The View from Up Here

Insomniac Philosophy

2011-03-16T08:01:00.002-04:00

Thinking way too early this morning, and in bullet points. Which... sure, why not.

Stew ingredients: My son, Patrick's post on his facebook page his frustration over the bureaucratic diddling over Libya; The Obama Doctrine in the Wall Street Journal; the memory of punching a bully on the school bus.

Everyone has heard that all evil needs to succeed in the world is for good to do nothing. Or something similar. Basically, when good people give up the righteous use of force, it does nothing but allow bullies, thugs and tyrants to have their way with innocents.

Which is not to say that I know that the rebels in Libya are any more likely to be good or innocent than their current tyrant is. Gadhafi is clearly a tyrant. But oftentimes, in a situation like this, the rebels simply want to install their own tyrant to tyrannize the innocent from another direction. See the Russian Revolution, among others. So... not trying to sort out who's who in Libya here... just making some general observations.

So often, in the West, there is this assumption that if we don't use force against "them," they'll certainly be sensible and come around to a more peaceful way of being, if we just explain why they should (maybe through strongly worded letters and unserious threats of handslaps). This is often considered a valid idea on the left, but there are certainly a lot of folks on the right who seem to think that the revelation that the "lion will lie down with the lamb" only requires us to want to make it so... here... now.

The problem seems to stem from the assumption that if the lamb will simply lie down with the unchanged lion, all would be well. In reality though, as it currently exists, what generally would happen if the lamb-lion initiation of togetherness were reversed from the standard description... is that there would be lamb for breakfast. Lions don't eat lambs because they are envious; because the lamb has encroached into the lion's territory; because the lamb has offended the lion with its existence. Lions eat lambs because they can. And because lambs are tasty.

From there, my mind takes a side trip into an imaginary conversation with those who favor talk over action. I've had enough real conversations along these lines over the years, certainly. For the sake of brevity, we'll just call the two sides of this conversation "Me" (yes... me), and "Cwaga" (Can't We All Get Along?). Here's how it generally ends:

Me: Tell you what... you guys get the all the bullies, thugs and tyrants in the world to give up the use of force, first. (Can't leave even one of them in non-compliance, because then he'd just terrorize everyone else. All lions must be lying down with lambs.). Then we'll talk about disarming the law-abiding and giving up on the need for defense of ourselves and innocents.

Cwaga: (brushing that aside) But that'll never happen! It's too hard!

Me: Exactly.

Reflections On Yesterday's Wave

2010-11-03T12:11:00.005-04:00

In February of 2009, (yes, just after Obama's inauguration) I wrote this on a private message board, devoted to the philosophies of Elias. (All my non-ya-ya friends, especially my beloved Christian friends and family should probably just not click on the link. Y'all always knew I was a little off-base, and that I get ideas from odd sources, but verifying it, in black and white, so to speak, may not be your cup of tea. I love you guys... I really do, so I'm just asking you to keep intact, some of your comfort zone about me. I'd hate to lose you based on different sets of philosophical explorations. There are a lot of philosophical foundations in my belief systems... some more traditional than others. Some more out-there. If you haven't read my first post on this blog, maybe a click there would be a little more easily digested.)

Anyway.

(There I go on a tangent again, and I've barely even started this post. Yes, my brain can be a scary place... I believe we already established that some time ago.)

Ok... current reflections to follow, but first, here's the post:

Hi Fran,

I think I came here today to read this post. I don't think I really have any good insight to offer in regards to your specific situation, or anything like that, but I find it interesting that I had an impulse to come to the group today (which I haven't done in... well, a very long time) and then I come across this post and it resonates. "Say something!"

So... hmmm. (Adding this bit after writing a lot of stuff below: Obviously, this whole reply is not in direct response to what you've written. You asked if other people are experiencing what you are, and you've gotten a lot of replies validating that they are indeed. This is just really my thought trajectory sparked by your question, but not really in answer to it. Ie: I in no way believe that this has anything to do with what you were seeking when you wrote your note, and I totally know mileages will vary.)

My experiences of things I've done over the last few years have lent themselves to a few over-arching themes.

The major one being that "Reality is. It's not a question of what I want to change, as much as it is a question of how I am going to deal with it." I have created a reality, by drawing it to myself, so to get what I meant to get out of it, I have to look at it head on. Reality is. Period. I should note my inner responses, discover their causes and work to understand myself. But I still have to accept that Reality Is. The other part of it is that Reality is the Effect. Not the Cause. If I want my reality to change, I have to know myself and what I'm doing. If I don't do that, I'll just keep creating the same reality over and over.

So, for me, the big questions that keep popping up have similar answers... and I'm getting a lot of questions from people. The answer for me... I've learned it the super-hard-way... is well... just face the reality that everyone is going to pick what they pick. They're going to do it. The question is are you going down with their ship?

That's how I'm handling the economic turmoil. Everyone is going to do what they do. Congress is feeding us a huge crap sandwich, which will drive the economy into a further tailspin. It's what people want to do. It's like a ship going down while everyone cartoonishly tries to run to the highest spot on the deck hoping they'll get rescued. They won't.

So, for me, then the question is not about worrying about the country. It will survive, after a painful way of learning what we need to learn, the basic concept will survive. My job is to make sure I can swim. Isn't the whole purpose of the Elias thing to be about people learning not to lean on "authority" and to rely on themselves?

Remember this?

"The emphasis is shifting, literally, from that of authorities and certain individuals as the directors of masses and groups of individuals into the expression of the reality being directed by the individual. The emphasis is moving into the expression of focusing the attention and appreciation, and recognizing the worth of the individual and the abilities of the individual.

You shall be directing of your reality, individually and intentionally, in an objective manner, rather than allowing yourselves to be dictated to by mass beliefs or authority figures that you have set as your examples or your directors previously.

In this, you offer yourselves tremendous freedom and new opportunities to be exploring this physical dimension and what you may be creating within this physical dimension in a much more expansive manner, allowing you to move within consciousness without limitation, but continuing the blueprint or the design of this particular physical dimension."

That was session 846b... the Website video session .

My interpretation of that has always been that the "authorities" are going to seriously over-reach and create a huge crash-and-burn scenario. There's pretty much no other way for authoritarian systems to give up power. They won't unless they have to. So, in one form or another, the authorities are going to try to control everything, and we will all escape like tiny little termites.

But not before a lot of people get hurt (the "trauma" we're trying to avoid for ourselves by learning what we need to learn earlier than we otherwise might). And my personal belief is that the more the "authorities" try to "do something!" the worse the hurting is going to be. They'll try to squeeze the life out of the country if they have to in order to hold onto power. And, again, in my mind and interpretation, that's not something I need to fear, it's just the reality I need to accept, because that is human nature.

We aren't shifting to get away from human nature. We're shifting to become self-directed and accepting of human nature and the choices of others, in my interpretation. I don't have to try to fix the authorities or try to make them understand. They'll figure it out when we all slip between their fingers like a handful of sand. I just have to decide they aren't controlling my choices. I don't have to try to bring a lifeboat around to everyone in a panic. I just need to offer my opinion if I'm asked. My opinion is always "look at reality, accept that it is real, and make a decision based on that." I trust that in the end, we will in fact end up with a whole lot of shifting going on. I just can't direct it or decide how anyone else is going to shift. I'm responsible for my own shifting. No one else's.

I can't emphasize this enough: It's all my interpretation in this note, and I am very sure it isn't going to find a lot of agreement in the world at large, but it does give me peace in the world's turmoil.

So given that, the question is what do I think will happen as the authoritarian systems crumble and engage their war against the individual to avoid losing power, and what plan do I have to address it on the personal level? Step one of our plan started a couple of years ago. The handwriting has been on the wall on the economy for quite a while... so our plan (Mike's and mine), was "get the hell out of debt." We've also got a plan for if things get bad enough economically that our families have to start combining households. None of us are there yet, but it could happen. And these plans aren't being made in a frenzy of panic, they're just like a reality check more than anything. "What would we do if..." "What skills would be beneficial to have anyway?" It's like a pilot taking off in a plane... he always is checking where he'd land if the engines go out. He's not panicking thinking the engine is going out... he's just making sure he knows how he'd handle it in that moment. "Can't do it... we'll be in the Hudson." (Amazing transcript of that flight, btw... he said it like he was saying "I'll meet you at the grocery store.")

Reading up on the depression has also been a tremendous help. I just got done with Amity Shales's "The Forgotten Man." And it really illustrates that those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it. Everything that's being done now economically was tried then... all the beliefs about the economy showing up in the "stimulus (hah!) package" were "new ideas" in the 30's. It didn't work then, and it won't work now. Problem is, the hero image of FDR is the history that people remember. What they don't remember is his war on individual success, and the "capital strike" that resulted. Knowing what the authorities are going to be aiming for, lets me assess where I stand in relationship to it, and make decisions with that in mind.

So... this was a long-winded way of saying... I've felt what you feel. But now, for me, I know it's a stormy sea and that I've got the tools to survive it. I found the tools when I most needed them, and discovered the hard way that I am a pretty damned impressive being. And that makes it ok for the sea to be stormy. Makes it more like an experiment and less like the end of the world. But I still am learning about new tools that I've discovered in the meantime... looking at the next big thing and rushing out to play with my tools.

Sorry to be so wordy. But... that's me. :-)

Love,

Cath :-)

So... current reflections. Note again... this was nearly two years ago. At that time, the Tea Parties hadn't seriously begun to fight. Also, I always go at everything from the inside-out, so I was keeping my interpretation very personal then. There are always mass events, mass movements, of course, and I feel a strong affinity for the movement of the Tea Party masses, who have chosen not to go down with the foolish and idiotic ship of state, who have chosen to let the "Powers That Be" understand that "no" means "NO." And I lend energy to that effort in my own small way with my little signs and my little votes, but my own personal efforts usually look inward first. It's just the way I roll. Now though, I'm really enjoying seeing a sort of massive wave of individuals choosing for themselves, and this wave that's getting stronger intersecting with the actual here-and-now reality.

It wasn't a pebble tossed into the ocean of reality yesterday. It was a meteor.

I woke up this morning thinking "So it begins."

Migraine medicine musings

2009-08-31T07:34:00.003-04:00

So I’ve been thinking this morning. Bear with me here, since this may be partially induced by the migraine medicine I took last night.

Typically, I go around and around, without landing anywhere, on the whole “government should do everything” push that we all seem to be engaged in.

There’s the side of me that’s so completely wedded to the American idea… freedom, liberty, creativity, courage, endless horizons, the primacy of the individual… I see it kind of like one great big amazing circus. The Greatest Show on Earth! Look at us go! This side is normally completely dominant. I love this feeling of the American character. I breathe it like air in the wide open country out West. It’s inspiring and life-affirming, to me.

Then there’s the other part of me that sees just how damned scary all of that is to so many people. A lot of people like to watch a circus, and live vicariously through the trapeze artists and lion tamers, but not a lot of people want to be the performers in the circus. Most of us just don’t have the guts. And really, there is nothing wrong with wanting a little safety in one’s life. I can empathize with that idea too.

My insight this morning is this: The problem I seem to have with the idea of turning responsibility for the circus over to the government so everyone can feel safer, is that it is just so damned Boring that way. Dull, dull, dull. Lacking in imagination. Rote. Repeated. Practiced so many times, there’s no new way to do it. Utterly and completely BORING.

If the government gets to have ultimate responsibility for, and by extension control of, everything… our finances, our health, our education, our jobs, our environment, our washing machine size and water usage, our toilet flushes, our light bulbs… then just how much is there left for any particular individual to give a shit about? If the government is responsible for ensuring “correct and fair” results for all our biggest acts in life, all our biggest decisions, all our charitable impulses, why bother dreaming outside the anthill?

Hasn’t this been done too many times to count, throughout history? I mean, yeah, we call it different names… Theocracy, Monarchy, Autocracy, Kleptocracy, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Totalitarianism… yada, yada, yada. The age of the Greeks, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the New World Order, the UN, the European Union… the Mongols, the Goths (the Visigoths! Whatever they were… Goths with vision?). The Cherokee, the Iroquois, the Sioux, the Miami. Everyone fighting everyone else for control of land and other people, in particular their own neighbors, who bug the hell out of them with their different ways and their different ideas. Others fighting to rid themselves of the need to make their own decisions while also controlling their neighbors because their neighbors make different decisions and might be more successful at life without the shackles of government on their ankles. What a complete lack of imagination this mindset takes. A bunch of crabs in a pot, pulling each other down so we can all get boiled together.

Basically, every governmental system we’ve tried ultimately ends up meaning that someone else is responsible for everything that matters. We had a chance to do it differently in the US, but we got scared with the Great Depression, and looked to government to save the day here too. And so the great march toward world-wide collectivism continued. With just a few hiccups here and there.

So I watch the passing of this American idea, and I think to myself, on the one hand “well, it is a country meant for the young-at-heart after all, and maybe the youth in this country really did mean to vote for collectivism. Maybe this is what they want. All money and all power and all choice in the hands of the government, which will then decide who is moral enough to get a share back, and whose ideas are not worth the time it takes to dismiss them. It’s not the America I dream about it, but maybe this dream isn’t meant for me any more.”

Then on the other hand I think: Do we really all have to be collectivists in this world, in order to come to an eventual agreement that this is getting really dull? How boring can a people get?

On Writing

2009-07-01T12:11:00.003-04:00

I wrote this in a letter to my sister-in-law:

As for the writing, I suspect this may not be easy to believe, but I'm not really interested in making money off my writing. I'm not really looking to sell anything.

Believe me, I've given this much thought and examined my nature in a great deal of detail where writing is concerned and the truth of the matter is that I know I am good. I'm an excellent writer. And I don't care if anyone else ever reads what I write.

I'm completely confident about my knowledge of myself on this issue, and I'll explain a little of it here, just so you can rest assured that I've indeed thought this through.

So, we start with the fact that I'm good at it. And I enjoy it when I do it. When do I do it? Well, when I have something I want to say. Or when I have some people talking in my head telling me a story.

That still doesn't mean that I want to sell what I write, though, it only means that I need to express what I need to express. I firmly believe that anyone else in the world who needs to read what I write will either a) find my blog and keep going back, reading into the history of it though the category links in the sidebar, or through random clicks on the "older posts" links or post titles, until they feel satisfied, or b) ask me a question.

From the fiction angle, I have realized that I hate writing the boring bits. I only enjoy writing the scenes that come to me in a flash, fully discussed by my characters, and surrounded by tantalizing glimpses of meaning. People don't buy books with only the interesting bits written though. Generally speaking, in this world, people prefer to buy a story that holds together coherently that they can read straight through from point A to point Z and not get lost wondering how in the hell we got to point 123 when we thought we were in the alphabet.

I don't think that way, for the most part. I don't even enjoy reading that way, truthfully. My reading points usually go in an order (and yes, I'm talking about reading fiction here) more like: AB Z C P D EF T GH R IJ U KL Y X MNO P(yes, again then my mind goes... oh am I close to R now? So...) R Q R V S T(again) U(again) V (again) W X (again) Y (again) Z (again) and possibly, if I've really enjoyed the end, another Y and Z.

My type of writing fiction, hating transitions as I do, and only enjoying the meaningful scenes, is better suited to the stage or screen, I think, and maybe one day I'll give that a shot, if I feel so inclined. But that does bring it back to "sell! or write for everyone else!" which I don't care if I do. I know that in most people's minds, when one has a gift for something, one also has a duty to share it with the world. Unfortunately for most people though, I don't share that belief. Or more accurately, my belief on that level is a bit more subtle. See, I do share it with the world, but on a very small scale, and not out of duty. I share it with people who through serendipity or luck happen to stumble across it or ask for it. I figure that what I'm inspired to put "out there" on my own impulse, will be the thing that some random someone, somewhere will want or need to read. If not, that's fine too. I'm just putting it out there for me, then. If I'm forcing it, or trying to make it bigger than it is, then I'm just being stubborn, going against my nature, and creating the perfect opportunity for me to give myself "writer's block" because I'm going against what I believe. And what I truly do believe is that we all, through serendipity, find or are offered exactly what we need when we need it.

Every time I write, whether in a letter (like this one to you), a blog post, a rant, a journal entry, or a fictional scene... it's all really me writing to me. The rest of the world, or even one single member of that tribe, may or may not have the opportunity to read it. I may or may not post it where they can see it, or "do something with it", but it doesn't matter to me. The energy that I put into it is for my own benefit and enjoyment. If I tell myself a fictional story, then I've told myself a great story... better than a lot of stories I've actually read, honestly. And generally speaking, that's enough for me. I do enjoy sharing the cool scenes though (like on my blog) just because I think they're cool and think someone else may find them cool too. Particularly my friends and family who read there.

And interestingly enough, all of this to you has been something that I've been meaning to say on my blog, but never got around to putting into words. So, thanks for offering me, through serendipity, the opportunity to do what I want to do. And... I'm going to post most of this letter to you, there.

So now you know.

When Pravda is taking you out to the woodshed for a spanking, you do have a problem.

2009-06-18T11:59:00.003-04:00

And it's a fascinating spanking too, given the complete lack of delicacy and political correctness, as well as some of the overblown distortions of what America is like.

Here's the link, from back in April:

American capitalism gone with a whimper

Killer quote (from page 2):

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

I would caution the world, though, in its temptation to snicker. It is certainly understandable that a lot of the world feels a very strong urge to gloat. But, I think Putin himself may be wondering (given his speech, linked below), if America follows the world into socialism, who exactly will be left to buy the world's products? Didn't someone once say "the trouble with socialism is that soon you run out of other people's money"?

If America is simply giving up the fight, joining the rest of the world's preferred economic template, (as well as the rest of the world's "someone should do something" whine about the world's hotspots), then what countries, exactly, will be the new engine of the world's economic machine, and the world's new policemen? I sure hope somebody is stepping up to the plate. Atlas is shrugging in a pretty big way over here. Hope the world has a plan for who's going to be the next big guy holding things up. Everyone's been griping long enough about America doing it. So, I guess you could say we quit. Europe should be thrilled.

