I can then delete, the actual picture is up there and I don't know how to delete it. So that is not the picture I want, well it was but it's too big. Maybe later on when I feel left-brained (how about never!) I'll come back and see if I can do something with it. Unless anyone wants to tell me how to do it! (Hint! Hint!)

The Hierophant

2009-03-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

How someone reacts to the Hierophant card is very revealing. Traditional tarot decks show the Heirophant to be a pope-like figure giving a benediction to 2 supplicants kneeling at his feet. People who have felt oppressed by the church, who are not in agreement with it or have had bad experiences with it, which is a typical tarot reader, will view this card in a negative way and generally feel it as something repressive.

Because of this, many of the new decks have attempted to expand the image of the Heirophant by changing it to a more shamanic figure. Most people find this image less repelling but I think that working with either of the energies can be productive.

When I work with the traditional pope like image, I find myself thinking more in terms of how I fit into the larger society in terms of my spirituality. This very much limits the meaning of the card but in some instances it is the best interpretation. When someone such as myself, has unorthodox spiritual beliefs, there is often a price to pay. This price can range from having people view you as a little bit kooky to being cut off completely from community with others who view tarot card readers as evil or subversive. When one works with the tarot, coming out with it can be a big decision.

One of the uses of tarot is meditaion. Proper meditation on a tarot card can instruct, improve and help one to clarify where they stand in terms of an archetypal principle--with amazing results I might add. Meditation on the Heirophant can bring up very spooky thoughts for me. I have always related to the witches rather than the witch burners. I have related to the people tortured for heresy rather than the inquisitors. Meditating on this card has helped me to name these fears which is the first step in dealing with them. It has helped me to affirm my beliefs and to to remember why I have these beliefs.

One of the things one needs to be careful about when exploring these thoughts and feelings is that one does not develop an 'us against them' mentality or that one does not become someone who is completely close-minded about anyone who ascribes to more traditional beliefs. We have something that we can learn from anyone. And the spirit can be found anywhere.

When I work with the more shamanic energies something changes. It causes me to use my own spiritual beliefs as the reference point and instructs me to understand how these beliefs have caused me to construct my perceptions and the way I relate to the world on a spiritual level. I find myself searching for places inside of myself and outside of myself where I can find that sense of 'oneness' or connectedness with something larger than myself. Medication on this principle helps me to develop a spirituality that is more personal and meaningful. Meditating on the helps me to deal with woundedness instead of wallowing in it, which as I said is the danger of the other.

Now, on a more metaphysical level--and forgive me if I don't explain this very clearly, it is something that I have a very difficult time articulating--reality itself is somewhat dependent on perception. The dominant viewpoint is the one that determines reality and this world is ruled by linear left-minded people who have imposed their view of reality on everything. Now don't get me wrong! I'm not bitching! I love left brainers because they have brought us modern medicine and built bridges and invented the automobile and my personal favorite--Computers! And our favoring this type of thinking has made these things possible. In other words our leanings have created the present reality that we live in.

This concensual reality is also the realm of the Heirophant. The Heirophant interprets reality and teaches it. Not just religion but reality as well! When your perceptions are not entirely congruent with the acceptable perceptions of reality you may find the Heirophant card to be somewhat oppressing as well. Because unfortunately, less linear and more diffuse thinkers are largely denigrated in the Western world and are thought to be of less value than the lefties. (I'm going to say lefties and righties from now on.) Because of this, they can be left feeling like their perceptions are not valued. They may learn to doubt themselves and to feel a 'stranger in a strange land'.

I'm going to post this without a picture for now. My computer is acting weird today and I don't feel like messing with it anymore.

Changes

2009-02-06T07:05:00.000-08:00

I think I believe in God. I'm not sure. At one time I called what I felt inside of me 'the still small voice'. I talked to people when I was young--remember, I am part of the Bible belt--who told me not to complicate things or try to figure God out--just listen to the still small voice and know that that is God. And so that is what I did. I believed in God and didn't really think much about it.

Then, ( I now realize in retrospect), I became manic and I developed what a psychiatrist would term, hyper-religiosity. I became fascinated with the Bible and with God and anything to do with God. It was like an itch in my brain. I didn't even know what I was looking for but I knew I would know it when I found it. I was frantically reading anything that I could get my hands on.

At this same time, I was taking some science classes as well. I was taking a chemistry class to be exact and I was learning about units of matter and the bonds that hold atoms together. One time my teacher said that if you broke everything down to its smallest components we would find that everything is made of the same basic material, if everything that we were made of was laying on a table we wouldn't know which used to be a person or which was once part of a molecule of oxygen.

This really excited me and I got really 'cosmic' thinking about it all. I thought about all sorts of weird things and was still reading and reading and reading. It was at this time, (Benjiboper) that I read The Tao of Physics which has many concepts in it and is one of my favorite books and tied in with the science classes I was taking.

The author, at one point said that if the nucleus of an atom were made the size of an apple, then the elecrons would be circling the atom at about the circumference of the length of a football field. So, there is a lot of empty space inside of matter. In fact, if you were too take all of the space between things out, we would reduce down to the size of a pencil point. I asked my chemistry teacher about this and he told me that everything we see is actually an illusion, that everything is mostly empty space and what we see is the light reflecting off of the protons, electrons and neutrons as they circle about the nucleus of an atom.

It was at this time that I began to think of God as these forces that held everything together and 'decided' what these atomic components would be. For me God basically became a sort of glorified covalent bond, If it had an intelligence, it was an intelligence beyond anything that we could comprehend, a cold sterile being. Nothing that I could really relate to. Nothing that cared about me or anyone else....just a thing.

Yet I still experienced that still, small voice. I still found myself saying little prayers or feeling that God was with me or feeling guilty when I did something wrong, feeling like God was disappointed in me. Sometimes I could feel my soul like a suppplicant thing wishing for forgiveness and then feeling a cold place when I remembered that the God inside of myself no longer was.

By this time I had reached a point at which I looked at the idea of a God with human characteristics as a sort of societal construct. The reason I was having all of these thoughts and feelings is that these thoughts had basically been built into my psyche at a young age and will sort of always be there no matter what I do. I completely dismissed the idea that God was trying to speak to me and thought of this as apparent 'God issues' I have from growing up in the midwest.

By now, I was reading Carl Jung, who explained my feelings to me like this. He said that we have an area of our psyche that is in touch with the collective unconscious where our God consciousness is located. Basically your experience of God represents some struggle within you as you try to define a relationship with a higher power. How you feel about this and how you respond and move forward has to do with issues that you have. But the reason you have to define God or related to God is because we humans are hard wired for this because other words--we have a still, small voice inside of us.

It's very strange how it all came around full circle. I have much more sophisticated ways of explaining things now, but nothing changed. It was just like the people told me long ago...don't try to figure it out. And I don't any more.

M

2008-12-16T06:51:00.000-08:00

I love to watch old, old movies. Granted they aren't all good and I have to sift through a lot of them to find one that doesn't jar me too much with it's sappiness. Yes some of them are so sappy that I blush when I watch them. But once in awhile, I find a gem. But I'm interested in the past and I love watching to old silent films because I can learn about the past in a non-linear way by watching these films.

I've often heard people say that people were more innocent years ago. I'm not so sure about this as the following might reveal. Quickly, M is a 1931 movie directed by Fritz Lanz. It is about a serial killer who molests children and then kills them. The police are searching for the culprit and suspect that it is a member of a guild of thieves. The thieves, who are being harassed because of this, decide to catch the killer on their own. They do, and they put him on trial themselves. The following monologue is what Hans Beckett or the serial killer says when he finally breaks.

'It's there all the time, driving me out to wander the streets, following me, silently, but I can feel it there! It's myself, pursuing myself! I want to escape, escape from myself! But it's impossible. I can't escape, I have to obey it. I have to run, run, endless streets. I want to escape, to get away! And I'm pursued by ghosts! Ghosts of mothers and of those children......they never leave me. They are always there....always, always, always, except when I do it, when I.....then I can't remember anything! And afterwards I read those posters, and see what I've done.....and I read and read....did I do that? But I can't remember anything about it, but who would believe me? Who knows what it's like to be me? How I'm forced to act...how I must, must....don't want to, must. Don't want to, but must! And then a voice screams! I can't bear it! I can't go on, I can't, I can't!'--The words of Hans Beckett, serial killer, child molester, on trial, from the movie M.

Film makers today sometimes try to capture the visual look of films that were made during this time. But they never do. I'm not sure why. Is it because they can't? Or is it because they don't want to offend the modern eye too much. It's a shame because the older films can be visually fascinating.

Their equipment, which was primitive by our standards, forced them to use contrast in order to create an affect. When well-done, this can create fascinating visual affects. Often back then, actors weren't chosen for their beauty but for their photographic interest.hey used actors that we would not allow to grace our screens today. It seems they deliberately chose very homely people to play villains. I guess they still hadn't gotten over the influence of physiognamy.

It's a strange thing that very ugly face holds the compels the same visual interest as a very beautiful face. The people used in the trial scene were actual convicts and they are a very sinister looking group of volks. Long craggy, twisted faces that catch the light eerily. It's amazing how human beings can create art out of whatever they have at hand. As a matter-of-fact, I would venture to say that this type of film is more artistic than what they can do today.

Another notable thing about this film is that it was used as Nazi propaganda. Peter Lorre who played the serial killer was Jewish. They used his speech as evidence of the Jews tendency to depravity. He had to flee Germany.

Freud, another Jew, was also brought into this. As you might realize, a speech like that was made possible by Sigmund Freud and colleagues. Before the introduction of psychotherapy, people didn't say things like this, they didn't think this way. This was looked upon as a very bad influence on culture. Still is. Blamed on the Jews as well.

Early film is much more interesting than one might think.

This post is a first-draft. Please excuse typos, spelling errors etc....lazy today. Details suck!!

Own Your Power!

2008-10-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

All of the following is from the book, A People's History of the United States, aby Howard Zinn

"The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority.

One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country.

How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals--bred by economic inequity--faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention fro the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the Law by men in executive offices.

But despite all the controls of power and punishment, enticements and concessions, diversions and decoys, operating throughout the history of the country, the Establishment has been unable to keep itself secure from revolt. Every time it looked as if it had succeeded, the very people it thought seduced or subdued, stirred and rose.

To recall this is to remind people of what the Establishment would like them to forget--THE ENORMOUS CAPACITY OF APPARENTLY HELPLESS PEOPLE TO RESIST!" (Boldface mine)

If we stop obeying the system fails.

That will happen, only when all of us are slightly privileged and slightly uneasy begin to see that we are like the guards in the prison uprising at Attica--expendable."

We need to stop working for the government and work for ourselves. We need to accept the fact that our officials are not going to do the right thing and do it ourselves. Oh, don't worry. I know I'm only dreaming but it's too bad that we can't understand that.... We the people are the ones who have the power.......If only we knew it.

ns

Wolves Taking Down a Moose

2008-09-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

OK. I've never blogged about politics before because I'm not sure how well I will do. Especially since I am going to quickly dash this out. What has finally inspired me to take my chances at showing my lack of facility regarding this topic? Sarah Palin. She has me extremely upset and very confused as well. Weird, but she upsets me so much that I am actually having nightmares about her. I can't seem to rid myself of this irrational thought that my nightmares are prophetic since they have this awful, final Apocolyptic tone to them.

As I'm sure you know, Sarah Palin is a fundamentalist Christian. I hate to admit it but I have a prejudice. I'm prejudice against fundamentalist Christians. Me, who prides myself on my lack of prejudice find that I reach my limits of tolerance on this topic. As soon as I know that someone is one, my mind immediately closes and I automatically discount that person. I have to remind myself that I need to respect everyone and I don't know that my reminders do me much good in this instance.

Disclaimer: I wouldn't even post this if I thought that anyone who stops by my blog regularly is a fundamentalist Christian. Because of who reads my blog I don't think I will be offending anyone, but just in case you are religious...I would suggest that you don't read any further. Because I'm 43 years old and no-one is going to change my mind and I don't want to fight. And please understand, I am talking about the extremists here. I have known Fundamentalist Christians with fundamentalist beliefs who are beautiful people.

As some of you know (because I say it over and over) I live in the Bible Belt. I am surrounded by people who are fundamentally (no pun intended) different than me and Okay.....I'm going to say it.....many of them are very ignorant. Some of them are very harsh people and I'm actually afraid of them. Think about it...who would call the end of the world Rapture?

Their focus is on death, I think some of them are excited about the end and wish that it would happen while they are alive. They believe there is going to be a war and I think some of them can't wait for the opportunity to kill non-Christians. WhooHoo! Fire up that shotgun!!

They love to say that the Bible is the only book they need to read and use this as an excuse to not have to learn anything new. Some of them get all their news from the Christian radio station in St. Louis. They completely immerse themselves in their religion and leave the world behind.

The ones from lower socio-economic backgrounds who get away from it are often angry people who feel conflicted and it is my observation that often they wind up as criminals. Or if they don't, they are unimaginative Babbits who seem to ingratiate themselves at any job due to their drone-like mentality. When I worked at the Red Cross, most of the upper management were charismatic Christians.

It is very disturbing to me when someone will not look at things realistically because to do so would make them have to question themselves and their beliefs is in charge. In order to have this mindset you have to live in a very narrow little world and lock part of your soul up in a little dungeon deep inside. And fears and hatreds that are not dealt with fester.

And someone who could possibly become the next President of the United States, who attends a church that is getting ready for the end, has a very real opportunity of being elected. It's unbelievable! I just can't wrap my mind around it. Hopefully the new poll results only reflect a temporary shift and will settle back down later.

How has this happened? I just don't understand? Why do the Democrats always allow themselves to be backed into a corner defending themselves over things as silly as arugula lettuce? I watched Obama last night on Keith Obermann and man.....he'd better do better than that. Hopefully he will rally.

Choosing Patin was a stroke of genius for the Republicans. Fuckers! Now anything the Dems do is wrong. If they say anything about Palin they are anti-feminist. Such sophisry, itboggles the Dems momentarily and before they think of how to respond, it's too late. I imagine them sitting around an hour later saying, "Oh God! Now I know what I should have said!" If it weren't so horrible it would be funny.

If they make fun of Sarah's proletariat background, it only emphasizes their supposed snobbery. The Reps. so know who to play on the lower-middle classes insecurities.

Once again the Reps. have managed to rid the campaign of issues, just like they do at every election and the Dems know that this is going to happen so why can't they think of something to do to combat it? Being reasonable doesn't work with these people, these 'Christians' quickly turn into Romans at the coliseum at every election?

They criticized Obama for becoming such a tabloid topic and now they have gotten one of their own. No matter whether you like her or not, you have to admit she is a good-looking woman. She is on the cover of Vogue with one breast partially exposed. And this is a Christian woman. Proverbs says, "A beautiful woman without discretion is like a gold ring in the snout of a pig." If the Obama campaign mentions this, they are anti-feminist! Arrgh!! No matter what they do the Democrats appear weak...at least to 1/2 the population.

And I guarantee you, they have already decided how they are going to attack Biden during the debates. I hope the Dems are ready and have their plans. She really needs to be discredited. They need another "You sir, are no Kennedy!" moment.

In a debate based on issues and not these pseudo-debates that we see, Biden and Obama would run circles around McCain and especially Palin and this is what the Reps want to avoid and so they are throwing all of this nutty stuff out there and sadly--people are lapping it up and it's unbelievable.

In past years I could understand why some people voted Republican, not that I agreed with them but I could at least fathom their thoughts. But this year I can't, I can't understand it at all. We are already in trouble. I'm not one of those people who thinks that Obama is some kind of King Arthur who is going to rescue us but at the very least he's got to be better than what we have.

Why are Americans so averse to having a thoughtful man in the White House? Why do they find this moose hunting, shoot from the hip style so romantic and appealing? Why do they admire someone who immediately make choices without considering them? Why do they think that your entire ideology must be completely formed without a chink in it and if you change your mind about something you are considered weak? Why? Why? Why?

Why don't people find it frightening how much further that we inch towards an imperial presidency each year? Mavericks!! Peh!! Why would I want someone in office who is so willful that they will do everything their way without a care for what anyone else thinks? I'm sorry...but why is this good?

Of course it's easy to understand how people who have decided to close their minds and shut their eyes to everything around them unless it is in the Bible might find this appealing. But what about the rest of them?

Once I saw a Bumpersticker that said 'My kid kicked your honor students ass!'. That's what Sarah Palin reminds me of.

I wonder what would happen if the Democrats would pause for a moment and look genuinely perplexed rather than defensive. Not anything stagey. Just a fleeting, almost imperceptible expression. And they have to wait until the debates to pull it out. When it's too late to combat it. If they do it slyly enough it might even get past the radar.

For instance, when John McCain's campaign says "Obama did not serve his country but John McCain did." What if Obama tilted his head to one side for a split second, looked off to one side and up in the air for a moment, as though he were genuinely puzzled and said, "By the time I was old enough to sign up, the war was over." in a sort of bemused voice. Or when they said that he was anti-feminism, what if he again looked slightly puzzled and said very politely, "Excuse me? Could you elaborate?" Because they certainly wouldn't be able to elaborate. Maybe I'll e-mail the campaign and tell them! :)

And why do they always say that the media favors the democrats? It's the media that has fussed over Palin so much and made someone who should have been a non-issue, an issue.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Well, I'm sure you do. I would be interested in hearing them.

One last thing. (almost) I read the other day that John McCain has a bad temper and that he can be vengeful. I'm sorry but no-one is going to convince me that his stay in the Hanoi Hilton had no affect on him. That's ridiculous.

Another thing. I said earlier that I was having bad dreams. I also had one that was funny. I dreamt that in order to outdo Obama, McCain juggled during his acceptance speech and at the end of it, had himself shot out of a cannon!

Lastly. Don't you think Typos are hilarious sometimes. Earlier I saw that I had written nightymares when I meant to write nightmare.

Friends!

2008-08-28T10:26:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking about friends a lot lately. I've been asking myself why I have chosen some of the friends I have chosen. I've been asking myself if some of them have ever actually been my friends. Two friends in particular are on my mind. They were people I worked with 2 jobs ago that I have maintained contact with and now that we don't have the job in common, it seems like we have little else in common.

I befriended them because they seemed like lost souls and I am always a sucker for a lost soul having been one myself for so many years. We seemed to respond to things in the same way, especially things related to our job. They felt familiar to me on a very intrinsic level. I had always felt like a fuck-up and they felt like fuck-ups too and we had this in common. This is not a good basis for a friendship. Especially since I no longer feel like a Fuck-up and they still do.

Somehow I gradually took on the role of the confidant to them and they continually came to me for advice. In the beginning I didn't mind listening and being there for them, but as time passed, it became boring and my friends began to feel like burdens. I always felt drained when I was around them. I began to resent them. I wanted to tell them to go get a f***ing shrink and leave me alone.

Yet, I tolerated it because....I don't know why....maybe for several reasons. I suppose one reason was that I didn't want to hurt their feelings because I really did care for them and one of them especially is very vulnerable. And there was a part of me that felt good about being needed because somehow it makes everything that I've been through more bearable. But another reason is that I just plain couldn't figure out how to handle the situation gracefully.

I've always thought that people who turned a cold shoulder to people who are needy were cruel. Yet, I can see that they understood something that I didn't. They understood how hard it is to be in a relationship with some one who always needs something from you and never seems to get enough. Someone who only wants to talk about themselves. Someone who never seems to move on. Someone who is always in a crisis. Someone who has been dealing with the same issue ever since you have known them and never seems to learn anything from their mistakes. It's boring, boring, boring, boring, boring!!! It's draining, it's imposing and you don't mind being there if one day it is going to get better but some people never get better and I think my friends are those kind of people.

Gut Level Honest

I sometimes get this cold, dark thought that there is something intrinsically wrong with my friends, especially one of them that can't be fixed, and that she is a lost causes. And when I have these thoughts I despise myself. And I begin to feel that the way that I like to see myself, as a nice, understanding person, is just a facade. Not only am I just as bad as the people I criticize and call cruel, but I don't even have the character to admit that I feel the way that I do. Instead, I am smug and hypocritical, imagining myself to be above them in behavior when actually I am no better.

What do you do when you get that cold, dark voice inside of you and you realize that it is telling the unsentimental truth, stripped bare. Not the truth tied in a a pretty package with a bow on it....but the raw truth. What do you do with it when it isn't nice and you can no longer tell yourself that you feel differently.

What do you do when acknowledging the truth makes you feel like you have disappointed one of your own standards? What do you do when the truth is ugly and you've seen it and you know you will never be able to go back to not seeing it? What do you do when the truth is not flattering to people that you like? What do you do when you find out that you don't respect the people who you considered your friends?

What set me off and finally pushed me over the edge is that I finally recognized that my friends are very selfish. Simply, I have my own problems and I don't mind listening to you, that's what friends do, but I expect you to reciprocate from time to time and if you don't, you don't feel very much like a friend to me. You feel like a barnacle, a parasite, a tapeworm, a psychic vampire, a hole.

Sometimes when they talk to me I wonder if they even see me at all or if they are just searching for their reflection in my face.

I have often felt more alone when I am with them than when I am actually alone.

I wish they would stop it.

I have decided to stop talking to one of them because she is too rude. I am still willing to be friends with the other because I know she doesn't mean it.

Is having an opinion the same thing as judging. What is the difference? Has something similar ever happened to you? How did you reconcile it?

Dear Demons,

2008-08-18T22:04:00.001-07:00

I've been doing a lot of writing lately, not on my blog but on a forum for beepers. That's BPs or bipolars for all you normies (Yes! that's what they call you!) It is a online peer support group for people with bipolar disorder and it has been so great to finally have people to talk to who know what I feel! Because of this, I have been spending all of my computer time there. So, I thought that as long as I have been writing so much on this forum that I might as well make use of some of what I have written by transferring it here.

On the forum we talk about so many things

I have a wide pick of topics. This time I have decided to talk about this one: the way so many of us feel cut off from people who think that they know what bipolar disorder is but don't.

Now obviously, if you go around blurting out to everyone that you are bipolar, you will be judged and most of us don't do this because we understand that this is what will happen.

But sadly, we are also judged by people who are close to us or who we would like to be close to and this hurts and makes us mad. It hurts just because it does and it makes us mad because it is insulting on so many levels. I hope that this post will illustrate why.

Friends:

I have one friend that seems to think that believing I have bipolar disorder means that I am neurotic and that my real problem is a negative and defeatist attitude. She seems to think that having bipolar disorder is not really all that important and can't be all that bad since I don't have very obvious symptoms. I suspect that she doesn't even believe that I have it. She subtly (she thinks!!) changes the subject if I bring it up at all and I know her well enough to know that it annoys her when I talk about it and that she thinks I'm whining. And honestly, I don't really talk about it all that much. She is no longer my friend.

I have another friend who thinks that I have jumped on the bandwagon. As I'm sure we are all aware, things like ADD, Bipolar Disorder etc...are often incorrectly diagnosed, especially in children. My friend has black and white thinking--because these things are over-diagnosed they don't really exist. He thinks I am naive and have allowed myself to be hood winded by an unethical or stupid doctor. I still love him but I don't talk to him about it anymore.

Unfortunately, his attitude is common. And for the record, contrary to what people seem to think, most of us actually don't want to take medicine and only do so after we have exhausted every other option. Then when we finally give in and take it and are well for the first time in our lives we are criticized.

Don't worry about what my friends think, they are only 2 people? Even if you never tell anyone that you are bipolar you hear these thoughts expressed enough in conversations that you experience the feeling of being judged by people who have no idea that they are judging you. Being prejudiced about mental illness is an acceptable prejudice in our society. This is a reason many don't seek treatment.

DSM-V

The list of symptoms in the DSM-V are very inadequate and this is a shame. Especially since they are usually used in articles intended for the layman to figure out that they may have bipolar disorder. It may well be the only information that people will ever have on the illness because once they look at the list and decide that it doesn't apply to them, they stop searching.

The list is not good. The list doesn't work. The list doesn't tell the whole story. It helps doctors but it doesn't help us. It is dry and clinical and does not even remotely describe all of the manifestations of the disease. It is so vague that someone who is not bipolar can recognize themselves in the description. It is so vague that someone who is Bipolar won't recognize themselves. It doesn't even come near to describing the hell we go through. I wonder how many people go undiagnosed because of this? If I were in charge I would include another list!! But since I am not a member of the AMA I can't change the list. So I have composed a letter instead, addressed to my demons. The real ones and the ones who live only in my head.

Dear Demons,

You seem to have lots of misconceptions about what Bipolar Disorder is and you try to make me feel bad about having it. You try to make me feel weak, you try to make me deny my own reality and you try to make me doubt my senses. So here are some facts, antecdotes and thoughts about Bipolar Disorder. After you read them, you can go back to the hell you came from and where you belong! Whisper to someone else because I'm not listening anymore.

Fact: Bipolar disorder is a disease with a genetic component. Yes, everyone gets down sometimes, many of us have mood swings and everyone feels the whole gamut of emotions that a bipolar person feels. We do not hold the monopoly on feelings. But we have mood swings to the point that it causes major problems in our lives and we have no control over these moods. To compare your moodswings to ours is like comparing a light breeze or even a somewhat severe thunderstorm to a hurricane. Sorry if this sounds elitist. It's just the way it is.

Anecdote: Common behavior of Bipolars--bipolars try to jump out of moving cars. Bipolars throw knives at people. Bipolars scream at people so hard that every muscle in their body is into making the scream louder and they get lesions on their vocal cords. Bipolars marry people they have only known for 3 weeks. Bipolars find it nearly impossible to keep a job, the only time some of us can hold a job is when the employer has decided to give us a break because they feel sorry for us. This feels like shit! Bipolar people try to set themselves on fire. Bipolar people run out of the house in their underwear when the person they are talking to tries to leave. Bipolar people act so bizarre that all their neighbors talk about them and make fun of them and won't have anything to do with them. Bipolar people have rage attacks in public places and are so embarrassed afterwards that they stop going to the place that it happened for over six months and only go back when they can safely assume that whoever was there at the time has stopped working there or won't recognize them anymore. Bipolar people freak out when they are having a conversation with someone and throw their plates of food or their beverages into the face of the person who has annoyed them. Bipolar people have strange things happen to them that makes them wonder if they just had a seizure. I knew a bipolar person who went through a period where they rhymed everything that they said and laughed hysterically at jokes that no-one else understood . Bipolars spend a significant amount of time feeling embarrassed by what they have done and wonder why they keep doing it. I may or may not have done some or all of these things. I'm not telling. I highly doubt that anyone within the range of what we consider normal does these things.

Fact: Bipolars produce higher amounts of cortisol (stress hormone) when under stress. They also have more receptors for these hormones. Both of these combined make them more reactive to stress. As each episode occurs, the neural pathways get more entrenched. After more and more episodes it will take less provocation to have an episode. This is called the kindling effect a term associated with epilepsy in which the more seizures a person has, the more seizure-prone they become. With Bipolars, there will eventually be such an effect on the brain that hardly any thing at all can trigger an attack. This is called rapid cycling and it's bad because basically it means you have brain damage.

Fact: Bipolars though often above average in intelligence, have shrinkage in the frontal cortex of their brains which becomes more marked over time, especially if the disease is not treated. This shrinkage is real but cannot be used as a diagnostic test because you can see this with other diseases as well, schizophrenia being the main one. This shrinkage causes problems with executive function and short-term memory and concentration. This is why they sometimes have trouble consistently performing simple tasks. They are not stupid and often feel mortified because they realize that they appear stupid!! They spend time obsessively taking online IQ tests just to convince themselves that they really aren't stupid.

Fact: When you recieve a stimulus or stressor from the environment, your amygdlia, the part of your brain that controls your emotions, recognizes it as something that it needs to respond to and shunts it to the frontal cortex to evaluate and decide how to respond. If the stressor is percieved as dangerous, the amydlia bypasses the frontal cortex and reacts instantaneously. This is called the fight-or-flight response. The amygdlia is enlarged in a bipolar. There are also differences in the part of the brain that connects the amygdlia to the frontal cortex. Basically, a bipolar has a brain that causes our fight-or-flight mechanism to kick in under very little provocation. We act without thinking based upon whichever distorted emotional signals we are getting from our brains.

Fact: Bipolars also have brain activity similar to people with temporal lobe epilepsy. Actually, it is identical until a certain point at which they split off and form different pathways. This is why Beepers and those with epilepsy share some common traits like developing excessive religiosity, having temper outbursts and having cognitive difficulties during an episode or seizure. Interestingly, anti-seizure medication is used as a mood-stabilizer for Bp's. I take an anti-convulsant..

