CSOM

It is hard to re-read my posts. Expressing my stress and writing it down separates it from me, it's like the difference between thinking something and actually saying it. I suppose that I have suddenly discovered one of the reasons for journaling. I have always written my thots down as a way of moving them from inside to outside my head but having gotten the upper hand by naming and formalizing my passion-points (so-called because they are not just bad thots but also good thots, thots and ideas that elicit an emotional response) I really don't want to revisit the seen of the crime or, put a better way, stop the wound healing by picking off the scab.
Then there how irritated and frustrated I get because I never think I have expressed myself exactly the way I intended. Between the limitations of language itself plus my own limited language ability I constantly fight against throwing a temper tantrum and sulking with beer!
I have written thousands of bits and pieces of fiction and non-fiction during my life and still suffer from the curse of the neo-writer, that is, to compulsively re-write the first chapter, trying to get it absolutely perfect, and never ever move on to the rest of the story.
There is always such a difference between what I mean and what I write that I feel like I am feeding pork sausage makings into a meat-grinder and getting vichyssoise out the other end.
Also it is really hard to write with brucie curled up on my lap, it makes all my raging against the the cruelties of the universe kind-of pretentious. Aww, she's giving me belly-love!

CSOM

It is hard to re-read my posts. Expressing my stress and writing it down separates it from me, it's like the difference between thinking something and actually saying it. I suppose that I have suddenly discovered one of the reasons for journaling. I have always written my thots down as a way of moving them from inside to outside my head but having gotten the upper hand by naming and formalizing my passion-points (so-called because they are not just bad thots but also good thots, thots and ideas that elicit an emotional response) I really don't want to revisit the seen of the crime or, put a better way, stop the wound healing by picking off the scab.
Then there how irritated and frustrated I get because I never think I have expressed myself exactly the way I intended. Between the limitations of language itself plus my own limited language ability I constantly fight against throwing a temper tantrum and sulking with beer!
I have written thousands of bits and pieces of fiction and non-fiction during my life and still suffer from the curse of the neo-writer, that is, to compulsively re-write the first chapter, trying to get it absolutely perfect, and never ever move on to the rest of the story.
There is always such a difference between what I mean and what I write that I feel like I am feeding pork sausage makings into a meat-grinder and getting vichyssoise out the other end.
Also it is really hard to write with brucie curled up on my lap, it makes all my raging against the the cruelties of the universe kind-of pretentious. Aww, she's giving me belly-love!

On self-pity and drivel...

I guess I have to admit that my stream of consciousness writing is a lot less like revelatory inspiration and more like channeling 50 million drunken monkeys. If I ever thot that anyone else actually reads this I might be tempted to apologize but that would, I think, defeat most of my purpose in starting this blog. It is so easy to lose oneself in a crowd of umpty-million other little blogs, it's right up their with waving your lighter at a concert (or has that been banned too).
I can say pretty much what I want here and bask in the fantasy that I actually have something wise and illuminating to impart to a wondering world. Since in fact nobody actually does care, it's 'no harm, no foul'.
Oh the utter joy of passion without consequence!

On self-pity and drivel...

I guess I have to admit that my stream of consciousness writing is a lot less like revelatory inspiration and more like channeling 50 million drunken monkeys. If I ever thot that anyone else actually reads this I might be tempted to apologize but that would, I think, defeat most of my purpose in starting this blog. It is so easy to lose oneself in a crowd of umpty-million other little blogs, it's right up their with waving your lighter at a concert (or has that been banned too).
I can say pretty much what I want here and bask in the fantasy that I actually have something wise and illuminating to impart to a wondering world. Since in fact nobody actually does care, it's 'no harm, no foul'.
Oh the utter joy of passion without consequence!

Know the enemy and know yourself...

I have been at war with myself so long that I know longer know what my natural state is.
Soldiers have said that they have never felt so alive as they are when in combat. Despite the fear, pain, and horror, the in-the-moment state of awareness is a satori/peak experience that can not be described nor understood. It has been described as the "it is here, it is now" moment, like orgasm, that cannot be both experienced and observed at the same time. You can know the moment before and the moment after but never ever the moment OF.
I make the point of saying war with, not war against, myself. I and myself in a purifying dance balancing between self-destruction and enlightenment. The only respite from the fury comes with alcohol.
It is said that 'in vino veritas', in wine truth. Not that you will find truth by drinking but that drinking will reveal your true nature. I have the great good fortune to be a gentle happy drunk rather than a mean one. The benefits are many, my bones don't ache nor does my mind, I tend to giggle a lot, kittens amuse me, even thinking about kittens amuses me, in general I find myself looking at myself and humanity in general with bemused affection.
The disadvantages are less pleasant but no less valuable to me. I don't mind hangovers, they are part of the package, but alcohol does make it difficult to work with sharp objects and power tools. But since it is a break from cruel self analysis, it is even more enjoyable by contrast as in "why did the idiot hit himself on the forehead with a hammer all day long? Because it felt sooo gooood when he stopped".