Sounds like Putin hopes it will be Russia taking on the roles America is abandoning. I'll bet that's more than likely. A Russia/China partnership should be interesting for the world to watch. Hope Russia and China are also keen on keeping the peace and trying to help people living under totalitarians to be free. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

But if Putin, back in January, sounds more capitalistic than the American President, you know the world is turning upside down. It's truly mind-bending.

Putin's speech at the Davos World Economic Forum.

National Bankruptcy

2009-04-20T12:41:00.002-04:00

Not the change we need.

And so... Tea Parties.

If you want to understand what happened...

2009-03-09T19:17:00.002-04:00

You've got to watch this video. It is long, for sure. But it's an amazingly cogent and comprehensive explanation of how this whole depression/recession thing got going and what can help. You need an hour and a half. But it is really time well-spent.

Mysticism, Logic, Yin, Yang, and Fanaticism

2008-11-19T15:38:00.006-05:00

Patrick has this poster in his room.

There are times when I'm reading something, exploring ideas, and the imagery of this poster pops into my head for the duration. This is a primal symbolic key... it is always relevant. It's actually the basis for how I approach pretty much any new idea.

Yin and Yang. Dark, Light. Female, Male.

Mysticism, Logic.

I was delighted today to come across this bit of writing from Gilbert Magazine. (I found the link in a comment discussion at the Gates of Vienna blog.)

This article is timely in so many ways. Not the least of which is that it brings up Tolstoy, which is connected again to Patrick, and to the whole "all things Russian" interest that we've got going around here. I haven't talked about that here on the blog, but it's been in the background for a while now since Patrick's taking Russian at IU.

Anyway. A couple of relevant bits of the article on Fanaticism, linked above (God, I Love this!):

“Fanaticism has nothing at all to do with religion,” Chesterton affirms. The origins of fanaticism lie elsewhere and neither science nor politics nor academia is immune from it. Tolstoy was no doubt a genius. He had great faith. He lacked only one thing. “He is not a mystic and therefore he has a tendency to go mad.”

This passage recalls Chesterton's discussion of the maniac in Orthodoxy. The maniac is not a man with many ideas that tend to balance each other off in common sense. Rather he is a man with one idea according to which he sees all else in a distorted light. Tolstoy “is not a mystic; and therefore he has a tendency to go mad. Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane.” It is the mystic who is open to all things, even if they seem at first not to make sense.

And then:

Chesterton comes to his main point. “The thing that has driven them mad was logic.” The poets were less likely to go insane than the scientists—the “mad scientist” is a well-known character, in fact. Tolstoy was deficient in poetry. “The only thing that kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism—the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem.”

You've got to read the whole thing. Let it seep into your consciousness through the mystical senses. Maybe it's just me, but this article feels steeped in so much more. You could say it is much more than it seems.

Yin and Yang are both necessary, I think. Mysticism coupled with Logic.

It will take courage for a committed Obama voter to pay attention to this.

2008-10-27T14:04:00.003-04:00

Obama voters need to ask themselves if they really believe in the philosophy that they've committed themselves to voting for. The case will take about 6 minutes to make.

4 and 1/4 minutes on Youtube, and probably less than 2 minutes to read. Suggestion: Choose to read, if you've only got time for one or the other.

If a person can't put aside his or her own automatic responses for 6 minutes to look at a philosophy objectively, I'd just have to suggest that maybe that person should do the rest of us a favor by not voting.

If a potential Obama voter can look at the philosophy objectively, find it not to his or her liking, but can't stomach voting for McCain... there are third party candidates out there. Maybe considering voting for one of them would be more palatable.

I guess to a socialist, running the economy into the ground looks good.

2008-10-23T17:18:00.003-04:00

I've always questioned the wisdom of counting on the current "rules" to last beyond the government's whim and appetite.

Chilling:

Democrats to kill 401(k)s for … privatized Social Security?

Of course, reading through that and the article linked here:

House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks

... it becomes very clear that what they're talking about is not "privatizing Social Security" since there is no actual proposal anywhere to do anything with the great ponzi scheme known as Social Security, other than to increase mandatory contributions by another 5%. No, what they're talking about is making a governmental grab at money that is currently tax-deferred, to increase government revenue now, to pretend that they can paper over the fact that the "Social Security Trust Fund" is nothing but a cardboard box filled with IOU's.

Basically, if you've had the foresight to realize that you weren't born soon enough to get anything at all from Social Security, and you knew that your generation is actually going to be the one left without a chair in the generational game of musical chairs... if that's you... and you decided to buy into the promises of government by investing in a 401-k... well, sorry. The rules are going to get changed on you mid-stream, sucker. It's just not fair you know, for you to have all that money where the government can't tax it right now when we need it so badly.

This bit from the second article just makes me sick:

“The savings rate isn’t going up for the investment of $80 billion,” he said. “We have to start to think about ... whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that’s not generating what we now say it should.”

That's the House Education and Labor Committee Chairman, Democrat, George Miller. Talking not about any investment the government has made, mind you, but about the deferred tax payments on individual contributions and company matches to individual 401-k accounts. Individual investments. $80 billion in taxes not collected now, but deferred until the time the withdrawals begin.

The bit on mandatory contribution increases is in the same article, here:

Under Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation.

Now, call me cynical, but I'd be willing to bet that the "guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration" is kind of what people thought they were buying into when the monster was created in the first place back in the days of FDR. Fool me once, shame on you. Twice?

Do they really think anyone is going to believe this again? Yeah... I think they do. And they're probably right.

Just makes me want to weep for this country.

I lost my mind last night, but it came back.

2008-10-03T13:59:00.004-04:00

It was a tough night for me last night. Sometimes, I just look too far into the mists of time, and the energy "out there" overwhelms me. It's the uncertainty that does it. If I knew exactly where the pivot comes, where the path splits, when it occurs... if I could pinpoint that moment reality will no longer be considered optional, I could stay with the generally relaxed and philosophical position I ordinarily inhabit, as it relates to the vagaries of direction of mass events. (Which is to say that on a personal level, some would not define me as "relaxed" though I certainly handle drama fairly well. I'm not exactly a greatly soothing presence for some people. Others, yes... but... well, this tangent seems to lead to a completely different post, I suppose.)

Usually, I can stand back far enough that looking at the big picture is fairly easy for me. Times like last night undo a lot of centeredness, though, and I feel like I've been tossed by a massive wave of emotion. Then I just can't contain it. It's got to come out somewhere. Unfortunately, it happens so late at night that there isn't much I can do to make it easier. Calling someone is not an option... since waking people up in the middle of the night to have a mini-freakout is usually considered rude.

So, Mike got to be the witness. He had no words, really, but at the end of the freakout he did come out with the one thing I needed to hear. "It's all going to be all right." Then I reached for sleep and Thomas Jefferson. Let his spirit hold me, also murmuring "it's going to be all right."

Taking my comfort where I could get it, I at least was able to sleep. Dreamed interesting dreams of redecorating a house... lovely, really... I wish I could draw... then a good friend moving, and the thought that maybe I should move too, to remain close. The dreams were related to changes of realities, too, but not in a freak-out way.

I think that if I knew for certain that we don't, as a nation, really plan to dive off the cliff before we try to reverse course and decide to go back to accepting that reality is real, I'd feel more confident in our ability to weather the outcome of our follies.

Sometimes I just bite off more despair than I can chew.

I'm on my way back to centeredness, though.

One thing is certain: The financial mess is going to lead to bureaucracy

2008-09-24T12:07:00.004-04:00

Depressing stuff. A snippet:

As to what can be done, it may not matter. That is, it's important what we do, but the chance that it will be done sanely and rationally is very small. What will be done must be decided by the most unpopular Administration in nearly a century in connection with the most unpopular Congress in history; and everyone involved in finding a remedy was in one way or another a part of creating the mess. By everyone, I mean everyone: the Administration, the Treasury, the Congress under Carter and Clinton, Congress under Reagan and Bush, Congress controlled by both Democrats and Republicans, the regulatory agencies, and the "experts" now out of jobs who will be hired to manage the new institutions that will be set up to buy bad debts: every one of them. What will be done will be settled by politics, not by economics.

I say this because those who did foresee this disaster tried repeatedly to rein in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but the Fred and Fan lobbyists were easily able to defeat those efforts. Moreover the leaders of Fred and Fan were fired, but left with multi-million dollar bonuses, as did the leaders of various firms ruined in the disaster. The remedies being proposed aren't going to do much more than create a bureaucracy. Once that happens, Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy will take over, and whatever is required to keep that bureaucracy healthy will be done. One thing is certain: the people who must pay for this debacle will largely be those who took out sensible loans and have kept up their mortgage payments; those who did nothing wrong, but will be handed the bill.

Read the whole thing.

A cogent analysis of where the Fed stands now

2008-09-19T22:50:00.002-04:00

Welcome to History. Threading this needle is going to be a real trick.

Exactly!

2008-09-17T22:43:00.008-04:00

Hear, hear! Hope McCain's people read the Wall Street Journal:

Yes, the Obama campaign is trying to hang the Bush presidency around his neck. Mr. McCain knows -- and should give -- the answer to that: Voter disgust with Washington goes far beyond George W. Bush.
In the 2006 off-year election, voters threw out the Republican bums and turned over control of Congress to the Democrats. In an odd thank-you, the Democratic Congress earned the lowest approval ratings ever recorded in opinion polls.

Explain: Lehman, AIG, Fannie, Freddie and Bear

2008-09-17T22:43:00.003-04:00

Yeah, everyone is confused. So it's quite a breath of fresh air to see this explanation, putting things in layman's terms.

Several commenters seem to think that something on this scale only takes 8 years to unravel though.

(via Althouse)

Fannie and Freddie "invest" in lawmakers

2008-09-17T22:43:00.002-04:00

A 1989-2008 list is here. I'm disappointed to see both my senators and my representative on the list. They are: Evan Bayh (#28, with $ 41,100), Richard Lugar (lost count, he's down a ways at $ 4,500), and Baron Hill (also down a ways, with $5,000).

Sheesh.

2008-09-17T13:55:00.002-04:00

So not only do Obama and Biden think it is a good idea for an incoming administration to scour the decisions of an out-going administration, effectively making policy disagreements into criminal offenses:

Looking to the future but with one eye on the past, Biden also promised that an Obama-Biden government would go through Bush administration data with "a fine-toothed comb" and pursue criminal charges if necessary.

But, also, Obama seems to think it's a good idea for potential office-holders to undermine current office-holders when it comes to decisions that are the direct responsibility of the President.

In a long interview with the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, Zebari says: "Obama asked me why, in view of the closeness of a change of administration, we were hurrying the signing of this special agreement, and why we did not wait until the coming of the new administration next year and agree on some issues and matters."

Jeez. I'm betting he wouldn't take too kindly to a future Republican opponent undermining him this way, if he should succeed in becoming the next president. Seems to me that if this behavior is now going to be viewed as "ok", there is great potential for creating chaos and hobbling any future president's ability to follow his own advisers and intelligence. Talk about unravelling the fabric of our Constitutional system.

And of course, the so-called "mainstream media" is AWOL. Any guesses on why that might be? Yeah, Dan Calabrese is guessing.

Further illustration

2008-09-17T12:13:00.003-04:00

This goes to the point that economically, Presidents can propose, then sign or veto, as well as appointing heads of certain departments... but only have any power if Congress goes along with them.

The credit crisis and the lack of oversight over government-subsidized lenders like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac occurred on the watch of George Bush, and many blame his economic team for their lack of oversight in the collapse. Barack Obama has made this point one of his major campaign themes, arguing that John McCain would provide more of the same failures that Bush did. However, what many do not recall is that Bush wanted to tighten oversight with a new regulatory board for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government recipients for the express purpose of addressing bad loan practices — and Democrats blocked it.

Read the whole thing.

This is why it is so critically important to have a president who can communicate clearly to the American people. President Bush's greatest failing, in my view, is that he has never been convincing enough, or articulate enough, to actually explain what he has been trying to accomplish in any field. He has left it to the media to explain for him. And the mainstream press hasn't been interested in actually doing their jobs, but have preferred to be advocates for their own agendas.

I think Ronald Reagan's greatest strength was his ability to do an end-run around the media to talk directly to the American people. When we knew what he was trying to do, it was really easy to harass Congress to get with the program.

Voting the congressional bums out... all of them... and having a President who talks directly to the people to get his agenda accomplished, by specifically spelling it out and naming names, is critical.

I wish one of the candidates would address the issue of congressional corruption rather than harping on Wall Street. If anyone can really be fingered with the "greed" label, I'd say it's congress.

But I'm not hearing that from either McCain or Obama. Obama wants to keep the Dems in power so he can get all his massive programs enacted easily. McCain... who knows what his problem is?... I don't know why he thinks Wall Street is the big culprit here. Maybe he's afraid to piss off Congress too much, figuring he's going to have to try to work with them, either way, after the election.

Disappointing.

Partial Correction

2008-09-16T11:49:00.003-04:00

In my ranting mood yesterday, I didn't take into consideration that the heads of Freddie and Fannie and the Fed are political appointees.

Guess who brought in the politicos responsible for this huge meltdown, though. Yeah. Clinton. My point about Congress holding the purse strings still stands. It's just that with the cronyism involved the whole "checks and balances" thing has really taken a back seat to the fun of lining congressional pockets and being bought off to look the other way. And clearly President Bush has not been much help to the taxpayers when it comes to cleaning house. I somehow doubt Obama would be any better at reforming this crap either, given his connections and the fact that he's been second in line for the payouts.

I'm sorry for the rant yesterday. The basic point is true. The president has very little control over the economy. But he does have some ability to put decent people in charge of some important agencies.

Mea culpa.

UPDATE: Adding this link to my previous post, and this link to the post that references comment moderation.

Will Someone Please TELL Them

2008-09-15T15:14:00.004-04:00

That in this country, spending is controlled by the Congress. You know those guys... the SENATORS and House Members who write the budgets for the President to either sign or veto!

I am so sick of seeing things like this in the news, and coming from candidates who really should know better, given that three quarters of the ones running for the offices of President and Vice President happen to be current Senators.

Maybe Obama has got an excuse, since he's hardly ever there, doing his job and doesn't know what he'd actually be responsible for if he wins... but what about McCain and Biden? (Biden should educate Obama on this matter in a hurry, since he (Biden) won't actually be responsible for anything much if he gets elected.) Shouldn't they know that all the President will get to do financially, after winning election and being sworn in, is propose programs and hopeful budgets, and possibly, maybe, if Congress is feeling friendly, get them enacted? Congress is responsible for writing the budgets, the new programs, the bailouts and the laws.

Or the President can Veto until the CongressCritturs come back with a more reasonable budget, program, bailout, or law.

That's it. That is the scope of Presidential power where the economy is concerned. Propose, Sign or Veto. Not a lot there.

So, if the media or the candidates or the voters are unhappy with spending, let them look at Congress. Vote those bums out. Which financial problems do you want to address? Look at Congress for the answer to the question of where the problem lies. Bailouts of the big guys? Thank Congress. (Many members also happen to be the Big Guys getting bailed out.) Taxes? Wasteful spending? Thank Congress. Earmarks? Thank Congress.

The only thing anyone can blame Bush for financially is that he didn't Veto any of the ridiculous and wasteful stupid-ass programs that Congress put on his desk. Yes, he proposed some of them. They wouldn't have happened without Congressional assent. No Child Left Behind? President Bush would have been singing alone on that one, with no power to enact it if Congress had never presented the bill for him to sign.

The state of education in this country is sorely lacking still. Especially education about the functions of the branches of the American Government, apparently.

The bums that really need to be thrown out reside in Congress. Oh, wait. We did that two years ago on one side of the aisle. Did it help? Nope... it got worse. No surprise there. Now the congressional approval ratings are lower than President Bush's.

What we need is a president who will Veto spending... Left, Right and Center... until the rats in Congress get a clue and pass a budget that doesn't hand out favors to everyone's brother.

Ok. I'm done ranting for now.

Palin's so-called "Troopergate"

2008-09-13T22:58:00.004-04:00

And the hits just keep on coming.

Obama Partisan Tampers with Palin Subpoena List

The actual time-line, with tons of links:

Palin’s Trooper’Gate: Beating MSM distortions to the truth

This stuff has got to get out to the average non-blogging voter. Chicago style politics is a big problem, and the media seems to be completely in the tank.

When is the mainstream press going to pick up this ball?

2008-09-13T22:02:00.002-04:00

Right. That would be "never."

At any rate, the Obama-Ayers connection needs some serious investigation.

See:

Inside Obama’s Acorn

Then:

Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown?

And finally:

Obama and the Annenberg Files: The Mystery Deepens

The unedited interview

2008-09-13T11:48:00.002-04:00

So Charlie Gibson threw objectivity out the window too. I guess he had to, with so much at stake for the press, hmm? They'd already decided that Governor Palin is "unqualified" so they needed those choppy edits.

Disgusting.

Well, now we know.

2008-09-12T18:25:00.003-04:00

Seems the world would prefer to cast our votes for us. This from BBC news: "Obama win preferred in world poll." I kind of wondered, when I saw that a couple of days ago, if the "world" really gets how... well... contrary we can be in this country.

Then I saw this, today: "Barack Obama the speechmaker is being rumbled." Apparently some reporters across the pond do actually "get it." Good to see, now and then.

This needs wider circulation

2008-09-11T01:27:00.005-04:00

I've stayed up much too late tonight reading on the blogosphere, and came upon this link in a comment thread. The film is called "We Will Not Be Silenced" and it is about voter fraud in the Democratic primary this year. Pretty damning stuff. I've really learned to respect Hillary much more than I ever thought I would this year, given the garbage that's been thrown at her. I wouldn't have voted for her in the General Election, but I wasn't going to fret if she won either. I figured her more leftward leaning tendencies would be moderated by the realities of seeking a consensus. I do think it's pretty likely she was robbed of the chance to find out if she could make it to the top though.

Anyway... if you've got an open mind, look at those first four parts of the video, on that page, and see if the behavior chronicled seems right to you.