Fact: Bipolars are typically carb addicts and often develop diabetes later in life. They are presently doing studies on the mitochondria of bp',s. They have found a mitochondrial defect that interferes with the utilization of glucose. This occurs specifically with BP's though not with all of them. They know that there is a connection to bipolar but have not determined what that connection is or how it influences the symptoms that a bipolar has.

Something to think about: The Americans with Disabilities Act protects someone with Bipolar Disorder exactly the same as it does someone who is blind or in a wheelchair. Remember! Americans have a very strong work ethic and don't think anyone should get disability unless they are ready to fall apart. The fact that you can get disability for being bipolar is a clue in itself. I used the Americans with Disabilities Act to negotiate a severance package when I lost my job.

Fact: Bipolars cannot get well by understanding themselves better or by talking about their relationship with their family. It will help them after they have been treated but not before. Herbs, special diets, organic, preservative-free food, exercise routines, meditation, standing on your head, Hail Mary's, rolfing, going to Sedona and standing in the Vortex, being more positive, saying, "I think I Can! I think I can!" None of these things will work. It is very dangerous and unethical as well to try to persuade a BP to get off of their medicine and you could possibly be endangering their life. Tom Cruise has killed people by shooting off his mouth. Google it if you don't believe me.

Historical Anecdote: People with bipolar disorder have been locked up involuntarily for years before medication existed that could help them. Bipolar people have likely been burned at the stake for witches. I hope they really were witches and put a curse on the people who burned them. Bipolar people were euthanized by the Nazis. And before anyone says, yes but these things don't happen anymore think again. Life can still be very dangerous for BP's. People who are Bipolar get the shit beat out of them because of behavior that they can't control In the last couple of years, two people were killed on flights because their bipolar symptoms were misinterpreted. And this surely happens more frequently than we are aware of, especially situations involving police.

Fact: You can't always tell by talking to someone who is bipolar that there is something wrong with them....at least not until they have symptoms. In other words, if you are talking to someone who appears to be perfectly lucid it does not mean that they don't have it. And you shouldn't tell someone that they don't really have it. We are very good at hiding it and you may not know anything is wrong until we have symptoms and often our symptoms make us look like we simply have a rotten or weird personality. Telling us that we don't have it is very presumptuous.

Another face of the beast: There is a bipolar in which the person is mostly hypomanic---all the time!! Hypomanic is the good bipolar! If you have this, there is a good chance that you are rich. They are always cheerful and positive, don't need sleep and can work lots of overtime and still come home and write a novel and run a marathon. They just flip out everyonce in awhile and get weird for awhile. Don't tell a bp that you know someone who is very successful who has iBP as well, therefore they have no excuse for their lack of success. Most of us are not so lucky as to by hypomanic.

Something to ponder: There are unfortuately BP's who act crazy like a fox. They will use this illness to make excuses for themselves. They will not hold themselves accountable for things they have done or things that they are doing. They expect people to take care of them and look the other way when they misbehave. They play the system and allow themselves to be taken care of by others just because they can. They make it bad for those of us who are not like this. They probably have personality disorders. Bipolar Disorder and personality disorders often go hand in hand.

Rule of Ettiquette: If you have known someone who was mentally ill and acted this way, please don't think that we all this way. We don't all have personality disorders! Many of us are quite normal...as a matter of fact we spend so much time trying to figure out why things are happening to us and how we are playing our own part in it that we are often much more insightful than an average person.

Wish List: Please don't treat us like we are being manipulative and shirking our responsibilites when it is hard for us to go on. Most of us think very hard and do a lot of soul-searching any time that we ask for any kind of concession due to our illness. Most of us try any other route before we will finally ask for mercy. Most of us despise ourselves as weak when it gets so bad that we have to ask for help and are hurt very deeply when people don't believe us.

Lastly: If you meet a bipolar person remember that they are very strong or they wouldn't be standing in front of you. We are not weak because we don't handle our emotions well and because we get weepy and feel like we can't get out of bed. We are strong. If we weren't, we would all get guns and blow our brains out!! And no...I am not being sensationalistic.

So that's my little rant. It was very therapeutic for me and hopefully informative and not too boring. I hope no-one thinks that this was directed at them. It was not, it was directed to my demons.

Good-bye demons and oh....Fuck Off!

Diana

The mad ones!!

2008-07-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

Jack Kerouac would have loved me!!

As for my sister, she doesn't quite feel that way. My sister quit smoking and she has found the goddess within her or her inner bitch or something. Not that this is bad, my sister has always been a little too accomodating, she's one of those people that you always wish would stick up for themselves. So I think it's great....(as long as it isn't directed towards me). But alas...she finally informed me that I have been totally manic and I have been getting on her freaking nerves! Oops!!

I still have a lot to learn about being bipolar. From my own perspective, I've always been the way that I am, so it's hard for me to know what is me and what is a symptom of my disease which is a very uncomfortable way to feel, by the way. I have had to deconstruct myself once or twice and I guess I need to do it again, and probably again. But I talked to my doctor about it and he said that, "Yes, what I describe is indeed manic behavior." He introduced me to a new term called rapid cycling, which is apparently what I've been doing. And no, I don't mean I've been entering bike races..I mean that I experience symptoms that are less severe than a classic BP but occur much more often.

So, lets see. I've gotten interested in Belly dancing and dropped that. Started writing and dropped it. Started embroidery...even decided I would sell things that I made, I was even going to open a shop...pretty fantastic for someone who was only working on their first piece, huh! I thought that my brilliant creativity would make up for my lack of know how. People would be so dazzled by my wonderful designs you see, I even thought about whether or not I would need to hire people after my shop got started and how I would keep the books!

I've decided to be a sign language interpreter, a courtroom reporter, a nurse, become a licenced daycare provider....that was another great one. I spent hours online. I made up curriculums, I checked into insurance, I had a kit sent to me about how to be licensed, I planned menus....And this all took place in a bout 5 days. Then I came down and realized like I have over and over again, that what you are looking at is utterly ridiculous, I don't live in the right kind of home bo have a daycare. Besides, I couldn't deal with that many kids. Everytime this happens, it always leaves me wondering why I did it......again.....even though I know I've already done it a Thousand times, every time is like the first time because I'm so happy.

Even if my ideas would stick around long enough for me to actually accomplish anything, I am not organized enough to do it anyway. I was going to write a novel, wrote out plots, synopsis, started developing my characters, then it seemed like it all got so complicated that I ccouldn't cut it down to size and do anything with it. It's just sort of floated up there in my head, amorphous, waiting for me to do something with it and I couldn't because I was too scattered.

I've tried learning Spanish I have pages of vocabulary lists. I have became totally immersed in Wiccan. That lasted for about about 3 weeks but in the meantime, I bought candles, incense, crystals, started growing herbs. Gosh...lets see...what else....I've decided to become a therapist and a gerontologist. I've also began studying literature from the turn of the century, became interested in the medicinal use of herbs and blah blah blah

People who don't know me well find my enthusiasms infectious and my dis-ingenuousness refreshing and charming. Those who live with me at best view me with bemusement, at worst find me annoying. And lets face it. I am annoying.

I'll be totally fired up about something, reading everything that I can get my hands on, buying supplies for my new 'hobby' or interest, going to the library walking around with this beatific, grin on my face and a glazed look in my eyes because I stayed up until 3am. Then, it's like I have the flu. I feel like crap! It's hard for me to get out of bed. Everything tastes awful. My head hurts etc...etc.. I can't even hardly think, it feels like wasps are in my head.

Every once in awhile I amuse myself by going through my old notebooks, I have about 15 and I'm always finding new ones in the basement or somewhere. Sometimes I find them in very odd places, like with my cookbooks or something. It seems that every time I get manic, I buy a notebook to write down my ideas. During these phases, I just love the way that notebook looks, so filled with promise. It always feels like I am finally ready to start something like I am on a new road that is leading in the right direction and then I get sick and it gets thrown to the side.

So, I go through my notebooks once in awhile with mixed feelings of awe, amusement, and horror because sometimes I don't even remember writing it, it seems like I am reading something one of my ancestors wrote instead of something that I wrote.

Here is an excerpt from a notebook that I found the other night, though I have edited it somewhat because otherwise it is too hard to make sense of

Ahem!! "Is our mind the same as the Medieval one? I mean in terms of structure, of areas of the brain developed by use, of synaptic pathways worn into the brain by habit of thought. I would speculate that our brains are much different.

In a society without the distractions that we have, without televisions or computers or...indeed without most people even being able to read, they would have been much more concrete than us, much more connected to REALITY.

Death, birth and the brutality of nature were woven into the dailiness of life. You have a very concrete mind connected to nature and the cycles of life and death but without the ability to communicate abstractly. A mind that could only speak through symbols and symbology of the deeper more abstract things.

Being illiterate would create a vocabulary with less words but more nuance in each word, more meanings and uses. Being surrounded by people no better off than you the ability to verbalize abstract thoughts would be limited and would only be expressed in the concrete fashion from the limited vocabulary that you had available to you. "

I wrote this during my Wiccan 'kick'. I'm not sure why I wrote it, I think that I was speculating on why the pre-modern mind would have been more in touch with the inviisible world than ours is. It's so cool but so pretentious somehow, it's sort of embarassing. I was really off and running on this one. I bookmarked about 70 websites. I actually wrote out a curriculum, I saw it in the notebook.

It makes me sad when I read these things. If I was reading some of the things I wrote, only someone else besides me wrote it. I would think that the person writing these things was so cool or wierd, I'm not sure. Except it's me. It's like I get lost over and over, then I come up for awhile and get lost again. Sometimes I think I could be even be half-way brilliant if I wasn't like this and it makes me sad.

I had a dream that I was walking across a frozen lake and there was someone trapped under the ice and I looked to see who it was and it was me. It's hard to deal with. I burst into tears last night and I'm not even sure why. I picked up my cat and hugged him while I was crying and he was very shocked. He kept twisting his hear around and staring at me with a bewildered look on his face. Then he immediately gave himself a bath after I let him go. Then I thought that was so funny that I started laughing like a goon or maybe a water loon.

But actually, I think I'm better than I've been in a long time because I'm finally back on earth. I don't think that my feelings are feelings of depression, it is genuine grieving. Which is nothing to worry about real feelings not induced by randomly firing neurons are always welcome by me, I love feeling like I'm all in one piece whether it's good or bad.

Otis Wierdmeyer

2008-06-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

Something very creepy happened to me the other day. I was cleaning off a high shelf and I found a plastic bag. I opened it up and found Otis Spunkmeyer Blueberry Muffins in it. The package was open, it was a package of three and there were still 2 left. I think my husband stashed it up there. He takes snacks to work and probably put it up there so we wouldn't find it and eat it.

I checked the date on the receipt to see how new they were so I would know whether or not to throw them away. The receipt said they were bought in March. Suddenly it occurred to me that if the muffins were purchased in March, it shouldn't have even occurred to me to check them. They should have been green and moldy and dried up, right?

So, I looked more closely at them and they had no mold on them and they were just a little dried out on the top. It's a good thing I checked the receipt before I examined them, because if I would have looked at them first, I might have thought they were good enough to eat. Then, I decided to taste them....just kidding.

I asked my husband about them, thinking that maybe he had just opened them, but he didn't even remember buying them so I'm sure they were opened in March. So, Otis Spunkmeyer Muffins apparently have so many preservatives in them that you could used them to embalm a corpse. Time to learn to bake, huh?

sheepish apologies

2008-06-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for quite awhile and I'm not even sure why. Do you know what I suspect it is though? I think that when I was working, even though I was so busy, my life felt empty...I didn't get time with my kids...I worked evening shift...I didn't hardly see my older daughter at all. I think the blog filled some sort of void in my life.

Now I'm happier and the urge that I used to have to write is gone. But I don't want to quit blogging......or maybe what I should say is that I don't want to lose contact with people. Isn't it strange how people you meet on the internet seem just as real as friends that you have in 'real-life'? Anyway, even though I don't feel a void in my life from not writing, I would feel a void if I lost contact with my friends so I'm going to start blogging again, though I don't know if my blog is going to be very inspired or interestin. Who knows? Maybe I start blogging again, it'll all come back to me. And I'm sorry that I just disappeared without a word. That was rude of me.

Tarot: Mundane or Magical?

2008-05-05T08:02:00.001-07:00

When I got my first Tarot deck twenty years ago, I dutifully read through the history of the deck in the front of the book but it didn't interest me and I soon tossed it aside, more intent into getting to the cards themselves. My mistake, the history is one of the most interesting things about it, truly as interesting as the cards themselves.

There are two different levels to it, one that can be backed up by fact and the other that, as far as can be proved always veers into mythology in the end. Though many people feel that the Tarot has 'magical' origins, they have always been frustrated in their attempts to find any proof of this. Yet they insist that it it does despite any solid proof and despite appearing ridiculous. Hopefully, this post will help show you why they feel the way they feel and why they may not be as silly as they sound.

As far as any records show, the first time that the Tarot deck was actually associated with the occult was in the 18th century. A man named Antoine Court de Gebelin, who would probably not be remembered today if it weren't for his connection with Tarot, was writing a series of nine books called Le Monde Primitif when he saw a Tarot deck at the home of a friend. Upon seeing it he became convinced that it contained hidden occult knowledge from ancient Egypt. And though he only devoted one page to the Tarot, his little mention of it is where modern thoughts on Tarot begin.

He called it the "Book of Thoth." (Thoth is the Egyptian God of Magic and information) and claimed that it contained the entirety of Ancient Egyptian Magic in symbolic form. It was during this same time period that the cards were linked to the Kabbalah, an ancient Jewish Mystical system, which some say goes back all the way to Moses in Egypt--which is where the link between Egypt and Kaballah come in--in case you were wondering.

The 22 major arcana cards (The Food, etc..) are thought to represent the 22 paths on the tree of life--also the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The 10 cards in each suit--Ace through 10--represent the ten Sephiroth or stages of emanation. The four suits, Swords, water, Earth and Air represent the 4 layers of existence. Though this could arguably be coincidental there are Kabbalistic symbols used throughout and not only that, but they seem to correspond in a logical order with the teachings of the Kabballah.

Besides the Kaballah, the Tarot has at one time or another, been linked with just about every form of mysticism, magic and system of esoteric knowledge that exists. As Rachel Pollack says in her book, Forest of Souls,

"The Tarot depicts the sacred myths of the Romany (or Gypsies), disguised in cards for the centuries of exile from the Rom homeland in India--or Egypt--or outer space. The Tarot is a Renaissance card game inspired by annual carnival processions called triumphs. The Tarot is a card game derived from annual processions called thriambs, in honor of the God Dionysus, the creator of wine. The Tarot conceals/reveals the secret number teachings of Pythagoras, a Greek mystic who lived at the time of Moses, and who influenced Plato. the Tarot depicts the secret oral teaching of Moses, who received them directly from God. The Tarot contains the lost knowledge of Atlantis, a drowned continent first described by Plato. the Tarot is a card game imported from Palestine and Egypt during the Crusades. the Tarot is a vast memory system for the Tree of Life, a diagram of the laws of creation. The Tarot hides in plain sight the wisdom of the Egyptian God Thoth, master of all knowledge. the Tarot shows Egyptian temple initiations. The Tarot shows Tantric temple initiations. The Tarot preserves the wisdom of Goddess-initiated witches during the long, dark centuries of patriarchal religion. The Tarot maps the patterns of the Moon in Chaldean astrology. the Tarot was created by papermaker guilds who were the last remnants of the Cathars, Christian heretics brutally suppressed by the Church of Rome.
All of the above, and more, Tarot writers have proclaimed as the one true, authentic origin of Tarot."

When you actually study the cards, it is hard to believe that they just happened on accident. The belief that these cards had some sort of mysterious, origin was solidified by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was a magical order of the late 19th/early 20th century and was the biggest influence on modern western occultism today. Aleister Crowley was a member and so was the poet Yeats.

Whatever you may think of magic or the occult, the people who were members of The Golden Dawn were hardly ignorant people. The society was full of professional men and women some of whom were highly educated and could read ancient texts in their original languages. Though as I said, the first referenc to the Tarot being of esoteric origin was in the 1700's, they were able to look at older documents to verify the validity of this claim and...though I'll have to take their word for it as I can't read them myself....it all checked out.

Yet, anyone who has ever tried to trace the origin of the cards has found only mundane beginnings. They were used to play a card game, similar to bridge...that's it. At the time that they were made, a large part of the population was illiterate and pictorial representations were commonly used to communicate with them. Separately, the cards are no different than any other things being drawn back then, their symbolism was well-used and understood by the contemporaries.

The way it stands now, it is doubtful that we will ever know the answer to the answer to the origin of the cards. What if we found out that there was no mysterious origin, that they were simply playing cards that some deluded people thought that they saw signs in and caused other deluded people to follow them until now we have a mass delusion? Maybe it would be better to keep it like this and not ever know...the mystery adds to the cards--and at any rate--they are still very cool!

R rollls

2008-03-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

Were you aware that not everyone can roll their R's? My sister can't, my daughter, one of my nieces and my nephew can't. My other niece can. As for myself--I can roll my r's like there is no tomorrow.

I am very proud of my R rolling ability. I can hold my roll for 16 beats. I can r roll at the beginning, middle and end of a word. I can roll up and down 2 octaves. I'm an exceptional r roller.

So, it was much to my chagrin that I found out that my r rolling would not be appreciated by the Spanish speaking community. Not only would it not be appreciated but I was in danger of making a complete ass out of myself if I rolled at the wrong time. I have to tell you, I was mortified as all the times I had so proudly r rolled went through my mind. I saw it all in a new light, realizing that what I thought were looks of wonder on the faces of people I had so proudly r rolled in front of were probably actually attempts not to laugh.

It is acceptable to roll at the beginning of a word, but not in the middle or the end. You can occasionally roll in the middle if the word has 2 rs. Even if you roll at the beginning, you risk sounding affected and artificial. There are many rules that I was not aware of, to numerous to recount.

So, I've given up r rolling. I can't remember the rules and I don't want anyone to laugh at me, but I feel like something beautiful has ended. Once again, my special talents go unappreciated. What can I do? Do you have any suggestions?

New Direction

2008-03-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

Guys, I've been dissatisfied with my blog for some time. I like writing it but I don't have a lot of time for the kind of posts I set myself up to do. Then I end up feeling like I've got a homework asignment to finish or something. I'll feel it hanging over my head until, finally I'll slap it together just to get it done and the posts won't be as good as I really wanted to do. It I took the time to make them as good as I want, I would only be posting once a month or something.

I've actually thought of just discontinuing the blog but I can't, it's too much a part of my life. So, what I'm going to do is just make shorter posts that are hopefully fun but won't take so long to write. I will however, do the ESL stuff like I said that I would but don't be surprised if it takes me 6 months.

ESL: Preface

2008-02-25T22:19:00.000-08:00

So I've been reading about East Saint Louis. I have one book at home, another I've requested from the library and I've been looking on the internet. There's so much material, so many little tangents to follow, more than I even realized when I decided to start exploring.

I've also been surprised, given the complexity of the problems the city has faced, to find that there is a lack of information about exactly what has happened in the city during a certain time period in the 1980's while Carl Officer was Mayor. Some of it has to do with the fact that it happened before the internet, But sometimes I think it's more than that. Sometimes I think that there is some sort of collusion not to talk in detail about these things, but why?

First, I suspect that some of it has to do with a 'code of ethics' that keeps a lot of journalists who might have some interest in the city from a humanistic standpoint from digging it up, perhaps out of a sense of decency. The city already has a horrible reputation, why besmirch it further by focusing on everything that's gone wrong? It wouldn't help anything, it might make things worse.

Another factor that I'm sure is in place making it difficult to find out certain things is because no-one involved will talk about it. They don't want anyone meddling. ESL has a lot of municipalities and a lot of people in politics and everyone is interconnected and they cover each others butts, I'm sure that the old 'conspiracy of silence' thing is going on here. The politics of ESL have been compared to Mayor Daley's machine if that tells you anything.

Sadly, I suspect that another reason for this vacuum of information simply has to do with the fact that a lot of people really don't care, as long as ESL problems remain contained within ESL, they will look the other way. Most local people will tell you that it is their own damn fault anyway. (A partial myth that I intend to dispel, it's certainly much more complicated than that!)

A lot of things about ESL intrigue me. This may sound strange, but I love the way the city looks. It's not a beautiful city, instead it's surreal, it has this crazy post-apocalyptic appearance. I've heard that there is not another city like it in the US. The city looks just like it did when my mom was growing up there, 60 years ago. Little has changed or been repaired in many cases. When I go there I get this odd feeling that the people and the cars and anything modern have been super-imposed on the city, that we are somehow the ghosts. I get that feeling every time I go there and I can't really explain it any better than that. I'll write about this.

The history of the city is rich and exciting and horrible in some cases. Robber Barons, Southern Illinois Mafia with the redlight district and the bootlegger, the politics that went into forming the city. This city you will find, reflects the story of the nation. I will write about this.

Then there was the race riot. Leaving it out would be a glaring omission, it must be talked about. I will write about that.

And of course there is the decline of the city which is what it is known for and the reasons for this and how bad things finally became in the 1980's. Things like this are the shame our nation and no nation has the right to hold it's head up high as long as this is occurring. East Saint Louis has influenced my politics. I can never look at it and live the lie of denying that we have some serious domestic issues. So, I will write about this too.

Did I say earlier that Mayor Daley's machine had nothing on ESL? Well, I'll write about politics too though as I mentioned earlier, I'm having a hard time finding information pertaining to a certain recent time period. But I think that I can find out, it may just take me awhile. So, see how much fun you have to look forward too? And you thought Christmas was over!

On a more personal note, IT SURE IS HARD TO BLOG WHEN YOU ARE WITH A FOUR YEAR OLD 24/7! I get so frustrated sometimes, I start jonesing for my blog and I just can't get to it. But don't think I'm complaining, I love being at home with her. (I just wish she would take long daily naps!)

Another thing: I'm so easy to entertain. All I need is a piece of yarn. Today I cleaned the house with a piece of yarn tied onto my shoe so that I could watch my cat act the fool while I went about doing my thing. It added quite an element of fun. I wish that on my next job, I can go to work with a piece of yarn tied on my shoe and bring my cat along, it would make it so much more bearable. Maybe I can say that I need this as a job accommodation.

Busy

2008-02-21T07:34:00.000-08:00

And no-this is not my house.
Haven't had much time lately. Had to help my fourth grader with her science fair project. She thought it was due next week, but it was due yesterday. Had to play catch-up but got it done in the nick of time. Twenty minutes before it was due as a matter of fact. Incidentally, hot water and cold water reach 32 degrees at the same time. but we didn't let it turn to ice.

I'm working on a post that I've wanted to do for a long time about East Saint Louis, Illinois. I don't know how long it will take.

Time to Learn More

2008-02-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

The elections this year are very interesting. Unfortunately, it is making me uncomfortably aware of how little I really understand about some of the issues. And since not knowing prompts one to learn and thinking you know is static..I don't think that this is a bad thing in every way.

I watched a little clip the other night, prepared by a reporter from the Rolling Stone who did a story on how the press recieves information on the debates. They go into a room with a TV screen and watch and then they talk to PR people from the campaigns. The PR people thrown out little slogans and the journalists write them down and write an article based on this. Then the stories start coming out and they are often uniform articles written by people who don't really have an strong understanding, whether it's through their own fault or it's just because of the process, But it reminded me of kids in school who go to class unprepared and then copy the answers from each other.

Here is something else that I always notice, especially on television. They say that ageism is very entrenched in American society. Sometimes I watch these shows that seem to be staffed by young attractive reporters and they will make comments about the past with these self-assured tones and I wonder to myself....how do they know? They weren't born. They had to have read it, did they learn it through some sort of required reading while they were in college? And if so, whose opinion is it, really? And please, I'm not knocking young people, we all offer a perspecive that is important. I don't think that the perspecive of the young or the older should be discounted.

I love Lisa Ling (though she is a different type of reporter than what I am talking about) when she reports she does it in a way that you feel that she is exploring life, trying to understand things, on a journey to obtain mature perspective, she never acts like she already knows it all and this is how it should be. Even older people should not lose that quality. If older people had opportunites to be something besides conservative pundits, how would perspectives differ? It is a mistake to discount older people, even if you don't disagree with them, they still have a knowledge based on experience and that counts for a lot.

Given the nature of media, there seems to be a lot of people who strike one as parroting popular phrases that make it sound like one is well-informed in actuality, many really aren't. I'm guilty of it too, that's why I don't talk too much about politics. I hate that feeling that I am throwing out a popular catch-phrase to hide the fact that I don't really understand this obscurity at all, I'd rather not say anything at all. The only things that I feel comfortable talking about and don't feel like a phoney talking about are things that I saw myself or things that I have made a genuine and deep effort to analyze. I always intend to correct the gaps in my knowledge by finding out more and then I get distracted by something else that I am interested in and I leave it. But the elections have inspired me to learn more and what I have learned has only given me more questions, which as I said is not bad.

Last night I spent some time on the internet reading Noam Chomsky, I've meant to do this for a long time and never have and he made a comment about NPR that I found interesting. He seemed to consider NPR as one-sided as say.....Mike Savage. He was very cutting. He made a comment to the effect that wealthy people who graduate from Ivy League universites are completely out-of-touch and elitist. This is also what conservatives always say and I found this interesting for of course, Noam Chomsky is about as liberal as they come. He also said that Obama thinks that the truth lies somewhere between conservative talk radio and NPR. I'm not sure what this means. Does this mean that Obama is centrist? Or does it mean that NPR is not genuinely liberal, that it misses the point because it stands above and apart from real-life observing from an anthropoligical viewpoint instead of participating in it? Or both?

I also found this disturbing because I've considered NPR a good source of news and I'm not sure what I think of what he said but it gave me something to mull over. Ultimatley, I think he is right in his belief that we need the voices of people who have lived it as well as those who are removed from it. We need people who have made an effort to cogently form an idealogy that doesn't come entirely from books...we need another Studs Terkel.

Another thing that this made me think about is you know, even reading Chomskey gave me the feeling that I was recieving someone elses pre-digested ideas. I suppose there is no other way to understand history you have to read the ideas and perspectives of another person if you weren't alive then, it's inescapable, it takes a great effort to be truly informed and I'm not sure that very many people can achieve it though some come closer than others.

Well, I'm trailing off.......without any conclusions and I think that is good....we should always be asking questions, we should never stop, none of us, young and old...that's how we learn. We value people who seem to give us answers but we shouldn't, the searching for answers is what is the most valuable. I think I'm going to write more about these things.

This and that

2008-02-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else been having weird weather? The other day, I took my daughter for a walk around the block because it was so nice and warm and sunny. We weren't even halfway done with the walk when it started raining and the temperature began rapidly dropping. I ended up picking her up and jogging home with her in order to get home quicker because we were getting so cold and wet. The clouds were coming in so fast that it looked like special effects, later the wind got up to 75 miles an hour.

The temperature ended up dropping 50 degrees that day and finally it began to snow. It snowed 8 inches, which is more snow than we have had in the last 10 years. Then by Monday, the temperature was in the 70's and all the snow melted, when me and my daughter attempted another walk (this time we made it!) the snow was melting so fast that there were little rivers going down the streets and sidewalks and you could hear the water rushing through the storm drains. By tonight or tomorrow, it is supposed to snow again.

Super Tuesday!! I'm hoping for some good news as I guess we all are. Who do I want to win the Democratic nomination? Obama. I like Obama and Hilary, but I think that Obama has a better chance of going up against the Republicans than Hilary does. I don't think Hilary could win. I was driving the other day and there was a young girl outside on the road holding a Vote for Obama sign. She was happy and grinning and I caught her eye and gave her a thumbs up and she did a little jig! If he wins methinks there will be lots more people dancing.

I saw a comment on a blog the other day that surprised me. It surprised me because it made me realize that this person was a hardcore conservative and I just never would have pegged them that way. So, I went to their blog and read for a little while and I was really confused. There were lots of comments on liberals and I thought, "Who are they talking about? I'm liberal and so are a lot of people that I am close to and I don't recognize anyone I know in this description." Maybe aspects here and there but that's all.

I even saw one comment in which someone said that a relative of theirs, away at college, had become liberal. They were razzing him about it and someone told him, "You may say your liberal but I'll bet you would never marry a liberal girl." And he was apparently chagrined by this comment and agreed with his family I was completely bewildered by this apparently inside joke that you I suppose just can't understand unless you are conservative as well.