Know the enemy and know yourself...

I have been at war with myself so long that I know longer know what my natural state is.
Soldiers have said that they have never felt so alive as they are when in combat. Despite the fear, pain, and horror, the in-the-moment state of awareness is a satori/peak experience that can not be described nor understood. It has been described as the "it is here, it is now" moment, like orgasm, that cannot be both experienced and observed at the same time. You can know the moment before and the moment after but never ever the moment OF.
I make the point of saying war with, not war against, myself. I and myself in a purifying dance balancing between self-destruction and enlightenment. The only respite from the fury comes with alcohol.
It is said that 'in vino veritas', in wine truth. Not that you will find truth by drinking but that drinking will reveal your true nature. I have the great good fortune to be a gentle happy drunk rather than a mean one. The benefits are many, my bones don't ache nor does my mind, I tend to giggle a lot, kittens amuse me, even thinking about kittens amuses me, in general I find myself looking at myself and humanity in general with bemused affection.
The disadvantages are less pleasant but no less valuable to me. I don't mind hangovers, they are part of the package, but alcohol does make it difficult to work with sharp objects and power tools. But since it is a break from cruel self analysis, it is even more enjoyable by contrast as in "why did the idiot hit himself on the forehead with a hammer all day long? Because it felt sooo gooood when he stopped".

Ecco Egg finale...

It works, it's alive, spins beautifully in the wind and Ronni says it is finished and not to dick with it anymore. How well she knows me...

Ecco Egg...

In spite of depression, my latest addition. The blue balls are actually free to swing out under spin, you just can not see the fishing line suspension. I have not seen it in a strong wind so I do not know if it might need a little more tweaking but over all I it amuses me.

On happyness and guilt...

I had to have a Smee-like epi-whatsit last night before I understood one of the subtle tricks depression plays. When things are going badly I feel guilty for doing something that might make me happy. Obviously, since it is my fault that my life is out of control, feeling happy, even momentarily, is the sin of 'denial of reality'. I can not allow myself to take a nap when I'm tired because sleeping during the day is a surrender to depression. Neither will I eat or drink until I am dried out and shaking.

Well of course it is irrational, I know that, but depression speaks louder than words. It is a constant war, waking or sleeping I am on guard. I think about someone washed overboard in the middle of the ocean. You dog-paddle to stay afloat and you hope, but in the core of your heart you know that you can not win. Unless you are found you will weaken ever so slowly and finally drown, and the thot keeps returning "why bother, just get it over with".

Because the ocean, like depression, does not know about you or cares, it just is.

Which explains why while I enjoying blogging and facebook more and more it is becoming more and more difficult to write.

On happyness and guilt...

I had to have a Smee-like epi-whatsit last night before I understood one of the subtle tricks depression plays. When things are going badly I feel guilty for doing something that might make me happy. Obviously, since it is my fault that my life is out of control, feeling happy, even momentarily, is the sin of 'denial of reality'. I can not allow myself to take a nap when I'm tired because sleeping during the day is a surrender to depression. Neither will I eat or drink until I am dried out and shaking.

Well of course it is irrational, I know that, but depression speaks louder than words. It is a constant war, waking or sleeping I am on guard. I think about someone washed overboard in the middle of the ocean. You dog-paddle to stay afloat and you hope, but in the core of your heart you know that you can not win. Unless you are found you will weaken ever so slowly and finally drown, and the thot keeps returning "why bother, just get it over with".

Because the ocean, like depression, does not know about you or cares, it just is.

Which explains why while I enjoying blogging and facebook more and more it is becoming more and more difficult to write.

workin' for the birds

There is a robin, a stupid robin, a manipulative robin, trying to build a nest under the eave on the front of our house. What he does not know is that the mass of ivy is only supported by one strand growing thru one xmas lite eyebolt! So of course i've been out there stringing a strip of chickenwire under the ivy so his nest won't go splat! i hate birds!

(what i woke up to this morning, it was 80 on saturday) ^

When it's springtime in the rockies...