And since this is posted on my blog, and I consider it my own personal space to air my own personal views, I'll just say this. I have no problem with deleting trollish comments unceremoniously. I've turned on comment moderation, so if anyone wants to spew venomous stuff, it won't see the light of day here. There are plenty of other places for nastiness on the internet. If that makes me a censoring dictator, I'm ok with it.

Golf

2008-08-28T13:32:00.003-04:00

Bryan and I were talking in the car on the way home from Bloomington yesterday, when we passed a golf course. I looked out the window and commented that it must have been a really strange mind that invented that game. Think about it... a long artificially created set of "natural" barriers that you're supposed to knock a tiny little ball around to get it into a tiny little hole at the end.

I wondered... were some Scotsmen wandering through some woods or something, where there were pinecones or some other tree droppings? Did they then decide to whack the tree droppings through the woods with sticks and found it to be so much fun that they created this other game to mess with people's minds?

Apparently, I'm not the first one to wonder such things. Bryan told me about a Robin Williams skit on golf, (which I found on Youtube, here) which basically provides a much more likely scenario. The invention of golf, it seems, may have been the result of a Scottish drunken pub night.

Of course.

That makes much more sense.

Nostalgia and moving forward

2008-08-25T20:42:00.003-04:00

It's been a strange last few days for me. We're moving Patrick's stuff into his dorm tomorrow, and it's bringing up all kinds of things... memories of leaving high school, moving into my dorm, moving back home, getting my first apartment, getting married.

Having Patrick.

I'm going to miss him so much, but I keep telling myself that he's still going to be close. IU is only an hour away. Right? Things shouldn't change that much, that fast. I think they're going to change more than we're ready for, though. It's pretty unnerving for me. And it freaks him out too. Katie worries that he won't miss her. Mike seems to be handling it better than any of us, but he admits that he'll probably miss him quite a bit too.

Anyway. I remind myself that it's a gradual process, really. It took me years to honestly feel like I had truly left the nest. During that transition time, I kept coming back for dinner, and to touch base, and to chat. Hopefully, by the time Mike and I had actually moved away, my mom had gotten used to it, and was glad I had grown up. Hopefully.

I'm still going to miss Patrick terribly though.

My website for my class

2008-08-02T20:40:00.002-04:00

So, yay, Blogger now knows that this blog is not spam, so I can post to it again. Isn't that nice?

Anyway, yesterday, I posted to the other blog, this:

I had to make a website for the big final assignment for my class. There were certain "must have" type items in it, so if you see something that makes you go "oooh-kay", just figure that was one of the elements put in because the assignment called for it.
(snip)
Anyway. My assignment web-site is here: Our Family's Travels.

Now, it's posted here too. :-)

Views on Iraq that shouldn't just be a comment

2008-07-15T13:23:00.004-04:00

I replied to this post with the following:

This is something that I've always wondered about the liberal position on Iraq. Libs like to focus on "root causes"... that's fine. We do need people who are into that sort of thing.

But what I don't get is this: If you want to change the "root causes" of something, just how do you propose to do that if the number one priority is Getting Out?

To change people's lives... you kind of have to BE THERE. Have the libs clamoring to get out ASAP ever seriously been involved in an effort to address a single person's "root cause" of any dysfunction? I have. I promise you... the one thing you can not do, is change lives from a distance. It just doesn't happen.

So throwing money at the Middle East won't help. We've done that by buying their oil. Fat lot of good that's done us.

Having meetings with the leaders of various countries over there won't help. They're never going to be convinced that it would be in their best interests to change their management style because we recommend it.

There is not going to be any "ah-ha! So that's what we've been doing wrong" sort of moment from the whack-jobs heading up some of these places.

When you talk to someone who doesn't want to change, most of the time, they'll nod their head as if they're hearing you, then they'll go home and keep doing what they were doing. They do what they do because it works for them.

The power of beliefs is much too strong for folks to change their ways just because someone says they should. The leaders of the countries of the Middle East are getting exactly what they most value. Their beliefs are working perfectly for them.

So something else has to happen for things to change.

Understanding the perspective of others is all well and good, but it does nothing when the other person is feeling rather murderous and suicidal. You don't really have a calm rational mind to deal with at those times, so your best bet is usually to keep yourself alive, make sure they can't actually damage you, and having done that, to address the problem in an ongoing, persistent sort of way drawing on every ounce of conviction and confidence in your body to make sure you're heard. You can't go in weakly. You have to be in a position of strength... because most times, they probably still want to see if there is a chink in your armor that they can use to their advantage.

Look at it this way. Getting someone off drugs, when they'd prefer to keep doing them, means basically sitting on the person until they are through the withdrawals. Then you have to make sure there are reasonable alternatives when they make it though the worst part of their addiction. You have to set up a new life for them. You have to change their ways, basically through force, until the new habits become completely ingrained in their thinking and they begin to realize that they are actually happier without the drugs. It's a long shot, but it's the only way that works, unless they've chosen for themselves to give up their preferred dysfunctions. (Which is a choice the Middle Eastern dysfunctional societies don't seem particularly keen to make.)

You don't just say "hey, I understand why you want to do this, and I'm sorry for whatever I did, but please quit trying to hurt me" then run away and hope the problem gets better on its own. Likewise, you don't just smack them back as if you both are on a playground and say "hah! Got you back! Nyah, nyah, nyah."

You have to make sure that the other person knows to their marrow that you will not be their victim... and while you have compassion for their situation and want to help them to find their way out of the hole of rage and despair that they've dug themselves, you won't allow them to take it all out on you.

For this to work, you have to BE THERE.

That's what we're doing in Iraq. We're addressing root causes.

Why Iraq? Well, isn't it obvious? It's in the middle of all the basket-cases, for one... it gives us a spot to work from. Think of a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move outward.

Plus, we had a pretty good shot at overcoming that particular dictator. Always a plus when you want to make an impression. Shock and awe, you know?

Then there was the nature of the population in Iraq. The Kurds already liked us, the Sunnis and Shiites weren't particularly wedded to any specific idea other than power. So the secular leanings of the population were another major plus.

All in all, I believe we're in Iraq to change the "root causes" in the entire Middle East. Whether we stay long enough to see the job through to its completion (in a generation's time) is anybody's guess. The older generations in the Middle East are much too wedded to their ancient hostilities to see the benefit of what we're offering. But you know... teenagers rebel against their elders' preferences all the time.

We're after their teenagers.

UPDATE, added later: When I said “we’re after their teenagers”, I was referring to the hearts and minds of their teenagers. They can be the real beneficiaries of our efforts, if we stay long enough to keep them from getting killed.

Okay, this is could get weird

2008-07-01T12:15:00.003-04:00

I'm going to reference myself. If you're looking here, thinking "Gee, I wonder if Cathy's said anything recently" well... ta da!

I have. Only it's here. And don't expect this post frequency to keep up. LOL I don't want to spoil you.

Patrick's Middle of the Night Musings

2008-03-15T11:59:00.002-04:00

In the last post, I mentioned Patrick's writing of a few nights ago. He didn't feel like typing it all up to blog it on his own, (and he doesn't really blog anymore, for that matter), but he said I could put it in a really long quote on my blog to share with you. He also wasn't inclined to do a guest post on his own, so in a sense, I'm doing a guest post on my own blog. Hee.

Ok. He wrote:

Which is worse - to believe a falsehood or to believe nothing at all?

I live my life with faith that when I need something (source for Senior Paper!) it will appear. This is based on experience. Not through blind acceptance of "Jesus" or through enforced scientific "reasoning." I believe what works. It that not the essence of life - when it boils down, isn't believing what works what matters?

It is so in science. It should thus be so in life, as it pertains to science vs. intuition. Whatever allows you to live life to the fullest, to make the most of what you've been given - that is what is important. True knowledge? Bah. Every true knowledge that's ever existed has been disproven, changed, expanded or discarded.

What about true knowledge matters anyway? Will people be happier when they know everything about life? No!

The mind loves a paradox - hence this rambling in the first place. The universe is one huge fractal - paradox within paradox within paradox. An endless loop of un-knowledge.

Philosophers and scientists have a respectable task - to quantify and decipher the universe - but cannot purport to know more than the rest, for they only know what works, and what works for them would be quite useless to me, so would it even be knowledge? What could I do with the exact size of the universe? Scientists are wont to forget that they are part of the great fractal, the great mystery of life. Merely by investigating, they expand the whole system. The observer affects the observed, deep down to the very core of being.

The paradox continues.

The fractal grows, expanding infinitely... of infinite size already, yet expanding at an infinite rate... just as the model of the universe itself.

Serendipity

2008-03-15T10:59:00.004-04:00

Sheryl posted on her writing blog about writing, and imagination. I replied, then the conversation carried over to here when she replied to my reply on the Eye of God post. Anyway, the discussion, which is kind of acting like Serendipity seems to work in my life, is taking on a path of its own in my thought processes.

I had a dream this morning highlighting some feelings that I didn't really realize I was harboring. I've been having imaginary conversations over the last couple of days with someone who was nowhere near that dream. Seems unconnected, on the surface at any rate. But no, the connections are there, underlying the energy that was being expressed.

The imagery that I pick for showing myself a subject changes, but the subject itself still waits to be addressed.

These little bits of information (the first paragraph above, the second paragraph above, Sheryl's post, my comment on it, her comment here) seem unrelated and random at first glance. But all these little bits are resonating at the same general frequency, and when I bend my mind just so, the connections shimmer and begin to form a picture.

The picture right now is serving as a reminder about the nature of "the way things happen" (and on a deeper level, highlighting some more room for growth). I can stir into the picture Patrick's recent middle of the night writing on his views on reality creation, science and psychology. (Which I asked him to blog about, but he may not... but the point is that his writing and his sharing of it with me were timely events too.)

Serendipity is a magical process, unfolding at just the right time for me to see what I need to see. Serendipity may or may not bring Unnamed Actor into my life someday. I may hop off that timeline on my own, through choices that I make, but at the moment, the lines are crossing in the future.

Serendipity brought author RB in, and it's cool knowing that I created him in my life objectively for the time that he was there, but it didn't mean that he was to become deeply enmeshed in my life. And it didn't mean that he was to stay there all the time, ever after. I know that I could contact him again (I have within the last several years), but I choose to move on toward the future bits of timeline rather than trying to reclaim the past bits.

My point is... at the time that I knew the opportunity for the meeting was getting close, I made sure that I was not a "scary fan" and stayed very unintrusive in his awareness, as well as staying open to the sparks of intuition and impulse that eventually resulted in our timelines crossing. Those sparks... for me, they are the voice of Serendipity. And they're the sparks I note when I see that "something is different" about this potential timeline versus just crushing on Kyle Chandler or Keith Urban. There are different levels and intensities of "sparkiness"... they mean different things to me.

Heh. I just realized too... I did "cross paths" with Keith Urban... I went to a concert. LOL That night was the beginning of a whole new direction in my timeline too. Not that he had anything to do with that, other than the concert was one of those events that was lit up with potential meaning. A turning point night. After that though, the crushing was over. Interesting... he appeared, all hell broke loose in other areas of life, and the crush ended. He went on to marry Nicole Kidman. I went on to deal with the stuff that had to be dealt with. So, apparently, in Serendipity's mysterious ways, vibrating sparks surrounding a person are not necessarily indicating that a specific relationship must be in the works, as much as perhaps that some major life changing event will happen when that person is my direct awareness. Of course, the sparks surrounding Keith Urban were always less personal feeling than the ones surrounding Unnamed Actor. So who knows? Letting Serendipity sort it out just seems like the best bet.

I think I might be done writing about this for now. There seems to be more there, but at the moment it is kind of wordless. It's opening up inside me, but hasn't been translated into English yet.

Well, that was a random conclusion to a fairly randomly connected post. LOL

The Eye of God

2008-02-14T10:59:00.003-05:00

I received this image in one of those "pass it on" type emails... and I love the picture, but I hate forwarding things... (and I want good things to happen, y'know? ;-) ) So. I looked around for the Nasa spot where it's described, and uploaded a copy of the picture to photobucket so I could post it here.

The Eye of God:

Now this should count as me having forwarded it to seven people, right? The email said:

Make a wish ... You have looked at the eye of God. Surely you will see the changes in your Life within a day.!

So, assuming that somewhere along the line, seven individual readers happen to see it... and assuming that the "changes in my life" are stored in the image itself as opposed to being in the forwarded chain email... and assuming that I actually made a wish when I looked at the image, (which sadly, I don't recall doing (sigh))... then I have done my duty to the power of the email.

I wonder if it would be wrong of me to delete either the period or the exclamation point at the end of the quote though. I don't know... maybe God wanted the sentence to read that way, and who am I to correct God's punctuation? So. It stays. Just in case. God, God can be a scary one to mess with when he's staring at me that way. ;-)

Anyhoooo... I do love the picture, and I'm actually quite glad it was forwarded to me.

Thanks to Claudia and Clay

2008-01-15T21:17:00.001-05:00

Really. You should thank them after you click on this youtube video link. (Not going to bother trying to embed the video here... just click on the link.)

My Hands Are Bananas.

Holy shit. Everything has changed in a hurry.

2008-01-15T20:15:00.000-05:00

Ok. So I wrote about my "plan" (ha) for the whole library technology thing less than a week ago. And... well, plans change. Apparently rather quickly.

See, I got myself all geared up for my classes which were to start yesterday. Binder bought, figured out how to use the on-line discussion area, etc. I was ready! I even had read my first assignment. Then I got a note from my advisor saying that this particular plan wasn't actually going to get me where I was hoping to go. Or not without wasting my time and money. Seems the new State Certification requirements actually mean to be saying 9 to 15 hours of "upper level" library science classes. Meaning... not the ones for the Associates Degree through Ivy Tech. No... those hours will get me no further than I already am, since I have a Bachelors.

Many phone calls later... with my advisor at Ivy Tech, with Indiana University, with the State level library people, with my local library people "in the know"... and it has become very clear (since they all seem to be in agreement on this) that I need to not do the Ivy Tech thing, and instead enroll at Indiana University to begin with some of the Master's level courses. Of course, the deadlines for doing that this semester have long passed, so I have to apply to begin in the summer.

What this means is that I am no longer doing the Associates at Ivy Tech. I'm about to apply to IU to begin work on a Master's in the summer, or at least begin Master's level work. (Confusing I know, but I won't be able to actually be admitted to the Masters program until I have completed a prerequisite class and 6 hours of MLS classes.) So, if I plan to take these classes this summer and fall, then I think I should be able to get my initial level of certification by Christmas, or by the end of the spring term of 2009 (depending on when I actually get admitted to the program, and finish up the one other class that I'll need for the first certification).

Which would mean I could still work beginning next year, even if I'm not fully certified yet. (I can get a "temporary certification" while I'm working toward the actual certification.) Assuming that I do get admitted to the program, then I'd get my next level of certification after having taken a total of 15 hours of Library Science courses. After that, the next level would be the full shebang... the Masters itself. I can work on that slowly over the next 5 years.

Anyway... combine all this craziness with getting stuff put together for a parent meeting for the Drama Boosters at Patrick's school, plus my computer being incredibly annoying and needing the whole hard drive reformatted and Windows reinstalled... and well... it's just been a stressful last several days. Mike got my computer relatively happy though. Aside from "upgrading" (ha!) to Office 2007 and Quicken 2008 (double ha!), I'm relatively ok now. I do hate the new Office... as well as the new Quicken. Both suck royally. It's like the programmers think making everything all round and picture-y rather than neat and clean is an improvement. What do they think? That people can't handle a simple drop-down menu anymore? Argh. Most irritating! Can't we all just agree that fluffy and round is not always better? Please! I feel like the designers at Microsoft and Intuit are talking down to me with all their damned round corners and colorful tabs. And to make it worse, they can't even write a decently optimized program. They're all clunky and ever-so-fragile. Wow, Intuit, imagine someone might like to click things quickly while they balance their register. Who'da thunk? Sheesh.

I just feel like growling sometimes.

Can you see me glaring at the world?

I'm going to be all Library Technology-y

2008-01-09T16:59:00.000-05:00

It's official. :-) I signed up for my first set of classes (3 out of about 11 or so that I'll need to take (I've got my bachelors, so the first 9 classes are covered)) for the associates degree in "Library Technology." The name sounds kind of over the top to me, but what the heck. Hopefully, if all goes well, then in about a year and a half I should have that degree and a certification to work in the local library. My plan is to do 3 classes this semester, 2 over the summer (I'd love to do more, but 2 is all they will be offering) 4 or so during the fall semester, then the final couple starting in January 2009. I'm hoping I'll be able to work at the library after I've finished 9 hours, though, even without having the certification finished, so I'll probably aim to apply for a job in the fall of this year.

Long term plan? Eventually head over to IU about twice a week to work on the Master's. That'll have to wait 'til I have some income though, since we'll be paying for Patrick's room and board at IU at the same time. Once I've got the Master's (oh about 5 or 7 years from now, LOL) then I'll be able to work my way up as far as I'd like to go in the library system. :-) I could eventually be running the place. ;-D

Nice thing... this will be a completely transportable field. There are libraries everywhere, so no matter where we end up, I feel pretty sure I'll be able to get a job. I'm pretty excited, surprisingly enough. LOL Who'da thought I'd end up seriously wanting to be a librarian? The only indication I had of this particular desire was waaaaay back in fifth grade, when our class took shifts volunteering in various parts of the school. I hated the cafeteria shift... but I remember the library shift feeling like magic. It was all glowy and golden in my mind.

This feels so good and right.

Update added later: Remembered to check to see if one of the electives might be offered. Success! So now I'm registered for four classes. :-)

End of the year reflections

2007-12-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, to distract myself from my impending (yes, everyone say it with me... LOL) Gum Graft (wah!), I decided to do my annual "hey, I have a new calendar!" job of writing important events in the clean and ever so pretty boxes for the entire new year. You know... things like birthdays, mailing days for cards or Christmas presents, or upcoming appointments that are already scheduled. Usually the upcoming appointments are pretty limited to dental cleanings, though. There are also important school calendar dates to include, so it ends up being an interesting job. It means using my Palm (tm?... whatever... the electronic planning thingie), business cards, a pretty Sharpie (another tm? LOL) and of course, the old calendar.