But you know, we all caricature each other. I've seen liberals do it to conservatives as much as I have seen conservatives do it to liberals and either way it makes me uncomfortable. It does not create dialogue, it destroys it. And I find it interesting that each side tends to accuse the other of the same things. Each side thinks the other is trying to control the media, and each side think that the other is trying to destroy the middle class, for instance. Each side also seems to have it's own version of history which is interesting, sometimes I wonder how much a lot of people really do know about history, even if they think that they do.

My son graduated from Saint Louis University and went to school with kids parents who were...well....much wealthier than me and so he was exposed to lots of kids who have more of a Republican outlook. It is interesting sometimes to talk to him, since he is young--history is just that to him--history. He doesn't remember--he's only read about it. He knows the facts but not so much the why's and since he's a computer major, he really didn't have a lot of classes in it.

One night he was complaining about and making fun of polical correctness. I told him that I wish that he would remember that a lot of these things were begun for a very good reason. Yes, some of it has gone too far, sometimes it gets petty and silly, sometimes it bogs down discussion but if he looked into the past and saw what people used to say before, he would understand why it came about. (I'm imprinting him.) Somehow the lessons of the past had been lost with only the results apparent, sort of standing alone without people remembering why other people thought they were necessary at one time. We all do that to each other.

My mom has always been into the Tao. She taught me to see how everything is always striving for a balance and how the further things get out of balance, the more they will swing in the opposite way to compensate. Sometimes I can understand politics better if I stop thinking of everyone as having their own evil agenda (though I know that there are people who do) and just see it as society trying to reach some sort of balance. It's easier for me to think of it that way. ( I guess my mom imprinted me too.)

Been reading a lot of Biographies lately. Biographies about writers. I also read a fun book about famous literary feuds. Ernest Hemingway vs Gertrude Stein. That one was a gas! They were both so sly and sarcastic and genteel about cutting each other down. Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. That one was a lot of fun as well. And finally Tom Wolfe (Bonfire of Vanities) vs. everyone. I got an interesting insight from that one, one that really affected me.

In summation, Tom Wolfe's writing style is journalistic. And according to other writers, this does not constitute true literature. Tom Wolfe differs with them all saying that the standard is what is flawed, not his writing. He says that literature has become too introspective, that plot is sacrificed and that nothing ever happens.

And you know, he's right! Around the turn of the century when the study of psychology really started to influence societies view of reality, literature did turn introspecive. A type of writing called impressionistic writing became popular and has never really gone out of style. If someone writes a book containing action and plot, it will be on the paperback rack. If someone spends 200 pages writing about how they felt when their childhood pet died, that is literature. Of course, I'm exagerating but I think Mr. Wolfe is onto something.

Kitty on the mend

2008-01-31T08:37:00.000-08:00

We paid for our kitty to have surgery and she's doing well. They removed a little foam block from the first bend of her small intestine. She's on a bland diet and she is wearing a cone around her neck to keep her from running around or biting her stitches. I'm sure she'll be much happier when it comes off but it's for her own good.

I had an epiphany today. As some of you will remember, I was once writing a story on my blog about Tragedy and Joy and for some reason, the story just dried up....I never knew why. I had a lot of stuff going on and I thought that these things were distracting me from writing the story and that once things settled down that I would go back to it. But I never did--I've got all the time to do it now and I'm just cmpletely dry.

And I was thinking about it and I remembered that when I first began the story I was taking a new medication for attention defecit disorder. I remember wondering at the time if the medicine had anything to do with me being able to write this story because I have never had any luck writing fiction before.

I was always confused in general as to whether the medicine was having much of an effect on me in any way, I thought it was but I wasn't sure....and it made me sick. I would become very nauseated after taking it and I lost about 10 or 15 pounds. It made me feel groggy too and I always took it in the evening at work, if I took it earlier I might fall asleep, but if I took it at work, I couldn't fall asleep because I was at work. I stopped taking it on my days off because I I didn't want to waste my days off sleeping.

I finally had some vacation days and stopped taking it altogether and this is when I started having trouble at my job again and one thing led to another as you all know. And well, everything worked out for the best but looking back, I now realize that the medicine was having a more positive effect on me than I realized.

It's a strange feeling to take medicine and find out about dormant talents that you have which disappear when you stop taking the medicine. Or a potential that you only have when you are medicated. It poses some interesting questions about what constitutes our thoughts or our personalities etc.... Being a person who it actually is happening to instead of just reading about it, I have to say that I don't really care as long as I feel okay but it is still unsettling. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out.

I'm a complete bore

2008-01-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

(I mean me...not you!)

Sorry, I haven't been around lately. I just can't think of anything interesting to write about for some reason. I'm doing fine but I just don't seem to have anything on my mind that would be interesting enough to post about.

I guess I could post about my cat...she's going to die. She probably has a bowel obstruction and needs surgery. I had her in the hospital and they sent her home and told me that she seemed fine, but she's not and I can't afford anymore. I've already spent about $900 that I don't even have. But see, that isn't interesting enough to post about.

Well, hopefully I will get more interesting soon and think of something that wouldn't bore everyone to tears. But I will stop by your blogs soon....Really!....I'll stop being neglectful about that at least.

What's Wrong With Britney?

2008-01-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

(I can't believe I'm posting about this!)
I've never been a Britney fan. I'm not into her genre. As a matter of fact, have some lack of respect for the genre, but I'm big enough to admit that she was a helluva performer. It wasn't only her dancing ability or her team of image consultants or her fabulous pre-pregnancies figure that made her so famous and shot her to the top. It was her 'star quality'. You either have it or you don't. It can't be bought, it can't be learned, it just is....and she just oozed it.

Of course, there aren't too many people by now who don't realize that there is something terribly wrong with Britney. There are still people who still persist on saying that she is doing the things that she does because she has no class and she's been spoiled by her money. But many people now realize that it is much more than that. Her behavior can't leave much doubt to those who are generous enough to see.

It all started when she shaved her head. The tabloids howled in trimph to see Britney going down. If she was hounded by the paparazzi before, now she was devoured. But anyone who has ever dealt with mental illness knew, it was more than that. Britney's ordeals show a lot about the general publics attitude about mental illness. Apparently, they don't believe it exists.

The legal definition of insanity pends on whether you knew what you were doing or not. Apparently, the idea is if you can string a sentence together or are able to make any kind of sensible action, then you know what you are doing. If you could be considered to be crazy at all, you would be crazy like a fox. Many people seem to think of Britney this way and I suppose I am identifying with her because in many ways, the attitudes that people have towards her are similar to the attitudes that people had towards me when I was younger.

Though I've never shaved my head, I relate to Britney because I used to do things to shock other people when I was very young. I did it because I was angry. When you are having an episode your emotions are all out of proportion to what is actually happening. I have always been overly-sensitive and sometimes it reached the level of paranoia. Shocking people was my way of getting back, or showing them that I didn't really care what they thought of me. It was also a way of controlling a situation, I had control over how they felt about me, I may be making them dislike me but it was on my terms.

And then there was her marriage to Kevin Federline. Britney lost her head for Kevin Federline, someone who seemed beneath her, I don't mean financially...everyone is beneath her financially, I mean as far as her deserving someone who has respect for her and has her best interests in mind. But Kevin 'pimped' Britney. Why did she let him? What demon is driving her?

Britney has a certain Marilyn Monroe quality. Remember the headlines when Marilyn died...The most popular girl in America died alone on a Saturday night. Gloria Steinman wrote a great book about Marilyn Monroe that I believe eventually came to BE popular opinion. Which is that Marilyn Monroe felt that no-one cared about her, they only loved her image. She spent her life trying to find someone who loved who she was on the inside, someone who loved Norma Jean, not Marilyn Monroe. I believe that this is what Britney thought she was getting when she met K-Fed. Someone who saw Britney, the little girl from Louisiana, not Britney...pop idol.

And he probably did see her for what she was, but what he saw was her vulnerability and her giving nature and her insecurity. She was his mark, not his love...and Britney..she just didn't see it. Is Britney stupid like people say?

I've always noticed that you can tell a lot about people by how they view the world. A thief thinks everyone is going to steal from them, a liar thinks everyone is lying...etc...etc. Following this theory, what does Britney being snowed by K-fed say about her? Well, probably that she never expected to be treated this way because she would never treat anyone this way. She never saw his opportunistic nature because she has a generous nature. I think that she 'Is that Innocent' actually. And I relate to this too.

Even the way that she acts now. Supposing her behavior is a cry for help? Why is she crying to the world? Does she think people will care? Because she would care? I don't know, I'm just speculating of course. But her behavior makes sense if you think about it in these terms.

I saw an article on Britney the other night. One of the few articles where they weren't gloating about how she has become a trainwreck, dancing on her grave. This was an article in which the author was speculating about Britney possibly having bipolar disorder, which is why I read it.

There was a place for comments afterwards and there were more than 200 comments. Many of them were of a forgiving nature...Britney became famous too young, it's the stress, it's her stage-mom etc.... Some were mean of course, (it's scary to know that people who say these things walk the earth!) But many of them appeared to be like me, they read the article because Bipolar Disorder was mentioned and they either had it, or had a family member with it.

None of these people had anything disparaging to say. over and over, comment after comment they said, "I've suspected for a long time that she was bipolar." A few said that they had a parent that was Bipolar and they recognized the look in Britney's eyes....that look of not being completely there, someone whose responses are driven by inexplicable things going on inside of them rather than what is going on outside of them......reality in other words. They were all very concerned for her. Mental illness is a bad mother-fucker!

I made a comment too. I talked about how I dread the day that we all wake up to see the headlines "Britney is Dead!" And just like Anna Nicole Smith, people will suddenly be so nice. There will be tributes to her and they will finally have a little bit of sympathy. They stopped slamming Anna Nicole after she was dead, probably to assuage their guilt. Yes guilt, because anyone with half a brainv knew that Anna Nicole's problems had more to do with the fact that she came from a low-class background. They understood it all along, but it was fun to rip her apart. Just like they apparently have so much fun ripping Britney apart and eating her heart.

I wish people would just leave her alone, like the guy/girl said. I wish people wouldn't be so arrogant that they thought that they could judge someone elses behavior based on their own reality. Mostly, I wish that society would 'get a clue'. For Britney's story symbolizes a lot of the sins of mankind, that we judge, we are self-righteous, that we can turn on someone at the first sign of weakness and that charity is only extended to those who are similar to us.

I think Britney has learned a lot about mankind through her ordeals. No wonder she's such a mess.

Limitations

2008-01-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

One of my lessons this last year has been that I have certain limitations that no amount of willpower will ever change. It's not easy to admit that you have a limitation because no-one really wants to have one. But the hardest part of all is that we live in a society that does not respect limitations.

If you don't believe me try a little experiment. Tell someone that you can't do something because of a condition that you have. Tell them that you can't sit in a chair for longer than an hour because you have a bad back, or tell them that you can't stay out late because if you don't have 8 hours sleep you can't function the next day. Or tell them....oh I don't know. You make it up. But the key is, it has to be something that they can't see. It has to be something that they have to take your word about, and it has to be something that the majority of people can do without any trouble.

Actually, I'll bet you don't even have to do the experiment. I'll bet you already know what will happen, don't you? People will think that you make excuses for yourself. People will think that if you really wanted to do it, you could. They won't say anything most of the time, but you can tell by reading their expressions what they are thinking. You can also read newspapers etc..and get a pretty good idea of the standing opinion on things like this.

My mom says that workaholism is an addiction and that it is an acceptable one in our culture. Think about this one. If someone were an alcoholic and spent all their time away from home, ignoring their family, they would be condemned for it. If a workaholic spends all their time away from home ignoring their family, they will be praised for it. I realize that being an alcoholic is not the same thing as being a workaholic and there are other factors involved in the reason why it is disapproved of but my point is, workaholism is not a particularly healthy way of being, yet it is highly approved of.

We live in a tough society where you are mostly judged by what you have and what your accomplishments are. There is little room for limitations, especially ones no-one can see but you. And if your limitations have caused you to not have much or have achieved much you are thought to be a loser. At least, that's how a lot of people think.

Does it really matter what people think? It depends. As long as you know who you are, it is still lonely, but you can live with it and in the end it doesn't matter. But as far as expecting empathy or any types of concessions, then yes it does matter. You are already at a disadvantage and no-one is going to level the playing field for you in any way and that's the way it is.

Am I saying that I expect concessions? No, I'm not. Through all of this, I still feel like I am lucky. I don't really want any life besides the one I have. Things could be better, but things could be worse too and I'm well aware of that.

But it's hard sometimes. My dad's birthday was Tuesday. We all go out to eat every year on his birthday and cousins, uncles etc...come too. I have something of a reputation with my family. As you can imagine, being bipolar, I have a spotty history and everyone knows it. They don't know why, and I'm not telling them, I'm not that close to them.

But when the conversation finally came around to the fact that I'm not working presently, it wasn't difficult for me to see what they thought of it. I understand that most people are ignorant on the topic of bipolar disorder and if they truly understood, they would not be as judgemental. I also know that even if I told them, they wouldn't understand. It's something that you have to have lived with to truly understand.

I forgive them, but it's still just....hard. I get tired of it. I get tired of people jumping to conclusions about me, conclusions that simply aren't true. I can handle it because I do have a support system but that's because I'm at home right now. When I worked, I didn't have one because it's just the nature of work that there aren't allowances made for my type of issues. And it's more than likely that that will be how it is again when I go back to work. And this makes things hard for very practical reasons.

I'm scared to go back to work and have it start all over again. It was hard. It's hard to keep going when you feel like shit. And you have to go in, no matter whether you feel well or not and people notice. And they talk and they scrutinize you. At my last job, I felt like I just couldn't win. Once I came under their scrutiny they just didn't let up.

Sometimes, I have a hard time with my energy levels. I just get so lethargic that it's an effort for me to do anything. They assumed that I was lazy when I got this way. When I got muddled up, they assumed that I just didn't care about my job. They made a lot of unfair assumptions and I forgive them, but it was traumatic....it's sort of driven me into a shell and made me dread having this ever happen to me again.

So, I have come to some conclusions. First of all, I think that I am always going to have trouble working full-time. I'm not lazy, I just can't maintain that level of functioning demanded, no matter how hard I try. I suppose if I ever have to work full-time again, then I'll just have to...but I don't think that I'll ever be the best employee.

I would really like to work from home. It takes energy to do a job, but for me, dealing with people when I'm not feeling well takes much more energy than just working does. I'm just not 'on' all the time. And people misconstrue it and there is nothing that I can do about it because that's just the way it is for me sometimes. It seems to me that if I worked at home and I didn't feel well, no-one would have to know. As long as I could drag myself to the computer and get the work done, it wouldn't matter if I was so lethargic that I didn't even feel like combing my hair. At least I wouldn't have to deal with people when I felt that way.

So here come the limitations again. I know what I want to do. I want to learn courtroom reporting. Only, I don't want to work as a courtreporter. I want to work with the deaf. I want to do captioning and teleconferences and conventions and attend school with people who are hearing impaired and give them verbatim transcripts of the lecture. I know that I've talked about learning sign language, but that was only because I had told myself that captioning was probably out of the question for me. But this is what I really want to do.

I've e-mailed the director of the program and explained my situation to her and asked her opinion. I told her that I think that I could learn to do this accurately, but that I'm afraid that I might have trouble being completely accurate all of the time. I told her that I know that this would make me unable to do courtroom reporting, but asked her if it would make me unable to do the Cart reporting as well?

It will be a bitter blow for me if she tells me that she thinks that due to my problems, it probably wouldn't be the field for me, but if she does, I guess I will just have to live with it. So, I'm awaiting her answer. Hope it's good news. If not, then I guess I will just have to accept my limitations.

2007\2008

2007-12-30T08:06:00.001-08:00

It's strange, I thought that when I didn't have to work anymore that I would blog a lot. But I seem to have nothing on my mind lately. So, I'll just say a few little things.

My husband's mother has recovered well enough to be moved out of the hospital. Any American who complains about the US needs to take a trip to Mexico. They may not feel the same when they come back. There is not heat in the hospital. Apparently, the hospital was freezing. So, they brought her home so that she could be warmer. She still isn't well and will have to rest a lot. They want to move her to her daughters house, which is in Culiacan, Mexico but she isn't well enough for the trip. It would be better for her there, it is very warm in Culiacan. Tiajuana in the winter is not a good place for her to be with a lung condition.

My husband will probably be upset when he comes home because I know that he would like to be there taking care of his mother, but he just can't stay any longer.

My son came home for the holidays. He lives in Arizona. It made Christmas nice. Isn't it funny how when people in a family get together, they just seem to have a rapport that can't usually quite be found outside of family? In my family, we all have a very distinct sense-of-humor. Me and my sister have noticed that each kid in the family, once they get old enough to crack jokes starts to exhibit it. It's fun watching kids grow up.

I'm looking forward to 2008. Everything changed during 2007 but left me in a limbo. In 2008, I will get to find out what is going to happen. I have a good feeling about it! I think 2008 is going to be good! Hope yours is too!

Punk!!

2007-12-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

See the nice new punk style my younger daughter gave herself? I was thrilled you can be sure. I figured out that if I put both sides in pigtails that you can't see it, so I guess she'll be wearing pigtails for the next year.

A Blue Christmas

2007-12-19T08:20:00.000-08:00

My husband left for Mexico last night. His mother is sick and they are very worried about her so he went. He won't be back until 2 days after Christmas and it is all very unexpected and I feel strange to not have him here. I'll be okay, it's just taking my mind a little bit of time to adjust.

But of course, it isn't really about me, it's about her. I don't really have a good idea of how she is yet. I will hear more in the next few days. I'm hoping that they are all just being really careful and that it isn't as bad as it sounds, but I just don't know yet. Unfortunately, it sounds like it could be CHF.

Funny antecdote:

The word for Grandmother in spanish is Abuela (Ah-bway-lah). When my older daughter was small she used to call her Grandmother Umbrella (Oom-bray-lah).

Quietude!!

Well, it's so nice to be off of work and have time to just be, I have had no time for this in such a long time. I am thinking about a lot of things that I plan to share but in the meantime, I would like to leave you with a poem that I discovered.
I hope that you enjoy it!! (Hope it isn't too sappy!)

Famous

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to the silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth before anyone said so.

The cat sleeping on the ledge is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to the floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not famous at all to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to the shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole,
not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgets what it could do.

Namoi Shihab Nye
in Hugging the Jukebox

and also

"The man who is often thinking that it is better to be somewhere other than where he is excommunicates himself."

Henry David Thoreau

Blah blah blah di blah

2007-12-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

Food

I used to love to cook. But with a full-time job and 2 little kids, it got to be too much of a pain. First of all, I worked in the evening and I had to get supper ready before I went to work....no mean feat, I assure you. Second, 'gourmet cooking' involves lots of fresh ingredients and it's hard to go to the grocery store all the time when you are working. Thirdly, my kids turn up their noses at things that are too exotic.

So, I became very uninspired and I threw together whatever was easiest. My family really didn't care but there were lots of nights that I brought what I had made to work and couldn't choke it down.

I'm not working right now and have been trying to find things to do with myself and I have rediscovered cooking. Since I have been off, I finally made Tamales. I've only been saying that I was going to learn to make them for about 7 years now! Tamales take an entire day to make. Or two mornings if you want to cook the meat one day and assemble them the next. They turned out to be pretty good for a gringo or a garbacha as my husband calls me, but next time I need to flavor the masa harina a little bit better...definitely needed salt!

I also finally managed to make pozole and have it turn out good. I've tried pozole lots of times and didn't have a good recipe so it didn't turn out right. It's hard to learn to cook things that use ingredients and cooking methods that you are not familiar with. So, as well as renewing my hobby of cooking, I have been traveling via my senses.

I visited India last week! I made chicken tandori! And it turned out pretty good! I couldn't put cardamon in it because it was $12 for a little bottle, but you know what? I may spring for it someday (or not)! I love Indian spices!

I also made a trip to Italy! I made steak brachiolli (please forgive my spelling errors, I don't feel like running and looking up the spelling.) And I made arborio rice to go with it. I told my husband that when the guys at work talk about what they had for supper that night, he could tell them that he had Steak Brachiolli, Arborio Milanese and a salad of crisp greens in a tangy vinaigrette dressing. He said that if he told them that he would never hear the end of it. I guess its one of those Real Men don't eat Quiche things or something.

I have also taken several nice trips to the French countryside and this week we are going to New Orleans to eat some Jambalaya. Anyone who wants to come over and eat...let me know. Give me a little bit of advance notice if you don't mind though.

Johnny Cash

EOTR often talks about Johnny Cash on her blog. I have never been a country music fan. I hate to say this about myself but I have been very close-minded about it. When I was younger, I just didn't think it was very cool! But since EOTR, whose opinion I respect, recommends him so highly, I've finally started listening. And I watched I Walk the Line the other night as well. And I have become transfixed! Not just with him, but with that entire era. I sat and watched videos last night. Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Jerry Lee Louis, Elvis and Patsy Cline. What have I been missing out on all of these years because of my small mind?

Why do I like them? Because were authentic I suppose. There's nothing that I can add to that, you either understand what I mean or you don't.

If you like this genre there is someone I would like to recommend. Her name is Maria Muldaur and the 2 cds that I would recommend are Waitress in a Doughnut Shop and Louisiana Love Song. There are not many like her. She's been around since the late 60's, and she has never gone commercial, that's why you may not have heard of her.

Also, while I am mentioning this I will also say that because of X-dell...I love Prairie Home Companion as well. I was also close-minded about that. I didn't really know what it was, I just didn't like the way it sounded. Silly huh!!! Listen to it sometime if you haven't. There is nothing else like it and it will make you laugh. But always with, never at. How rare is that? If you turn it on and it sounds weird at first, just keep listening. You'll get it!

Christmas

I don't care what anyone says about Christmas. I love buying my kids presents. I don't care if anyone thinks I'm shallow! I try to be careful about what I buy though, I want it to be useful. I'm almost done shopping, but I still have to wrap! Yuck! I hate wrapping presents!

Bellydance

I've decided, I don't think I will ever perform bellydance. Why? I don't like people to look at me. Why learn bellydance only to not ever let anyone see you dance. It doesn't make much sense, does it? And I really don't care. I just want to know how.

This was sort of fun!! I couldn't think of a post topic so I just blathered for awhile. I've sort of had writers block or something so this got me going again. Hope you all are well. I may do this again! (I thought of doing this after I read BBC's blog!!)

INFP

2007-12-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't been around for awhile. I've been.....doing absolutely nothing, just sort of fretting about what I am going to do with myself now. Frankly, I hate to say it but I've been a little self-obsessed, I really need to quit. Trying to figure things out and is like beating your head against a wall....the future is unknown we just have to make a choice, don't we?

Last night, I went with a woman to a sign language interpreter class so that I could get some sort of idea of what was involved with that. They all had to bring an object in and describe it to the class and the class had to guess what it was. One woman made a triangle shape and the teacher told her that she had actually made the sign for Vagina.

I talked to the teacher after the class and she said that roughly 1 out of 3 people can pick up sign language well enough to be interpreters and that graduating from the program was no guarantee that you would actually be able to be one. She said that she has seen people who wanted it very badly and just couldn't get it. She said that she has also seen people who seemed to just....have it inside of them and it just burst out.

I don't know how I know this but I know that I am one of the second, I just have no doubt that I could do this. I'm not being arrogant, it's just something that I know. I am worried about money of course, she said that it is possible to earn money doing this, that you can earn enough to live on. So, my mind is filled with this right now....is it a good idea?

Well, according to the tests that I've been taking online it is. I am an INFP!!! Introverted, intuitive, feeling percieving....about as right-brained as you can get. So, obviously something like sign language would be something that I would be suited for. And it was also listed as one of the jobs for my type! Wierd! And I thought I was so unique! It is a fun test to take, it is called the Meyers-Brigg personality test! Look it up online, you will be amazed at how completely accurate it is.

I sorta think that this may be my calling. So why do I keep trying to talk myself out of it? I know I would like it, I know I could do it....so why do I keep trying to get out of it? I guess it's the commitment. It's so hard to make a commitment, isn't it?

I forsee that if I were going to do something like this, I would have to start becoming a lot more involved with people than I am now. I am sort of a loner. I'm not really outgoing. I can talk to people but a lot of the time I am stand-offish. In order to do something like this, I would have to force myself to be more outward focused, which I think would be good for me but its scary I suppose because it is the opposite of how I am.

Interestingly, the Myers-Briggs said that around middle age, people start changing and feeling a need to develop the undeveloped parts of themselves. People who are introverted find the need for more connection, extroverted people find the need for more self-reflection etc... Jung said that we were all on a journey to become whole, the journey continues for all of our lives and that it is a need that we have, if we don't develop the undeveloped parts of ourselves, we become stagnant and stop growing. So that's some stuff to think about.

So anyway, I know this isn't much of a post but this is what's going on with me right now. Like a soap opera, I hate it!

Grandma shoplifted!!

2007-11-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

I grew up not knowing most of my family, I knew them by reputation only and their reputations proceeded them. So compelling were their reps that though I didn't even know them, still they had a great influence on me. They were always with me.... I had no faces to attach to them, scarcely any memories to go with them, only the stories. And the stories weren't many, but they were very intriguing! But my mom refused to talk about her family, so I didn't ask.

I didn't ask, but I'm sorry to say I snooped! I was so curious that I could not resist. Sadly, my snooping did not pay off. All I found was a few pictures. My mother had them in a box in her closet. They did not jibe at all with the stories and impressions that I had gotten. Somehow, I expected neglected, half-starved children but instead, they were beautiful and well-tended. This only added to the mystery and intrigue.

And so I continued to try to solve the puzzle of my family, the family who were distant, mythological figures to me. The stories that I heard of them, whenever I did hear a story, sounded so wonderfully romantic. I filled in the rest that I didn't know about, which was most of it, with little snippets of knowledge that I had obtained here and there. Overheard conversations, the few times that I had actually met any of them and what I remembered from those times and of course, the snooping and thus the myth was born. And like most myths, it was all true in its way.

The story starts with Grandma, who was and is a flamboyant, colorful figure! There were 4 children and my mother always said that my Grandmother, who had grown up the pampered only child of a Doctor, just wasn't ready for the responsibility. I never really understood what she meant by this, because she never told me.

But I did know that my Grandma used to like to shoplift! My mom said that she never went into a store without walking out with something extra. Once she shoplifted a poodle skirt which I think is hilarious! It was rather strange because my Grandpa, her husband, was a physician as well so obviously, she didn't need to do this. She apparently did if for the thrill. Grandma was apparently very outrageous!

She missed the flapper era by a few years. But since I'm not sure what they called the girls like her from her generation, I will call her a flapper. She smoked, drank, cussed and of course....shop-lifted and I suspect, may have been pregnant with my mom when she married my Grandpa. And now at 90, when she gets mad, she strips off her clothes which only serves to illustrate the uncompromising integrity of her character.

A lot of people on my mothers side, probably suffer from some kind of mood disorder, my Grandmother being one of them. Not much was known about this type of thing in time for it to help her, but Grandma had some money, so she was considered eccentric, rather than crazy.

My own mother has a love-hate relationship with eccentricity. But she's had to learn to live with it because I don't think that anyone in my family really has any choice but to be slightly eccentric, it's in our upbringing, or maybe even our blood.

*******************

I have gotten away from blogging recently, as you have probably noticed. While I was having problems, I spent so many weeks hunched over my keyboard that I sort of needed a break. I have been working on this post for awhile and it is coming very slow, so I decided to publish the first part, even though it is not even close to being finished.

A mixed episode

2007-10-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

I've been reading old posts that I wrote when I first started blogging. I'm surprised to see how hard my stuff was to read. My sister says I've gotten better since then, I hope so. I found this one and decided to transfer it to this blog. I've had a few people ask me about bipolar disorder and I thought it might be helpful to them. I know it was helpful to me when I wrote it. I was very sick when I wrote it perhaps that explains why it was so disjointed. Anyway, I've edited it, so hopefully it will be easier to read.

A mixed episode

In the beginning, I seem to have an increase in goal-driven behavior. I want to do everything and it all seems feasible when in reality I could never do all of those things unless I stopped sleeping. I want to learn Spanish, I want to do artwork, I want to start working out, I want to cook...and on and on I go.

It is a good feeling a charged feeling. Your supposed to go and see a doctor when you start showing these symptoms but it's the last thing you want to do. You feel so wonderful, how could anything be wrong? And honestly, you don't want it to end.

You begin to feel like there are no limitations, no barriers to anything, everything seems possible. You can't imagine why you ever felt depressed about anything, Now you can't even fathom why you ever thought that you had limitations at all. If I could bottle this, I could make a fortune!