I woke up to this...what happened! I have (had I guess) blooming daffodils! There is a robin trying to build a nest under the eave at the front of the house and the poor thing has to sweep the snow off his driveway before he can get into his house. Oh well, knowing Colorado is suppose I'll be complain about sunburn by Wednesday.

Echos of 1918...

Now I'm scared, deep down inside scared, like I have not been since I used to lie awake in bed back in the 50's and think about Nuclear annihilation.

The 1918 flu, the 'Spanish Flu' was the biggest and fastest killer to hit humans since the Black Death in the 1300's. That erased between more than half the population of Europe in just a few years. I have heard that the population did not recover to the number before the Plague for 300 years.

Modern medicine is no real consolation to me on this one. Just as the death toll in natural disaster keeps increasing because there are that many more people to kill, so too an aggressive adapting disease will spread far faster than any of our systems can control. There is a good symbolic reason for naming an outbreak of an alien or neo disease a 'wild-fire situation'. Just as with the right wind and fuel-load a brush fire can blow up from a dozen acres to thousands in a few hours, an aerosol infection can flare up in a relative instant.



One of the things that saved humanity from both the Black Death and the Spanish Flu was the the fact that travel was slow. The Plague arrived by sailing ship and traveled no faster than a good horse and the Spanish Flu was limited by the speed of railroads and Steamships. And since communication was in 1918 and, even in the 1300's faster than the spread of the disease, warnings went out ahead of the death front. As well, 90 percent of the world was in both cases agricultural and spread out which meant that communities could isolate and quarantine themselves and others and let the disease kill its hosts and burn out. It is interesting to note that the first cases of Spanish Flu have been identified, the source was an US army depot and staging station in Kansas. From there the infection was carried to other parts of the US and on to Europe with the US soldiers entering WWI. It killed far more people in far less time than all the consequences of the war did. People did not travel much, travel far, or travel fast.



The are big difference between the Black Death and the Spanish flu. It takes time for bubonic plague carried by infected fleas (which requires bite to bite transmission like malaria) to turn into pnuemonic plague which is transmitted directly from human to human by sneezing or touching (like the common cold). Living in plague country as I do doctors are quick to test for plague and treat it before it becomes pnuemonic or fatal.


Secondly, plague was indiscriminate, it infects everybody unless they have some natural immunity and can burn itself out by killing its host before they can transmit it. The Spanish flu, in sharp contrast to earlier and later flu strain, primarily attacked people in their prime and not children or the old who normally are the groups most at risk. Like the current flying-pig flu in Mexico.

Thirdly, plague is a bacteria and flu is a virus. It is quite likely that modern bubonic plague is not the same disease that struck in the 1300. Or rather the 1300's plague was a wild variant of plague which appeared out of Asia flashed around the world and burnt out leaving behind immune survivors. (On a curious note, there is some evidence to suggest that the genetic traits that allowed some medieval people to resist and survive the plague have given their descendants greater resistance to HIV infection.)

The viral nature of flu means that it can and does mutate constantly, the strains combine and separate constantly as they travel thru one species of host after another, pig to bird to man and round and round again, vary similar in a way to a computer program attempting to break a security system by trying all the possible variations and combinations of variations to find the key-code. Think of massive parallel processing where every human, pig, and bird on the planet is running its own investigatory program and periodically sharing viable results with all the other systems.

Do you now catch a glimmer of my fear? It has been said that courage is solid evidence for a lack of imagination, I rather agree with this.

If, dear reader, you think I make too much of this, then consider...this is signs and portents and a red sky at morning.

How panic makes goobers of us all... This swine flu looks like a dud compared with the 38,000 Americans ordinary average flu kills every year. A little panic goes a long way when my meds aren't working well. On the other hand, it is absolutely fascinating to watch people running in circles screaming about nothing! Perhaps there is some truth to the idea that this is a panic manufactured to panicking the lumpen proletariat into demanding security over liberty. Bunch-a-monkey time again!

Echos of 1918...

Now I'm scared, deep down inside scared, like I have not been since I used to lie awake in bed back in the 50's and think about Nuclear annihilation.

The 1918 flu, the 'Spanish Flu' was the biggest and fastest killer to hit humans since the Black Death in the 1300's. That erased between more than half the population of Europe in just a few years. I have heard that the population did not recover to the number before the Plague for 300 years.