So. I start with January. And I know that my old calendar looked like the new one once. It was clean, then last year at this time, I added the bare essentials to its boxes. Looking back now, though... wow, things filled up. There is so much of our lives brought into focus, just reviewing the calendar. Did you know that Patrick took the SAT in January of 2007? I didn't remember that. I do remember that he did pretty well on it though. Katie still had braces back then, too. There was an ortho appointment on the 25th. There is also a note to myself to call the vet on the 29th. I wonder what that was about.

Things started getting interesting in February. I picked up Lexi in New Albany on the 16th, so several entries are about her. Katie had an ongoing issue with her toe, that shows up several times over the next few months as doctor appointments. We had the piano tuned, and there was a snow day for Patrick.

Then March hits and the calendar goes nuts. The first two weeks are jam packed with stuff for Lexi. Katie's toe makes another appearance. Haircuts, "Guys and Dolls" for Patrick, fundraising stuff for Drama, pets to the vet, Lexi leaves, the dogs go to the kennel, and we go to Arizona for Spring Break. Katie got her braces off on the 29th. The thing about all of this is, as I write it here, everything seems so small and insignificant. But as I look at the calendar, the emotional impact of it all is right there. It's not insignificant... it's our lives. And it doesn't really feel like it was that long ago.

I won't take you through every month. That would be sort of dull to you, I'm sure. But let me get to October here. March may have been a frantic and somewhat crazy month. October was just hard. There are thick black sharpie lines through so many things, as life took a sharp turn into the dark. Things were cancelled and moved and cancelled again, as Mike's mom declined more and more. Frantic additions were made in her last days... "get Patrick a suit", then "Pick up Patrick's suit." Mike came home from India on the same day his mom died, and barely missed her passing. Friends went above and beyond the call of friendship to try to get him there in time. Katie's birthday notation, added after Christmas the year before, just gets lost in the slew of lines and notes. And I can't look at that without feeling so much for Mike's dad, who was just heartbroken when he realized that we would be burying his wife on the same day as his granddaughter had her 15th birthday. He cried for Katie. It couldn't be helped, really. But it tore him up just the same.

Some semblance of normalcy takes hold in November, but I know looking at it, that we were all still emotionally spent. There was a drama production to get through, and parent conferences at the school, and wow, the gum doctor shows up for the first time. sigh. Thanksgiving. Then here we are in December.

I look at this and realize that I have been keeping a diary of our lives, and that really, I keep a diary every year. I don't write detailed feelings about these entries. I save that kind of writing for my journal and my blog, but the emotional impact is there, in the boxes crossed off in red, and the written words that I use to keep myself on track from day to day. It's something to keep. Meaningless to anyone else looking at it, I'm sure, but for me, it's a flat, easily stored record of where we've been as a family.

I do think I'll use a blue or green sharpie to mark off the days this coming year though. Maybe the vibe of the color can help to move things a little bit away from the dramatic and more toward the peaceful. Just enough drama to keep things interesting, but not so much as to overwhelm, eh?

And may you also have a vibrant green or blue New Year.

Peace.

A couple of Katie's drawings

2007-12-18T20:37:00.001-05:00

Katie's been working on wolves a lot lately. I love this one.

Also, here's one of the character that you liked so much, Sheryl and Penny.

Thinking about Katie and Heather Kuzmich

2007-12-18T17:07:00.000-05:00

I have posted previously on Katie, autism, my worries, and all kinds of random things about my kids in general. This post is a little different. And maybe a little fan-girly. ;-)

First, I have to admit to a slightly embarrassing truth. We enjoy watching America's Next Top Model here. sigh. Yes, it's true. There are some reality shows that are just fun to watch and to mock. ANTM is usually one of the very mockable ones.

This last cycle though, there was an amazing young woman on there, someone who brought me near to tears several times. It's not that she should have caused tears, not at all... it was the identification that I had with her experience through watching Katie struggle with the same things. Heather Kuzmich has Asperger's, you see. I admit we still mocked her roommates at times, but Heather touched our hearts.

As you may know, Katie's diagnosis was never exactly pinpointed as Asperger's. She was first diagnosed with Autism, then as we pursued various treatments, the diagnosis changed to PDD (or Pervasive Developmental Disorder). Still on the autism spectrum, but not given a really specific name, since certain diagnostic markers didn't quite fit with the Asperger's criteria. Particularly in the area of speech. Katie's speech has always been sort of halting, especially when she is feeling anxious, and this stammering quality was the bit that made the Asperger's diagnosis seem "not quite right" at the time.

The thing about watching Heather, that struck both Mike and me, was how much she seemed like Katie. Katie is just 15 now, of course, not 21 like Heather, so Katie obviously has some growing to do to get to where Heather is, functionally. But some of the similarities were so striking it was eerie. When Heather was crying to her mom, on the phone, early on, we looked at each other with eyes wide, both thinking, "oh man, that's just how Katie looks when her emotions get the best of her." Our hearts were breaking. We've never seen anyone else cry like Katie does, but there was Heather on the screen, echoing the heart-rending emotional overload that happens at times around here.

Then there was the episode where the girls were asked to jump on a trampoline and model with an ice-skater holding them up. Again... we saw amazing echoes of Katie's gross motor awkwardness and discomfort, in Heather, even down to specific movements and "looks." And again, our hearts were in our throats, pulling for her, rooting for her, and understanding her frustration with herself. Begging her in our minds, to please not be so hard on herself. Admiring her courage. Every episode, we saw something in Heather that we had never seen anyone but Katie demonstrate. Facial expressions. Body movements. Sensitivities. Heather's frustrations became our frustrations for her. Heather's victories resulted in high-fives all around.

It's hard for us to imagine Katie being independent enough to go live with a bunch of strangers for weeks on end, with some of the strangers acting in particularly bitchy ways toward her, and coming out of that situation proving to the world how strong and capable she is. It's also hard for us to imagine Katie making her way in a completely foreign country without us there to help with the transition. We are somewhat awestruck with Heather's accomplishment. And hopeful. Because, now we know... there is a way through all that Katie has to cope with.

I asked Katie once, during one of the first couple of shows, who she liked best. She immediately picked Heather, which I knew she would. I asked her quietly, what it was about Heather that made her like her, and Katie said "I think she's like me." I got teary eyed then, and said "yes, she's very much like you... she's amazing and beautiful." And she's an artist too, just like Katie. Same style of drawing even... which is why I linked to Heather's deviant art page above. You'll be amazed, those of you who know Katie, to see how much her new role-model really is like her.

And honestly, I can't thank the universe enough for putting Heather in front of us, just when we needed her to be there. And I couldn't possibly thank Heather enough for going through the experience, because there is no way she could know how much she has brought to a fifteen year old young lady, who was struggling still with the idea that she is different and wondering how she'll fit into the world. Heather has brought Katie an honest and deep down sense of peace with herself. Something I was never able to do, no matter how I tried. And I appreciate that gift more than she will ever know.

Here's Katie's favorite picture of Heather. It really says it all.

And one of my favorites... for obvious reasons. Heather is happy, beautiful, and confident.

Dancing Jesus

2007-12-11T11:06:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting dream this morning. Before I post it though, I'll tell you just a bit about how I think perceptions can move in dreams. (Heh, this is really my way of saying "no I don't necessarily believe that I am Mary Magdalene, reincarnated.") My take on perception is that when we're in the dream state, or the dead state, we can move our perception into the "eyes of another" to see the world as they see it. We can do this for a long time, or for a brief time. If we do it for a long time, it's known in certain circles as being an "observing essence"... we're participating in the lifetime, living the lifetime, but we haven't necessarily committed, as essence, to directing the lifetime. That's the way I understand it, but I know that there are a lot of conflicting views in the Elias world as to what exactly an observing essence is and does, if it's a "life long" observing essence.

The idea that we can pop in and out of a life time for brief periods of observation makes more sense, in terms of the feeling that that lifetime isn't necessarily our own. With practice and familiarity, I can come to know when I am someone in a dream, versus when I am simply inhabiting their point of view, usually. My energy resonates with myself and feels a bit different from the energy of another.

So. I'm not saying I was her. I'm also not saying I wasn't. I'm saying that it felt like I "popped into" a version of her, somewhere in the mists of time. Whether my energy was fully engaged, or not, would need further dreaming to determine. One dream doesn't usually feel like enough information for me... unless it's just some random person, with a really intense essence-print. I've found other focuses of my own that way, but in this case, I'd be looking for a longer story to evolve through other dreams.

At any rate, whoever I think I am, I think this dream is pretty cool, and it presents a picture of Jesus that I've always felt to be "true." Even when I was a little girl, I felt that the image of Jesus created by religion was really not all that accurate a portrait. I know a lot of people agree with that statement, but a lot of them don't seem to base their awareness on things like dreams and "sensings," but rather come at it logically. "Of course he wasn't just what the religions say! That would be too one-dimensional. " There are entire fields of study devoted to trying to figure out who he was, as a person, and how he lived. That seems like a lot of work to me, but yeah, some people enjoy research fields for a living. Whatever floats their boats. I enjoy dreaming. LOL

Jesus continued to play. Dancing around us both as if he hadn’t a care in the world, before proceeding far ahead of us down the path.

I glanced at his brother, who rolled his eyes as if to say "see what he does?"

"Let me talk to him," I muttered. I squared my shoulders, and followed Jesus down the path and around the bend. I found him examining his shadow, maybe looking for clues to the mysteries of the universe.

I waited until I was nearly upon him before speaking quietly, so as not to startle him too much. "Jesus." His name sounded like a prayer even to my own ears. He glanced up at me, his eyes full of knowledge with a hint of sorrow trying to break through the joy.

"I know," he whispered. "You’re going to say it’s time." I nodded. His eyes filled with a thin unshed layer of tears. I took his hand, to pull him upright and closer to me. "Don’t you see, Mary? As soon as I begin… everything will be serious then."

I choked on my emotions while my nose filled. "I know." I reached up to hug him. While I held him there for a few moments, I felt his essence merging with mine. "I’ll be with you." I was trying to reassure us both, but on the edges of the feeling was a profound grief waiting in the shadows. Three years, at most, and I knew he would be dead. He knew it too. "Tell me everything about you," I whispered. "I need to know it all so that I’ll remember."

Jesus began to talk quietly about who he was, to record in one memory at least, the story of himself as he knew it. We both knew that soon he wouldn’t be that story any more. His story would belong to everyone.

Haiku: The Musical

2007-12-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

My mind is a strange and wondrous place at two in the morning. It comes up with things that I find brilliant and fascinating, and that spark an "oh I must write that down!" reaction; but then, in the light of day, the brilliance dulls significantly, leading to a wry "where the hell did that come from?" This morning's flash of "awesome insight" is particularly amusing to me, and if anything I've at least got an "inside joke" (reeeeeeally inside) to use to bring me a random chuckle all day today.

So, for your entertainment, I'll share these deep and meaningful bits of poetry with you.

First... I came up with a little haiku. Counted syllables in my sleep and everything. Did wonder though if "chihuahua" (already getting excited for this poetry, aren't you?) would count as three syllables or five. The "hua"s could be "hoo-ah, hoo-ah" or "wah, wah" see? But I settled on three, since that's the way I say it.

A-hem.

A Chihuahua is
a Haiku of a Great Dane!
Amazing it is.

So I woke up a little from that, and went "Wow! Deep! I should write it down!" Followed quickly by "Screw it... if it's so deep I'll remember it in the morning." Then I went back to sleep and came up with this:

"Haiku: The Musical." Which consists of lots of music, in musical phrasings that are 5/7/5 lengths (of notes or measures... I'm not sure), and one Haiku of dialogue sung out (with stretches of music between the lines of singing) somewhere in the middle. It was really quite lovely, the way it all worked in my head. But now, of course, it's just... well... weird.

Aren't you glad you came back to my blog, after all this time away? What ever did you do without me?

A Brief (no, seriously, it really is!) Continuation of the Previous Scene

2007-09-25T12:14:00.000-04:00

So, from here, we move directly into this:

As we cleared the dishes away, and put the kitchen in order, I realized that he had never answered my initial question.

"Kian?"

"Hmm?"

"What is it that you do when you aren’t here?"

"Do you mean for a living? Or for entertainment?" He smiled to himself, and seemed to vanish a little into the entertainment portion of his evenings.

"For a living."

"Oh, well, lots of things. I’m a photographer, so I take a lot of pictures for calendars, cards, stuff like that, and sell them. When the weather is nice I cut grass. I also work as a general handyman for people who don't work on their houses. I've got an ad in the phone book for that and the yard work. Sometimes, I write articles for magazines. Generally, I keep myself reasonably busy, so that I can pay my rent and buy food. I don’t eat that much though, so it’s not too expensive." He grinned at me. "Why, what do you do for cash?"

I smiled back. "Well, I just tell Mother that I need some."

He laughed heartily. "And where does she get it for you?"

"There was some life insurance money when my mom died." I gulped. It was still hard to talk about her. "Mother and Counselor Vic have looked after it for me, though. I don’t know how much is there, but she never tells me I can’t afford something." I skittered away from the subject of missing my mother.

"I remember your mom. She was beautiful."

I nodded silently, and finished drying the dishes.

More Dream Walking

2007-09-15T17:57:00.000-04:00

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted, I know. You know why I resist posting? It's the formatting part. It's a pain to copy long sections from a Word document, stick it in this composition window, get it all "formatted" the way I think it is going to look, then discover after I've posted it that none of the paragraph breaks in the quoted text have "taken." So, I go back to the editor, and have to insert brackets (with "br" between them) into the html of the post, for every freakin' paragraph break that I want to have! It makes a post, that I could put out in about 30 minutes, take an hour instead. (Actually, 2 hours in this case. sigh.) Very annoying. So... it takes longer for me to get the head of steam that I need to have in order to quote myself in a post.

I'm sure someone can tell me some easier way to do it. I'm probably not in the right frame of mind to listen at the moment, though.

Anyway. Section one of the Dream Walking stuff is here and section two is here. As you can see from those posts, I really made a mess of the timeline when I wrote the posts. So, just keep in mind... the dream that "explodes into the scene" really actually happens now... after the stuff in the second post. So it goes like this:

As long as the process was flexible enough, though, I could be trusted to complete the job very well. Mother often claimed that trying to discipline me was something like trying to discipline a firefly.

* * * * * *
I had a dream this morning about Jay. I was in a house with an intercom system, in an upstairs room. I heard Counselor Vic’s voice saying "You want to see her?" then, "Sarah" as he called to me. Then to the person with him, he said "Oh... well, go ahead..."

Jay came into the room, looking very tired and sad. He was feeling very uneasy and seemed to be kind of scared. "Sarah, I had another accident...", he said. A truck had plastered his car. I pulled him close and gave him a long, tight hug. I kept repeating "oh, my God, oh, my God..." over and over. I was afraid, and thankful that he had managed to come to tell me. The hug was incredibly close, and I could feel his love for me, as I could sense my love for him reaching out to touch him.

"How was it?" I asked.

"Bad enough," he answered. He had tried to talk to the trucker, but the guy was huge, and seemed to be in a big hurry. Jay guessed he was in too much of a hurry to bother explaining what happened.

Downstairs, heading outside... It seems that it was still light out. Jay says "Let me put these on you" and gives me satin bows (pink?). One bow on each ankle just appears. I think that they must be more valuable than satin, but can’t seem to decide what they are really made of. A third bow on my neck, and I think of how pretty it must look. He singsongs about "my pretty little sister." It’s hard to look at him, because of the depth of emotion I feel having him with me. I get glimpses of him to my left. We look at the sky together and see more and more stars coming out.

"Which one is it?", I ask.

"I don’t kn... oh, look... that one..." he says, pointing to a brightly pulsating star, "The Light..."

Explodes!

Etc...

Finished out the scene... then I have notes to myself about scenes that never did get written. I was trying to figure out the logistics of how to lead up to the next batch of fun stuff. Covering the boring bases, I guess, so that the more interesting things would have a framework.

You don't really need to see all of my notes to self. They're very brief and not really that interesting. They just say things like "Sarah tells house mother, who tells counselor Vic, who refuses to allow her to study with the children because she is too old." The point is... I don't want Sarah studying with the children, so I needed to come up with a reason for it. Or I did when I thought I was writing a book. Now that I'm not... well, what the hell?... she can do whatever I feel like making her do! Woot! It doesn't have to make a lick of sense if I don't want it to!

I love this way of writing!

Heh.

On to the next part, which is the dream dated February 24, 1996 in the Dream Blogging for Dream Walking post. Sarah starts trying to do stuff on her own and keeps freaking herself out. Having out of bodies that she doesn't notice, seeing herself have them, things like that. Then I have more notes to self, in which she essentially manages to get herself out of her body and projects astrally right into the middle of one of Counselor Vic's classes, and kind of disrupts things. Yeah, that scene does sound fun to write but I haven't written it. It would go here, though, and be the turning point in Vic's refusal to Do Something about Getting Her Trained Properly, by God.

Thus, he calls Kian. Who's just a stand-in for Kajah. Don't remember exactly why I changed his name, but there it is. Kian, Kajah... whatever. Same guy. Kian, in the story, has been away from the compound for several years. "Kian," by the way, means "Ancient One" in Gaelic, which I'm pretty sure had something to do with why I picked it. :-) Also, he's about 5 or 6 years older than Sarah, and I figured she was in the 17 or 18 year old range when I started this. I also want to note here, that yes, she is brutally naive. Yep, it's an issue with the overall arc. She's also painfully insecure in the beginning.

Let me just put it this way... I was that way. That's why she's that way. I was incredibly insecure, but not quite as naive and certainly not as clumsy... though I'm really not a great cook, by any stretch of the imagination. LOL (The biscuit thing was my own self-mockery of myself. No, no one ever had to teach me to make biscuits. LOL I said I'm not that bad a cook! ;-) ) Basically, her reactions are the types of reactions I would have had, back then, to being caught not knowing something, or being seen to be doing something that I thought would be judged. Thirty years later, I can honestly say that I'd react waaaaay differently now. When I wrote this I was trying to channel my inner 17 year old self though. Also I really wanted to capture the feeling of sheer joy that occurred when my true teacher showed up.