I smile a lot, become very friendly and outgoing and talk to people like I never met a stranger. But a lot of my conversation will become this sort of 'stream of consciousness'. I prattle on and on, my ability to censor what I say goes away, I'm often embarrassed and ashamed of what I said afterwards.

I feel expansive, almost as though some boundary between me and others and even the universe has melted. I experience it as a metaphysical merging with everything. I begin to see synchronicities everywhere and feel somehow as though I can follow them and be led to something wonderful. I have an anticipatory feeling, though I don't know what I am anticipating. I begin to feel as though I am chosen for something, like I'm meant to do something special.

As an aside, I am not entirely convinced that the spiritual aspect of all of this is a false perception. I sometimes suspect that when one ones consciousness is altered, as it is with bipolar disorder, that one is actually perceiving things on a heightened level and that the things they are perceiving might be a version of reality that we are not aware of when in a normal state of mind. I've heard other bipolar people say the same thing.

The downside to all of this, is that I can't stop. And then, there is my temper. I have had a horrible temper most of my life, starting when I was a teenager. It went away when I starting taking medicine and this is how I know I was diagnosed correctly. I used to be like a wildcat when I lost my temper. I still had enough self-control somehow not to hurt other people, the violence was turned toward myself. I felt so ashamed of myself, ashamed of my lack of ability to control myself, ashamed of how I treat people. The shame that I felt made me punish myself.

Things begin to spiral out-of-control. I expend a lot of energy trying to apply the brakes, but my brakes are almost out. I begin to ruminate on things, on my past, what someone said to me. I get very worked up about these things. I brood and worry.

My thoughts begin to feel like wasps buzzing in my mind. They begin to spin so fast that it is no longer fun. I begin to lose my ability to concentrate. I try to do something and my mind is 10, 100, 1000 paces ahead of the task that I am on. On to the next and the next and the next; in the space of 30 seconds my mind has left me in the wake of it's dust. I have a pen in my hand, it is gone as though it evaporated, I have no memory of putting it down. I go to the store and buy things that weren't on my list and forget to buy what was on my list.

Right before I finally got medicated, I locked my keys in my car twice and locked myself out of the house twice. Altogether combined, this costed me $200. It's so frustrating. I knew that I shouldn't be at work but I didn't know that I had a choice, so I would go in anyway and screw everything up. One time, my younger daughter needed her diaper changed. I asked my older daughter to get me a diaper and when I went to change her, her diaper was already changed. I had changed it and I had no memory of doing it.

When I try to think about something, it feels like it does when you look into the sun and afterwards everything you see, appears to have a hole in it. That is how my mind feels....holey. It feels like a sieve that everything runs through. As I still have to function and I still have all of my responsibilities, everything becomes overwhelming.

I become very irritable, very tired. But I can't sleep. People begin to get on my nerves. Everyone seems like they are moving too slow. When I am in traffic and I am in a hurry, I get so tense. Everything seems overwhelming. I just want my mind to stop and it won't.

I feel like I did some bad angel dust. I have all of this adrenalin coursing through my body. It is a very physical, somatic experience. I can't sleep, my stomach hurts. I stop eating. I read every chance I get. Reading stops the thoughts, it calms me.

People with loud voices or people who talk too fast irritate me. I want to leave the room, they get on my nerves so bad. They drive the wasps inside of my head into a frenzy! Everyone seems stupid and they all get on my nerves. A store with loud music playing bothers me really badly, even lots of bright colors bother me, everything makes a discordant noise in my mind.

Then begins the depression. I haven't slept much for such a long time. My become hypersensitive. I begin to be paranoid. Things people say seem to have hidden innuendos. I don't know when to trust my own perceptions. I am tired and only want to go to sleep, but I can't sleep. My dreams become disturbing and atmospheric so that when I wake up, they stay with me throughout the day, coloring everything.
I feel very hostile, and luckily I am somehow able to, for the most part keep this a inside of me. But energy I expend doing this causes me to be infinitely weary.

Thank God they have medicine to help people with this and I'm so lucky that it works for me. Apparently the medicine doesn't help everyone. When I get stressed out, I get really scared because I'm afraid that it will all happen again, but so far since beginning the medicine, I've never gone into a full-blown attack.

I know that I need a job that is not high-stress. They say that stress makes everyone sick but it kills me. Bipolar disorder is truly a destroyer of souls. I wouldn't wish it on my worse enemy. But I know that I am strong simply for the fact that I have survived it relatively intact. Bipolar disorder has the highest rate of suicide out of all the psychiatric disorders. I truly believe that I am lucky to be alive.

I'm lucky that I have my kids, my husband, my sister..I'm lucky in a lot of ways. I lost my job and I am still lucky. I've been given a new lease on life and I am so grateful. But the bogeyman never goes away entirely. I am very afraid of losing control. Maybe as time goes on I will become more confident that this won't happen. My life has been very hard but I've had gifts too and I choose to concentrate on those.

One of the things that I'm really proud of is that I have not let this make me a bitter person. There are things that I am angry about, I'm angry that the professionals that were supposed to help me didn't, until I was 40 years old. But I am grateful for the understanding that it has given me.

It's bad and it isn't. But I'm happy, not deliriously happy, but I'm working on it.

Big Butts and Immigration

2007-10-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

I started my second session of belly dance I on Wednesday. I was a little disappointed because we aren't learning any new moves but I need to practice the ones that I have already learned so I guess I'll just have to deal with it. I've discovered that I am at a decided disadvantage in belly dance because (hope this isn't too much information!) my butt isn't big enough! We all shimmied for awhile and though my shimmy is adequate I just can't get those coins jingling, I'm just not 'juicy' enough!

We actually discussed this during the class. Though the teacher didn't outright mention my butt, I think that she noticed my wimpy coins and she said that people who are thinner don't usually have the same affect when they hip shimmy and have to concentrate on the movements that require muscle control....the undulations etc ...

For awhile I thought of just trying to eat a lot more food trying to make my butt bigger but hell....who am I fooling! If my butt isn't big after 3 kids it just probably ain't gonna happen. I guess it's undulations for me. (Honestly, I will understand perfectly if no-one wants to touch this one with a ten foot pole.)

So, I will go on with my next thought, one that you will perhaps feel more comfortable commenting on. So, here I was all high on belly dance, driving out of the parking lot when I noticed that the bumper sticker of the car in front of me which belonged to a lady from the class, said 'Immigration! Border Patrol!'.

On the surface, this is a technically neutral statement. It's not like it said 'Drown all the Mexicans in the Rio Grande'. But it has been my experience that people who are pro-Mexican rights don't tend to have these bumper stickers. So, now I am in a class with someone who probably thinks that my husband is here stealing jobs from Americans, someone who probably thinks that people like my husband are turning our country into a 3rd world country. And Blah! Blah! Blah!

And that's okay. I don't agree with her and she doesn't have to agree with me, I respect her opinion limited though it may be. (That's respectful, right?) I'm used to it, I've been married to him for 10 years. I had some idea of how things would be when I married him though I didn't forsee 911 and everything that ensued from that.

And my husband and I are not blindly 'pro-Mexican' either. We both realize that the situation can not continue in this way, that there are going to have to be changes and perhaps consequences as well.

We are for Amnesty. We feel that they need to be offered a way to become a part of the system and that penalizing them is not the answer. The United States has benefit ted from Mexican labor for years, our economies are intertwined and we have benefited more than they have from this relationship.

We need them and that is why they have been allowed to come over. This stance that we are being taken advantage of by them is only a partial truth, we have taken advantage of them as well. They would have been more than happy to have a legitimate means for coming over here and working and not having to do it illegally and we have never offered them this option.

Good thing my husband isn't overly-sensitive. He prints USA Today and he is bombarded with all of the arguments. He says that sometimes he catches people talking about him because he is Mexican but when they see that he has noticed, they smile this false, bright smile and try to pass it off. He has never been hassled by the police but of course, we have this fear that one day this will happen.

My daughters have never been treated badly. I'm not capable of being objective about my kids looks. I just don't know if people can tell that they are Mexican when they see them or not and if things might be different if it were more obvious. And I'm not trying to implie that I want to 'pass my kids off as caucasian'. I would never do that. I hate that!

I have had people ask me if they were my kids or not. One lady said, "Oh your kids are so beautiful. Are they yours?" KInda funny! And my husband is usually treated nicely. If anyone is mean to him, it is usually one of those random encounters, my husband is likable so when people know him they don't give him any trouble.

Some of the things that we deal with are just funny! Some times little kids practice their Spanish on him! They are so proud when he understands them! One time a little kid called my daughter a taco and his parents were so embarassed! Once my husband went to subway and this girl put so many jalapenos on his sandwhich that even he could hardly eat it. She thought she was 'being down', I guess!

The guys at work have a lot of fun with my husband. He has a viscous sense of humor and they like playing with him. People talk to my husband like he is a child sometimes though because he has an accent. I always wonder if this doesn't sort of batter him on a subliminal level but what can you do? They don't mean anything by it, they probably don't even realize that they are doing it.

Anyway, given our experiences, I tend to think that people aren't really as bad as they sound when you read the editorials and listen to the people who call in on talk radio. Becasue those people really scare me!

But we often have this feeling of people talking out of both sides of their mouths at us. Smiling and nodding to your face and then making a snide remark when you are not there to hear it. And really, they can think whatever they want. I haven't really spoken to too many people who are militantly anti-immigration who are really very well-informed. I would be more than happy to talk to someone who is well-informed who has opinions that are different from mine on the matter. I would be interested in knowing what they think. I haven't found this though.

It's funny, this woman (I haven't figured out which one it is yet) is probably a nice womean. She probably had no wish to offend anyone. She probably takes the truth of her convictions so for granted that she probably had no idea that it would offend anyone. Or if it did offend someone it wouldn't be anyone who she was in bellydance class with. It would be offensive to someone who is over there, who isn't the same as her on any level. Oh well. It gave me something to ponder.

Slackers and the Zen of Belly Dancing

2007-10-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

Wisdom calls from every corner. When will you listen?

Where I grew up...girls are girls and men are men. (And the cows are nervous!) The girls all seem to ultimately become nurses. The Valedictorian of my sons graduating class, (he graduated from the same high school that I did), went to the local community college and became an RN. If you live where I live, its very difficult to believe that there is actually a nursing shortage.

Many of the people commute to Saint Louis, they have specific jobs with specific titles. Others work for local companies driving trucks, doing construction etc..
The adults around me, (besides being farmers) were accountants, an occasional lawyer, teachers and of course, nurses. Everything is all spelled out for them and it is all very practical and they seem to find it very soothing. I'm not like them. It isn't soothing to me at all, it sounds like a jail sentence to me. (Oh Jessie, I'm not talking about you!)

Since I read a lot, I was aware that there were other things that one could do that weren't so specific, which in my mind has always meant the same thing as limiting...but I had never seen anyone do any of these things. It always felt to me like these things were beautiful myths or romantic fables, they were unlikely to happen to me, they only happened to the few and fortunate.

If I had told someone where I grew up, I was going to become an archaeologist or a cultural anthropologist or anything that sounded slightly interesting...they wouldn't even have understood, not even most of the adults. Actually, they might have even laughed at me..to my face or behind my back. They didn't think that these things were possible either. Who cares what they think, right? Unfortunately, I did.

I am an imaginative person but sadly my imagination failed me in such a big way. I don't know if I'll ever fully understand how or why. But even more importantly, and this may be what I need to understand, my faith failed me. Remembering back, I know that there was no feed-back, no guidance, no examples,no-one to lead the way, ....not there. The guidance counsellors had this list of acceptable occupations and there were about 20 or 30 listed and these were what you were guided towards and that was it.

I went to college undecided about what I wanted to do. None of the list of professions that my counsellors had told me about sounded appealing and as I said, I didn't have the faith to imagine.

I loved college! My dreams woke up! I was taking lots of different classes! I was enjoying myself so much! I was lit up! I was enthusiastic! I looked forward to my days! I looked forward to my future!

And inexplicably, I ended up giving up. I was with someone who criticized me all the time and I believed him. This is no excuse however, my real enemy was inside of myself. It the demon that destroys us from within, and the one inside of me was legion and it kinda got loose and went on a murdering spree inside of me and damn near killed me.

I listened to the bastard and I got trained for a job with a specific title and with specific and limited duties just like they always told me to do. And whoa! I was respectable! What a heady feeling, no longer the wild gypsy. I was appropriate and conforming. The gypsy was banished but she trudged away muttering prophetically...."Just wait! You'll miss me one day!"

It didn't take long actually. I no longer felt enthusiastic about the future, my job was something to be tolerated until it was time to clock out and I could come home and could spend a little time being who I actually am. And there was never enough time to be who I was because who I am is pretty big! There seemed to be nothing in front of me but an eternity of sadness. I crammed time for 'my real-life' in between the lines and told myself that this was good enough. I was putting food on the table and a roof over our heads and after all....many people in this world don't even have that so how indulgent of me to complain.

I stuffed it inside and ignored my own pain and told myself that I was immature...that I wouldn't be mature until I could let go of these childish dreams. You can't just run off and join the circus when you have 2 small children! I felt that I had no real choices. Of course, there are always choices...I know that but I have kids to feed and they will have to go to college one day and I don't need a buch of loans to pay off when that day comes. Ultimately, I lied to myself and we know that that doesn't work forever.

"Most men live lives of quiet desperation." I used to love Thoreau but now he really pissed me off! I had this strange, irrational feeling that he was chiding me. I was one of those miserable people living a life of quiet desperation and he had my game and he thought I was a real coward. He would dare to judge me! (Talk about being sensitive, eh!) But I had my defense. His words were those of a slacker. He was sort of the anti-bellum version of Garth and Wayne, his generations version of the guy living in his parents basement.

But of course he was right and I knew it even then, The people who are self-actualized, who have made it to the top of the mountain, they are the ones who can see over to the other side and lead us to what is ahead. Thank god for them.

The Zen of Belly Dance!

I started taking Belly dancing lessons. I hooked up with an old friend, we have known each other since we were three. We are a lot alike but she followed her muse and I didn't. She is a belly-dance instructor and has her own studio. I have post-traumatic stress disorder.:) She is so happy! I feel like I am recovering from a long illness. I think meeting up with her was one of those synchronicity thingies. Just at the time in my life that I need to learn this lesson, there it is.

I want to be happy! I want to be deliriously happy! Don't tell me it isn't possible, I don't believe you! I want to leap out of bed with a song in my heart and go bounding out of my house to meet the world. I want to be so happy that people look at me jealously and say, "She can't possibly be for real!" I don't even care if they think that I am on drugs! At the very least, I don't want to wake up and pull the covers back over my head dreading the rest of the day before my feet even hit the floor.

When I started the Belly dance lessons, I was a complete klutz. Sometimes I was knock-kneed, sometimes I went the wrong way and practically knocked people over and now I can do a dance. A whole dance! And I can do it passably!

Do you know what? I think that it is so good for my daughters to see me doing this. To see me doing something and looking like a complete dork and continuing on with it and actually accomplishing it.

Know what else? I want my girls to see me be happy and to do what I love. Not just belly dance, but everything! I want to live my life as an example to them. I don't want them to have a mother who sold out and did the safe thing and spent her life desperately snatching little moments of joy. I don't want them to live like that and I will have to be the one who shows them that it doesn't have to be that way.

I said that I was being responsible by putting bread on the table. However, perhaps there were other ways that I was not being responsible. Ways that aren't always thought about when one hears the word responsibility, Perhaps I have been irresponsible by not living my life and raising them to think that this is okay. So, I am now working now and I am sitting at home like a lazy slacker being responsible. How's that?

The Hanged man has a different perspective, he sees the world from upside down.

You're fired!!

2007-10-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I lost my job....... Before you feel sorry for me I would like to say that it was time. It's time for me to move on. To know thyself....it's one of the most important things isn't it? I didn't know myself when I chose this field....or perhaps it was that I didn't accept myself for who I was. Being in this field was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Just isn't gonna happen. If you do finally force it in, it is damaged and broken in the process. It is time for me to move on before this happens to me.

Now for the good news. As the problems that have caused me to lose this job are considered a disability, I am eligible for assistance from the department of rehabilitation. So it looks like I am going back to school. If you were here right now, you would hear music playing because my heart is singing.

I've longed for this. For a long time I have felt like a prisoner trapped into a life caused by choices I made when I was not really capable of making good decisions. And now I am free. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. I don't have anything left to lose and I am free now... free now to indulge my hippy soul and find something organic, to do something in which who I am is flowing out of me instead of blocked. I can find my life's work. I actually believe in God again...okay....Godess.

So now it is my job to decide and to dream...that is my only job for now and I am thrilled. Maybe this writers block that I have had, this lack of joy, this crushing weight will lift now and maybe things will only get better.

Every once in awhile I have posted on this blog about something that I wanted to go back to school to do. These things were ideas born of desperation. I just wanted to stop doing what I was doing....but it was out of the frying pan into the fire! No more. I have been granted a reprieve and believe me, I know how lucky I am and I am not going to blow it!

I've decided that I want to become a ballerina! Just kidding! I'm exploring the possibility of working with the deaf. I want to become a sign language interpreter. Well, that's what I want to do today anyway. Who knows what I will want to tomorrow. All I know for sure is there will be no more dry technical stuff for this lady.

I remember the movie with William Hurt and Marlee Maitlin, can't remember what it was called....and sign language is so beautiful. When Marlee Maitlin signed, it looked like Ballet...so I guess if I did this I actually would be becoming a ballerina of sorts. I've always wanted to do this I just never believed that it was practical. Now I know that it is impractical for me to keep trying to do things that I am unsuited for.

My bipolar disorder is a blessing and a curse at the same time. Though it has wreaked havoc in my life, it has also made it impossible for me to tolerate intolerable situations, it makes it necessary to follow my heart. I can't fake my way through it like everyone else. I am constitutionally incapable of it. I wonder if that make sense? My weakness is my stregnth.

Don't be sad for me....I'm not.

Judgement

2007-10-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

I stated in my last post that I don't like to tell people that I am bipolar because I am afraid of being judged. I have given this a little more thought since I wrote this and I guess that I should explain in which ways I feel that I have been judged which may not be how you think.

Though of course there are some people who will look at you as a defective human being because your problems are mental, I am canny enough to not share the details of my condition with them. The trouble that I have had. has to do with friends who expect that someone with bipolar disorder should behave like a raving lunatic and since I don't, I may have allowed myself to be misdiagnosed.

This attitude from my friends highlights the ignorance there is about this disorder. My friends are intelligent people and that is what is scary. If anyone should know it should be them. I have come to the conclusion that no-one really knows what bipolar disorder is unless they are bipolar or have lived with someone who is.

Something that infuriates me is a certain attitude from the media that bipolar disorder is a over-diagnosed. Now, maybe it is or maybe it isn't, but this attitde creates a culture in which someone who is diagnosed can be treated like someone who is being faddish. You know, in the 70's we had focus groups, now we have medications.

I see this sort of journalism as so unbelievable irresponsible and it seems to me that this attitude is generally accepted even by people who are liberal. And it all seems to stem from this idea that the evil corporate giants, in this case the pharmaceutical companies, are involved in this mass conspiracy to get people to use their drugs.

I've seen it suggested that people like me need to eat healthy, excercise, spend time meditating, go through therapy etc..etc... instead of taking medication. They blame society. They say that we pathologize symptoms that are a direct result of the society that we live in rather than an actual illness. If I let it, it could make me wonder if I am an idiot for believing that I am bipolar and it could make me feel like I am taking medication in lieu of doing what I really need to do. My medication is seen as an avoidance.

I don't take these things seriously, they piss me off actually. The biggest problem that I have with it is that I feel alienated from people sometimes and I've always felt like that anyway so I can handle that. But I'm sure that there are people who are steered away from getting proper treatment because they feel that they are not politically correct.

Although there was an outcry about Tom Cruises famous statements on the Oprah show, I still believe that there are a lot of people who think like him.

Got them old Biplar Blues

2007-09-24T06:56:00.000-07:00

There is something that a lot of you probably don't know and it's not something that I tell just anyone and that is that I have Bipolar Disorder. I'm always afraid that it will lower peoples opinions of me, which I'm sure is true in many cases but I will tell all of you because of my sense that you are all kind and won't judge me.

I was only diagnosed about a year ago. Sadly, I've been having symptoms since I was young and no doctor or counsellor ever caught it. So, I started taking medicine last year and there has been dramatic and amazing changes in me. The changes were so dramatic that I suppose they lulled me into a false sense of security. I thought that my problems were over.

It's very hard to be bipolar and not know that you are. Because you blame yourself for things that are not actually in your control. You know that you are different than other people but you don't know why. Many people are angry when they find out. I was relieved because I finally understood what had been wrong all these years and I was given hope that things could improve. The only thing that I was angry about was that no-one helped me a long time ago because I certainly did seek help....many times.

I cannot stress how much this disease has reached it's tentacles into my life in every possible way for over twenty years. Therefore, to try and completely separate it from who I am is difficult and would end up being not telling the truth and causes other, more practical challenges.

Bipolar Disorder involves a lot of self-monitoring. The doctor often has no way of knowing what is going on inside of you but what you tell them, unless you get so bad that it is completely obvious. There are no laboratory tests for this, no x-rays, just you and your family or friends to recognize that an attack is coming so that you can head it off before it gets too bad. Before you develop the full blown symptoms there is still time for you to recognize that they are coming and do something about them. Therefore it is important for you to know what your symptoms are leading up to the attack.

I have difficulty knowing when something that I am experiencing is something that I should tell the Dr. and when it is something insignificant because I still don't know too much about myself apart from the symptoms.... it's hard to explain. I'm afraid that I'm not quite sure what normal is.

I have recently come to realize that I am not nearly as stable as I thought that I was. I am not feeling well now and I think that maybe this has been coming for awhile and that I just didn't recognize it...or maybe I did recognize it but I just didn't think it would be this bad.

There is something called hypo mania, this is what I get. The person never goes into full blown mania. They get high energy and creative and its fun. You feel like you can finally keep up with everyone else as opposed to when on the downswing when you feel like you can't keep up with anything. A person constantly feels guilty about being depressed, you feel like you are letting everyone down. So when you are up, it makes you feel like you are the same as everyone else and you don't live with that feeling of self-blame and weariness. And it is because of exactly this that people tend to not address the early symptoms which are called pro-dromal symptoms, it is a perpetual trap that people with Bipolar Disorder fall into. And I knew this and did it anyway.

I knew that I was getting a little 'wild' but frankly, I liked the way that I felt so much that I suppose that I felt like the risk was worth it. But believe me, its not. Well....live and learn.

*************************************************************************************I assume that everyone has heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is a mood disorder like Bipolar Disorder. People have lights prescribed to them by the Doctor. Bipolar people are not supposed to use those lights without talking to a Dr. It can make them manic. When Spring came and the days started getting longer, I started having symptoms, I almost went to the Doctor, but they lessened.

Then I almost went in June when I found I couldn't stop crying about the Madeleine McCann case that I posted about in June, about the little girl who was abducted in Portugual. Then I started not being able to eat and this made me foggy. And etc..etc...and now look at me.

I hate being fragile, and I am fragile. Any little thing can throw me off. Not getting enough to eat, not getting enough to sleep, stress, hormones.....nearly anything! It really sucks!

I have been having a difficult time at my job and the stress of this has caused me to have a relapse. Plainly, the job is just wrong for someone with my condition. I am much more suited for a job where my rapid thoughts will be a merit rather than a handicap. I have a job where you have to concentrate, but on meaningless details. And when things get too fast, I get confused and can't keep up. I keep getting in trouble and it's getting to be too much for me, the job itself but also knowing that for me, it is a dead-end.

I went out on FMLA for 2 weeks, and have gone back to work on a reduced schedule. I talked to them about the Bipolar Disorder and they told me that when I don't feel like I can work, I need to take FMLA, not to come in. And if I do come in, I will be held responsible for whatever happens. If I had to work tonight, I don't know if I would be able to. My FMLA protects me from being fired for calling in, but it doesn't feel very good to take off work and leave the place short-staffed, it puts a lot of pressure on me.

I know that ultimately, I will not be working there forever, it is just a matter of when the job ends, not if. People tell me I should quit but this is where I have my health insurance and frankly, I don't know if I am up to starting a new job right now.

Since I am bipolar, I am probably eligible for some type of assistance. But the thing is, I have a job and they are going to look at that as...I am working so it can't be as bad as I say. I have an appointment to talk to someone on October 1st and I am going to tell them this, since it is the truth. I still have my job because I was cagey, and that is probably the main reason. And sometimes I wonder if it is ethical to keep doing what I am doing when I am not well.

Once I got really excited about Courtroom Reporting but I don't think that I could probably do that either. I probably couldn't handle the pressure and I would probably have days when I couldn't focus. I have always thought that I would like to be a paralegal too but the truth is that that is probably too stressful for me too. I would be working in an office with people and people really stress me out sometimes. There are times that I would probably be less effective and this would surely cause problems.

I have tentatively decided what I want to do, though I still have some people to talk to. I would like a vocational evaluation which could help me decide what I could expect to be able to handle and what I probably couldn't. What I am considering now is Web Design. I think that I would really like it.

It isn't that I can't concentrate at all, but there are only certain things that I can consistently concentrate on. One of my defining qualities is that I am full of crazy mad ideas which would be quite a plus. I think that I could be good at it. I think that I would like it and I believe that I could handle the stress of doing this better than other types of stress.

And I seem to do so much better when I have some way of channeling some of my creativity, which I experience almost like a physical urge. Which is why I took so well to blogging. When I blog, my head stops whirling around and I can actually concentrate.

Well anyway, lately I can write and watch TV, but am having trouble reading. I just can't concentrate. So sorry I haven't been around too much. Hope you understand.

Freaky little demon card!!

2007-09-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

The 10 of swords is a card that can strikes terror in the heart of one who receives it. (That is if you actually believe in Tarot) Even if you don't believe in Tarot it could be startling to receive this gruesome card, especially if it was an accurate reflection of what is occurring in your life.

So, of course you probably know what I am leading up to. I got this card the other night....5 TIMES!! Yikes! It almost made me want to throw my Tarot deck away from me and run screaming out of the room. It almost made me want to perform an exorcism.:)

This card, you will not be surprised to know, is sometimes called defeat, and defeat is something that nobody welcomes. But defeat can also open new doors. For once someone has done everything that they can possibly do, there is no choice but to move on and start considering different options And once the initial shock of the defeat is over, leaving the path that you have been trudging down so wearily and starting on a new untried path can be a heady and liberating experience! Defeat is not something that anyone looks forward to but after years of being terrified by horrifying cards like this, we Tarot readers tend to come up with alternate meanings for them that are a little less discomfiting, which is one of the really cool things about the Tarot.

There is an another amusing interpretation of this card in Rachel Pollack's book, 78 degrees of wisdom, (which I would highly recommend even if you are not into Tarot, it is full of unintentional poetry and life lessons) in which she points out that the figure in the picture appears melodramatic or 'hysterical' as she puts it. And many people do interpret this card as representing someone who is playing the victim. They say it can stand for someone who wallows in their pain and doesn't want to move on or as I prefer to think of it, someone who is not in touch with their personal power and believes that they have no choice but to remain in the situation that they are in, which I think is a much kinder way of putting it.

In this situation, ones task would be to examine ones attitude and try to come up with positive, creative, proactive solutions to their problems. This interpretation is basically and sub-level of the defeat card, or perhaps sub-category would be a better way of putting it.

Along the same lines, another key phrase for this card is 'stabbed in the back'. And again this card would prompt one to examine situations that make them feel like they are being stabbed in the back. It may also prompt them to look at the part their attitude or behavior may be playing in the situation.

I wonder if you have noticed that contrary to being fatalistic, the cards are very pro-active in nature. Never do they suggest the situation is set in stone, they always suggest a way in which the situation can be improved or thought of differently. They are sort of like having a 'magical' counselor that you never have to pay.

I have had many people want me to tell their fortunes. To tell them what the future holds for them and I won't do this anymore. It makes me very uncomfortable and it also feels silly to me. I have however had some very strange things happen to me while I have read, so I do not entirely discount the idea that the cards do sometimes take on a life of ones own. I don't even try to understand that anymore. But I do not do fortune telling.

Tarot readers are often disrespected because we are looked upon as....well....fruitcakes! And there are many people who do fortune telling with them. And because of this, many people don't realize that the true purpose of the Tarot cards, at least to me and many others, is that they are a tool for spiritual growth. They use pictorial symbols to represent archetypal human experiences and allows one to think about things using their right brain.