Modern medicine is no real consolation to me on this one. Just as the death toll in natural disaster keeps increasing because there are that many more people to kill, so too an aggressive adapting disease will spread far faster than any of our systems can control. There is a good symbolic reason for naming an outbreak of an alien or neo disease a 'wild-fire situation'. Just as with the right wind and fuel-load a brush fire can blow up from a dozen acres to thousands in a few hours, an aerosol infection can flare up in a relative instant.



One of the things that saved humanity from both the Black Death and the Spanish Flu was the the fact that travel was slow. The Plague arrived by sailing ship and traveled no faster than a good horse and the Spanish Flu was limited by the speed of railroads and Steamships. And since communication was in 1918 and, even in the 1300's faster than the spread of the disease, warnings went out ahead of the death front. As well, 90 percent of the world was in both cases agricultural and spread out which meant that communities could isolate and quarantine themselves and others and let the disease kill its hosts and burn out. It is interesting to note that the first cases of Spanish Flu have been identified, the source was an US army depot and staging station in Kansas. From there the infection was carried to other parts of the US and on to Europe with the US soldiers entering WWI. It killed far more people in far less time than all the consequences of the war did. People did not travel much, travel far, or travel fast.



The are big difference between the Black Death and the Spanish flu. It takes time for bubonic plague carried by infected fleas (which requires bite to bite transmission like malaria) to turn into pnuemonic plague which is transmitted directly from human to human by sneezing or touching (like the common cold). Living in plague country as I do doctors are quick to test for plague and treat it before it becomes pnuemonic or fatal.


Secondly, plague was indiscriminate, it infects everybody unless they have some natural immunity and can burn itself out by killing its host before they can transmit it. The Spanish flu, in sharp contrast to earlier and later flu strain, primarily attacked people in their prime and not children or the old who normally are the groups most at risk. Like the current flying-pig flu in Mexico.

Thirdly, plague is a bacteria and flu is a virus. It is quite likely that modern bubonic plague is not the same disease that struck in the 1300. Or rather the 1300's plague was a wild variant of plague which appeared out of Asia flashed around the world and burnt out leaving behind immune survivors. (On a curious note, there is some evidence to suggest that the genetic traits that allowed some medieval people to resist and survive the plague have given their descendants greater resistance to HIV infection.)

The viral nature of flu means that it can and does mutate constantly, the strains combine and separate constantly as they travel thru one species of host after another, pig to bird to man and round and round again, vary similar in a way to a computer program attempting to break a security system by trying all the possible variations and combinations of variations to find the key-code. Think of massive parallel processing where every human, pig, and bird on the planet is running its own investigatory program and periodically sharing viable results with all the other systems.

Do you now catch a glimmer of my fear? It has been said that courage is solid evidence for a lack of imagination, I rather agree with this.

If, dear reader, you think I make too much of this, then consider...this is signs and portents and a red sky at morning.

How panic makes goobers of us all... This swine flu looks like a dud compared with the 38,000 Americans ordinary average flu kills every year. A little panic goes a long way when my meds aren't working well. On the other hand, it is absolutely fascinating to watch people running in circles screaming about nothing! Perhaps there is some truth to the idea that this is a panic manufactured to panicking the lumpen proletariat into demanding security over liberty. Bunch-a-monkey time again!

Meet Night the wonder-cat

She's feral altho she has lived indoors with us since she was around 12 weeks old. She came with a sister Day (they were different as which explains the names.) Day had to go to the shelter after she decided (at maturity) no only to start peeing on the favorite sleeping spots of all our other cats but escalated quickly to peeing on the cats when they were sleeping. She was sweet but being a sweet-pee was too much. But I digress.

Night has never liked people. She has never been quite right in the head and in fact the vet agrees that her head is small for her body. She is an odd shaped cat. She is built like a drag-racer, tiny head in the front and HUGE back legs. The similarity does not end with shape, she is also by far the fastest cat I have seen if 50 years of having and loving cats. Incredibly fast, astoundingly agile (just a blur threading her way thru a dozen chair legs (think flat out ground level attack helo)) and reluctant to be touched.

She is black with delightful white markings. Sometimes we think of her as 'Knight' since she has a perfect white garter (as in Knights of the Garter) around one back leg. Her imposing white whisker add to the accurate impression that she has a pin-head.

I decided to write about Night because of the pose that I photoed. Cats of course were deified in ancient Egypt and have never forgotten that fact but I have never before seen a cat that stated it so

indisputably.

Here is Night, posed like the Sphinx before the Great Pyramid at Giza.

THIS CANNOT BE ACCIDENTAL!