Again... it's clunky, but here's the rough version of the next bit.

"Why did they pick you, Kian?" It was our third day of class, and I was becoming curious. He seemed so different from what I imagined a teacher should be.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Do you mean that I'm not ‘teacher material’?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, look at you," I started laughing gently. "You’re young, you’re not very stern…"

"I’ll let you get away with too much…."

"and you’ll let me get away with too much!" Now I was laughing in earnest. His eyes were filled with merriment this morning too. We were both in good spirits.

"All right." He stopped laughing abruptly, and put on a stern-teacher face. Unfortunately for him, his eyes were not cooperating, so I had a hard time believing he was feeling very strict. "Now, silly girl. We will have our lessons."

I hooted with laughter, and he doubled over with silliness too.

Eventually the laughter died away, and I was able to repeat the question. "So, why you?"

He snorted. "Well, it’s simple really. They didn’t think that you'd be particularly obedient since you're so old. They thought you might not listen to them."

"And they thought I’d listen to you?"

His eyes lit up again. "Well, no. Sorry to disappoint you. They thought it wouldn’t matter if you didn’t listen to me, since I’m not exactly obedient either."

I chuckled. "So what you're saying is that…. You couldn’t spoil my learning since I’m not an acceptable student? Or was it that by not listening to you, I’d be doing what they wanted me to do, since you would be trying to teach me to not do what they wanted me to do?"

"Oh, my. You’re making this extremely complicated. I think I’d better start over."

"Yes, please." I crossed my arms and waited.

"Right. Ok. I was a teacher of the young ones once. But my students tended to go their own way. Do you see how that could happen?"

"Weeelll, yes…" I hid a smile behind one hand. He ignored it.

"At the Institute, they want the young ones to remember who they are and why they're here, but they want the story to be the Institute’s version of why they're here. Do you see that?"

"Ok, I’m following."

"So, my charges didn’t learn properly, in the Institute’s opinion. They need them to learn young, to check in with their guides, before making any major move. They want the knowledge of our presence to be coordinated, you see, in the way that it’s presented. No surprises."

I nodded.

"This was particularly important around the time you came here, about six years before I started being trained to teach. I, by the way, always showed up to my classes, at least," he said with a wink and small smile, acknowledging my snort. "But, at any rate, the short version of the story is that I wasn't good at teaching my kids to check in. I taught them to remember, and to feel the power of the Light, but not to worry about what others were doing at the time. I sort of encouraged them to trust their own interpretations…. The Institute didn’t like that.

"The thing is, once someone understands all of this, there's no way to take it back…. To make them forget. So all the Institute could do was ask me not to teach. I respected their request, saw that they were right, moved back to Indiana with my mother, and went looking for my own adventures. Moved several more times, since Iona’s not actually a place much inclined toward adventure…"

"Then I showed up in Counselor Vic’s class."

"Right. And what were they going to do with you? They don’t believe in not teaching someone who obviously needs to learn. But they didn’t want you in a class with young ones, who could still learn to check in with their guides. They also probably don’t see you as teacher-material, given your ambivalence toward showing up in the classroom…"

"I wasn’t exactly a good student in the conventional sense, was I?" I grimaced.

He had enough decency not to laugh. "Well, not exactly. But I think you understand now… the young ones needed to be kept separate from you, just as much as the teachers did. Would you have taken to being told to check in with your guides before acting? Would you have taken to that kind of discipline?"

"No, I suppose not."

"You would have disrupted their classes, with your questioning. So, they thought… who's least likely to mind if his student won’t take to his discipline?"

"And they said ‘Kian’, of course." I grinned at him.

"Of course." He smiled back. "So, we corrupt each other. You let me think it's ok to teach in my way. And I let you think it’s ok to think for yourself."

Then we were both laughing again.

* * * * * *

"So what do you do when you’re not here teaching me, anyway?" We were in the kitchen of the main building. It had been a while since I had been in this room to do anything other than grab a quick glass of milk or cup of tea. The dinner hour was over, and we had the kitchen to ourselves. I was somewhat grateful for that small blessing, as Kian was planning for me to learn something about cooking, and I certainly didn’t want the eyes of my old teachers to tell him ahead of time how incompetent I was. Better to surprise him with that, I thought.

Well, it won’t be a surprise now, will it? he thought in return.

"Oh, good grief. You read that, huh?"

His eyes were glinting with a secret joy. "You’ll have to get used to it."

I snorted. "Well, I guess so."

"Look, we’re just going to do some really basic things here. Just so you don’t starve when you’re on your own." He was leaning over to get a good look into the refrigerator, and rummaging around, looking for the easy stuff.

"I could eat cereal for every meal." I suppressed my laughter, as he popped his head over the door like a groundhog. Stern teacher was here, rolling his eyes at the idea, but still looking much too full of mischief to be taken seriously. He disappeared behind the door once more.

"Ah ha! Eureka!" When he reappeared this time he held a cylinder as if it was gold.

"This, my dear, is going to save your life!" He was like a mad scientist, in his eagerness to display the contents of the cylinder. "Watch this! Get that tray over there, will you?"

That I could manage. I picked up the tray from the counter, and turned around, knocking a pot off the central island with a clatter. I halted in mid-step, waiting for the ringing clash of the metal to die down. Kian rolled his eyes elaborately, while I blushed.

"Hmmm. Well, at least it wasn’t glass." He took the tray from my hand as I leaned over to get the pot.

"Why would anyone leave a pot in the middle of the room, anyway?" I complained.

"Actually, I put it there, to use to show you how to heat up soup." He eyes twinkled merrily as he barely contained his laughter.

I was torn between laughter and tears, so settled on neither. I turned away so that he couldn’t see me blushing even more furiously. I swallowed a few times to keep tears at bay, while he searched the cupboards for something behind me. I resolved to be more careful. I also suspected that he heard the resolution, though he didn’t answer it.

"Ok, are you ready?" His voice interrupted my thoughts. I nodded and turned to face him. "Look what I’ve found. This is cooking spray." He bit his lower lip to keep from smiling. I narrowed my eyes to glare into his amusement. "Ahem. All right, then."

He busied himself, explaining everything as he went. Preheat the oven. Pop open the can. Spray the pan. Put the biscuits on it. Set the timer. "See how easy it is? And you don’t have to starve!

"Let’s do the soup while we wait… just soup, a can of water, a pot and a spoon! Isn’t it grand what they can do these days?" His mocking tone went on. He was really starting to get on my nerves.

"Ok, Kian, I get it." My voice was dripping with annoyance. "I think I’ve had enough." His lighthearted mood dampened a bit. I wanted to burst his little balloon altogether, but wasn’t sure what kind of pin to use. "You don’t have to give me such a hard time, you know. I’m not an idiot. Some teacher."

He studied me carefully. "Feeling a little defensive, are we?"

"Maybe so."

"Why?"

I shoved my hand though my hair then reached both hands into the air, beseeching the powers that be to deliver me from this annoying… crazy guy!

"Crazy, am I?"

"Yes! You are nuts. Certifiably insane. Can’t you at least respect that when someone doesn’t know how to do something, you ought not throw it up in her face and make her feel like an idiot?"

"Well, now. That is an interesting set of assumptions, you have there." He was suddenly very serious. What happened? He didn’t look at all pricked or deflated, and suddenly I felt like this was all some sort of bizarre experiment, with me as the rat.

I searched my mind for the spot where my understanding had slipped. I gulped, and had to admit I didn’t know where it was. My confusion must have been plain to him, but still he didn’t speak. He waited. I gulped again. Cleared my throat.

"Um. Kian."

"Hmm?" He cocked an eyebrow, but he wasn’t mocking this time. He was still waiting.

"Could you explain that?" I asked quietly, adding, as an afterthought, "Please."

A slow smile began, as he sat down at the table. He took a napkin from the holder and a pen from his pocket. "Let’s look at it, ok?"

"Um. Ok, but before we do, could you tell me if that smell means the biscuits are done?"

"The biscuits!" He jumped from his chair, and ran to the oven. "I thought I set the timer!"

I picked up the timer. It still read nine minutes. "I think you’re supposed to push the start button," I said casually, suppressing a smile.

"Well, they aren’t burnt, but they're definitely done!"

"Just the way I like them. How about the soup?"

"Yeah, it’s ready too. Good thing I set that on a low heat, or it would've boiled away." He was laughing at himself now. "I guess it might take two to keep us from starving."

He put the biscuits in a breadbasket, and poured out the chicken noodle soup. I poured some milk for each of us, and we sat down to eat.

"Ok. Here is the statement."

"You still remember it?" I was surprised.

"Of course I do. I was waiting for it, so when you finally said it, it stuck."

"I thought you were."

He nodded briskly, as he bent over the napkin to write down what I had said.

"Here are your assumptions. I should respect that… I ought not… I am throwing… I can make you feel… And idiot and crazy guy are just major assumption labels." He was underlining as he spoke, breaking the sentence down bit by bit to get to the root assumption. "Do you know what the root one is?" he asked, hoping that I could see it.

"That you have power over me."

He sat back, with satisfaction. "Yes. That I have the power to make you feel what you're feeling." He leaned forward, eagerly. "You see? You feel inadequate. You feel like an idiot already. But you needed to blame me for the feeling. Why is that, Sarah?"

"Well, you weren’t being very respectful." Disappointment crossed his face, at the return of the defenses. "Ok." I sighed. "You were seeing what would happen. Why?"

"Because I’m supposed to be your teacher. I thought you knew that."

"Oh, good grief." I rolled my eyes. "Of course, I knew that! But why did you need to give me this particular lesson, when I thought we were having a cooking class?"

"Sarah, living with the Light means living with it. All the time. Every thought, every assumption, gets exposed to it. Before you can use it effectively, you have to know what it is that you think. You don’t necessarily have to change every belief, but you have to know which ones are yours and which ones are assumptions that you’ve accepted from outside yourself. So. Know what you think. Even when you're cooking. There are no divisions in your lessons."

We finished our soup in silence, while I studied my reactions. He was right. I did feel like an idiot. I felt inadequate at just about everything that had to do with pleasing anyone.

"Am I an idiot?" I finally asked quietly.

"Do you need me to tell you that you’re not?"

I nodded as the tears threatened again.

"Will you examine why you need to hear it?"

I nodded slowly.

"Ok. You’re definitely no idiot." He reached across the table and lightly held my cheek in the palm of his hand, slowly sweeping tears away with his thumb. "But I might be crazy," he said, so quietly that I almost couldn’t hear it.

Following Up

2007-09-05T12:58:00.000-04:00

On Imagination in a Rut. Or I think I'm going following up, anyway. LOL

After that post, Sheryl and I talked on the phone for a long while, searching for the theme that resonated with me. Her word was "tolerance," which I basically re-interpreted the meaning as "acceptance." So that came into play.

There was also the element that, as we have noted many times here, I do things inside out. I see things from the inside out. So, for me, taking information outside in, is like getting a serious mental splinter. Ordinarily, I "give birth" to my reality. It starts inside me, and pretty much is interpreted as being significant because something inside me reaches out to the external world for information.

That spell of crazy dreams though, seemed like it was an attempt to use the outside world as the primary source of my information, and it's very hard for me to just go with that. I know the majority of the world does actually go with that method of interpretation, so really it shouldn't be that hard. LOL But, really, when have "should's" ever actually given rise to the way things are?

Anyway. So the external information felt like it was being forced into my soul like a huge ugly ragged splinter. It was foreign material, something that I was trying to expel because it was uncomfortable. I was resisting it mightily.

The resolution though was, as always, embracing the thing that I was resisting. I created a mental "sac" for the splinter, visualized it in a spiritual womb, as it were. Then I embraced it. (This process is something that I engage in a sort of dissociated state... somewhere between being awake and asleep.) It was like swallowing a raw egg. Kind of yucky, but it went down easy. Then I let the ideas sit there... get comfortable in my heart and gut... and waited for them to become integrated into my interpretation of reality. It seems to have worked fairly well... the crazy dreams have stopped.

There is still a minor feeling of discomfort where they haven't been fully integrated, but the big job feels pretty done. I've accepted the information, and allowed it a place in my psyche, though the rest of the process of interpretation of it will inevitably be born from the inside out. What can I say? That's the way it goes. LOL But it'll be interesting to see what kinds of growth spring from that uncomfortable seed eventually.

Dream Walking Scenes II

2007-08-28T14:43:00.000-04:00

The first set of scenes was here. This next bit is the first part that I was actively trying to find the story in. I was messing around here, looking for the way the story connects and basically hoping to find some other characters that "worked."

There is one little reference in this part to an exploration of my own. The idea of staring at my hands in wonder came when I had my first intentional, successful out of body experience. I did it, knew I did it, and hung around out there just staring at my own astral arm and hand. I thought how incredibly beautiful they were, and felt an amazing sense of love for my own form; then I popped back in and it was over. So a little of that sense of wonder found its way into this excerpt.

But I've never really been satisfied with this backstory or with the apparent age of Sarah. I've felt like she should actually be a good bit older. (You'll see why in future excerpts). She's too naive here, I guess, so I was toying with the idea of making this more like a flashback to some distant event, which ultimately ended up with her correct teacher showing up several years later. Also, obviously, certain logistical bits would need to be researched to find out what's really "believable" in terms of setting, etc. I am a firm believer in making sure that one does not break one's own rules when creating a fictional place. Yes, I get to design it, but any person living in actual swamp-prone areas will readily know whether my setting is more conducive to being a home to crocodiles, or if they are more likely to be alligators.

So. With all those caveats, keep in mind that this is an extremely rough draft. Pretty much none of this was going to stay the way it is presented here, except perhaps for the experience of wonder. Mmm-kay? No harassment over my crummy bits. LOL ;-D

"How are you doing this morning, Sarah?" I heard his voice before I could see him. Counselor Vic had a disconcerting way of knowing I was coming before I arrived. I was never quite sure if I was supposed to answer the question in my head, where it seemed to originate, or with my voice, figuring his ears must be as acute as his vision.

I cleared my throat, as always. "Um, well, I suppose. Though I am late." What an idiot I must seem to be, speaking to the air. I glanced at the little girl. She seemed not to notice. Did she hear his voice too?

"Ah, yes, I had noticed. Make haste, then. The young ones are becoming hungry."

I swallowed my chagrin. "Yes, sir." The reminder of food was especially painful this morning, as my stomach angrily informed me that I had missed my breakfast. How many hours until lunch? How many raftloads would I haul this morning? I never knew for certain.

I heard him chuckle. "Ah well, you may have a snack with us. The next group won’t arrive for two hours yet."

Grateful tears sprang to my eyes. I nodded silently. It must be mental communication, then. I vowed I wouldn’t answer with my voice any more, but would simply try to focus my thoughts in his direction.

A few minutes later, I could see Counselor Vic standing on the beach. The island was fairly large, covered with a lush forest. It was well hidden from the prying eyes of the world. There was an estate in the center of the trees. This was the school for the children. They would live here until the teachers decided they were "ready," and sent for a raft to pick them up to return them to the world. Some stayed longer than others. I had returned children that I had escorted here a few months before, and I knew some stayed for a year or two. A few of them left at the beginning of summer and returned in the fall. It seemed like a fairly flexible schedule. I wasn’t aware of any major difference in their behavior, and had no idea what constituted "readiness." Ready for what? My stomach reminded me again that I was definitely "ready" for one thing… my breakfast.

"Come along, children," Counselor Vic instructed. We followed his thin frame and raven-black hair quietly up the hill, toward the large manor house at the edge of the estate. "Breakfast is waiting." The path cut through the vegetation, while the house quietly played hide and seek. One moment it appeared directly in front of us, but then the path would veer off, and it would disappear. At long last, we arrived.

The house was a three story white stone structure. Large windows were everywhere. The interior was filled with a lovely warm glow. As we passed the library, on the way to the kitchen, I was amazed, as always, at the incredible number of books. I longed to go into the room, forget my breakfast, and immerse myself in that glowing light to absorb the smell of the books. My heart ached with the words unread, but I followed the small group to the kitchen.

"Mistress Ruth, Sarah will be eating with us this morning." I sensed this was really a formality. She already knew I would be coming today.

"Yes, I have the place set for her." She made a small bow to the counselor, then led us all into the dining room. "Everything is ready, sir. If you’ll just have the children seat themselves, Janine and I shall bring it in."

This room was glowing with that strange golden light, too. It was hard to define the origination point of the light. It seemed to stream in through the windows, but it managed to find its way into every nook and cranny. There were no shadowy places, no secrets, in this room; just an open warmth and acceptance.

We found our seats, then dove into a feast of magnificent proportions. There were eggs, hot buttered rolls, pancakes, and oatmeal with a touch of spice. Everything was washed down with the freshest orange juice. I ate until I thought I might burst. I had never been so content and filled with joy.

I examined this sensation. My hands and feet even seemed to tingle with joy and the skin seemed alive with light. I held my hands up over my plate, eyeing them with wonder. How strange they looked… almost as if they didn’t belong to me. They glowed with a new loveliness that I had never seen. I wanted to hug them.

I felt the counselor’s eyes upon me, and looked up to find a wide smile on his face. I quickly pushed my hands back under the table with embarrassment. How silly to want to hug my hands. What a fool I must seem to him.

Oddly, the smile vanished from his eyes the moment I pushed my hands away. Was I a fool for wanting to hug them, or for denying their beauty? My confusion became unbearable.

"I think it’s time to go back," I mumbled with emotion caught in my throat. "Thank you, Mistress and Counselor, for the meal."

I quickly pushed my chair back from the table, and found my way to the front door. The counselor’s voice stopped me. He was behind me in the hall.

"Sarah. Do not be afraid of wonder."

Tears quickly found their way to my eyes, so that I could only nod.

"Your hands were truly beautiful. They still are. You only have to look again." This said so gently, it pricked more than any rebuke. He moved in front of me, and lifted my chin, so that I would meet his tranquil blue gaze. "You’re a good girl, Sarah."

I nodded again, miserably. "Ok." I turned away, and headed back to the raft.