I prefer to look at the Tarot as a tool for self-examination and if reading for others, I am the 'keymaster', I know the meanings of the cards. I am the guide..that's all. Tarot has many lessons, one of them I have just related to you. That ultimately, the answers are inside of us and we can find them if we search and that the Tarot can be a tool.

I'm still having a hard time concentrating and I realize that this post is a little disjointed and has some typos, grammatical errors etc...but it's the best I can do right now, especially since my kids are running around the house screaming like monkeys. I will come back and fluff it up a little more later, but in the meantime, I wanted to post it, warts and all!

Frazzled

2007-09-12T08:18:00.001-07:00

I'm just a frazzled mess right now. I'm going to meditate on Mandala's for a few weeks per Jung's advice. Remember me. I'll be back eventually.

2007-09-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

Life is fast-paced and life can be rough. Life can run over you like a steamroller and some of us handle it better than others. I have a bad habit, I take it all out on other people. I release my feelings of fatigue and frustration with how hectic everything is on others. Only in my mind, I'm usually pleasant in face-to-face encounters, or I try to be. But in my mind I am constantly complaining about people when they drive too slow, when they get in my way in the store and are so wrapped up in their thoughts that they don't notice that I am there and I have to shrewishly clear my throat to get them to move. I judge people who yell at their kids, people who are rude or unpleasant. I even criticize other women's fashion and hairstyles.

I don't think of myself as a hypocrite or a coward because I criticize people in my mind but am nice face-to-face. I think of the critical thoughts as myself blowing off steam. I realize that when I am complaining about people in my mind that I am not really seeing them, that I am objectifying them and as long as they don't know my thoughts that there is really 'no bad'. I comfort myself with the fact that I really am a nice person and that these thoughts don't really mean much, they are just static.

But you know, who am I fooling? Of course they mean something. Supposing that it is true that my thoughts don't hurt anyone else, (even though I don't really believe this) my thoughts at the very least, hurt myself. For, I feel ugly when I think these thoughts, I really do. These thoughts separate me from others and this is painful.

These thoughts also exist in a sort of endless loop. For who says that other people aren't aware of my thoughts? They may not be aware of them in a conscious way, but it's possible or even probable that they sense them. For I believe that it is true that our negative thoughts reveal themselves in subtle ways and provoke people to certain negative responses, again in a subtle way, and that these responses then justify our thoughts to ourselves.

I know that there is a definite difference in the way that I am treated by others depending upon whether I am in a good mood or a bad mood. I understand that a lot of it may be perception, that I am always encountering people who have a positive response towards me but just don't notice it when I am in a funk. But I don't think that that is the extent of the explanation. I again believe that people are responding to subtle cues that I am sending out, this time positive ones and it is because of this that people are responding to me in a positive way.

Have you ever seen anyone who has such a positive, loving vibe that people just seem to melt around them? It is very rare, but it truly happens. Once I was with a boyfriend and at the time, he was all strung out on life. We were waiting at a dry cleaners and there was a car blocking the window. The person driving the car had gone inside and left their car parked in front of the window. My friend was quite miffed and was involved in some very expert cussing when the door opened and a priest walked out and he smiled, no not smiled...he beamed at us. It was such a sunny smile that I have remembered it for all of these years. No-one could withstand such a smile, my friend included. Truly, what power lies in a smile! I know that this is sort of hallmark-yish, but it's true. As it's also true that people respond our moods more than we or even they probably realize.

What has prompted these thoughts? I was out the other day and it was like I had some sort of epiphany or some sort of worldly veil was lifted from me and I suddenly saw things as they truly are. I was suddenly unable to objectify people as is my habit and I started seeing them and they all looked so beautiful! And everyone looked that way! No-one escaped. Even people who gave off bad vibes, I felt sad for them because they were unhappy. And I couldn't stop looking at people like this was something that I had been hungry for.

Do you know the story of Helen Keller? It was one of my favorite stories when I was young. Helen Keller was deaf and blind. There was no sign language system in use at the time and people just didn't think that it was possible that she would ever be able to communicate with other people, then someone taught her finger spelling. For a long time, she didn't connect the words spelled with her fingers and the objects that these words were supposed to be representing. But suddenly one day she understood and she went flying around touching everything and asking for it's name. The world was suddenly opened to her.

This is what I felt like, I felt like she she must felt when everything was revealed and she saw how much more there was than she had ever known before. Except I didn't rush around and start touching people. All of a sudden that spiritual blindness left me for a time and I felt connected with everything in a way in which I usually don't and that feeling of being ugly that I carry around without even realizing that it is there suddenly left me and that was when I realized what a burden it was and how tired it makes me.

I've had things that have happened to me and just like anyone else, this is why I developed some of the attitudes I developed. I think that our attitudes sometimes protect us, they are an armor we wear and we are supposed to grow so that one day we do not need this armor anymore.

It's time for me to move on, as I've seen, it certainly would feel much better. Going through the world seeing everything through new eyes would make going through it so much easier.

Need a good laugh?

2007-09-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

I've been in a bad mood lately, got some things going on. As you all know, the age old remedy for a bad mood is supposed to be laughter so I've prescribed myself some. I'd like to share it with you. These are called Tom Swifties. They were originated by Edward Stratemeyer in a series of cartoons in the 1920's.

"I dropped my toothpaste," Tom said crestfallen.

"Who would want to steal modern art," Tom said abstractedly.

"My investments are worth more everyday," Tom said appreciatively.

"I have to keep this fire alight," Tom bellowed.

" ", said Tom blankly.

"You've got the right to remain silent," Tom said arrestingly.

"I've only enough carpet for the hall and landing," said Tom with a blank stare.

"Sure I can climb cliffs," Tom bluffed.

"This wind is awful," Tom blustered.

"Use your own toothbrush," Tom bristled.

"Yes, I have been reading Voltaire," Tom admitted candidly.

"I've been to a film festival in the South of France," Tom said cannily.

"I love the novels of D.H. Lawrence," said the lady chattily.

"Another batch of shells for me," Tom clamored.

"We've taken over the government," the general cooed.

"I'd like to be a chinese laborer," said Tom coolly.

"Those cobs are amazing," said Tom cornily.

"Give me some pre-packed cheese slices," said Tom craftily.

"I'm dying," Tom croaked.

"A greek woodland deity is no more," Tom said with a deadpan expression.

"I can no longer hear anything," said Tom deftly.

"Have I been emasculated?" Tom demanded.

Don't let me drown in Egypt," said Tom in deep denial.

"I want the statue to look like the Venus de Milo," said Tom disarmingly.

"That sure took the winds out of my sails," said Tom disgustedly.

"I can't find my reefer," said Tom disjointedly.

"I'll never give up my hounds," said Tom doggedly.

"I'm now on welfare," said Tom dolefully.

"It's made the grass wet," said Tom after due consideration.

"Let's get married," said Tom engagedly.

"Get the stick, Rover," said Tom fetchingly.

"I have a split personality," said Tom, being Frank.

"We have no bananas," said Tom fruitlessly.

"This food tastes of plutonium," Tom said glowingly.

"For what we are about to recieve, make us truly gratefully," Tom said gracefully.

"Would anyone like some parmesan," Tom said gratingly.

"I only have diamonds, clubs and spades," Tom said heartlessly.

"It's my maid's night off," Tom said helplessly.

"The doctors had to remove a bone from my arm," Tom said humorlessly.

"That's an ugly hippototamus," Tom said hypocritically.

"I brush my teeth 10 times a day," said Tom implacably.

"His honor is crazy," Tom admitted judgementally.

"I'd like chicken soup with matzo balls and gefilte soup," Tom said judiciously.

"My parents are called Billy and Nanny," Tom kidded.

"I refuse to make an agenda," Tom said listlessly.

"It's only average," Tom said meanly.

"According to this sonograph, the average frequency of my voice is 160 Hz," said Tom with measured tones.

"A million thanks Monsieur," said Tom mercifully.

"Perhaps I will," said Tom with all of his might.

"Do you call this a musical," said Les miserably.

"My sterios half-fixed," said Tom monotonously.

"The sun is rising," Tom mourned.

"Momma is German," Tom muttered.

Only a vehicle

2007-08-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

How much of what you think of as yourself, the part that you experience as 'I', the part that speaks in your mind, that carries your thoughts is only biology? I think that most people would consider this question hypothetical, an interesting question but not really one that affects them too much.

However, how would you feel if you saw someone close to you, someone who is mentally ill, take medication and suddenly become better? How would you feel if you saw someone who had had a certain behavior all of their lives, someone who had tried everything that they could possibly think of: counselling, life-style changes, dietary changes self-analysis etc....desperately tried everything that they could possibly think of with little or no result and then, suddenly that person started to take medication and their problems virtually disappeared?

I don't think that many people would deny that that is a good thing. but if one thinks about it, it can bring up some very discomfiting questions. Especially for the person who is experiencing these changes through their 'I'. Negative or positive, this person has been experiencing this behaviour and these thoughts as stemming from inside of them, the side that they think of as me. Suddenly, it's all gone and everyone is glad, everyone who knew them is glad. This person is glad too, but it is still very strange.

Think of this from their perspecive. Once the many things made him or her angry, now annoy them, but that is it. Being angry isn't really worth the energy that is expended. They may have made many of the decisions that have brought them to the point of life that they are at now but they made them when they were sick and now they have to live with them. They may remember what they felt like when they made the decisions but they don't really feel that way anymore. They aren't even shure what caused themself to make these decisions, the thoughts that they had were their thoughts, true. But they were their thoughts modified by some bad chemicals. Could that possibly make one wonder if ones life is built on some fallacies? Ya think?

Suppose they have a lot of memories of bad things that they have done, mean things, stupid things...wierd things. Time after time that they may have failed because they were sick, but they didn't know they were sick and they have been filled with self-loathing and self-blame. Then suddenly they find out that they have an illness and that perhaps these things were not their fault after all? Does one let themself off the hook?

Is it easy to see how someone could be left with the conunundrun of wondering, "Who am I then, exactly? If this wasn't me that did all these things then what was it? If it wasn't me that what am I?"

For most people, as I said, these are philisophical questions. It may be amusing to find out for example, that there is a gene that controls sense of humor, but it certainly isn't the same as finding out that nearly everything that you thought was you, may not have been you after all. This person has become stablized but has also lost many of their ideas and worse, their spark. What were they after all?

I happen to believe that our bodies are a vehicle for our souls. Perhaps the person who has been having these experiences would feel comforted by this belief. That their "I" transcends the physical. I am sort of brain dead right now. This is all I can write.

I don't have to be mature if I don't want to! So nyah!

2007-08-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

I don't think that 40 is old. I don't think that 50 is old. I don't even think 60 is old though your getting there by then I suppose, but I wonder if I will feel the same way when I am 60.

I work with a group of people in their late 40's and in their 50's who, one and all, describe themselves as old. Interestingly, the man I work with who is 60 does not describe himself as old and is in better health than all of them. Before you start thinking that there may be a correlation between how well he feels and his feelings about aging, I also work with people younger than he is who think that they are old and they are quite healthy.

I find it...oh what do I find it. Offensive? No, that's not quite right. Do I feel disdainful? Actually, I do feel a little disdainful. Do I feel disgusted? Not really, I think I feel shocked, confused, and a little disappointed. Disappointed because I am probably going to be working with these people for a while and I find this attitude to be a real downer.

There is a woman the same age as me who constantly refers to how we're old now. Excuse me? Maybe you are, I'm not. (I don't say that.) A lot of the people who I work with have health and dietary habits guarenteed to send one to an early grave and constantly talk about their health problems as though they are just an inevitable part of aging. AND THEY AREN'T EVEN THAT OLD!

The other day, I heard a woman say to another woman that she really wasn't familiar with 80's music. She said "I went through that stage where you listen to music in the 70's" That stage where you listen to music? Listening to music, a stage? Huh?

Younger people are always afraid of getting older and who can blame them with these examples of 'graceful aging'. To think that you are going to have terrible health problems and be hobbling around complaining about your feet and that you will no longer listen to music because it is a juvenile activity, doesn't make one look forward to growing older.

Naturally, one will have more problems due to the normal wear and tear of age. It's at this age that congenital anomolies may make their presence known or that genetic predispositions may start causing health problems. But most of us can prevent having serious health problems by taking care of ourselves.

I have found that comments like the ones I mentioned above are beginning to be a pet peeve of mine. Firstly, because I don't agree with them but hey, people can agree to disagree. No foul. But because it is so negative. It perpetuates a negative stereotype and makes you complicit with an attitude that is damaging to a large segment of the population in which you are included, if not now, then eventually.

I heard a radio show once that spoke about age discrimination and the gentleman pointed out that aging is unavoidable. Living in a society that has such negative stereotypes about aging causes low self-esteem. It is to everyones benefit to confront these stereotypes, especially if you are young now because things will be better for you when you are older if you do.

The idea that common phrases illustrate attitudes and form them at the same time is interesting to me. An example of this would be the phrase 'my generation.' This phrase is commonly used to mean the late teens through 20's and maybe early 30's. It seems to mean the time when you are young. It seems to imply that only during this time are you entirely revelant and once 'your generation' has been replaced by the new one, you are not really as important. You are consigned, as a woman, to the ranks of soccer mom. Pooh! What is wrong with loving your kids and being a mom. What does that say about our society that we lump and entire group of our population into a one-dimensional phrase that we say with a sneer on our faces. It says more about our society than it does the women that they are referring to.

At any rate, this is my generation. As long as I am alive, this is my generation. It was my generation when I was in preschool and it will be my generation up until the day I die. I will not become less relevant, nor do I believe that I will lose touch or lose my edge. I don't believe that we have to. But it's something that we have to fight because all of society seems hell-bent on putting someone who is not a 'youngster' anymore into this slot.

Fight! Fight! Fight! I have never lost my teenage rebellion and it will hold me in good stead. Don't worry, I have learned to rebel with a little more finesse. (Rebellion is another thing, by the way. Why is it always considered more adult to mold yourself to the situation around you, to stop fighting and accept things that you know are wrong.) Our poor children.

Being a parent Part 2

2007-08-09T09:35:00.001-07:00

my previous post was something that I have been thinking about writing for a long time. I'm afraid that I may have come out sounding a little self-righteous. If I did, please forgive, I didn't mean to.

I was a terribly sensitive child. I got my feelings hurt very easily. I fretted about slights, worried when I thought that I had done something wrong and I went through a stage where I almost wouldn't speak when I met someone new. I was painfully shy and just sat back and I watched people much of the time. I was very aware of what was going on inside of other people (to the best of my ability, I was only a child) and if someone was angry with me I felt this very intensly.

My children come from my genes (their dad is also sensitive, so they got a double whammy!) and they have a quality similar to mine, or maybe it's environmental I don't know. This is why it's hard for me to be tough with my kids. I wouldn't have needed anyone to be tough with me, all you would have had to do was talk to me and 90% of the time I would have complied.

My mother is the cerebral sort, doesn't place too much importance on feelings. She also wasn't ready to have a kid yet when she had me and didn't want to be bothered with me. As long as I didn't interrupt her from her reading or talking on the telephone or whatever and as long as I didn't make a big mess for her to have to clean up, I could do whatever I wanted. But when I annoyed her, the punishment was harsher than it needed to be and was done out of anger.

I remember how emotionally painful it was for me to be punished like I was and I suppose it is all these things in combination that makes it hard for me to be rough with my girls. The thing that I remember most is being so surprised that anyone would treat me like I was a 'bad girl' because I knew that I wasn't. I really felt the unfairness of that.

I'm not trying to go into a big 'whine-fest' about how mistreated I was as a child. I grew up in a fairly affluent household and had many advantages as well, it wasn't all bad. I'm merely trying to explain from whence my attitude stems.

I also grew up in a small town of people who were intrinsically different than my own family. Since I was already shy, this was very painful for me. They made fun of me because I liked to read, they made fun of me for my liberal views, they made fun of me because I wasn't good at sports though strangely, when I played sports with a group of friends that I didn't feel shy around, I did jusr fine. I didn't relate to them at all, but it never occurred to me when I was young that maybe they were the ones who were wrong, not me. There were so many of them and I was just one. My mother was completely oblivious to what was going on, she just wasn't made to deal with things like that.

So, I'm soft with my girls. I assume that they are the same as me, that when they do something bad it is because they didn't really understand or because maybe what I am expecting from them is too much for their age. So far it's worked. I realize that there are children who may have a different temperament from my own and that my approach may not be at all effective with these children.

I didn't do as well with my son as I have done with my daughters, though my son has turned out great too. I let people pressure me. They told me that I was being too soft on him and that if I wasn't stricter that he would turn out bad. Joel was sort of contrary. And there are people who think that if your child doesn't blindly obey your every order that they are bad kids. I let one of these people influence me when I was young. I wish that I hadn't. If I could do it all over again, I would have raised him just like I do my girls and he would have ended up good like he is now but we would have happier memories.

It was about this time that I found a book, which I read, that affected me so deeply that I was finally able to break away from this pressure of wondering whether or not I was wrong in being so soft with my son and to finally believe that I was not leading him towards trouble. It was called The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller. This book has become a classic with therapists from what I understand.

Ms. Miller obtained a popular childrearing manual that German mothers at the turn of the century used for advice in the best way to raise a child. These mothers were the mothers of the men and women who grew up to be the Nazi generation in Germany. By using quotes from this childrearing manual and tying them with circumstances and occurences she sheds much light into the psychosocial dynamics of why things like the Holocaust occur.

The main culprit is what she calls 'shame-based' childrearing practices. Shame-based childrearing practices evolve from the belief that children are bad and that it is the job of their parents or caretakers to force them towards goodness, left to their own devices they will never grow to become moral people. This involves breaking the will of the child, forcing the child to accept authority. Their moral compass then comes from outside of them rather than being something intrinsic. As they are always looking outwards to other people to tell them what to do, they lack the ability to think for themselves and can be easily led to commit immoral acts, especially if they are being prompted towards committing an immoral act by someone whom they consider to be an authority.

As force is used against them in order to bend them to will of another, they begin to associate 'power-over' as being the only type of power that there is, they don't fully understand power that comes from within. If brutal force is used against them then they associate brutality with power, there has to be a winner and a loser and they intend to be the winner. I have known people like this and I've noticed that they talk about respect a lot yet they seem to respect no-one. They seem to think that respect and obedience are synonomous.

I was talking to a woman I work with last night (she really gets on my nerves.) She was talking about the good old days, (my god, she's only 50) when kids got off their fat asses (her words) and walked to school, they didn't need a bus to take them 4 blocks. I mentioned to her that people don't want their children to get abducted or targeted by child molestors and she retorted with, "We had all that stuff back then too." as though being abducted by a childmolestor should be some sort of rites of passage ceremony.

Then she went on to say that if you did something wrong and someone elses parent saw you then they would (her words again) beat your ass, tell your parents and your parents would beat your ass and by the time it was all over with, you might have had your ass beaten 3 times. This was what she called being taught respect. Knowing that there are people loose in this world with that attitude make me even more inclined to protect my children. (You guys, the people I work with drive me nuts. This blog is my life-line.)

I just don't see all of these horrible kids that she is talking about and I hear other people talking about them too. I do see lots of lost souls however. Guess it's just a difference in perspective. Why do I, who am not religious, tend to see 'lost souls' and people who I know that are religious seem to see 'sinners.'

I guess there is going to be a part 3 to this, I am not quite able to get done.

Being a Parent Part 1

2007-08-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

I am a lenient parent. Some of you might be appalled if you saw what I let my kids get away with. If they don't want to eat at supper time, they don't have to. If they get hungry later, they get to eat. They don't get spanked. I've given them little, minuscule smacks before, but that's it. If they aren't tired, they can watch TV til 1 in the morning. I really don't care. They still have to get up though.

My kids have lots of toys, at least, the classic toys like paints and blocks, dress-up clothes, books etc... The concessions I have made to moderninity are video games and computer. I usually give My girls what they ask for. Why do I give them what they ask for? Because they never ask for anything. My daughter Claudia is about the most unmaterialistic kid you'd ever want to meet. Much less materialistic than her mother. My younger daughter very rarely asks for something when we go to a store. As a matter-of-fact, I can't remember the last time she asked for anything.

And I'll tell you, my kids are the kind of kids that you would choose to have at your house if for some reason you were forced to babysit someone but were able to choose who you had to babysit. They are very well-behaved. People call my older daughter an 'old soul'. And when I tell people at the daycare how rambunctious my younger one is at home, they look startled and seem skeptical.

I do not have lists of chores and reward charts and the punishments all mapped out. I expect things from my children but what I expect is that they are good at heart and that I will not have to make them do anything, there is no need because they already want to do what is right.

This might appear to other people that I am raising my children with a lack of discipline and direction, yet my older daughter is very disciplined. She always turns her homework in, always has it done, she gets straight A's and she has never gotten in trouble one time in school and she has finished 4 grades so far.

Okay, before I go on, I'm not trying to imply that either myself or my daughters are perfect. (Do you actually think that I am going to admit our flaws? I'm not but trust me, we have them.) There are plenty of things that I think that I could have done better and plenty of things that I think I could do better with now. I am not here to talk about that. What I am trying to illustrate is that my child-rearing practices seem to flout traditional methods yet for some reason, I am ending up with the results that parents using more punitive measures are trying to achieve. So I am not going to talk about my 'failures'...at least not today.

I worked with a woman who, when she was pregnant, talked quite a lot about how her child was not going to be a spoiled brat and I spent many evenings patiently listening to her talk about the methods that she would use to ensure her well-disciplined child. Though I applauded her ambition I was a little confused as to why she she was already expecting an unborn child to be a brat and thinking of ways to thwart the childs 'evil proclivities'. I honestly never expected my children to be bad. I knew that they would make mistakes and do bad things, but I never thought that they would be bad. And they aren't.

(I keep bringing up my older daughter because I think that I don't know how my younger one is going to be yet. I don't expect her to be a problem child or anything but I don't want to have to eat my words later.) But anyway, is my older daughter good because I expected her to be? If I had expected her to be bad and steeled myself for battles and wars would I have had a daughter who was less well-behaved than the daughter I ended up with?

Obviously, there is no way that I will ever know this. But my hunch is that part of the reason that she is a good child is because this is what we expected from her. People speak of having high expectations for your child and as best as I can tell they mean expecting good grades and exemplary behavior. I never expected these things from my children. I expected them to be good people and assumed that these things would follow, and they have.

My younger daughter has thrown a fit in public twice. Both times it was my fault, she was hungry. I shouldn't have let her get so hungry. My older daughter did it twice too. The first time she was coming down with something. The second time was right after her sister was born and she was trying to get used to not being the only child. Both times, I was glared at by people who seemed to expect me to....I don't know? Spank them? Yell at them? Stop it somehow? Stop a small child from having a meltdown indeed!

There is actually a lot of pressure on parents to be mean to their children. It's subtle but it's there. Did you hear about the flight attendent who put the mother and her 18 month old baby off the plane because the baby wouldn't stop talking? He wasn't crying, he was talking. I think a lot of people have the attitude that the flight attendent have, but aren't bold enough to say anything.

When I talk about what I bought my children for Christmas I get knowing looks, they seem to think that I realize that I am spoiling my children but that I can't quite control myself. They chuckle indulgently, they think that they are laughing with me. Little do they know that I don't think that I am spoiling my children by making sure that they have materials in the home that will help them learn the things that they need to learn during whatever developmental stage that they happen to be in at that time.

Well, I have run out of time. I will finish......hopefully tomorrow. I will be reading you tonight too.....unless I get too busy. Expect comments some time soon. (I know you live for my comments!)

Getting closer to being done!

2007-08-02T08:53:00.000-07:00

Don't worry everyone. I haven't forgotten about you. (How could I? Your all so great!) I actually read your posts at work but don't comment.

I may actually have some spare time tomorrow, (Yipee!) But I'm not sure yet. (Ah, the suspense!)

I got the upstairs clean. Next is the basement! EEEWW!!! Then maybe I'll be done enough to start all over again!

Plus Monday is my oldest daughter's birthday! Preparing for that! Shopping today! See you soon!

Time to clean! No more procrastination!

2007-07-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

I have to cut down on my blogging for a little while. Quite frankly, I need to get my house cleaned up. It is a mess that I can no longer ignore. We just have too much stuff. I need to get rid of some of it etc....When I get everything clean, I will be back. Hopefully, it won't take too long!

(Sometimes I wonder if there is some Freudian reason why I often choose pictures of girls much younger than me.)

Shake Hands With the Devil

2007-07-20T08:12:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm trying to save money on books. I spend sooooo much money on books. Instead of buying from Borders etc....I have been going to used book stores and thrift shops.

I never know what I am going to find when I take this route. You just have to choose from what is there. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised as I am picking books I wouldn't normally choose. So, right now I am reading Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. It's written by Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire.

He is the highest-ranking military officer ever to suffer openly with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He gives a detailed first-person, insiders account of the events leading up to the withdrawal of all the major powers and what he saw and felt.

I'm very interested in what happened in Rwanda and also other things going on in Africa, though I must confess it is a somewhat morbid interest. Things like this are so scary and I guess I want to try to understand what is going through peoples minds and how something like this could happen.

Also, and please don't anyone take offense at this but my mother is very anti-military. She is also very ideological and tends to see things as black and white. So, I was not raised to be open-minded towards the military. Since I've left home and grown up, I am more open-minded and realize that the prol-military have their poing of veiw as well and I respect it for the most part, though I don't entirely understand. So, it is eye-opening for me to read about how he felt about being a soldier.

So.....as of yet, the book is a little boring. Okay, not a little, a lot. But I am trying to wade through the beginning because I think it is going get better. (Well, I know this is sort of a lame post but it's all I have time for right now. I'll come up with something better soon!) So, what are you reading?

What would I do with myself if I was my daughter?

2007-07-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

When I was 15 I went to San Francisco to spend time with my uncle Micheal and my aunt Amy. When I got off the plane and we got to the car, my uncle said, "Wow! You must be tired. Here have some of this." and he handed me a joint.

Thus started my 2 week trip to San Fran. I never liked pot that much actually. It opened me up too much. I lost my boundaries. I felt like people could see what I felt and that I could feel what they felt. I got confused. I wonder if anyone else has ever had that experience with pot?

When I was out there, my uncle took me to a used record store. One of the albums I purchased was Horses by Patty Smith not to be confused with Patti Smith. She is a poet and a musician (and I emphasize the poet part of the equation). She is absolutely awesome. I recently purchased the CD. She is just as relevant now as she was in 1974 when she cut the album. (She has been inducted into the Rolling Stone's top 100 artists.)

Here are some of the lyrics to her song, Land.

The boy was in the hallway drinking a glass of tea.
From the other end of the hall a rhythm was generating
Another boy was sliding up the hallway
He merged perfectly with the hallway
He merged perfectly with the mirror in the hallway

The boy looked at Johnny
Johnny wanted to run
But the movie kept movie as planned
The boy took Johnny, he pushed him in the locker
He drove it in, he drove it home, he drove it deep in Johnny
The boy disappeared, Johnny fell on his knees
Started crashing his head against the locker
Started crashing his head against the locker
Started laughing hysterically.

When
Suddenly
Johnny
He gets the feeling,
He is surrounded by Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses
Coming in in all directions
White, shining, silver studs with their nose in flames
He saw Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life is filled with holes
Johnny laying here, his sperm coffin
Angel looks down and says, "Oh pretty boy, can't you show me nothin' but surrender?"
Johnny gets up, puts on his leather Jacket
Taped to his chest, there's the answer
You got pen knives and jack knives and switch blades preferred
Switch blades preferred
Then he cries, then he screams saying
Life is full of pain, I'm cruising through my brain
And I fill my nose with snow and go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud
And go Johnny go and do the watusi, yeah do the watusi

So, this is the stuff I was listening to at the age of 15. I guess was a creepy little kid. I bought a copy of the Satanic Bible by Alasteir Crowley. I didn't want to become a Satanist, I just wanted to know what it said. I read The Feminine Mystique and The Woman's Room. I read On the Road, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest and Catcher in the Rye. After I read On the Road, I started experimenting with drugs because they made it sound so necessary and almost killed myself one night huffing gas.

Did all of that stuff give me ideas that I was too young to understand? Yes, since I was a mixed-up kid it probably wasn't the best thing for me to read. If I was my mother, would I let myself read these things? Listen to these things? Would you let your daughter?

Personally, I would. If she wanted to know those things, I would let her know. But she wouldn't read it alone like I did. I would read it too and talk to her about it. I don't blame my parents for not doing that with me. I was a difficult kid. Not many people would have known how to deal with me. I would know how to deal with a kid like me, but a lot of people would not. And I think I was pretty cool, warts aside.

I'm going to put in the rest of the lyrics now. I know some of those with poetic inclinations will enjoy them. but I didn't want to put them in earlier because people who are not impressed with poetry may not like to read something this long.

There's a little place, a place called space.
It's a pretty little place, it's across the tracks,
Across the tracks and the name of the place is you like it like that,
You like it like that, like it like that, like it like that
And the name of the band is
The Twistilettes, Twistilettes, Twistelettes, Twistilettes
Twistilettes, Twistilettes, Twistilettes, Twistilettes

Baby calm down, better calm down,
In the night, in the eye of the forest,
There's a mare black and shining with yellow hair,
I put my fingers through her silken hair and found a stair
I didn't waste time, I just walked right up and saw that
up there--there is a sea
up there--there is a sea

The sea's the possibility
There is no land, but the land
(up there is just a sea of possibilities)
Except for one who seizes the possibilities
(up there)
There is no keeper but the key
(up there there are several walls of possibilities)
Except for one who seizes possibilities, one who seizes possibilities
(in the heart of man)
I seize the possibility, is the sea around me
I was standing there with my legs spread like a sailor
(in the sea of possibilities) I felt his hand on my knee
(on the screen)
And I looked at Johnny and handed him a branch of cold flame
(in the heart of man)
The waves were coming in like Arabian stallions
Gradually lapping into the sea horses
He picked up the blade and he pressed it against his smooth throat
(the spoon)
And let it deep in (the veins)
dip into the sea, the sea of possibilities
It started hardening
Dip into the sea, the sea of possibilities
It started hardening in my hand
And I felt the arrows of desire

I put my hand inside his cranium, oh we had such a braniac-armour
But no more, no more, I gotta move from my mind to the area
(go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud)
And Johnny go down and do the watusi,
do the watusi
shined open coiled snake, white and shiny twirling and encircling
Our lives are now entwined, we will fall, yes we're together twining
Your nerves, your mane of black shining horses
And my fingers all entwined through the air,
And I could feel it, it was the hair going through my fingers
(I could feel it, I could feel it, I could feel it)
The hairs were like wires going through my body
I, that's how I
That's how I
I died
(at that Tower of Babel they knew what they were after)
(Everything on the current)moved up
I tried to stop it, but it was too warm, too unbelievable smooth,
Like playing in the sea, in the sea of possibility, the possibility
Was a blade, a shiny blade, I hold the key to the sea of possibilities
There's no land but the land

Looked at my hands and there's a red stream
That went streaming through the sands like fingers
Like arteries, like fingers
(how much fits between the eyes of a horse?)
He lay, pressing it against his throat, (your eyes)
His vocal cords starting shooting like (of a horse)mad pituitary glands
The scream he made (and my heart) was so high (my heart)pitched that nobody heard,
No one heard that cry
No one heard (Johnny)the butterfly flapping in his throat
(his fingers)
Nobody heard, he was on that bed, it was like a sea of jelly
And so he seized the first
(his vocal cords shot up)
(Possibility)
(like mad pituitary glands)
It was a black tube, he felt himself disintegrate
(there is nothing happening at all)
and go inside the black tube, so when he looked out into the steep
Saw this sweet young thing, fender one
Humping on the parking meter, leaning on the parking meter
In the sheets
There was a man
dancing around
to the simple
Rock and Roll
Sound

Tragedy is back

2007-07-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

Tragedy said nothing for several minutes, she was trying to remember who Djana the dark was, she couldn't remember having ever heard of her, but she didn't like to ask because she thought Nohna had probably told her during lessons and would be disappointed that Tragedy didn't remember. Tragedy had a notoriously poor memory and it caused her a lot of embarrassment and she had developed ingenious ways of faking her way through situations like this, but finally she had to ask, "Okay Nohna. Who is Djana the Dark? I'm sure she must be someone very important and very evil and I suppose you are about to tell me that I have set in motion the end of the world or something. Hmmph!! And my parents always said I would never amount to anything."

"Huh? What?" Asked Nohna who had drifted off into her own reveries, "Oh no Tragedy, no, no. Nothing like that! Djana is a pain in the ass, that's for sure, but she isn't all that important."

"Says you!" snarled Joy from the corner.

"Oh shut up, Twit!" snapped Nohna.

Tragedy screwed up her face very unattractively and stared very rudely at Nohna. It was a facial expression equivalent of being flipped off. She was tired and getting grumpy and she just wanted to be told what was happening without having to drag it out of Nohna.

"Oh Tragedy! Out with it, what is it that you want to know?" Nohna was getting crabby too, she was overwhelmed by the thought of everything that she was going to have to do in order to get ready.

"Well, excuse me if I can't understand your vague mutterings. I could start reading your mind if you're too lazy to talk. Do you want me to start reading your mind? Because that's what I'll have to do if you aren't more clear. You'll leave me no other choice." Trinity had jumped up and was angrily glaring at Nohna. She knew very well that if she read Nohna's mind that it would give Nohna a splitting headache and that Nohna wouldn't want her to.

Joy started to giggle. "Oh, will you shut up!" screeched Tragedy and she flung a piece of bread at Joy which hit her in the forehead leaving a big glob of butter. Tragedy had gotten to a point where she no longer thought of this thing as her sister or she wouldn't have done that.

Nohna started to snicker and Tragedy paused stunned, then yelled in mock anger, "Shut up! Or I'll throw my stew on you!" Nohna friskily tossed an apple through the air and bounced it off of Joy's head. Nohna and Tragedy both began laughing hysterically and it might have turned into a food fight if Brian had not arrived home at just that moment, sending all of the straw in the roof fluttering. Gasping for breath, tears rolling down their faces, Tragedy and Nohna went staggering out to greet him leaving Joy to sulk.

"Okay, Tragedy. I'm all yours. Tell me what it is that you want to know." Nohna said after they had settled down. They had explained to Brian why they were laughing and he feigned to be too sophisticated to find such antics funny; but he looked through the window for them and told them that the butter was still stuck onto Joy's forehead, that she hadn't wiped it off yet . Not only that, but there was a piece of apple on top of her head and Joy looked really stupid trying to be fierce with an apple fragment on top of her head. This sent them into fresh hysterics at which Brian pretended to be displeased.

Eventually, Nohna was able to settle down and tell Tragedy who Djana was. Djana, it seemed, had been a well-loved wizard who had sent herself into oblivion doing unapproved spellwork and had never been able to find her way back. Tragedy had opened up the way for her to come back by performing her glamour-off. Djana had been the only wizard ever, until Tragedy to earn the fealty of all 4 kingdoms of elementals.

"Djana had been much loved for her kindness but her spell work was atrocious. She couldn't cast a spell to save her life! Everything that she did turned out wrong somehow. And she came from a long line of powerful magicians, that was what made it so hard to understand.. No-one knew quite what to make of it, she seemed to have no magical aptitude whatsoever. People actually ran when they thought she might begin to cast a spell. For her spells never turned out the way they were meant to, but for some reason could not be set right, that was the only thing that was strong about them is that they could not be fixed. You will see several magicians tomorrow who were victims of her ineptitude. Her spells were very silly...try not to laugh!"

"Eventually, they had no choice but to ban her from doing magic. So, when the elementals came forth to offer their allegiance everyone was shocked and didn't know what to make of it. There were many long discussions about this as this was an unheard of thing and needed to be made sense of."

"I'm afraid that some people were rather hard on poor Djana, jealous of course. For everyone was a better magician than her and yet she was the one who received this honor. Some cruel things were said. Some of these things got back to her. And Djana was very sensitive and she took these things hard and she was helped in this by someone who was not good for her."

"Djana had a cousin, Emele was her name and she was one of the best magicians of our time. And Emele was enchanted by Djana. Djana was everything that she wasn't. Djana was a beautiful girl, Emele was plain; well not simply plain...ugly would be it. But Emele was smart... she was so smart! She felt that this should make up for her plainness. But Djana always had all of the attention though because of her beauty and it really wasn't right. This made Emele become cynical and bitter."

"Because Emele had more talent than all of us. Only thing is, she was so mean. Oh was she mean, and she became even meaner! Everyone was afraid of her, except for Djana, she was always kind to Djana. But when Djana was honored by the elementals this finally caused Emele to come loose. She began to hate Djana as well as love her, maybe she had already hated her."

"Her love became strange, with hidden knives inside it. She began to toy with Djana, to become sadistic. She was the one who made sure that Djana knew what people were saying about her. She did her best to make Djana feel that everyone was laughing at her and that no-one respected her. Djana began to spend all of her time with Emele, to avoid other people who she only felt uncomfortable around."

"Then she offered to help Djana, to teach her to do magic properly. She was able to invoke an amulet to protect her from the ill-effects of Djana's spells so that she wouldn't end up with an arm growing out of her forehead or something ridiculous like that, though that would certainly have been an improvement on her looks. No-one knows what her intentions were, whether she intended to help Djana or if she was operating out of revenge. She knew that Djana was forbidden to use magic. Though Emele would have been chastised for her part in it, Djana was the one who would recieve the punishment."

"As Emele was so talented, she actually began to help Djana. Djana actually became able to do some rudimentary spells without mishap. Then came the spell that wax the end of them both. At least the end of them as they had been known."

"Which spell was that?" Tragedy wanted to know.

"A Glamour-off," replied Nohna.

"Just kidding!" Nohna chuckled in response to Tragedy's horrified gasp. "I'll get to that in a minute dear!"

"None of Djana's mishaps had ever really hurt anyone, they were actually quite funny as long as you weren't the recipient. Perhaps this lulled them into a false sense of security. For a beckoning is a spell that is normally easy to perform, only due to Djana's 'problem' the potential for mishap was there. As you know, one needs to use precautions in dealing with the dead."

A beckoning as Tragedy knew, was a spell in which the spirit of one who was dead could be beckoned and then made to answer questions. The power of the spirit beckoned was dependent upon the stregnth of the magician casting the spell. A beckoning is quite fun, for the living as well as the dead. "

On the night of a full moon, Djana, Emele and Persepha went deep into the woods to perform the beckoning."

"Who is Persepha anyway?" asked Tragedy.

"Persepha is Djana's lover," replied Nohna.

"Djana had a female lover?" asked Tragedy, intrigued.

"Okay, actually her name was Persepho until Djana accidentally changed him into a woman when one of her spells went awry. They began calling him Persepha in order to avoid awkward questions."

"Oh, I see," replied Trinity bemused.

"Of course, this would explain why she is so bitter and slightly insane, plus....I think she has a crush on you!" chuckled Nohna wryly.

In defense of being slovenly

2007-07-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

I have a book calleld(please don't think I'm too shallow, I'm a compulsive book buyer! I wind up with some real doozies!) The Best Kept Beauty Secrets. They tell you how to give yourself home made facials etc. (And don't knock it, facials work a lot better than you think. I'm not being defensive am I?) Anyway, the masks mainly call for food products, such as milk, oatmeal, avacado, sugar and different fruit juices. The oatmeal and the sugar have abrasive qualities which will remove the top layer of skin revealing the 'fresher more youthful skin beneath' , and the milk and fruit contains various chemicals that peels off the top layer for the same reason!

So, I've been mulling over this lately for it seems that I am beginning to notice that the skin around peoples mouths doesn't seem to be as wrinkied as the rest of their skin. Perhaps I'm just imagining it, I don't know.

Well, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this: of course I'm wondering if these are people who do not wipe their mouths after they eat. My mind is kind of going wild because when I see someome with a relatively unwrinkled face I envision them with food smeared all over their faces. And the people who are wrinkled, I see them as excessively neat which in this context seems disgusting while now I am beginning to see the non-face wipers as enlightened. Strange how your persepective can change isn't it?

So, I think that I'm going to smear food all over my face when I eat and then I'm not going to wipe my face afterwards. It will keep me youthful in more ways than one. And when people think I'm revolting, well...we'll see who has the last laugh 20 years down the road.

Family Tradition

2007-07-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

My mother is a history major. She taught highschool history way back in the 70's. She didn't like teaching and didn't do it anymore after that. When I grew up I was always being given little impromptu history lessons which usually started with, "See Diana, years ago......."

One of the things that we often had around the house were books written about the daily habits of people who lived 'years ago'. I learned many interesting things from these books. For instance, did you know that in the dark ages no-one used silverware? There was no such thing as a fork. Everyone carried a knife and this is what they ate with. If you went to someones house you used your own knife.

In Holland, children did not sit at the table. They stood behind their parents chairs and were fed like little puppies. The lower-classes in London subsisted on a barley-based gruel. That was it! Hence, the life expectancy of 30. I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the idea.

So I picked up a book called "Inside the Victorian Home," the other day and it has been as enjoyable as I thought it would be. Here is an excerpt which will hopefully illustrate why I like and get a kick out of these books.

"For us, mice and rats are the first thought at the word "vermin"; for the Victorians it was bugs: blackbeetles, fleas, even crickets. If the struggle against them was not waged with commitment and constancy, they would "multiply till the kitchen flooor at night palpitates with a living carpet, and in time the family cockroach will make raids on the upper rooms, travelling along the line of hot water pipes...the beetles would collect in corners of the kitchen ceiling, and hanging to one another by their claws would form huge bunches or swarms like bees, towards evening and as night closed in, swarthy individuals would drop singly on to floor, or head, or food...........Mrs. Haweis did not object to rats and mice, which she thought were "nice, pretty, clever little things."

Okay, one more and I promise I'll stop!

"As soon as the water was hot, the sheets and other linens were taken out of their overnight soaking water, rinsed in hot water ladled out of the copper, and rubbed or beaten with a dolly or a possing stick." "The sheets were then wrung out, and the water was thrown away. A bar of soap--there were as yet no detergents--was shaved, cut into pieces, and dissolved in boiling water to form a jelly. The jelly was rubbed through the sheets. Then the water was added to transform the whole to a soapy mass, and the sheets were agitated again. More water--as hot as could be borne by the laundress--was added, the sheets were rubbed a third time. The water was thrown out, more was taken from the copper, and the items were put in their first rinse, then wrung out. They were then put in the copper itself, together with one teaspoon of soda to every two gallons of water and boiled for and hour and a half, to remove the soap thoroughtly. After the boiling the sheets were taken out, rinsed a third time in another tub of boiling water, and then a fourth in a final tub of cold water, which had had 'blue' put in it." "After the blue rinse, everything was wring out for a third and final time, and hung up to dry. Thus, the first--and simplest--load of laundry took one soaking, two washes, one boiling and four rinses:"

Conversations with Tragedy

2007-06-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

It seems that Tragedy doesn't like the way the story that I am writing about her is going. (She's decided that she wants to be known as Tragedy after all. We are allowed the privelege of being shizoid!) She's been complaining about it and she just won't stop. So her and I had to sit down and have a long talk about a lot of things.

First of all, she thinks that her character has become wooden. She is absolutely right. If you knew Tragedy you would see what I'm talking about. We both agree that character development has been sacrificed for plot. And furthermore, we think that this has happened because her story is really not 'short story' material but is rather, novel material. I'm happy to say that Tragedy wants me to write her novel. Though she doesn't especially like the way this story is going she still likes my writing and thinks that I have potential.

She thinks that her story doesn't have the right tone. She says that we need to decide who it's audience is intended to be and then just stick to that. We have decided that it is meant for young adults and the young at heart. This means that as we revise we will have to remove a few of the racier parts. Tragedy thinks that there are other angst-ridden adolescents who will identify with her.

Tragedy thinks that I didn't think over what I wanted to do with the story before I started writing it, that I just plunged into it with no idea of where I was going and that now, we are sort of stuck on a course that we don't really want to be on, wouldn't be on if we had thought it out a little bit better. I told Tragedy that she should remember that it is merely a first draft and she was satisfied with that.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things that Tragedy likes about the story as well and after our talk she felt much more positive. Now she wants me to finish and has decided that she will be helpful instead of critical in order to help me proceed. She has also given me permission to write other things about her, things that will reveal her character and make her come alive a little bit more.

Tragedy had been giving me a lot of trouble with her constant criticisms, making it hard for me to write. But now that we are done arguing the story is proceeding again.

My new game!

2007-06-22T07:47:00.001-07:00

When I read these lines I gave a little laugh and knew that I was in for a treat.

' Victor was the reservation John Travolta because he still wore clothes from the disco era. He had won a few thousand dollars in Reno way back in 1979, just after he graduated from high school. He bought a closet full of silk shirts and polyester pants and had never had any money since then to buy anything new. He hadn't gained any weight in thirteen years, but the clothes were tattered and barely held to his body. His wardrobe made him an angry man.' Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Here are the rules. Show why someone should read the book you are reading. Show this by quoting a line or short scene, a paragraph, a description...something....anything...that you feel somehow epitomizes the book. It does not have to describe the subject of the book, though it can. It doesn't have to even make sense to anyone but you. But whatever you pick, it should be something that you feel should make a person curious about the book and think that they might possibly want to read it.

An alternative post could be using the same rule as above, pick out a scene, line etc...that epitomizes why one should not read the book you are reading.

I tag Enemy of the Republic, X, Trevor and Eric. (I did not tag you twice X) You don't have to make a post about it, just put it in your post at some point. It could be at the beginning, end whatever. Then tag some others. I know Trevor hates to be tagged but comeon! This is a fun one. An original (at least I hope) way to talk about what you are reading and suggest books to others. And of course, I realize that it may be a little while before you can put it in because you have to read your book first. So, I will wait while impatiently tapping my foot.

How You Heard About Madeleine?

2007-06-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of Madeleine Mccann?

She's a 4 year old who was abducted from her hotel room in Portugal where she was vacationing with her parents? She has been missing for about 40 days. Her parents, both physicians, have launched a massive media campaign and raised a huge ransom in order to get her back. It's a horrible story and I've become riveted by it. Children are abducted every day. Why am I so sad about her as opposed to all of the other children? I don't know.

She reminds me of my youngest. Here she is. How could anyone destroy such beauty. To try and understand drags me into the abyss.

Her parents made a horrible mistake and they are bleeding all over the press. They will leave no stone unturned they say. Her mother carries Madeleines toy, cuddly kitty with her everywhere she goes. All she has left now.

When my younger daughter was 6 weeks old, I had to go back to work. I used to have a dream that I had lost her. It was an atmospheric dream of emptiness that stayed with me all day. The story makes me feel the way the dream did.

My daughters will go to Mexico. What if I lost them. What if they were hurt and frightened and I wasn't there. I wouldn't want to ever leave Mexico because I would feel like I left them. I wouldn't be able to move out of the house that we lived in ever again, even if it was falling down around me because I would be afraid that their spirit would not be able to find me. I wouldn't even be able to ever use their room for anything else because I would want their spirit to have a place to be. I guess that's why they can't go back to England.

She's a pampered child who has led a fairy-tale existence. We hope that the one who took her was someone who couldn't have a child and wanted one and they are being kind to her. But we all know that this isn't likely. We know why she was taken. Do you think she would be better off dead than sold into a child prostitution ring? Can things be so bad that death would be better?

We barrier ourselves against the world. We try to block all of the bad things out. We do this out of necessity, because sometimes the world is too much. Sometimes something happens that cracks open your barrier and everything that you've held back all comes rushing in at once. That is what this story has done to me. I will continue to post updates about it.

Irrelevant Factoids and Antecdotes about.....MOI!

2007-06-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

I was Tagged by EOTR. I won't tag anyone else accept Trevor because everyone who reads my blog has already done it. I realize that Trevor will probably politely decline but I will Tag him anyway just so I can say I tagged someone.

1. I severely compromised myself when I named my younger daughter. I have a rule, I don't want the name to be in the top 100 list.

I wanted to name her Vivian Jewel. I thought of naming her Vivian Scarlett but apparently there is something really obscene about this name that I am just not getting because when I mentioned it people drew away from me like I was some kind of freak for wanting to name my child this. I am aware that Vivian Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind and that this makes the name slightly cheezy. I didn't pick it because I have an obsession with Gone With the Wind or anything. The fact that the two names are connected were just an unfortunate aside as far as I was concerned. I chose it simply because I thought it was pretty, but I didn't have enough guts to use it, given the reaction I recieved.

So, I reverted back to Vivian Jewel. When people asked me about my name and I triumphantly announced it they would first look slightly stunned, then vaguely disgusted, then they would hastily compose their features and mumble something that I couldn't quite make out. So I finally wimped out and went with Mia Ange. Mia is now in the top 20. In my defense, I have liked the name Mia long before it became popular and it isn't my fault that it became popular and common. It's a pretty name but I do feel that I sold pussed out in using it. Oh well.
However, here is something that saves it from complete banality. Mia means mine in spanish. So if we went over to Mexico we could easily get into a comical "Who's on First" type of scenario.

"What is your daughters name?"

"Mia."

"I know she's your daughter. I'm asking you what her name is.!" etc....So, I'm expecting to have lots of fun fucking with people when I go to Mexico.

2. I can't read the news in public because I very obviously cry. Either it affects me more than the average person or I am less able to hide my distress, I don't know which. I only know that I don't see any other people sobbing brokenheartedly when they read the news. On the plus side, I've been caught at it a few times and the people who caught me seemed to be somewhat in awe of and impressed by my ability to feel anguish and afterwards they treated me like a fragile piece of china...... or like I'm nuts I'm not sure which

3. I used to have a friend whom when we got together, brought out each others wacky sides. We would get together and laugh and giggle until we were almost high and we would egg each other on to bizarre antics, each trying to top the other and we didn't give a shit what anyone thought.
Once we tried to leave a drive-thru window without paying for our stuff. (I was driving.) We weren't really doing it to get away with anything, we just thought it was funny. When I got to the end of the drive, I couldn't get out because there was too much traffic and the manager came sprinting out to make sure we paid. He was pissed! But we were laughing so hard we were practically drooling. (you can get away with stuff like this in smaller towns.) Though whether we got away with it or not is debatable. We did have to pay, but we didn't get thrown in jail.

Once I pulled into the wrong parking lot when trying to go to pizza hut and I didn't feel like getting back on the road, so I just drove through the grass.
Once we casually flashed people to see if anyone would notice it if we did it very nonchalantly. It took a really long time before anyone noticed. I think that the only reason that they noticed is because we were giggling so hysterically. I'm sure that we were very annoying but we didn't care. That was the beauty of it.
Oh, I don't act that way anymore. Sorry.

4. I've dropped all of my kids at least once when they were babies. Well, the two older I dropped once apiece. But the younger one I dropped numerous times. Well actually, I didn't really drop her, I would just let her slide around. Like out of her stroller or off the bed or something. I was so relaxed and mellow by the time I had her that I wasn't careful enough. My husband did it too. Once he and my older daughter were playing video games and he was so into the video game that he wasn't paying attention to her and he suddenly noticed that she wasn't on the bed anymore. She had rolled down a quilt that was hanging off the bed and was playing on the floor, completely oblivious to the fact that she was being neglected.

5. Everyone has something really gross that they like to eat. Something completely low-brow and childish. Something that has no nutritional value whatsoever and something that you would feel slightly demeaned if anyone outside of your family actually observed you eating it. Mine is chef boy r dee (sp?) beefaroni.

7. Once when I was young, I went swimming and me and some guy I knew but wasn't attracted to swam out to the buoys together. The water was deep that year and I couldn't swim back until I rested, so I was sort of tightrope walking on the wires that connected the buoys together and treading water trying to catch my breath. I inadvertently put my hand on the guys crotch. He took it a little more seriously than it was intended. (It wasn't intended at all!) and proceeded to try to feel me up in the water. I was still too tired to swim back so I tried to casually get away from him without making a big deal about it. So, I was kind of tippy-toeing along the wire trying to catch my breath and he was tippy-toeing after me, pursuing me along the buoys. Now that I think back on it, I don't know why I didn't just say something but oh well. Well, you know how slowly you move underwater. So, it was kind of like a high-speed pursuit in slo-mo, if that makes sens.. I'm sure it could somehow be made into a Monty Python-ish, or Charlie Chaplin-ish type of skit if one had a mind to.

8. I make fun of my husband's accent sometimes and tell him that he sounds like a vampire. Is that mean?

9. I've always been soft-hearted. I thought that they should let the rabbit eat Trix.

10. Once I started a story about a heroine called Trinity and a dragon named Brian. There were people reading it and I suddenly stopped writing and left everyone hanging. sorry. I'm going to finish it soon. I've been having a hard time getting to my blog lately. I've been very yang and have been getting a lot done....all except for this. I may have to rethink it because I don't want to quit, but I will have to make more posts that are less time-consuming to write or I simply will not have time to post.

Last Episode... coming up

2007-06-05T00:50:00.003-07:00

I have a case of insominia tonight, so while I am awaiting the effects of the glass of milk to kick in thought I would write this post. Does anyone beside Ricardo and I watch The Sopranos? The 2nd to last episode was on Sunday night. One more episode and the best television show that has ever been on will be over and I will shut my HBO off again.....probably forever.

My parents were by yesterday and we were marvelling over the fact that lately some of the central characters have been getting killed off and because they are such unlikable people, you feel nothing when they die. Much to my consternation, I found myself gloating when Christopher died because I couldn't stand him. I even defended Tony for doing it by saying that it was something that needed to be done, that Chrisopher was too unstable....too much of a rogue element. I guess the show has brought out my sociopathic side.

My husband thinks that the writers of the series do not stay true to their characters, that they twist their personalities around according to the needs of the story. He feels that the characters lose their integrity in this way. I disagreed with him verbally, as I tend to be slavishly devoted to the show, but on the inside I have to agree that they have been doing this somewhat more here in the end. The scene that we were discussing in regards to this is the scene in which Tony's therapist fires him.

My husband and I both thought that Dr. Melfi's actions in this scene were not congruent with her character. I also said that the scene was unnecessary, that with where the plot is heading his therapist and his relationship with her is very insignificant.

However, as I was laying in bed a little earlier, before my hunger pains drove me up and I was in that half-dozing frame of mind where the insights just seem to come to you; I saw that perhaps the scene will actually be a good scene that fits in with the overall picture after all once all is known. Dr. Melfi has 'woken up' and realized that Tony is a sociopath and that her therapy does nothing to change that.

I think Paulie is involved in this in some way. Remember the episode where Tony almost kills Paulie on the boat. Earlier in that episode, Paulie was packing a suitcase and they made a big deal of showing all of his white shoes going into the suitcase. At the end of the episode, a member of the rival gang is killed in a restaurant. They pan over the feet running away from the crime scene and you see a distinct pair of white shoes go by. Obviously then, Paulie is not with the rivals or he wouldn't be killing them, but something is up with Paulie.

Well, what do you think?

Rumors

2007-05-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

Last night I was watching a show about a man named Desmond Doss and it really made me think. I didn't initially realize that I was watching a Christian channel and if I had it is highly likely that I would have turned it off. I'm glad that I didn't because it was an interesting show.

Desmond Doss joined the Army under a conscientious objector status during WWII. He was a Seventh-Day Adventist and took the commandment ' Thou shalt not Kill' literally and without exception. Though he didn't consider himself to literally be a conscientious objector as he was willing to serve his country, registering as one was the only way to get to join without being required to kill. In order to serve, he joined as a medic and he did not carry a gun one time during his duty.

Desmond was a skinny little guy, very plain and sincere. He was not educated or sophisticated and as you may guess, he was razzed pretty bad for his religious beliefs and his actions and was accused of being un-masculine. He was actually threatened by guys who felt that he was getting special privileges and that he wouldn't have their backs and they told him they would shoot him out in the field when no-one was looking. He also had special permission not to have to work on Saturday as this was his Sabbath. One Saturday while he was reading his bible while the other men worked, they pelted him with boots.

But once he got out on the field, he proved his mettle and no-one could accuse him of being a coward any longer. If any soldier went down, he tried to save them, even if he had to brave enemy fire in order to do so. Apparently, it became a common sight to see him running through the battle field through bullets and grenades without a thought for his own safety to get to someone who had gone down. He even tried to save Japanese soldiers until one of his own soldiers threatened to shoot him for it. His fellow soldiers of the 77th battalion came to not only be impressed by him, but to be in awe of him and to believe that he was protected by the shield of God.

The show I watched was a documentary and it was well-done and convincing which I guess is why I didn't realize that I was watching a Christian channel. (I know! That was catty!) Desmond was interviewed as well as other men who were in the Battalion and saw what happened. There were photographs and clips as well. When the men spoke, they got that faraway look in their eyes, you know the one I'm talking about, that people get when they are seeing the pictures in their heads instead of what is in front of their eyes. They talked about the smells and sights and sounds of war. At times they would choke up, or would grasp the chair they were sitting in if they were remembering something particularly upsetting. This is what made it convincing to me.