* * * * * *

How long had I been driving this raft? The years seemed a blur. I came here, orphaned, when I was five, and now I was seventeen. I knew I had been born here, but my memories of the place were vague and uncertain. My mother and I had moved away when I was three. I was never quite sure why.

I spent a many years after my arrival happily in pursuit of adventure, mystery, and secrets around the grounds, after completing a few simple chores each day. I could already read, and there were plenty of books to be had. The ones that came across my path were devoured, as a starving man might devour a deer. The rest of my education was sadly neglected. Not for lack of attention from the adults on the grounds, but for lack of attendance.

School times were arranged, and the children of the adults who lived at the compound were always very punctual, but they learned without me. My absence was duly noted, but no one made too much of a fuss about it. I had no parents to complain to.

A year ago, I was put to work on the raft crew, after being found to be frustratingly clumsy in the kitchen. I had been no more competent in the other jobs that I had tried. I know my guardian and housemother meant well.

She was a lovely, soft woman, with a heart big enough for any orphaned child. But even she ran out of patience with my careless and less than helpful attempts to fit into the routines of the kitchen staff. After one accident too many, Mistress Carolyn, the head cook, had insisted that Mother must find some other job for me. Mother battled Mr. Tark’s dismal reluctance, until he finally agreed to take me on.

I enjoyed my rafting job. The quiet plop of the pole going into the water was soothing. The exercise kept me in good shape. And the children were sweet. Mr. Tark’s attitude was bearable, if I kept my mouth shut and didn’t talk back. The crocodiles were not always in a good temper, and might scowl as the pole splashed into the water as we passed by; but most of the time, they ignored us. There was plenty for them to eat in the marshland, and they had never developed a taste for children, plump and delectable as they might be. Perhaps it was lack of experience.

Still, the responsibility to take these children safely across the water was mine, and I always felt fairly proud of myself for negotiating another safe voyage. I felt that I had an understanding with the crocodiles. I would pass as quietly as I could, so as not to disturb them, and they would not eat the children in my care. Every now and then I would see a crocodile look at me, with a secretive gleam in his eye, as I pushed the raft past and we would wink at each other in understanding of our mutual obligations.

When there were no children to take to the island, or to bring back to the shore, I spent my time on simple maintenance around the grounds. There were always tools needing to be cleaned, or vegetables that had been harvested needing to be carried to the main house. I was never given a job that was too rigid, as I tended to do things in my own way, rather than the right way. As long as the process was flexible enough, though, I could be trusted to complete the job very well. Mother often claimed that trying to discipline me was something like trying to discipline a firefly.

Imagination in a Rut

2007-08-25T11:57:00.000-04:00

Have you ever found that not only is your life carrying on in the same old circle, over and over again, but then to make things worse, your imagination is doing the same thing?

Turns out that's why I've been so grumpy the last few mornings. Who knew?

I was taking a time-out this morning, since Mike brought my tea to me to wake me up. Just thinking, you know? Just pondering life and where I'm going, and how I'm getting there. Then I start getting really restless. Well, the truth is, I've been restless, but I started really noticing the restlessness this morning. I was feeling discontent... with my dreams. How dare my higher self send me such pointless and edgy dreams? I wake up feeling on edge, and with no clue why!

Random events, random people, random theme music. Ok, maybe you don't get theme music with yours, but my dreams tend to call to mind a song, and then the song is on my mind all morning. Sometimes my dreams actually play the song along. Not this morning, but sometimes.

See, things have been happening that are just plain weird, even for my dreams. All symbolic I know. But I wake up feeling frustrated and angry with the things that are going on... with the people in my dreams acting in the ways that they are. For instance, this morning, I'm dreaming about a huge guy, slightly on the mentally disabled side, being something of a threat. I run into a randomly-designed house (no rhyme nor reason to it) and try to get help. But my supposed "savior" dude is sleeping in bed, oblivious... and not inclined to get up. So, I don't know whether to throw something at him, or just get on with saving myself. I "grr" at him, then get on with saving myself.

Yes, I see the symbolism in it. I know what it means. The point here, is that this is a totally new type dream behavior for me. I'm creating scenarios filled with people acting in ways that they don't normally act... in my dreams. It's more being demonstrated to me, that the meaning of their actions is what actually I perceive it to be in actual reality. Usually, people act in their "idealized" way in my dreams. I get the chance to meet up with them on an essence level, to see the self that lies underneath the one present in reality. That usually tends to lean me toward trying to notice and interact with the essence of them in the present day reality, without necessarily paying too much attention to the here-and-now actions. In theory, anyway. There's always a sense of the current presented reality acting as a filter over the essence that I'm trying to perceive. And of course, my own filters of perception get in the way too.

So, where the rut comes in, is that I notice that I've spent so much time imagining things as I sense them to be on the essence level, magnetizing certain scenarios, if you will... that actually, today, I don't want to do any of that. I've spent so long realizing the essence of people, looking for it to be demonstrated on a here-and-now level, that I feel like I've imagined and dreamed every possible iteration, and I'm tired of looking at all those iterations. I've dreamed more versions of people than I've ever actually seen in them in reality. I've "lived with them all" is the feeling. It doesn't matter that they weren't all physically present to me in my here-and-now reality. They lived in my imagination, and that's enough to get the flavor of them. I've had so many explorations of so many depths of so many people, that I'm getting tired of imagining their depths. Now I want to imagine something different.

My dreams are helping me to shake things up a little. Adding a dash of angst and "grr-ness" and forcing me to realize that I've become bored with my own imagination. Time to change things again. Internally, of course. The externals won't be doing much differently. But the internal story is going to move in a new direction. If I can figure out what the direction is, that'll be a plus.

So far, I think it has to do with less imagining of depths of other people. "I shouldn't have to work so hard to get to know someone," is the underlying feeling. It shouldn't be so hard. I shouldn't have to use my imagination so heavily to see the depths, to get to know someone, to appreciate all that makes them... them. I should be able to see things as they exist and be able to find the person revealed in what they're actually doing. I'm not sure if this is the actual direction I've been heading, (it still feels like it's too similar to my focus over the last few weeks) but I'm going to sit on that interpretation for a while and see how it gels with my experience. I am, as always, a work in progress... so no doubt, editing will occur. It has to. This post feels waaaay too incomplete for there not to be more "there" (wherever "there" is).

By the way... this is why I have such a hard time writing a book-length story. By the time I get it partially written, the whole thing has to change direction because I've grown bored with the story as I imagined it.

Katie's Palm PDA Animation

2007-08-17T12:46:00.001-04:00

Mike posted this on YouTube. Some of you have seen much of it before, but I thought I'd post it here, just in case anyone hasn't.

Here's Mike's description on the video page:

"My daughter Katie likes to doodle on my Palm PDA. While waiting at a restaurant a few months ago, I drew 4 or 5 frames of an animated stick man and showed it to her. While her normal drawings are quite detailed, she adopted the stick man style and added another 25 frames before dinner. Over the next few months, she added 1500 more frames, playing with motion, perspective, "camera" angles, etc."

Cathy's note: It's actually been in the works for a lot longer than a few months. I believe it's more on the order of "a year or two." She pretty much only gets to add to it when we go out to dinner. :0)

Dream Blogging for Dream Walking

2007-08-10T13:15:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about the "best" way to present this to you, yet again. It would help if I thought in a straightish line, but I don't. I tend to work in a way that a lot of folks find somewhat... er... well... bizarre, I guess. When I explain something to someone, I present a piece of a picture. Then I go "oh, look over here, on this side... another piece... and look up there... another piece." And so on, until finally the whole picture is mostly revealed, except for the connecting bits. It takes some patience on the listener's part, since they are essentially being asked to trust me that these seemingly unrelated bits are actually connected in some way.

So. Trust me. After I get done posting the Kajah story pieces, hopefully this post will make a little more sense. If not... well, I apologize in advance. At least I know Sheryl will "get it." LOL She probably already does, since she explains things in the same way. ;-)

Mmm-kay. I'm posting several of the Light Guy events and dream inspirations for the Kajah piece today. (Vic can wait a bit longer.) Kajah used to have no name, except for "the Light Guy," for me. I asked him later, in a dream, what his name actually is and he whispered it in my ear. Interestingly (ha), I couldn't actually put a word to it when I woke up. I knew it had a K and a J in it, but the feel of the word wouldn't translate effectively into a sound until much later. (Like 2004 or so.) There's actually a bit more of a syllable in there too, almost like an I should be after the J, but Kajah works reasonably well. So anyway... I spent sometime between asking him his name in 1996 and being able to translate it in 2004, just calling him the Light Guy, while the name hung in the ethers waiting for recognition.

So. Journal entries.

First, after the initial light dream, I kind of wanted to do that again, but on the other hand, it scared the beejeezus out of me. I kept trying to meditate myself into that state when I'd go to bed, and "requesting" for the light to be shown to me again.

I had a dream soon after the first one, in which I came upon a candle in a darkened room, and I started completely focusing on the candle. I realized right at the last second that the candle was about to explode, and I reached out to grab it really quickly to keep it from happening. I'd snuffed out the light. sigh. I was incredibly frustrated with myself when I woke up.

Then this:

I tried "programming" myself before sleeping, to have more experiences with the light… but I was afraid, so I kept saying "make it something I can stand… I want to see it again, but I don’t want it to scare me."

I dreamed that the someone was showing me a partially open door with a crack of the light coming through. He asked "is that better?" and he laughed… a gentle quiet little mocking laugh.

Light Guy has a sense of humor apparently. This dream gave me another glimpse of that awe-inspiring light, gave me a sense of who this someone is, and also showed me that he does in fact care a great deal about how I'm handling things in general.

The Not-Dream of it all is next.

December 13, 1995

11:40 at night...

I am laying in a semi-fetal position, back flat to the bed, yet legs curled up on one side... One leg is being shaken very hard... and I hear words from my dream echoing in my head... "Prophesies... Millennium... Predicted three times now... Do you hear?" And as he shakes, harder still, I hear his voice so gentle, and with such a lovely almost Scottish lilt... he says "You just have to wake up..." And I hear my self snorkeling as I struggle to wake, and my sheets are up around my mouth, but then I do wake up. And THERE he is! Standing at the foot of my bed... but I see no features just light in the form of a "person". And he comes to the side of my bed and bends over to give me a hug... and my God, the warmth and the love, and the total lack of fear, and the beauty in that hug! Intensity that has me shaking now, for I just can't contain my awe.... and now, a very human fear that I really have seen him... and I was really awake. Then he moved away, and went to the other side of the bed to Mike, and gently, and affectionately watched him for a minute... I'm not sure what he was doing when he left me... but he came back to me, and leaned over and kissed my belly... around where my intestinal problems are? Maybe? and I felt the heat radiate through my belly and I felt that all was well. Then he went back to the right side of the room, and dealt with either Mike, or Patrick (who is sleeping down here tonight because he is sick), and then he faded away.... so slowly... Like he was fading a gentle "good-bye".

I've always enjoyed keeping a computer in my bedroom for this very type of thing. Some inspiration happens, and it absolutely has to be written down, no matter what time it is. Dreams have a way of disappearing quickly upon waking, and I have a hard time getting it all down when I'm trying to write it out by hand. So... a few minutes after that event (I waited a couple of minutes just to verify that I actually was awake, and that I was actually feeling all was well, health-wise), I got out of bed and started typing. Mike woke up and asked what I was doing, and I said "just trust me, I have to get this down." This is where the Light Guy name came from, obviously.

Soon after that, I started reading Seth and looking at Jane Roberts' life. A friend on a ya-ya type message board recommended the Seth material to me, and frankly after the weird shit that had been happening, I was happy to explore the possible explanations.

Then this dream, the hook of the story actually... the one that Patrick said I had to finish:

The room was wood. A wood table, surrounded by wood chairs, surrounded by wood walls, broken only by the splash of sunlight pouring in from one huge window. The table was surrounded by six or seven bodies, dressed completely in black, and looking uniformly somber. My guide left my side to blend into the group. Easy to forget which one he was, I thought, they all look the same.

"Will you make a vow to commit yourself to our cause, no matter what?" she asked me.

"No, I don’t think so. How could I do that, when I don’t even know what it is you are committed to? I know what you are afraid of, but I don’t know how you plan to deal with it." I turned to leave. A thought occurred to me, as I stood with my hand on the door, ready to push. I looked back at the group assembled in the stark, bright room. "Have any of you ever heard of CU’s?"

Blank looks all around. "You know: Consciousness Units. They’re what everything is at the most basic level." Still blank faces waited patiently for me to go on. "Look. You all plant food, in anticipation of the coming disasters. You plant seeds, and you expect them to grow, and you plan to eat that growth to keep you alive during the starvation to come. Right?"

They nodded slowly. "Ok. But. What if they didn’t... grow? What if, for whatever reason, you were left with nothing but a brown field, and no food?"

"Why would that happen?" She had the look of a scientist examining a new breed, and finding it somewhat inferior in intelligence. "At least some of the seeds would grow, you know, and there aren’t that many of us here. We’d have enough." She exuded confidence. They’d have enough.

"You’re right. You’ll have enough... unless the disaster you are predicting turns out to be the earth shifting on its axis, in spring, turning spring to fall... and your seeds and everyone else’s, to... nothing." I shrugged. "So what would you do then?"

Their pale faces grew even paler, as they contemplated the idea. They looked like they were eating sand, and I waited for a moment while they followed the whole scenario to its grisly conclusion.

"Do you think you would die?" I knew from their faces that they did. The thought terrified them. "If you knew about consciousness units, you wouldn’t."

A soft tentative voice asked, "Wouldn’t what? Die, or think we would die?"

"Take your pick." I pushed the door open, and left.
...

Out in the bright sunshine, the trees were alive with song. I paused on the stoop, inhaling deeply of spring, growing taller, straighter, and lighter, with the green air. I smiled my thanks to the CU’s in the trees and, full of energy, set off down the path.

"Wait!" One of the compound residents was calling after me. I stopped and waited, as he came rushing to me. Out of breath, rumpled and sweaty, his meaty frame struggled for order. "We.... want you.... to stay," he panted.

"No," I began, and moved to be on my way.

He frantically grabbed my arm. "You don’t understand. We insist..." He had his breath back now, and was spreading it on my face. I grimaced and backed away. He followed. "We would enjoy your company. Really," he persisted.

"Oh, I see." I was getting angry at the hand that still gripped my arm. "Let go of me."

He loosened his hold slightly. "Tell me more about consciousness units." His smile was a death mask.

"All right," I said, glaring at him, "here’s something I can tell you about CU’s... and be sure to observe the space-time demonstration. Consciousness.... Units..... can be.... dispersed .... and gathered..... at will." I finished sitting casually in the branches of the oak next to him. His hand was empty. "And you should keep that in mind, the next time you want to "invite" someone to stay with you." I wickedly enjoyed his efforts to deny what he had just witnessed, and added quietly, "One who can manipulate consciousness units doesn’t need food either." With a small grin and a wink, I stood on the branch and walked away on the air.

And not long after that:

Dream from February 18, 1996

Robert Redford (go figure!?) was dying. I heard it on the news and he was headed back to his home to go with peace. I began following him out of an intense desire to say goodbye. In part of the dream, I was packing a box of stuff I’d need for an overnight trip; mailing it from a very crowded, tiny, seedy little mail station, after taking my wallet out of it first. Then off I went with just my purse to catch up with RR.

Finally caught up with him in the middle of a huge crowd of moving people. Don’t know where they were all going. I reached out for his arm, and he stopped. Turned to look at me.

"I can’t let you go without saying good-bye…" I said, before he pulled me firmly to him in an intense hug. I was off balance, at first, but his solid presence helped steady me. Then I was able to participate in the hug. The crowd disappeared or just swam around us as this hug absorbed all my focus and attention. Such intensity… reminded me of the light guy. (Who am I kidding… it was the light guy. :-) )

I woke up with that same tingly feeling, as if I’d been thoroughly hugged, at 6 a.m…. then went back to sleep.

One side note… seems the "post office" had lots of people just sitting around waiting and looking at me oddly. I wasn’t supposed to be there, they seemed to be saying… or thinking. Interesting.

Note added later…. I’ve used this dream as the basis for the train-or-bus-station scene in my Sarah & Light Guy story.

Getting tired yet? Yeah, me too. Just two more.

Saturday, Feb. 24, 1996.

In the dream, I was laying on the couch in the den, looking up at the upstairs landing. I saw myself standing up there in my big black winter coat, and got a really freaked out feeling. More like, horror, I guess. It doesn’t feel that great to "see" yourself outside a mirror, I think.

"How long have you been up there?" I asked her/myself.

"Oh, about two hours" she "thinks" back to me... Her mouth doesn’t move, but I know she said it.

Two hours?!! And just now I’m noticing! I got pretty panicky over that, and tried to figure out how to get her/me down, and not so scary looking.

So I said, "Come down from there and hang up your coat." She did that and came over to the couch and waited. Then I said it was time to merge back together and I opened my mouth horribly wide to try to "swallow" her into me. I struggled and strained while she kept backing off, looking perplexed and somewhat horrified. Then I heard her say something like "If you will just relax and stop struggling, it would be much easier."

I let go of my panicked attempts to get her back in and shut my mouth. I lay there quietly, waiting.

Then I heard a rushing sound in my ears, thought "hey, I’m gonna have an out of body," and woke up. It was 6 am. During the rushing sound, I guess I couldn’t determine if I was going in or out; but when I woke up, it became obvious that I was going in. I was so disappointed and frustrated with myself for fighting and struggling instead of noticing that I was "out" earlier, and looking around to see what it was like.

Why do I always freak when these weird things happen? Why not just accept weird stuff as normal, enjoy the sensation, and get on with it?

One more. Woot!

I was on the edge of the cliff. The wind was whipping my hair into a frenzy, and I could see the Light Guy, standing there in the sky. He was watching me, half smiling, as he always did.

My heart filled with my desire to reach him, and with the joy of seeing him waiting for me. I leaped up. My joy propelled me across the suddenly irrelevant distance to carry me up into his arms. We were both laughing as he caught me.

Still laughing, I said, "Oh my god! It's so easy isn't it!"