And they all agreed on what they saw and they all believed that God was with Desmond Doff. These were not ignorant men, I'm not even sure if they were particularly religious men. They definitely didn't respect Doss before their tour of duty and definitely did afterwards.

They talked about how he would walk out right in front of sniper fires and grenades and mortars to get to a man who was down close to the enemy line and somehow he wouldn't get hit. He apparently did this time and time again. Once when Desmond prayed for a group of them before a mission and that group, down to the last man, defied odds by surviving the extremely risky operation.

Finally came the incident for which he received his Medal of Honor. They were on Okinawa island trying to capture the Maeda Escarpment, a 400 foot cliff that separated one half of the island from the other. On top of the cliff they ran into enemy fire and roughly 100 men were wounded. The men that were well fled to safety and the men who couldn't make it were left up there. Doss knew very well what the Japanese soldiers would do to these men if they captured them. So he fashioned a harness out of rope and single-handedly lowered man after man down the cliff as enemy fire exploded around him the entire time. He is credited for rescuing approximately 75 men. This took about 10 hours and he wasn't hit one time. There was a Japanese soldier that they spoke with after the war who remembered that night and said that he had a man in his sights, presumably Doss, and that when he tried to shoot him his trigger wouldn't pull.

Then apparently God was done with him (sorry I couldn't resist!) as he was finally hit during another different operation. They say that as they were carrying him to safety he saw a man who had been hit worse than he was and he gave up the stretcher so that this man could be treated. While laying there waiting he was hit again and his arm shattered. He ended up permanently disabled and lost his hearing from in infection that he incurred from his injuries.

Now, if this were a story that someone had made up, I would think it was unbelievably corny and maudlin. (except for the last part, of course.) But strangely enough, it happened.....you can look it up. And there were so many different incidents that it seems absurd to say that these could somehow be a lucky coincidences. I've had a little bit of statistics enough to know that it isn't likely.

I have mostly rejected the image of the god I grew up with but every once in a while I hear rumors that he is still around.

Cabin Fever

2007-05-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

We had lightning about a week ago and it fried my modem so we had to order another and then get it installed. Then my monitor, which had been hanging on by one circuit, finally bit the dust. Hence, I have not been writing.

But there is another reason as well. The weather is beautiful! And I have been unable to force myself to stay inside and I will probably feel this way until it finally gets up to 110 in the shade.

(By the way, the above picture is Demeter and Persephone. Demeter was the mother of Persephone. One day Persephone was abducted by Hades, the God of the Underworld. Demeter didn't know what had happened and she searched the Earth for her daughter. She became so sad and angry that she stopped all of the plants and flowers and trees from growing and the earth became barren. She finally found Persephone, and Hades and Demeter struck a deal. Persephone would be with her mother all year except in the winter. In the winter she would join Hades in the underground. Every year when this happens, the earth becomes barren again. Then when Persephone joins her mother in the Spring, the earth becomes abundant once more.)

My son graduated college and....guess what! I have an Aunt who lives in Malibu who has been in computers since they were big enough to fill warehouses. She has invited him to stay with her and wants to help him get a job. I told him...GO FOR IT! Honestly, he couldn't ask for a better mentor. And my grandmother is paying off Joel's loans! So, I've been kind of high and giddy about all of this lately.

Oh....and I want to learn to Belly dance.

Unleashed

2007-04-24T09:54:00.001-07:00

"Oh stop it," said Trinity nervously to Brian, "Don't you ever bow to me again, or I shall slap you!"

"As you wish, lady" said Brian, with a vast chuckle, "Only....do you know what this means, having the fealty of all of the elementals?"

"Well......no." said Trinity uncertainly, "I've never heard of this before."

"It is the mark of a great magician," he said, "there are few who receive this honor."

"Great magician. Look at all the trouble I have caused." said Trinity wryly.

"None-the-less, you show great power," said Brian.

And that is all he would say, and Trinity did not push as neither of them wanted Joia to hear their thoughts, though Trinity thought it was possible that Joia knew her thoughts anyway, despite their not being spoken aloud. Joia and Trinity climbed onto Brian's neck and while Brian arose into the air the elemental cheered and as the trio rose, their already tiny voices faded and the only sound that Trinity heard until they arrived at Nonna's was the steady beating of Brian's wings.

Nonna lived in the Northern Territories just outside of Morena, the largest city in the land. She lived about a quarter of a mile inside of the forest. Trinity had crossed the mountains several times on foot travelling back and forth to Nohna's and much preferred flying. Trinity had no fear of flying, she could fly forever, it was one of the most peaceful feelings that she knew. She had lots of time to mull over the puzzle of Joia and to think of all of the the things that had lately occurred as they flew, but her musings did not increase her understanding. Joia sat behind her as still as a statue and spoke not a word and Trinity did not turn to look at her.

They arrived at Nohna's in the late afternoon and descended with the twilight. Nohna was home as Trinity had expected her to be. Nohna had never failed to be there when Trinity needed her. Nohna came rustling out of the cabin her long skirts atangle. She caught Trinity up in a big hug and pinched her cheek because she didn't like Trinity to take herself too seriously.

"Ho Brian, you overgrown lizard!" she directed at Brian. "What brings you my way? Come to scare my neighbors again? The last time you came, I thought that they were going to run me out of the forest!" and she cackled boisterously. Brian and Nohna loved to banter and were so good at it that Trinity never tired of listening to them.

Then she turned to Joia. "And who might this be?" she asked, smiling brightly, but her smile faded slightly as she took Joia in.

"This is my sister, Joia." answered Trinity.

"Welcome Joia, I've heard so much about you," Nohna said guardedly, though politely.

Joia said nothing and Nohna stared at her for a minute and the muscles around her eyes tensed slightly and her face grew shrewd. Then she calmed her face and said, "Well, come in, come in! I was expecting you and I have got food ready, There are just a few more herbs to add and it will be done. I have gotten water at the well, you may wash yourselves while I finish." then turning to Brian, "Try to leave a few deer in the forest my sweet." and Brian flew off to find his own meal beating his wings harder than was necessary causing Nohna's skirts to fly around her wildly..

It was then that some of the local elementals began to arrive and to cluster around the cottage to pay homage to Trinity. A childlike smile came over Nohna's wrinkled face and she watched them with awe.

"Ah yes. I see that I was right," said Nohna softly, and her voice trailed off.

Joia gave a snort of vexation, "Detestable little insects!" she said, then attempted to swat one. Nohna and Trinity looked on in alarm but the elementals could take care of themselves for they began jeering at Joia and throwing little sticks and pebbles at her. The braver ones flew close enough to yank her hair and the gnomes began rushing towards her furiously as though they were going to attack her.

Trinity politely asked them to stop. She did it very humbly as the elementals are not to be ordered, so they did as she bid, though not before a very swift salamander flew in and honked Joia's nose as a last parting shot. Joia sprang up and Trinity ordered her to stop and much to her surprise, Joia obeyed. Joia found it curious how the elementals seemed to inspire emotion in Joia when nothing else could.

"Perhaps you should tell me what you have been up to lately." Nohna said to Trinity seriously, Then, "Later, and privately," she directed to Joia, making no effort to be polite which surprised Trinity greatly as Nohna was always hospitable.

Nohna bade Trinity and Joia to sit at the table where she laid bowls and mugs and a pitcher with water from the well. She put a brown, crusty bread on the table. "You may begin with the bread." she said distractedly, "I have a few more herbs to add to the stew and then you may eat that too." And she bustled out to the little kitchen garden outside of her front door.

She returned and cast what was in her hand into the pot. Joia was sitting with her back to Nohna and didn't see Nohna making a few passes with her hand over the stew though Trinity did. Then she ladled the stew into a serving dish and brought it to the table and put some into each bowl.

When Joia tasted the stew, an expression of surprise came over her face and she spat what was left in her mouth out on the table. "What have you done to me?" she sputtered, "How did you get this past me, old woman?"

"Hmmph. There is one advantage to being old and that is that people underestimate you." said Nohna primly.

Then Nohna stood up to her full height and raised her arms in the air. The light in the room became different and Nohna looked different as well. She didn't like like an elderly, comfortable, cheerful old grandmother anymore but rather like a proud queen.

"Your name is Parsepha and with your name and the bindweed that I have given you, I bind you. You can do no harm and you must obey me! Go sit in the corner. Sit still and bother no-one. Say nothing," and Nohna pronounced words of power. The creature inside of Joia had no choice but to meekly obey and the light slowly came back in the room, except near Joia where there was a slight greenish tinge. And Joia said no more but glared sullenly from the corner.

"Now," said Nohna "We must talk. Tell me what has brought this about."

So Trinity talked. When she told Nohna about the Glamour-off, Nohna shook her head. "Oh Trinity," she said, "You were warned about that."

"I know," admitted Trinity. "I thought I was good enough to do it."

"Well, now you will get to prove how good you are by undoing it," was Nohna's gruff comment".

Trinity finished her story and Nohna paused for quite awhile, took a deep breath and then said, "We in the mage community have known that something was afoot for quite awhile now. Many oracles have been foretelling of this and there have been other signs as well. We knew what was going to happen, we only did not know when, or by what means. You have unleashed Persepha as you may have guessed and she is here to free Djana the dark, as has been foretold."

Trinity stared at her mutely, cold fear and guilt making her stomach clench. The old familiar self-loathing that she thought she had long ago conquered came back as though it had never left. It seemed that no matter how hard she tried, that she was destined to bring nothing but trouble. When Trinity became upset, her face settled into a hard mask which had gotten her in trouble many times when she was a child. But Nohna saw deeper than most people and knew something of what Trinity's expression meant.

"Now dear, this is bad, it's true. But it can be fixed. As I said, the magical community has forseen this and preparations have been made." she said.

"I just feel so bad Nohna, It seems like nothing good ever comes out of me."

"Shush child. It is very important that you do away with this attitude. Because it is you who will have to banish her. Only the one who brought her can banish her. And you must have a positive attitude towards yourself in order to do this."

"But Nohna, I have never had a positive attitude about me in my life, I barely know what it is to have a positive attitude about anything, much less myself," she said, her dry sense of humor reasserting itself despite her fear.

"You must prepare!" said Nohna, ignoring her words. "There is a ritual. It is a cleansing ritual. It is a ritual to empty yourself, so as to allow the power to fill you. It is very important Trinity, that you find the stregnth to believe in yourself. For if you do not, none of this will work. I will be sending messages to other mages and they should be arriving tonight and tomorrow. The ritual will begin tomorrow night at when the moon is bright. Now eat, as much as you can because this shall be your last meal before the ritual."

Fluffy post

2007-04-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

This is a little fluff post because I'm having a hard time finding the time to work on my story and I haven't posted for awhile.

Ahem.....

I bought some scrubs the other day. Now veryone has seen scrubs, right? The ridiculous little smock tops with flowered prints, or pictures of popular cartoon characters which are supposedly supposed to amuse a child so much as they are having a needle put into their vein that it will lessen their discomfort. Inevitably worn with elastic waisted cotton pants.

I've owned scrubs for awhile but they were the plain ones. I thought that the others were just too undignified and well.....dorky! So, I wore the unisex, baggy scrubs in dismal colors. They were so big on me that I wore them when I was nine months pregnant. When I wear them around my waist they sag down halfway to my knees, if I pull them up they come up under my armpits. And these are size smalls. These scrubs give the message that one is all about business, true, but they are uuugly!

Now granted, we are not working at a hospital to look pretty...we are at a hospital to save lives. Why worry about such frivolities when charged with such a responsibility. But eventually, I grew tired of looking like I had just crawled out of the morgue and I tried to buy some 'professional' clothes.

But that just ain't me. So then I tried to wear something 'cooler' and still stay within the dress code, no jeans etc...

(Not exactly like that of course, but you get the idea.) But I just looked silly next to everyone else, overdressed! Plus, I work with blood and pee and poop and snot and hackers for gods sake! But still I balked at the happy, daffy looking scrubs. The remind me of garanimals!

Or the polyester pant suits worn by some of our grandmothers.

However, finally I looked through some of the catalogues and gradually became more open-minded. They have pink panther scrubs! How cool is that! They have baby phat scrubs and pinstriped scrubs. They have lowrider scrubs. They still have elastic waists but...oh well. And look at these attractive scrubs!

I don't think anyone could call you a dork wearing stylish exotic looking scrubs like that. Or perhaps I've become desensitized.

At any rate, I broke down and bought some scrubs. They all come in bright easter egg colors which is quite a change for someone like me who tends to dress in black, brown, burgundy etc...

I even bought a pair of crocs! (Something I swore I would never do!) They must be the most ridiculous looking things ever known to mankind.

So, needless to say I was very excited the first day I wore my new scrubs! I selected my powder blue pants (they even have flare legs!) and my flowery shirt with cunning little powder blue ribbons on it. I had my new white crocs and I even bought an extendable badge holder with a picture of a smiling sun on it. I walked into work feeling very self-conscious and wierd and.......everyone told me I looked so cute! I got fussed over so much! I don't really know what to think. I like being fussed over, but I don't know if I like being cute. I guess it's better than being ugly. Or did I look really awful before and I just didn't realize it?

So, that night I went home and checked myself in the mirror and tried to look at myself objectively in order to understand why I caused such a scene and...oh my god! I do look cute!

This somewhat damages my self-esteem, but I think I'll stay with it. Maybe if I look cute, everyone will be nice to me. They will want to yell at me and they will see me in my little eastery scrubs and say, "Aaaaaw!" and be unable to hurt my feelings.

Hey! Whatever works! But if you ever see a woman on the streets wearing dorky scrubs and wonder how she could bring herself to wear such a sappy looking outfit, try to be a little understanding. She probably knows that she looks dorky and has just finally bowed down to the inevitable. There isn't really anyway to not look somewhat dorky or unstylish when you are a medical professional. She probably doesn't really think she looks good either. Tell her she looks cute! She'll like it!

Part IV

2007-04-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Justo tried to stop Joia. For his defining perversity was that he had to win and he was clearly losing, he couldn't accept this and with this his death was sealed as it should have been long ago. This may seem a harsh statement. But its fairer than it may sound for he had done many things that have yet to be related and if you are patient, you will hear of them.

He went for Trinity and this was the last mistake he was to ever make. He turned his fist to a bludeon and then struck her, so hard that she felt her skull ringing and she fell to the ground. Quick as a spark, Brian unceromoniously snatched him up from the ground like an hawk would a mouse and flew up into the sky with him an insane roar tearing raggedly from his throat. He flew high and out of sight then a minute later a crisped thing fell from from the sky, ashes trailing from it as it fell, then it hit the ground and broke into bits.

Trinity was beginning to go towards being mortified, though the speed of the events was so disorienting that she hadn't quite had time to know how she felt yet. But Joia had no reaction, she simply looked back over her shoulder as she walked a inscrutable expression on her face. She did not stop to help Trinity, she did not stop to examine the remains of her husband or even seem to care about them, but continued to walk away.

Trinity knew that Brian wouldn't come back, they would hopefully meet up later, away from the scene of what he had done. And it was obviously too late for Justo, the not even slightly handsome anymore shopkeeper. So she followed Joia. Her ribs hurt terribly from where she had hit the ground, but that was the least of her worries.

Joia was seemingly broken, too wierd to even understand, and they needed to leave soon. Trinity was under no illusions about the fact that her spell had gone horribly awry,(of course this was impossible to deny) but she didn't understand in which ways that it had yet. And it was while she was debating what she should do and when, that she saw the small boy as he disappeared through the grass behind the trees where he had been watching them. He was running towards the village as though he was on a mission, which he most certainly was Trinity realized, a mission to tell what he had seen. So Trinity saw that she needed to leave now, before the angry mob cried things like "Death to the witch!", and other trite phrases.

And unless Joia were to come with Trinity, there was no chance of her ever improving, if indeed she ever could. So Trinity was going to Nohna and she was taking Joia with her one way or another. If there was any chance that this situation could be set right, Nohna was the one that could do it.

"We have under an hour," a voice not quite belonging to Joia said.

Trinity started, and stared stupidly at Joia, wondering if Joia knew what she had been thinking or whether it was an accident that she had spoken Trinity's mind.

"The door is open, I can see where I will now," answered Joia smiling craftily, as though Trinity had spoken the words aloud! So Trinity purposefully went blank as she had learned during her training. Joia gave her a sharp appraising look, but said nothing else and Trinity could not be sure whether or not she had successfully closed herself, time would tell.

When they entered the house, Trinity was not quite surprised when Joia began to gather the things that Trinity had been thinking that they might need. Cloaks and packs, Trinity had more than enough for two, a little food, changes of clothes she went and got each thing as though she had lived in the house for years, even though she had never been here before. She got some money from where it was hidden and some necessary magical implements as Trinity looked on impassively, it was not a good time to show her feelings. "There, we have all that we will need!" and Joia stepped out the door without looking behind to see that Trinity followed.

When they got outside, Joia stood thoughtfully for a moment and then raised her hands and spoke words of power and Trinity's house seemed to burst into flames, and heat radiated out of it though Trinity had eyes to see that it burned not at all. By morning, it would appear to be nothing but rubbish, though it stood as before it would be hidden and relatively safe. This was a powerful spell, one that not many could control and here was her sister, with no training at all performing it as easily as one might cook an egg.

"I perform you a service as you have performed me one," Joia said wryly, then gestured into the woods behind the cave for Trinity to follow.

Trinity had always loved the forest. Many trees have spirits and Trinity could feel them so she had never felt lonely there, she had always felt a welcoming. As they walked this feeling grew stronger than it ever had before and it began to seem that the whole forest was waking up somehow, they no longer needed to find a path, it opened in front of them and blessedly, closed behind them. There would be no need to worry about pursuers, at least for now they could relax.

So they walked, Trinity feeling like she was in a dream and it was later in the day that the wind picked up, and it was scented as though it came from a place where it was always Spring and everyone was happy. Then the air seemed to converge and the leaves began to tremble in a peculiar manner, first here, then there. It appeared like something invisible was hopping from tree to tree just in front of them, thought Trinity bemusedly. Her mind began to wander with poetry and song, then suddenly the slyphs came into focus.

Trinity knew what they were and she was stunned and humbled, it was a great honor for an elemental to show themselves to humans, it hardly ever happened. Yet there they were, riding joyfully on the breezes that they brought with them, spinning and whirling in the eddies, playfully tapping on the leaves and branches as they passed them, making them tremble. One darted by a flower bush and gleefully threw the petals in the air. She smiled hesitantly at one as it darted by and it returned and alighted on her shoulder. Then it sang into her ear, with a sweet voice, "Greetings from Paralda! Her sons and daughters pay you tribute!" The slyph mischeviously tugged on Trinity's ear, then flew off ruffling her hair playfully as she went.

Joia looked back at Trinity and Trinity thought she saw a suspicious light in her sisters eyes, but she wasn't sure. "It's becoming windy," Joia commented inscrubably.

And so they walked and Trinity's eyes feasted on the Slyphs as they went and she cared not about hunger or thirst or fatigue, she was nearly too enchanted for that. Then twilight came upon the forest and the air was suddenly filled with lightning bugs, they converged around Trinity who was behind Joia, and flew much faster than a lighning bug should be capable of, so that Trinity knew that something else amazing was about to occur.

Then the Salamanders that had been flitting around her came into focus as suddenly as the Slyphs had done and she gasped. When the Salamanders saw that she could see them they let out a cheer, all at once, in little metallic voices and began to streak madly around her and in front of her yelling, "The children of Djin adore you, Lady. Ask of us what you will, it will be our privelege to serve you!" And they flew through her hair, cackling as they went, making it stand up with static. One flew too close to a tree and set a twig on fire as it went and she saw another appear to angrily chide it though she couldn't be sure as it was too far away to hear their tiny little voices.

This was unheard of! She was being courted by two families of elementals, and in the name of their Kings! She tried to understand this and she could not! Never had she heard of such a thing before! Trinity was close to smiling, remember, Trinity did not easily smile! Joia turned to look with flinty eyes, said nothing and continued to follow the path the forest was making for them.

So the forest led them on and eventually they came to a small stream. It was cool somehow acrid, the water seemed to have a health to it, to be more than just ordinary water somehow and she walked to it and splashed her arms and face luxuriously in it. And as the water ran off her face, she heard hundreds of tiny chiming giggles and saw the Undines that she had scooped up sliding off of her face and hair and arms and laughing as they dove back into the water. And they leaped and whipped through the water, smiling and laughing and waving at her and saying, "Those who serve Necksa welcome you. You bring us hope, we bring you peace."

And they jumped through the water making a fine mist and as Joia and Trinity walked along the stream, Trinity was misted as she went. And the Slyphs wafted through her hair and made it to curl, more artfully than she had ever been able to, into whimsical lovelocks as they went and the Salamanders crackled and sparked in the air around. Trinity had such a sense of well-being that she had never had before, she had never known that it was even possible to feel so present, yet dreamy at the same time.

Joia turned and glared at her and Trinity did not care. This was not her sister, she knew this now, that another resided there as well. It didn't scare her, she knew that everything would work out well and that she was going to have an adventure regardless and she lived for those. "Peh, why did I want to open a shop!" she wondered.

And they walked through the night until the night began to turn to day. Finally, the path led them to the foot of the mountains that divide the South from the North. And here they stopped, it was no longer clear to Trinity which way they should go now...now that the forest was no longer leading them. If Joia knew what they should do next she wasn't telling. She sat on a stone as still as a stone and said no more.

And directly above them, a small avalance of gravel from the rock wall that they were sitting beneath rained down on them and out peeked some gnomes. The stared suspiciously for a moment before they stepped out fully. Then, they bowed and said stiffly, as though they were reciting a lesson they had been forced to memorize, "We who worship Gob salute you, our lady. Only ask and we shall do your bidding." Then they sat down, smoking little pipes and watched the other elementals dourly and said no more.

As Trinity was marvelling over this, a shadow appeared above them. She knew it was Brian and looked up to watch him descend. He alighted, opened his mouth as though to speak, then took in the dance around him which he could see for Dragons can naturally see elementals, they do not need to be chosen.

He then bowed before Trinity, which she did not like at all and said, " I always knew that you had greatness in you. But even I did not know that you had such greatness in you as this!"

Honoring a choice made for the right reasons

2007-04-05T08:45:00.001-07:00

I am working on the final chapters of my story, but wanted to write about something else that I have been thinking about lately. As people who have been reading my blog know, I have had trouble at my job since I started and this has been a source of depression for me. I work in a hospital laboratory and I am a medical laboratory technician. I have the 2 year degree rather than the 4.

Most people don't know what an MLT does or what we learn in school. The fact that it only requires a 2 year degree is deceptive. It is a difficult course of study, especially for someone like me who is not strong in math. I had a lot of trouble with chemistry and I hate chemistry to this day.

Medical laboratory science is hard science, like chemistry or physics is hard science. This field is very under-rated, we are as important as the nurses and do not get credit for this. Actually, what we study is much more difficult. A hospital could not run without us and important medical decisions could not be made.

I was in college taking general courses not decided on a major yet when I signed up for a class in microbiology. Much to my surprise, me, who likes history and to read etc....found this class absolutely fascinating. And I think that I enjoyed getting outside of my little box for awhile and taking my mind in a different direction.

So, I began to consider this career. And this is what decided me, strange as this may sound. One day, I was at school up in the library looking at strange books that no-one had probably picked up in 20 years. (I'll read almost anything.) And I got this eerie thought, a thought that actually creeped me out thought I can't really explain why exactly or even explain the thought exactly, it was more an image than a thought I guess. But it was this image that I got that none of this stuff was really important....that no-one read these books....that no-one really cared what these people had to say except maybe a few other intellectuals in the same field...that these people were in essence talking to themselves. And this made me so sad.

(Sorry for this picture guys! I know it is very depressing and the first time that I saw things like this I had to hide somewhere until I stopped crying....but this is why I chose this. I wanted to help people.)

And I felt that I wanted to touch life, not just think about it if this makes sense and I chose my field. I did very well on the entrance exam and was accepted immedietely. I was so proud of myself for doing so well and then I found out that nearly anyone would have been accepted because this field is in trouble, no-one is going into it. Programs are shutting down. If something doesn't happen there will be a crisis in the next 10 to 15 years when this big surge of MTS and MLTs will be retiring. I'm expecting that our pay will increase when this happens as there has to be an incentive for people to go into this. Because the hours certainly suck!

I enthusiastically began the program and.....I hated it! I absolutely hated it! I don't even know how I made it through. Just on pure stubborness I guess. Sometimes I didn't even understand why I was being so stubborn about something that I hated so much.

Simply speaking, I had a crappy teacher. He was a brilliant and kind man, a very special person....who couldn't teach. He loved the subject. He was so smart! He saw the subject as a whole which, you would have to know a little bit about the subject to understand this statement but, to get to a point where there is no boundaries in your knowledge of this field, that it isn't separated into hematology and virology and chemistry..but is understood as a whole means that you have completely mastered it.

Unfortunately, new students don't learn well this way with a teacher who jumps around from topic to topic without staying in the subject that they are teaching. He chose books for the course which were beyond the subject matter that we actually needed to know as MLTs just because he thought that it would be interesting for us and then gave no indication of what we may be being tested on. This subject matter was too condensed, a student needs some guidance in order to be able to do well on a test. It's all fine and good to say that we should be learning the subject matter because it is interesting, not just learning to regurgitate information that we have memorized from notes but the fact remains that when you are in school you have to take tests and in order to work in the field you have to pass them.

Hardly anyone passed the tests so he would curve the grades to make sure we passed. Basically, if you stayed in the program you would pass it, even if you flunked every single test.

I am a perfectionist as a student and take getting good grades very seriously, as a matter of fact too seriously, so I had a very hard time with all of this. It was very discouraging. I felt insecure because there is a myth in our society that only people who are good in the sciences and in math are actually and truly intelligent. I tried not to buy into this but I couldn't help it, I started feeling really insecure and stupid. Probably this has to do with my Dad, my dad thinks that people who are good in literature and things like that aren't truly intelligent.

Somehow I made it through. Well, I guess the above explains how I made it through doesn't it? Okay, let me rephrase this. Somehow I managed to not drop out of the program and even became ASCP certified. (passed an exam) and I've always felt like an impostor. I've always felt like I don't deserve to be doing this. I'm always afraid of people seeing through my bluff and I've never taken satisfaction in the field, which is a shame considering how passionate I was about it at one time.

I wonder how this has affected me at work? I have been a target at this job since I started. I wonder how much of my insecurity is causing my problems? I have the feeling that it is probably causing a lot of it. Because I'm not completely open, I don't mean open as in confiding...I mean open as in relaxed as opposed to guarded. I wonder how much this has influenced their opinion of me and made them see me as devious or sinister. Because I've always felt that they have really misjudged me and I've never exactly understood who it is that they think that I am....or why! But I think this may have something to do with it.....it just feels right, you know?

The other day I picked up one of the texts in the lab and started reading it and that same fascination that I used to feel before I started the program came back to me. This is truly an interesting subject. It's very dry and I have trouble with dry subjects, but this one holds me interest despite it 'aridity'.

So, I got to thinking....maybe I'll start reading the texts and learn it on my own and get to know it the way that I wish I had to begin with. I wonder how much the problems I have been having would end if I did this. And lots of people have probably wondered why I don't just get a new job if I have had trouble at this one and now that you have read this...does it make sense?

Guys, what goes on in the human body is absolutely fascinating. The complexity of it all is practically endless. My field goes very deep into it. It is unbelievable all of the processes that take place and how involved it all is and yet, it works and we all live and usually nothing goes wrong.

So, I think that for now, this is my answer. I have been doing a lot of soul-searching and I never expected that the answer would be to embrace the choice that I made 10 years ago and to give myself credit for having had some wisdom in making it. I have been looking at going back to school, just getting out of it totally. And that isn't really practical but I have been bucking against it, being stubborn again and telling myself that I will go to school, no matter how hard it is...I will do it. And I am stubborn enough that if I really decided that that was the right thing to do, I would do it. But I don't think it is the answer. I think that answer is to start back at the beginning and go through the books and just enjoy myself and finish what I started 10 years ago before I let myself be thrown off track by doubts and bad teachers.

Well, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I will write another segment of the Trinity soon. I don't know if even this one will be the end. I didn't actually expect that it would be this long. It's funny how when you write something, the story just takes over and you are just writing what you see.

Trinity, Part III

2007-03-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

Magic is a wild thing, not something to be controlled but only channelled. Those who think that they can control it are mistaken and will eventually pay for that mistake, as Trinity did.