He smiled at me. "If you let it be."

Hey! We're done with the foundation! Yay! Now you can see the theme emerging I hope. I've created an alternate world where Consciousness Unit Masters train and spend time in conflict with shadowy paranoid types while trying to bring about a shift in the collective consciousness of the world. Problem is, the story itself is so stinking complicated and really not something a "first time author" is usually advised to attempt. I'm fairly sure I couldn't do it justice quite yet.

Exploding Into The Scene

2007-07-30T11:38:00.000-04:00

I thought about doing this all chronologically, from the story's perspective. But really, it was much more interesting chronologically from the perspective of reality.

Mmm-kay. Yeah. That wasn't helpful at all, was it? Let me put it this way. Dream Walking started with an explosion in 1995. A dream. (Imagine that!) In the story though, this dream doesn't actually start the story. It's beginning-ish, but not really what I have at the beginning at the moment. The story beginning comes from another dream, that I had later.

You know what? Let's just forget time altogether for now. It's too complicated when it doesn't go in a straight line.

Here's the end part of the dream that started the whole thing.

July 30, 1995

Downstairs, heading outside... It seems that it was still light out.

My companion says "Let me put these on you" and gives me satin bows (pink?). One bow on each ankle just appears. I think that they must be more valuable than satin, but can’t seem to decide what they are really made of. A third bow on my neck, and I think of how pretty it must look. He singsongs about "my pretty kitty Cat". It’s hard to look at him, because of the depth of emotion I feel having him with me. I get glimpses of him to my left. We look at the sky together and see more and more stars coming out.

"Which one is it?", I ask.

"I don’t kn... oh, look... that one...", he says, pointing to a brightly pulsating star, "The Light..."

Explodes!

I try to look away, but look back at this overwhelming sea of Bright! Incredible Light! Like an A-bomb with no cloud and no death. I know it should hurt to look at this light, but it doesn’t. "Oh, my God" is clutched in my chest, and I cannot speak past the constriction in my throat. Waves of light wash over me, but it’s not hot. My whole body tingles, and something undefined inside of me changes. With the third wave of light, I wake up. The clock says 6 am. And I lay there feeling this tingly and changed feeling in every cell of my body, and wonder to myself "What was that?"

In the story, I've given this dream to my main character, Sarah, and made her companion into her dead brother, Jay. A later dream, code-named-"Crocodiles", appears as the actual opening of the story.

December 11, 1995

Dream from last night: Crocodiles

I am awakened from a very sound, dreamless sleep by a large, insistent, pushy, yet somehow loving woman. I am in a "commune" type setting, and she is fussing at me for being late getting up to do my job. I have overslept. I don’t feel resentment toward her, but I am sluggish as I get up, and try to get myself going.

I search throughout the building for a bathroom to use in private, to empty my bladder, before going out to work. Everywhere I look, the bathrooms are being used, and a lot of the toilet stalls don’t have doors. There are groups of people in most of the bathrooms, standing around and chattering, and I continue searching for the privacy I need. So, try as I might, I am not able to empty my bladder in these occupied restrooms. I feel very embarrassed and self-conscious, and feel compelled to find privacy, so I begin searching other places. I end up in the "hidden" bathroom at my Grandmother’s house (silent and secretive), and finally feel the utter relief of emptying myself. Then I head off to do my job.

As I approach the "bayou", I see a raft full of people sitting out there at the dock, waiting for me. I get on the raft and pick up the pole that will propel us through the swamps where the crocodiles are. I am driving the raft, and the morning strikes me as being especially beautiful... calm, misty, shrouded in a mysterious special light. I don’t feel afraid, but I feel calm and confident... enjoying myself. One of the children hums a little tune. I smile down at her. She is so sweet and innocent… such a magical little thing, with her blond fluffy hair framing her face. The strains of her song are so familiar to me, and I hum along, trying to recall the long forgotten words. My voice fades, while the blood leaves my face as I finally find the words to the song.

"She sailed away on a bright and sunny day on the back of a crocodile.
You see, said she, he’s as tame as he can be, I’ll ride him down the Nile.
The croc winked his eye, as she waved them all goodbye, wearing a happy smile.
At the end of the ride, the lady was inside, and the smile was on the crocodile."

And I start to worry that I will end up inside one of the crocodiles, and I am leading all these people to some awful end of this bright, beautiful journey.

Obviously, I change a few (or a lot of) details here and there to fictionalize things, but this stuff from my dream journal supplies the basic set-up. I created my character, Sarah, to have grown up in a commune sort of setting, and she has the job of escorting the young children to the school part of it. The raft passengers all are children in the story. So, this bit, next, is the actual opening as it stands now:

"Come on now, love… you must wake up."

My shoulder was shaken under the pressure of her hand. Not already? Please. Just a few more minutes.

"I mean it." Her voice was not quite as gentle this time. "Now. You are late." I heard the "again" in her voice, but she had the grace not to say it aloud.

I sneaked a peek at my housemother. Quickly, so that she might not see it.

"Aha! You’re awake! Come on. Time to get up."

I sighed and rolled out of bed.

That's followed by the slightly modified version bathroom scene, then a barely-altered version of the crocodile scene. Then I bring in Dumbledore. Oh. No, wait... that was J.K. Rowling who did that. I bring in "Counsellor Vic" (but, note... this part was written long before I had even heard of Harry Potter). I guess old wise people are sort of stock characters, ever since Merlin came on the scene.

In the next post, you can meet him... I suppose. I was never really satisfied with the next section. I think it's too "blah." Boring. And probably unnecessary.

Let's Talk About Kajah.

2007-07-27T14:50:00.000-04:00

I've made up my mind. The story that I want to share the most is the Dream Walking one. But of course, it needs an explanation before I get into it. You didn't think it would be a simple thing to do this, did you?

And... as an aside, keep in mind that the actual posting of excerpts will have to wait until Monday, since I'll be otherwise occupied all weekend.

Ok. Kajah's story started as dreams that seemed to fit into an overall pattern. I tend to share my cool dreams with Patrick, and in this case, I shared one and he said something like "you have got to write the rest of that story!" (Which I still may, but for now, well... we've been here before.)

So, I started pulling dreams from the previous several years together and seeing how they fit together, while at the same time continuing to dream more pieces into place.

For today though, I thought I'd share a bit about how he looks. (And also note that I've changed his name to Kian in the actual story). Anyway. This will be my first attempt ever to embed YouTube videos into a post. Wish me luck.

There was an 80's band that I loved, mainly because the lead singer was... well, damned pretty. I didn't know it at the time, and it surprised me quite a bit when I realized it, but Kajah looks a lot like a cross between Dave Wakeling and Robert Redford. More Redford in the Electric Horseman in attitude, but 80's-Dave Wakeling-ish in looks. Also... it's curious to me now to recall my huge crush on Sam Cardinal in high school... due to his resemblance to Kajah, I'm guessing.

Hmm. Looks like I'm going to have the videos in a separate posts, since I can't figure out how to embed them here. So, they'll be in a series posted directly below this, or you can click the links to open separate pages.

First,

Dave Wakeling, with General Public singing "Tenderness."

I love that shirt he has on.

Then, with the English Beat, "I Confess."

And finally, Robert Redford, being snippety, in The Electric Horseman.

Edited to add: I think it's safe to say I really suck at this whole "embedding things from YouTube" idea. Grr. You have no idea how frustrated I am right now. LOL

The Electric Horseman '79

2007-07-27T14:40:00.001-04:00

The English Beat - I Confess

2007-07-27T14:39:00.001-04:00

General Public - Tenderness

2007-07-27T14:38:00.002-04:00

Ok, I don't know what's wrong here, but here's a direct link. I hope.

Houston, We Have a Problem

2007-07-24T10:49:00.000-04:00

I was going to launch the "new direction" thing today, by starting to post some of the writing on the stories that I have sitting in my Word files. I thought I'd start with the "Aunt" folder since it's the shortest (only four sections) but then I read them over. Man, I don't want to post that stuff for the world to see (and by extension, I don't ever want to make it into a book for the world to see, unless I fictionalize a lot of it). It's so personal... so brutal in what it calls to mind... I just feel like posting it here would be too much of me... and Lexi... to put on a blog.

It's not even that things turned out that way. They actually didn't, exactly.

Er... let me back up a sec. LOL

I wrote those scenes back in 1996, when Lexi was seven. I believe I was tapping into an energy pattern which sort of was a "blueprint" of what was to come. The details were things that I just added to the pattern, in a way... like building a house from a blueprint, but altering the landscaping and the paint and decor. Same basic structure, but the actual way it is created is slightly off from the blueprint. (Or I guess, more accurately, the blueprint doesn't even necessarily tell you what the landscaping and decor should look like.)

Anyway, the basic structure of those scenes was that Lexi would end up coming to live with me, we'd fight together for her life, and there was a baby involved. In the story I created the details, largely out of thin air. Projections of future events don't usually entail me hitting the nail on the head, so to speak, but more interpreting energy and knowing that some mix of energy is coming down the pike. If it's a highly charged energy, I can mentally prepare myself to meet it.

(An aside... I can hear Mike griping about my use of the word "energy" here. He claims that word for the use of the engineering world, and gets somewhat bent when I use it in the ya-ya sense. So, I'll just say... whenever I'm using the word "energy" here (on my blog, by the way, which means I should get to use whatever words I choose, LOL), I mean it in the ya-ya sense. The energy of the basic underlying structure that gives rise to here-and-now reality. The stuff I was trying to get at in this post, this one and this one.)

So, the point isn't that I had an exact premonition of the events to come. I didn't. I wasn't just taking dictation from the future. I was however tapping into some pretty powerful energy, and already anticipating how it might end up happening. I was preparing myself for the job I'd find myself doing.

Interestingly, in reading over that stuff, I was at the time, clearly not sure how I would be. At the time, I was still very much enmeshed in sorting out my own stuff and only had a vague image of what would be possible internally, for me. Turns out a lot more was possible than I gave myself credit for back then. I'd write those scenes differently today, not just because I know what actually came to pass, but because I know that I'm a different sort of person than I thought I'd be.

For example, back then I thought after moving through my stuff, that I'd still concern myself with being diplomatic. I thought I'd be calm, somehow, when I encountered things. That I'd be more... I don't know... just "good" I guess. Now though, I find that aspect of the scenes turns me off a bit. It's not really me... it's a past-me playing a part of a healthier future-me without knowing exactly what that healthier me would look like. LOL Turns out, in real life the healthier me actually retained quite a bit of passion and bluntness, at times almost to the point of brutality. When Lexi was here, I didn't hide truths from her in order to be kind. I felt like she needed to hear truths and that was part of what she came for, so I wasn't going to dishonor her courage by sugar-coating things and avoiding truths.

There are three aspects to what I do, in life. One is surgical. One is warrior-like. One is subtle and unnoticed.

Hm. An Elias session quote fits here. (Yes, we are going deep into the heart of the ya-ya-me now. LOL)

CATHY: Okay. I will do that. I have... now this is silly... I wanted to start a new category for your game.

ELIAS: Very well.

CATHY: Weaponry.

ELIAS: Very well.

CATHY: Okay. And I wanted to enter the broadsword, the Scottish broadsword, for Vold.

ELIAS: One point.

CATHY: Yay! I'm great. (Both laugh) Okay, let's see. I had a summary of my intent of this focus written down here, but now I'm feeling like it's an awfully arrogant thing to say (laughing), so I don't know if I want to offer it to you, or let you offer it to me!

ELIAS: (loudly) Nonsense!

CATHY: Hm?

ELIAS: (loudly) Nonsense!

CATHY: Nonsense!

ELIAS: Do not be dis-

CATHY: (laughing) This is going to be in a transcript now! People are going to read this!

ELIAS: Do not be discounting of yourself!

CATHY: Okay. All right. The day when I wrote this I was feeling very proud of myself, so what I wrote was that "I am like a drop of water into a still pond. I use the Vold energy to drop into static situations to create changes that inadvertently bring about balance or healing." I don't usually have a well thought-out plan for how this should work, but it usually ends up working out that way just the same by very subtle processes beyond my control, well, which I feel are beyond my control. Or another metaphor I came up with is "a surgeon, as one who affects healing by means of a knife." (1) (Pause) So what do you think of that?

ELIAS: I would express that your assessment of your intent is quite accurate.

CATHY: Well, how cool is that? (Elias laughs) Very cool. Okay! So I can give myself one big point on that one!

ELIAS: And not express a judgment of yourself that you are being arrogant, but rather acknowledge yourself and appreciate your expression of yourself and your discovery of yourself.

(1) Cathy's note: This is a phrase I picked up years ago when I was reading Diana Gabaldon's "Voyager". She used this phrase to describe what her main character does, and it always stuck with me.

My belonging-essence family is Vold. Lexi's aligning family is also Vold. (I've already lost the non-ya-yas by this point so... whatever... I'll just keep going in the ya-ya direction. LOL) So the way I see our coming together was as if two Scots, carrying broadswords decided to fight for the same thing or practice together. It was an intense, very focused time. I just happened to have the surgical part down pretty well by that point. But in my writing of the situation eleven years ago, I was denying a lot of my Voldness (it's always been an issue for people, so I thought that my path toward healing would involve laying that part by the wayside), and trying to present myself as I perceived others would prefer. The thing is... that self that I wrote was never destined to be me.

When Lexi was here, she got to see me. The real me. The one that uses that spiritual knife very well indeed.

And yeah, for the record... I was the person I learned to use it on first.

Ok. I feel like that was a very long aside or something. The real point of this post is to say that those words, written as the "Aunt" story are never going to be part of this blog. It's on the one hand too close to reality, and on the other too far away from it. It's not true to the selves that we turned out to be. It's also too true to the selves that we turned out to be.

It requires too much vulnerability from both of us for me to post it here. So, the reality is that those scenes are for Lexi and me. If she ever wants to read them, I'll show them to her (but I'd probably add this post as an addendum LOL). Everyone else is going to just have to forget about it. That story's blueprint energy pattern of inspiration ended up being real life and it was enough to live it. I don't feel inclined to put the whole thing out here.

Hopefully, this glitch in the whole "post what I have" project will turn out to be just about this particular story. Otherwise this project will be very short-lived and I'll have to think of something else to blog about. LOL

Sheryl: I am Canadian

2007-07-21T14:38:00.000-04:00

Molson is a national brewery. They make a beer called Molson Canadian(tm), and a for several years produced a bunch of cool ads celebrating our nation's pride.

This is one of the most famous, and popular of the ads. But it is a rant. It took people aback slightly as the vehemence was, until that point in time, unCanadian. We have since embraced our inner intensity, as evidenced by the videos on this website.

Despite the emphasis on the ad campaign, we do enjoy other things besides hockey. And beer. We are passionate about our beer, though.

I think Cathy needs to take my author privileges away now. Thanks for letting me guest blog

Video for Mom

2007-07-18T14:31:00.000-04:00

Here's the link to the Unknown Legend video on YouTube, Mom. I'll bet the harmonica bit where she's dancing around the fire is going to resonate with your impression quite a bit. :-) There were many times in Arizona where I was so tempted to just get out of the car and do that. If only we'd had a campfire. ;-)

Values to Die For

2007-07-18T13:31:00.000-04:00

I have a feeling this is going to be much longer than a comment on your post, Sheryl, so I'm making a new post out of my "fleshing out" thought. I had several thoughts on that conversation, and of course, they continue to crop up in my shower. I need to invest in some shower-crayons obviously. ;-)

First... the other part of the thing I said in the car... "If other countries would pay as little attention to us (or think as rarely of us) as we do to them, they'd be a lot better off." I still think that. LOL It all gets back to that identity thing. If they are busy focusing on us, then they really aren't looking much at themselves. The energy is going outward to what they aren't. They aren't Americans. You covered that part beautifully.

But I still don't know exactly what a Canadian represents in his or her own mind, really. What does it mean to Be A Canadian?

In other words, what is the value that would bring a smile to a Canadian's face, if he were to hear it applied to himself on his deathbed? What is the stereotype containing a kernel of truth about Canadians?

For me, as an American, that's easy. If I'm laying there on my deathbed, and I hear "she is free," my heart would swell with joy (and thereby kill me because it was ready to konk anyway). For Americans being called a "cowboy" isn't an insult at all. We cherish that part of ourselves, the part that is free and just a bit lawless, and that's why it's so much fun when the French call us that, particularly. LOL They really don't get it. They think they're being critical, and we take it as a compliment, which makes them think we are simpletons, when in truth we're getting a much more sophisticated joke out of it.

So. Looking at other nationalities and playing this game. What stereotypes would actually be fairly close to the values that they seem to hold in the real world. (Boy this is going to be a politically incorrect game! LOL) I'm all for anyone of any of these nationalities to come by and tell me what they truly do value, though. I want to know the positives of them, just as I want to know what it means to be Canadian. (Also, know that in a lot of these cases, my tongue is firmly in my cheek. I'm laughing while I post this, and I think to avoid offense, some folks will need to be laughing too, as they read it.)

The Frenchman: He dies with a sneer on his face. "Ah, there he goes. He was so much better than everyone else." (That was almost too easy. LOL We do love to rag on the French.)

The Englishman: He dies in his wool coat and sensible shoes. "He waited his turn." Or "He was a rock." (England seems like a Taurean to me.)

The Scotsman: He dies in the heather, wearing nothing but a kilt, in weather that would turn the rest of us blue. "He was hardy and never truly defeated."

The Russian: "He made self-immolation an art-form."

The Greek: "He knew his classics, and thought a lot." (Ok, that is a totally uninformed impression. I really have no idea how the Greeks seem to me, given that I rarely think of them.)

The Australian: "He is on permanent walk-about." (And incidentally, he doesn't give much of a thought to the place he left behind either.)

The Spaniard: "He had passion and flair."

The Chinese: "We never really knew him. He was a mystery."

The Canadian? "He was polite?" "He wasn't American?" "He was a mediator?" Not sure exactly.