To perform magic properly requires vast knowledge and is not possible for one person to know all there is. To be a true sorceress, ones quest for knowledge can never end. It is necessary to understand the world you live in in order to manipulate it. It is also important to understand that you don't know all there is to know, not even close.

Trinity had never been afraid to look at things, she peered into what most people ran away from. She thought about death, she thought about pain, she thought about hate and loneliness and fear. She tried to understand the mind of the killer as well as the victim. The things she saw scared her, they made her sad. Sometimes she would cry inconsolably. This, her teacher had told her, was the thing that would set her apart from the rest, could make her great rather than average. It was good that her teacher encouraged her in this for no-one else did.

Joia had never liked looking at darkness, she thought that it made you sick of spirit. She tried to focus on the beauty and light and good that was around her. And when she became involved with Justo, her talent for this was put to the test! In order to see the good in her marriage and in her life, she had to lie to herself. And the more things progressed, the more lies she had to tell until finally her life was constructed on a fragile tower of untruths. The energy she exerted to maintain these illusions was prodigious. Her thinking became rigid, to see one lie would mean seeing them all and seeing them all would mean that she would have to change. She would have to find her life and herself again, underneath all of the lies and she was afraid. Mostly afraid that maybe what she thought of as herself actually consisted of nothing.

A glamour-off, as you may have guessed, is a spell in which a person is forced to see the truth under the things that they lie to themselves about. It is one of the most powerful spells and Trinity shouldn't have used it. The truth can be hard and painful and can wound deeply, especially the heart of one who cannot bear it.

Trinity had used great power when performing her spell, but no finesse. The spell caused Joia to see not only the things she had avoided seeing about Justo and herself, that was only a small part of all she had been lying to herself about. She saw all other things as well.

Joia was quiet on the way home from the confrontation with Trinity. When she and Justo arrived at their house she simply collapsed into a chair and spoke no more. Justo called to her but she did not answer, it was as though she couldn't see him. And she couldn't, all she could see were the visions in front of her eyes. The visions came fast, wave after wave crashing into her so that she could hardly catch her breath, she sat with tears streaming down her face.

The things she saw were so ugly to her, if hurt her to see them. She saw that her marriage was a sham, just as Trinity had wanted her to, oh but that was the least and most insignificant thing that she saw.

The world unravelled sickenly before her eyes. She was going deeper and deeper into it, past the surface and inside. She saw the spinning orbs that make up matter and the cold empty spaces between. She saw earth and sky, the wood and the stone, the dark and the light and how they weren't really anything separate and how everything blended into everything else, how everything traded pieces of itself. She saw how people conspire to create reality and how what we call life and and law and truth are all just consensual illusions.

She saw that flesh is but dust and that death is hidden in life. She saw the futility of all the lives ever lived, and how all who had gone before were forgotten as though they never existed. She thought she could see the hopeful faces of millions of people who once thought like her, that their lives had meant something and how now even their names were not remembered. She thought of time and how it had run over everything and everyone since the beginning of the world, crushing them in its relentless forward motion and how meaningless it all was.

She sunk to her knees and saw in front of her eyes, as though seeing a vision, all of these things until the earth became a mass graveyard with uncountable corpses underneath inside of it, mixing with the earth and becoming it. She felt that nothing meant anything and that it was all different than anyone knew. She laid on the floor and moaned and shook, with her hands against her head as though she was trying to hold it together.

Justo grew frightened, she would not respond, neither to roughness or softness. He had no choice but to send for Trinity. By the time Trinity arrived, Joia had seen something she needed to see and was waking up.

She glanced around inscrubly and turned and walked out the door. She told Justo goodbye and that was the last thing that she said for a very long time. And Trinity had quite a time setting this right.

Trinity and Brian

2007-03-20T06:32:00.001-07:00

Wow, Trinity's breasts have really gotten full haven't they. Does anyone think that I should put a chapter in about her having breast implants? Oh and,(I changed Tragedy's name to Trinity. And I'm digressing a little before I get to part III. I hope this chapterdoesn't make me sound like a nerd!)
I suppose you may have been intrigued when you heard about Brian and wondered what Trinity was doing with a Dragon and how they had met: I don't mind telling you but in order to explain it sufficiently, I will have to go back in time give a little background.

NOW, Brian used to be part of a dragon singing quartet. If when you hear this, you are imagining something akin to a barbershop quartet, you couldn't be more wrong. First of all, there is nothing in the world like the singing of a dragon. The voice of a dragon is powerful and disturbing in a way that you simply couldn't understand unless you've heard it. Some would call it hallucinatory.

The dragon pipe, which almost always accompanies dragon singing, is the perfect accompaniment for a dragon. Dragon pipes are a wind instrument as the name suggests, which comes in 16 pieces which can all be put together in different combinations. Depending upon which mouthpiece and which chambers the dragon adds and how many, a completely different sound can be made. It is the most versatile instrument ever made and humans and others have tried to fashion their own but theirs don't have the same effect. The chambers are too small and they simply can't achieve the same resonance.

Now, the group could have been a huge success but they weren't together long because, I ashamed to say, they fought all the time like children. So they went their separate ways. John took over the family business of raising gourmet steer, oxen etc...bred specifically for the palates of discriminating dragons, as the advertisement said. Perry and Bart began experimenting with a new form of music in which the traditional and new music of all races were mixed. This music became become very famous, you may have heard of it. It is called Dragon fusion. One flew across the ocean and was never heard from again. As for Brian, he took a sabbatical to explore different religions and to dabble in the occult.

But tonight 4 of the 5 members were meeting by prior arrangement (they met once a year, somewhere or another) in a pub frequented by dragons. Due to the fact that Dragons need quite a bit of liquor because of their great sizes( though not as much as you would think, dragons become intoxicated easily!) not all pubs were able to acccomodate them. This pub happened to be near one of the Dragon's lairs, Johns, and kept liquor for him there as a courtesy. It ended up being very lucrative decision on their part, as he was a very good customer! As a matter of fact, the other dragons noticed that John had gotten quite a paunch since they had last seen him, though they were all too polite to mention it.

So there they were, reminiscing about the old days, all the time getting drunker and drunker, merrier and merrier. Having rather loud voices, they were overheard by people and others in the pub who were all drunk as well and they began boisterously encouraging them to perform a few songs. The dragons were reticent and bashful at first but finally agreed to sing just one song.

So while 3 of the dragons, Brian, Perry and Bart, began to sing a plaintive ballad, John flew home to get his dragonpipes. It was a beautiful summer evening with twilight about an hour away. They were feeling very sentimental and once they started, they couldn't stop, it was like old times and it turned into a concert that was spoken of for years!

After singing several ballads, accompanied by the dragonpipes which were assembled to make haunting and flute-like sound, the dragons rested and and prepared, then had another drink. John re-assembled the pipes to make a sound that was similar, though more melodic, to that which a foghorn makes. While John played the dragonpipes mournfully, the dragons began singing a sort of martial song. Now, one of the things that is so impressive about a dragon concert is that dragons sometimes fly in intricate patterns while they sing. Dragons are taught these complicated formations from the time that they are young, it is part of their culture and these four dragons were exceptionally good at it as they had a very strong telepathic link. Consider yourself very lucky indeed if you ever get to the opportunity to see dragons fly like this.

So, while John played deep, low, booming notes on his pipes the dragons rose in the air and began arcing gracefully back and forth, criss-crossing each other and crooning while they went. Then as the tempo of the song began to pick up, John began beating his tale against a barrel to provide rhythm and the dragons began to scream in loud agonized voices that seemed to stretch across the sky leaving ragged echoes. Their swooping became larger and grander and faster and then, one by one, they began diving straight down out of the sky into the crowd howling and blazing and wailing eerily and then pulling up at exactly the right moment before they crashed into the people who, as you might imagine, quickly sobered up.

Then the dragons flew off to a distance to let the crowd recover and hummed ominously while John reassembled the dragonpipes. When the crowd had grown hushed and expectant, John began playing his dragonpipes again, making an murky, warbling sound, similar to the sound made by whales underwater. The dragons answered with druidic-like chanting and swooning harmonies and began flying in closer, chanting all the while. This time the dragons flew around and around, always opposite each other so that their voices were coming from all sides. They began to scream with ragged emotion, their echoes seeming to wrap around the audience and enter into them.

They were singing as the sun went down and when it was dark they began streaking across the sky, their flames flying behind them. Dragons have a trick of being able to eat certain rocks which change the color of their flames, John had gotten some for them when he went to his cave, so they tore across the sky with Sapphire and and Emerald and Scarlet flames seeming to burst out of them while John's piping grew more and more frenzied. They were all magnificent, but none so sublime as Brian, for he had seen Trinity and had come undone. He had not only seen her but felt her because he seemed to have some sort of telepathic link to her which normally doesn't happen between human and dragon. And he was singing to her, and for her, he was inspired by her and hoping that she would understand.

When the last echo had faded, the audience paused for a moment and then went wild, yelling and screaming, stomping and throwing their hats in the air. Each and every one of them were to remember this to the end of their days as the most incredible thing that they had ever seen, but none of them were ever able to describe it.

Trinity had noticed Brian, he had stood out to her brilliantly. She was deeply moved by his songs and felt that she could fall in love with someone who sang like she felt if only he weren't a dragon. And when the concert ended, Brian hungrily caught her eye And Trinity moodily waited for him to free himself from the other dragons and the rest of the audience, not really knowing what she was waiting for. And then they began to talk and she knew. They talked all night until the sun came up, thus setting the pattern of their affair.

They had so much in common! They liked the same books and the same music! They shared the same wicked sense of humor and sense of drama. They both liked to stay up all night, they both found danger romantic and safely dull. They each had a propensity for accidentally setting things on fire when they were mad and that had to be more than just a coincidence! And they could communicate at a level deeper than any words that can be spoken.

Their love was very bittersweet, as their relationship could never be consummated due to their size differences. Theirs became a courtly and satirical sort of love. She called him her troubadour and he called her little dark one. She wove him garlands of flowers to wear around his wrist, (it would have taken her too long to make one big enough for his head) and he brought her pretty trinkets and baubles.He wrote her poetry and she slept curled up inside the circle of his arms. She felt safe for the first time in her life.

And most of all, with him she could fly and after that she was never the same!

Hopefully, now that I'm done with this digression, I will have part III done soon.

Tragedy and Joy PartII

2007-03-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

Tragedy appeared to have earned some money while she was away and by the looks of it, a considerable amount. The villagers were full of endless speculations on how she might have come across it.

"On her back, more than likely!" was the opinion of Mrs. Pumplemuffin.

"She probably murdered some rich person and stole their money, I always knew she was the sort!" shrilled Mrs. Bipplepuff hysterically.

And on and on it went, each speculation more fanciful than the last.The villagers enjoyed these postulations tremendously, though they would never have admitted it, and talked of almost nothing else. Happily for them, Tragedy was giving them plenty to talk about.

If it weren't enough that she was renting the empty shop between the haberdashery and the fishmongers, and that the villagers could hear banging and clanging and general hubbub coming from inside the shop, but were being foiled by not being able to see what was going on inside, as the windows were covered with wax-paper; now she had bought the old Heartlove place up on the hill as well. It was near the old cave that she used to spend so much time in as a girl and brought back some ambiguous, but mostly happy memories for her.

The Heartlove place having just become available had been much coveted by one Mr and Mrs Prunescape, they had been waiting for old Mrs Heartlove to die for years. A great-nephew was known to be inheriting it and it was also known would be selling it as he didn't want to come to Rubia to live. They were furious when Tragedy purchased the place right out from under them and in their grief, set out to cause as much mischief as they could for Tragedy.

However, these plans were hastily put aside when a gaggle of dragons landed one day with parcels of something or another strapped upon their backs. The dragons stayed for several days, having a large and rather boisterous party in the woods and the villagers could hear them roaring and laughing and playing the dragonpipe at all hours. When one named Brian stayed behind at the old cave any plots against Tragedy that had been lingering around quickly evaporated and the townfolk grudgingly left her alone.

Finally, one gloomy day the villagers found that the wax paper had been removed from the windows and that the shop was finally open! The entire village was all atwitter with the news, though none would enter the shop. They did, however, make a big point of deliberately walking by the shop so that they could been seen shunning it. This did not disturb Tragedy but rather amused her as she had been expecting it, or something like it. She had not been able to help but notice that not much had changed during her wanderings. She was not counting on the not much though, she had her bets on the little bit that had and it did not disappoint her.

For something new was afoot in the kingdom. Now that the Troll wars had ended, people were able to travel freely. As a result of this, the village had received a wider exposure to the outside world than ever before. This exposure was having varied effects on the younger generation, one of these being that they thought that Tragedy was wonderfully exotic and infinitally fascinating. And it was these who began to clandestinely visit her shop.

The first visitor was a young girl named Venicia Traipse. She did not come to the shop itself for she would have been in horrible trouble with her parents if she had, but rather waited until nightfall when Tragedy was home, to knock on her door. It goes without saying that her problem must have been serious indeed in order for her to be willing to come past the dragon!

She was very distraught for it seemed that one day she had been trying on one of her mother's jewels, a most expensive bracelet which had been passed down through the family's women for 5 generations. So impressed was the silly girl by how beautiful it looked on her wrist that she went out for the afternoon and simpered about, hoping that one the boys she had her eye on would notice. And at some point during the run of the day she had lost it, of course.

Now this was fairly easy for Tragedy to fix, though she didn't admit this. Instead, she took Venetia to her shop and told her what she needed to do, charging only a nominal fee. Venicia found the bracelet just as Tragedy had promised, in an owl's nest. Tragedy had entreated Venicia to tell no-one, thus ensuring that she would tell everyone and that is how it all began.

Within a month, though no-one would visit her shop in the daytime, she had as many customers as she could comfortable handle at night, and then some. Women wanting to get rid of warts, men who wanted their hair to grow back, girls wanting to find out who they were going to marry, people wanting protection from their enemies, people wanting revenge and well.....the usual. She was beginning to become somewhat, secretely respected and there are many stories that I could tell about this but I suppose you would like to know what was happening with Joy.

Joy, I am ashamed to say, would come nowhere near Tragedy, she had become quite dependent on the good opinion of her husband, the not-so-handsome-anymore shopkeeper. He no longer had need to harm her to make her do what he wanted, she did it completely of her own accord. She knew that he thought that her sister was a nutter so didn't even try to go near her. And of course, this didn't please him, nothing really ever did, but it didn't displease him either, which was usually the best that Joy could hope for.

And how did Tragedy feel about this? Well, as I would hardly need to tell you, not very good at all. And it took her quite awhile to surmise what the situation really was and to decide what, if anything she should do about it. She thought about it long and she thought about it hard for everyone knows that it is very dangerous for a sorceress to interfere with true love.

"That's it!" Tragedy suddenly shot up from where she had been sitting and pondering all of this! "True love! That's the key!" And she busily got to work.

One night when the shopkeeper (whom I will tell you was named Justo) and Joy were walking home, Tragedy hid behind a tree and lied in wait for them. When they got close she could hear them talking. Justo was bragging, complaining and bossing as he was wont to do and Joy was admiring, consoling and acquiesing as she was wont to do. And this was good as Tragedy knew exactly where they were and exactly when they would be in front of her.

When they got to the spot that she had prepared, a yellow shimmering fog spilled out of the ground and then suddenly took form springing up and snapping shut around Joy like a cage of golden light. At the same time Tragedy sprang out from behind the tree shouting, "Ha! It's done!"

When Justo saw that this was the work of Tragedy he was furious and rushed upon her meaning to punch her. He, as we know, had no problems hitting women. But the trees began tossing to and fro and the grass and flowers flattened out and there was a sound like the beating of wings, which was exactly what it was, Dragon wings to be precise. Brian landed beside Tragedy and winked ironically at Justo, which stopped him dead in his tracks. For all his posturing he wasn't a particularly brave man and loathed fights with other men, much less dragons!

Though he was stopped physically, his mouth was not stopped in the least little bit, even with the Dragon nearby staring balefully at him. You might suppose by this that he was beginning to find his courage after all! But no...he was just extremely stupid is all.

"You unholy Bitch!" he snarled. "You let my wife go or....Dragon or no Dragon, I will beat you within an inch of your life."

Brian and Tragedy both chuckled, then Tragedy composed herself and said..."'Tis true, I have caught your wife in a snare, but it will be a simple matter to have her taken out. All that needs to be done is that one whom she truly loves must grasp her hand and pull her out." Brian nodded largely.

"How do I know you are telling the truth?" demanded Justo.

"Oh," said Tragedy, drawing herself up to her full height, "I'm telling the truth! This is a Glamour-off!" she said triumphantly.

Justo's heart fell as he knew she spoke true. But he caught himself because after all, of course his wife loved him, so why worry.

Justo sniffed disdainfully, "Should be a simple matter then!" He strutted up to the cage of light, put his hand inside, grasped hers and attempted to pull her out. She would not budge past the bars, pull though he might.

"Oh Tragedy! This is ridiculous! He is my husband! Of course I love him!" cried Joy in an agonized voice.

"Joy, the Glamour-off never lies." said Tragedy firmly. "What you call love is not true love but something else. It is only a mockery of love. It is a mockery of yourself as well. Joy, you have yet to learn what love it." and saying this she reached her hand into the golden cage and drew Joy through the bars.

Shaken, Joy stared at the ground for a moment and then for one of the first times in her life, grew angry. Angry at Tragedy! She screamed, hurled mud, spit like a cat, kicked dirt tore at her clothes. She was pissed!

"We were glad when you left," she screamed, "No-one wanted you back. No-one ever wanted you here! All you do and all you've ever done is hurt people! Your wierd, an you've always been wierd. I've always been embarassed by you. Don't ever speak to me again." And she flounced off with Justo smirking hatefully behind her.

Part III to follow

2007-03-20T06:26:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time there were two girls, they were sisters, who grew up in a home where inappropriate, bizarre, extravagent and eccentric anger were the norm. They were possessed of a mother who was singularly peculiar, and a father who studiously ignored the entire situation. Every day was a carnival of the surreal in which the psyches of the young girls were ultimately formed in such a way that they had a very high tolerance for wierd behaviour of all sorts. Actually it must be admitted they rather enjoyed the wierd and even sought it out on occasion. But let us not get ahead of ourselves, there will time for that later.

The older was dark of hair and personality as well. If she were a teenager today, she would probably be goth. She viewed her situation as a tragedy and fittingly, this was her name. Tragedy took herself much too seriously! Full of angst she spent her days in philisophical befuddlement asking questions that had no answers. She avoided her family as much as possible preferring to spend her time in an old, moldy cave nearby the family cottage singing funeral dirges.

The youngest was fair of hair with a personality to match. If she were a teenager today she might be scouted out to star in a Disney movie. She viewed her situation as a comedy and took nothing seriously, least of all herself. So she was called Joy. And she spent her time flitting prettily about! On warm summer evenings when windows were open, Joy's melodious, twinkling laughter could be heard floating through the scented twilight. It charmed the neighbors to no end. And though a story about Joy would certainly be so much more enjoyable than one about Tragedy, tragically, this one is about Tragedy!

Well, as may be expected Joy was much more popular than Tragedy...whom most people avoided. Bereft of company as she was, she began to study sorcery hoping that perhaps solace could be found in a world other than this one. She began to associate with a group of sorcerers and developed her own laughter, albeit dark.

Not only in the community was Joy more widely loved but at home as well. Needless to say, Tragedy's parents found her constant criticisms of their behaviour tedious. Even more so because these criticisms were often true and this was something that they both loathed to see. And so they retalitated by trying to cut her down to size whenever they could.

It may be thought that Joy and Tragedy did not get along, that they despised each other. That Joy felt herself superiour to Tragedy on account of her favoured position in the family and....well....everywhere and that Tragedy was jealous. But this was not so at all. They both knew that they were the only ones really capable of understanding one another. Joy knew that if it weren't for Tragedy that she would be hopelessly, if not irredemably giddy. Tragedy knew that were it not for Joy she might never have learned to smile.

So Tragedy turned a blind eye to all she felt was silly about Joy. And Joy feigned not to notice when Tragedy became so gloomy that flowers drooped when she walked into the room. Indeed, Joy was the only one who could cheer Tragedy up when she reached the depths of her despair, usually daily, around tea-time. And tragedy did her part to prevent Joy from becoming so airy that she nearly floated away.

Finally, as girls tend to do, they grew to be women. And when they did, their tolerance for eccentric behavior, which I promised I would get to, caused them to have many great and terrible adventures, a few of which I shall now relate to you.

Joy in her joyosity, began to spend her time with Gypsy's, circus performers, elves fairies and the like frantically making merry. Those who knew her chuckled indulgently; they did not try to stop her, she was so pretty! But unbeknownst to anyone, not even Tragedy, sometimes she wished someone would try to stop her. Because she sometimes things got out of hand. Like the time she woke up in bed with an ogre she didn't even know. She swore to lay off the mead but at the next party she found she couldn't say no.

Joy having never having had to hide anything before, didn't even recognise what was wrong with herself. She thought she was sick and began taking potions and elixirs in order to heal all the time wearing a brave front, telling no-one her. Everyone loved her so much because she was so happy. Happy was what she was! Without her happiness, cheeriness, helpfulness...she was nothing. And so she pretended but her laughter grew forced and her smile strained.

When she was at her lowest point she wed a handsome shopkeeper who had always admired her. He gave her the control that she had always lacked. Sometimes he used his words, sometimes his fists and sometimes his feet. But he seemed to care about her safety as no-one else ever had before, he kept her in line as she never could do herself. And she felt he saw inside of her as no-one else ever had because he saw that she wasn't as good as people thought she was. She was silly, and foolish and vain and that was the truth!

Tragedy, it goes without saying, had problems of her own. When she finally figured out that most people were scared of her, she tried to tone it down and to emulate Joy as she was so well-loved. But she quickly saw that that wasn't going to work! She could only maintain it for a short while before she glared fiercly at someone or said something cynical or made a sick joke. She had also become quite the sorceress over the years and when angered would sometimes blast pottery into shards with her eyes or make the fire in the hearth flare, ruining whatever had been cooking and filling the cottage with smoke.

So she gave up her futile attempts at Joyness and and left the village to travel and spend her time in places of ill-repute gazing into oracles, seeking more magic and wisdom. She was not afraid of monsters of any sort save the human variety and she eventually grew completely undomesticated.

She drifted from bad crowd to bad crowd and even dated vampires and werewolves and the like. She thought that they were dark and mysterious and had some kind of knowledge that would allow her to understand the wordless urges that she was always struggling with. But she finally found that they were just posers. That instead of using their immortality to learn and to seek wisdom, it only caused them to be even more oblivious than most as they never had to deal with consequences. And she also found that they needed the living in order to feel and would drain all of your vitality if you allowed it. Not being nice like Joy she left and for the first time realized that maybe it wasn't always so bad not to be nice.

Trite though it was, Tragedy began to see that happiness is indeed found within. She also decided that it was okay if no-one understood her as long as she understood herself. And so she decided to go on her biggest adventure of all. She decided to return home and to use her powers to help instead of to hurt.

No-one was really too glad to see her. She had hurled scathing and eerily accurate insults at everyone in the village at least once. They were also rather mistrustful of her sorcery and this made them sullenly polite which had always irritated her before but now she took no mind. She was too busy opening up a shop! She had decided to become the town witch. She had become a first rate sorceress on her travels and felt that she could offer the village a valuable service. She was so busy and focused on her enterprise that she had not yet discerned Joys situation.

The Legend of Crazy Horse

2007-03-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

Has anyone ever heard a song by J.D. Blackfoot called The Legend of CrazyHorse? It was once a very popular song in the St. Louis area and it is still played on KSHE classics, I'm not sure if it is as popular or well-known in other areas. It was written in 1973 by J.D. Blackfoot after he read the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

There is only a certain age-group of people who have heard it or know what it is. I fear it is becoming lost, which is very sad as it is a great song. Great as in 'one of the greats'. They apperently play it in classrooms as a supplement to that segment of history.

The song has beautiful lyrics, they are poetry. It is wonderful musically as well. It is mostly accoustic guitar with percussion and some flute. The percussion and the flute add the native american element into the song. The combination of the music and the lyrics make it very powerful.

I found his website the other day. Just type in JD Blackfoot and you will find it. You can buy all of his music. He has written tons that I have never heard. I'm going to buy the album. Anyone that wants to hear a great song should get ahold of this and listen to it. Or if you have already heard it and wish that you could hear it again. I've written down some of the lyrics. Not all of them though, as I said the song is 23 minutes long. Even without the music, the lyrics are great and the lyrics alone should not be lost.

The Legend of Crazy Horse
by J.D. Blackfoot

You took his land and you ate his corn, and on his grave your land was born.
You took his pride and you fed him dirt, you wished him winter without a shirt
and you called this red man SAVAGE!

And after you crushed him you helped him up, to let him drink from an empty cup.
You gave him that Navy without the fleet, and made him lick your hands and kiss your feet, and you named this mad dog SAVAGE!

Well I found a book the other day, so I looked up red and white to see what'd say.
One was a savage, the other unlearned, like a look in the mirror the tables were turned....for history has named you--SAVAGE!

In the year of 65 when I was very young, we watched the dust clouds to the south and we knew that you had come.
We saw you build your chain of forts along the Bozeman road
But Red-Cloud had his allies a-counted long before it snowed.
And someday Great White Father you will know my name!

In the year of 66 you met me face to face. I decoyed your Captain Fetterman and we never left a trace.
Into our sacred homelands your Blue Coat Soldiers came,
But we just taught you a heap-big lesson in the battle of a hundred slain.
And someday Great White Father you will know my name!

In the June of 76 our Nation joined its hands. We made our camp at the Little Bighorn not knowing of your plans.
You sent your long-haired Custer of the Seventh Cavalry, to hunt and kill my children for wanting to be free.
And I think it's time Great White Father that you knew my name!!!

It's Crazy Horse! It's Crazy Horse!
And I wish that you were here to see,
cause I got Yellow Hair cornered at the Bighorn and I'm about to set him free!

Ride to the village to get my Oglala's, the Sans Arc's and the Miniconjou,
Get Sitting Bull with his band of Hunkpapa's the Brule's and the Blackfoot's too!
Riding home from battle came the Cheyenne ponies with white blood drippin' from their feet!
Their riders were a lookin' and a shoutin' up to heaven, here's to Chivington at Sand Creek!

Hey there mister wagon master what do ya' have inside, hidden underneath that buffalo hide?
Could it be ya brought to me some food from the man back east, so my starvin' children could have a feast?
Hey mother come look and see what the bastard done brought to me---alcohol, tobacco and guns....alcohol tobacco and guns.

Now I have seen the Eagle soaring beautiful and free, I don't want no man to make less of me.
Do you take me for a fool or as a little child? And do you really wonder what's made me wild?
Hey paleface ya better run...because my men are having lots of fun with alcohol, tobacco and guns-yeah!

Now I have waited patiently for you to pay your rent, but as of yet I haven't seen that first red cent.
I don't think that there's much chance of me evicting you, but watch out for that day that you get Sioux'd.
A hundred years have seen the setting sun, but his sad country still is run on alcohol-tobacco- and guns.
A hundred years have seen the setting sun, but his sad country still is run on alcohol-tobacco-and guns.

Now you try to trick me and lock me up in jail,
but where would a stupid savage find the bondsman or the bail?
I turn to run for I am scared and want so to be free, I feel the ice-cold bayonet as it sinks deep inside of me.
But some day Great White Father you'll remember me!

Sioux warriors teach your children the white man's evil tongue.
Make them know the name of Crazy Horse and the battles he has won.
So they will know the truth when its knowledge that they crave.
Let them sing of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And of the Great White father that dug my grave.

Brown rivers once were blue, now the fish float upside down.
Ancestral burial grounds that's where you built your towns.
The smokestacks from your factories they pollute my skies.
You slaughtered all my buffalo and you left me here to die.
And all of this you have done in the name of God!

Crazy Horse he was laid to rest on a creek called Wounded Knee.
but there is more buried in his grave than the wisest man could see.

I have dreamed the vision of the horse that dances wild, and I have seen the land of the great beyond.
I am one with this earth as a little child. Let my eternal light shine on.

Ride away and don't recall the things that are best forgotten.
Try to find a way-of picking from the barrel the one that's rotten.
The key to peace is sitting on your shoulders. So knock upon the door and you walk on in.
You're just a child who has but to remember, that in yourself you just found your best friend.

so ride away lord--

It is said that Crazy Horse had the power to dream himself into the real world-
and to leave the illusion behind.......