One of the things that you mentioned to me in the car was the concept of mediation, I think. Maybe I dreamed that. But that thought came up in the shower too this morning. The thing about mediation that makes it valuable I believe, is that a mediator is supposed to be able to see and explain both sides of a story, so that the sides can be fairly represented to each other. But what I've noticed about Canadian attempts to mediate... is that they don't actually seem to make an effort to explain the American perspective, they just focus on "well, that's not us." That makes the mediation seem more like advocating. If mediation is a Canadian value, I think it would be cool if they embraced that concept wholeheartedly... "Come hell or highwater, we are going to explain these people to you!"

But my actual point here is that stereotypes really do contain a grain of truth, and that they aren't bad. We need someone to have a superiority complex, as it demonstrates to the rest of us what that is like. And honestly, it makes the French happy to feel they are better than everyone else, so it really is a value. I actually have a measure of respect for them because they do embrace their superiority so enthusiastically. Gotta admire commitment. Though, I probably wouldn't advertise that fact to them. LOL

We need the Aussies to live on their most dangerous continent in the world to demonstrate the value of courage and trust in our ability to take whatever life throws at us. (Which is not to say that I'd personally enjoy living on the continent that has more ways for nature to kill me than any other, but I gotta admire the qualities that are called forth in those who do live there.)

All these national values actually are quite necessary for this world. Which is why I want to admire the Canadian value. It's necessary too. I just want to know what it is that Canadians most value so that I can do it justice in my admiration.

Guest Post:I am

2007-07-17T22:07:00.000-04:00

While in Canada, Cathy noticed an alarming trend of people announcing that Canadians are not American. Seems like a silly statement. Of course not, we're Canadian. We are not a large state that thinks it's independent. Nor are we like your little brother. People were so busy pointing out the ways that Canada is not the United States that she finally asked what it was that we actually were.

I can sit here and list many wonderful attributes that make up my country - loyal, courteous, funny, diplomatic - and it led to some sporadic one word attributes peppering conversations throughout the visit, but the point of this post is what Cathy's observation led me to.

As a society, and I'm no longer separating us into countries but rather individuals, a lot of us are quick to say what we aren't. "I'm not rich, I'm not fat, I'm not mean, I'm not ugly, I'm not pretty, I'm not special, I'm not different, I'm not normal, I'm not insane, I'm not at a loss for words." This fascination with the negative - who we aren't - leaves little room for who we are.

Every self-esteem how-to book, class and guru out there knows you have to focus on the positive rather than the negative. That's how affirmations work. One embraces who and what they wish to become, the attributes and qualities within in order to manifest them without. It's also true that the more energy you apply to any given situation, the more real it becomes. Ever try not thinking about something? "I won't scratch this itch." It won't take long before the itch drives every other thought from your brain. You'll obsess over not itching. The more you focus on not itching, the stronger the need to scratch becomes. I bet if I told you not to scratch your arm right now, you'd think about scratching it. Because you don't need to think about that imaginary itch at all.

It is the same with expressing ones self. Who you aren't is not an identity. Two negatives does not make a right. I'm not Spanish, I'm not Croatian, I'm not English, I'm not Chinese. All true, but none of which tells you I am Canadian. How do you know yourself if it's all wrapped up as a reflection or mirror of someone else's identity?

There is strength and power in knowing one's identity rather than in contrast or opposition. Know who you are instead of who you aren't. It takes some interesting mental gymnastics to word things in the positive rather than the negative but you'd be surprised how quickly it becomes natural.

What started as a discussion about the differences between the two countries led to a truth about life. We are what we believe ourselves to be. As nations as well as individuals. When our identities are cloaked in negativity, we hide from ourselves as well as others. In order for others to understand and know us, we need to embrace all that we are.

I am Canadian. I am brilliant. I am a writer.

I am.

While We Wait for My Guest to Hurry Up (Ahem.)

2007-07-15T10:35:00.000-04:00

Check out this video on YouTube. I first saw it called "Middle Ages Tech Support" but this version is a tiny bit longer.

Test guest

2007-07-14T21:34:00.000-04:00

This is merely a test. I have two pages of notes sitting in front of me but there's something else niggling at the back of my mind that will annoy the heck out of me if I go ahead and write the post without including it. Phew, that was a bit of a run-on sentence.

Anyway, I have to finish a scene for tomorrow's WODE meeting so I won't go ahead and post until tomorrow. By then that key element to the piece will have revealed itself in all of its glory so that I can share it with you.

Until then,
enjoy a wild dance through the ethers, you might be pleasantly surprised(honestly Bryan a little dance never hurt anyone)

Guest Author!

2007-07-12T10:20:00.001-04:00

Sheryl and I were talking last night, and she said with some enthusiasm that we need a blog post on a general idea that keeps coming back. (She also mentioned that it would probably take me a long time to get to it, if I did at all... heh.) So, since hers is a writing blog, and this isn't a writing idea, she's going to write it up and post it here at some point in the next few days... if all goes well with the invitation to be an author on this blog. (Meaning... if I didn't mess up somewhere.) I can't wait to see what she writes. (Now I get to nag her! LOL)

Projects... old and new

2007-07-04T13:52:00.000-04:00

We'll see how well that title actually describes this post. I think that's what it's going to be about though.

Projects... old: The writing thing. Weeks ago, I had a small epiphany about my writing, and how I do it and what I want from it. Patrick and I were talking about writing, and Friday Night Lights, and how it's written and filmed. The process of creation, basically. We decided that if we could write a story to share with the world, by writing all the high points and leaving the rest to the imagination of the reader, we'd totally do that.

The thing about writing that I've come to realize is that... truthfully? When the story is in my head and I've played with it and imagined it and seen where it's going? I consider that it's done. Seriously. I've just told myself a great story! I can change my great story anytime I want by reimagining a scene, or playing with alternate endings or what-have-you.

Unfortunately I don't care if the rest of the people in the world ever get the opportunity to read my story though. I always figure there are other stories out there, and everyone is making up their own stories too, so really, why is it necessary for me to go to the trouble of writing it all down to put all the details of it in a "permanent" form? Part of what makes the story interesting to me, after all, is that while it is still in the imaginary state, it changes. I enjoy the changes in my stories so much more than the old bits that have become static.

I think that gets to the crux of my whole problem with sitting down to write "a book." Once the book is written it doesn't change anymore. And well, we all know, my whole freakin' life has been all about change. Constant, probing, exciting Change! I dive into ideas, grab what resonates within, exhilarated with a new perspective and take a 90 degree turn into a new direction. I take what I am currently, use it as a solid foundation for who I am soon to be, and dive off the cliff, hoping the water is deep below.

Writing it down... slows down the process of changing it. Unless it is a necessary part of the process of change. The things that I have written have for the most part been a part of the process of my becoming someone more fully myself.

Remember this?

Love Is I Am

I am so true,
In love,
To who I am.

Unless I am,
About to become,
Someone else.

Bad news, on this whole epiphany thing: You'll probably never get to read, in book form, the whole of any of those stories I talked about in the Writing Blog Phase.

Good news: Since they won't be their own stories, complete, bound, and for sale, I can share bits and pieces of them here without feeling like I'm spoiling something for the future. You get to fill in your own blanks and see if the story feels satisfying to you. Yay! Aren't I nice?

So that's where the new direction in the Writing Blog will likely end up going. I'm going to feed you bits of what I have already written. (I think.) Though, I will say, first, that I'm retaining copyright on all of the material here on my blog, because... well, I may change my mind and write the full stories someday anyway.

Projects... new: Well, I guess that last couple of paragraphs count under the "projects, new" heading, but when I started this I had something else in mind. This is actually about Bill Whittle's new project. I love this idea. I don't know if I'll have much to contribute to it, but I love it nonetheless.

For the background, check out these links:
You Are Not Alone (Part 1)
You Are Not Alone (Part 2)
Building Ejectia (1)

People with concussions can be amusing

2007-05-28T11:37:00.000-04:00

So, what else am I supposed to write about today, huh, Bryan? (Yeah, everyone else, last night he harassed me again about not posting.)

That's pretty much all that's been newsworthy around here... oh, that and the whole continuing saga of Lexi... as well as Mike's mom's cancer. Some things are better left unblogged.

So... Mike's concussion Thursday night freaked me out a lot, then a little, then a lot, then back down to a little again. Friday, we went out to the part of the People Trail, where he finally decided he had had his bike accident, and from the markings on the concrete, determined that he was damned lucky. He could have had it so much worse.

As it was, his face took the brunt of the damage. Which he mentioned about 15 times in the hospital. Also, his watch. He really liked that watch, apparently, as he also mentioned that about 15 times in the hospital. It seems that concussed people generally repeat themselves, as they don't remember what they've already said, and the brain kind of gets into a groove of things they'd like to say... and so. There you go. Same four sentences over and over again.

When I got over the initial freakout, and we were in the examining room just waiting (which, btw, our hospital really needs some more medical-types in it), I decided to see how many different ways I could respond to the same four sentences. At first I was like "yeah, you said that." Then I saw how this was going to be going, so I played it like each time I heard him speak of something, it was the first time I heard it. "Wow, really... let me look at it... yeah, that was a great watch..."

I idly wonder now, if he will ever remember all the variations on those conversations. I'm thinking he probably won't. He doesn't seem to remember how much he repeated himself, so probably all of replies just blended into one appropriate response from me. Some parts of that day seem to be lost to him for good, though he does now remember the time up to the accident, and vaguely remembers pieces of time between the accident and the gradual return of his senses.

And, hey... don't judge me too harshly for playing this game while we waited, okay? The adrenaline was coming down by then... and his favorite joke during the repetition phase of things was "who are you? (ha ha ha)"

Vulnerability (or The nature of Love, part 2)

2007-04-27T14:18:00.000-04:00

So, I’ve had a post in the works on the vulnerability thing for a while now. Which is kind of funny, given that the main hold-up on it has been a feeling of vulnerability in posting it. There is a part of me that feels that the previous post was "too theoretical"… that I wasn’t as deeply revealed in it as I meant to be, and that I "should" show more of myself in this one. But when I wrote the first draft of this, the part revealing more of me was more than I wanted to post on the internet, even with my tiny number of readers. I guess I’ll put up with this being more theoretical sounding for now. I’m not sure where to draw the line, and I’m getting tired of messing with it.

Anyway. Sheryl and I were talking on the phone after my last post, and I was trying to express more fully the idea that since I see love as knowing and appreciation, then to fully be loved, I believe that one has to be willing to be known. That’s a really vulnerable feeling. Scary. For people to love me, then they need the chance to know me… the deeper, darker, more hidden bits too.

Vulnerability. So what about that? From my definition of Love, how much vulnerability is required to fully know love? Do I have to be willing to get crucified?

I guess theoretically, I’d say, yeah, probably so. It sucks to be all God-like and stuff. Thank God I’m not.

The closest I can get, is to believe that as a wonderfully frail human, I’m expected to do the best I can at accepting whatever energy comes back at me after a shattering, soul-exposing moment. I think I’m expected to accept it as realistically as possible though.

When that returning energy is judgmental, or "let me fix you" or "here’s your problem" or "you scare the shit out of me, get away and change yourself before you come back"… odds are, Jesus would say, "dude, go back for more." Thankfully, for me, I don’t quite buy into that level of sacrifice for the human beings that the rest of us are. He picked going back for more, and really, that worked out ok for him, what with the resurrection and all. But for me to hop in with open arms, so to speak, after repeatedly being shown that my attempts at self-understanding and extremely flawed and painful exposure will be met with a cold nothingness at the best, and an active hostility at worst… well that would be stupid. Or require an almost God-like level of trust. And I don’t have that.

That’s where I am. I’m not Jesus, though I appreciate the example. I really do. (No, I’m not calling him stupid either… just waaaaaaay more evolved than I am, at present. When I can walk on water, I’ll let you know.)

Over the years, through many experiences, the crunch has usually come when I have exposed my soul-bits to the person directly triggering my painful energy at the time. People don’t mind if I expose the pain that’s being triggered with someone else to them. Really that’s pretty cool, because then they get to pick over my soul with no risk to themselves. They get the gift of my soul, without any commensurate matching gift of their own. They get to stay safe. It requires no courage.

To my way of thinking, courage comes into play when one person exposes her own soul and the other person doesn’t turn away in dismissal, fear or disgust. Even more courageous… and leading to a more intense loving connection… would be if the second person reveals herself, in turn. To say what I mean, and how I honestly feel about a situation makes me tremble. The power in it… in owning my own feelings and expressing them in vulnerability, is more than my body can handle, so it shakes and sweats, and gets all terrified. But ultimately, I learn something important, and it’s never been wasted effort.

It’s temporarily devastating though, to make that effort, to step off that terrible ledge, and to have the other person flee from it. Here’s what I’ve come to realize over the last several years: I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m done trying to establish one-sided connections. I know the Jesus way would be to continue indefinitely, but that’s someone much more evolved than I am.

Yeah, I know. That’s me being non-loving. I can honestly say that I am not expressing love when I choose to close up shop. I’m not loving when I shutter my energy and allow myself not to be continually vulnerable.

It’s human experience talking. It’s imperfection, and a lack of desire to be perfectly loving. I don’t actually want to be Jesus, see. Or even to live my life constantly not measuring up to "what he would do". I prefer not walking on water. I like that I don’t have to carry the weight of everyone else’s imperfections on my shoulders and I like that when I die, I can be dead and get on with my dead-life without continually looking out for everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I haven’t hidden my light under a bushel. It still shines for those who care to meet it in mutual love, and mutual vulnerability. You might say I’ve built a lighthouse around it.

But, the seas of love can be stormy. To see my light, I suppose one would need to have courage, though the fear, vulnerability, and appreciation will be mutual.

It’s really fine with me these days, if I don’t get that from everyone. My light still shines, it’s just harder to see from every possible direction. I don’t shine it indiscriminately or in desperation anymore. It’s a steadier, more self aware light. That’s my newish revelation on the nature of Love. I can offer it to myself by being gentler with me, and allowing myself to be imperfectly loving. I can give myself permission not to walk on water. For now. ;-)

So, to sum up... to love me, a person needs to be able to know me. For me to love them fully, I need to be allowed to know them too.

Anyway, that’s the best I can do with this post. Well, no, not really… but it’s the best I’m willing to do right now. I’m ready to be done with it. Remember… I know… your mileage will vary. It will… so the same disclaimers from the previous post apply.

The nature of Love

2007-04-17T08:14:00.000-04:00

This has been percolating since Saturday, when I was in the car with Sheryl and we were talking about love. What it is... how it's expressed. I think it might be nearly done, so I keep opening the door of my brain a bit to see how it's looking. Steamy. Yummy. Mmm... food for thought.

But, before I serve it up, let me just disclaim:

Everyone who reads this is going to disagree. Either a lot or a little. That's fine. I already know that, so when you get ready to comment, tell me something different ok?

Also, through this entire post, if I haven't specifically said "in my opinion" or "in my world view," then mentally add, for yourself, "in Cathy's world view." It will make your adventure into the workings of my mind a little less... er... daunting. (In that same vein, when you comment, it might help if you add that to your comment too. (Not "In Cathy's world view" I mean. It would help if you could specify "in my experience" or whatever. No... not in my experience... in yours. Oy. (Ok, Bryan, just quit that already. LOL This post is going to be long enough as is.))) (Do you ever check to see if someone's nested parentheticals come out right? (Or am I the only person you know who likes to have this much fun with them?))

Argh. End of Sidetracks! We'll never get to the point at this rate!

So! The nature of Love.

To get the ball rolling, let me just remind you of the definition of love that I've taken on as being my truth. This resonates with me from the tip of my conscious brain all the way through the depths of my soul. I accept it might not resonate with you in that way. But, for me Love is Knowing and Appreciation. (No, I didn't make that up myself. I'm just using it because it works for me and it's the foundation of everything that follows.)

Most folks who hear that think that appreciating is the hardest one to grasp. It's been that way for me too, until I started feeling what it's like to really realize how much I don't know. Then Knowing became the key.

See, when I know someone, appreciation is only the next jump after acceptance. And acceptance is born out of trust, which is born out of courage and respect.

But it's not only the other person I have to trust to get there. It's me. I have to trust that I can handle anything that comes at me on an emotional level. That I can live through the storm. Because, truthfully, sometimes when other people let me see their souls, I see a lot of painful stuff. People don't only keep the pretty stuff in their souls. We all have damaged, hurt, dark bits.

If a person trusts me with a damaged, hurt, dark bit, then I have to trust myself with that too. I can't focus myself on being swamped in an overpowering need to protect myself from their pain without doing damage to the effort, (the huge leap of courageous faith, actually) that they've put into exposing that bit of soul.

Let me get specific. My niece, Lexi left here in a huge wash of pain. It was also the most loving connection that I have ever had with anyone aside from my own children. We both broke. Walls came tumbling down, and we were both shaken and vulnerable and scared. Walls break down with a lot of sound and fury sometimes, but when they break they leave, in the full light of day, a landscape that hasn't been revealed before.

If anyone were to say, after that scene, "wow, Lexi really hurt you" to me, I'd have to correct them. No. Lexi didn't hurt me. Lexi revealed herself to me, and what she revealed was her hurt and fear. I revealed myself to her, and I revealed my hurt and fear. And with that mutual revelation, we held each other close and cried.

She still did what she had to do. And after the initial flood, the feeling, the love, soaked through me and I came to accept that she is doing what she has to do. After that acceptance, the appreciation of the larger picture, the sense of perspective, came through. She knows what she's doing. I see what she's doing. I know her. I accept that the choices are hers. I even see the value in it, though I do imagine it to be an incredibly painful way of getting where she's going. I appreciate it. And if she should decide at some point that she's tired and has had enough of that direction, she knows she can rest here.

I can honestly say that I love her. She also loves me.

The trouble with the whole concept of Knowing, is that it takes tremendous courage. Things break loudly, and it is so easy to feel besieged and shell shocked, and so hard to see beyond that noise into the realm of what is really being said. It's especially hard to do that in the instant that it's happening. The instinctive response it to duck and cover.

The only way I've figured out how to learn to do that has been by learning about my own dark, twisted, scary bits first. There is nothing in my soul that is too dark for me to poke at it. Believe me, I poke at me a lot, and when I do I can come up with some ugly shit. Doing that though, makes it possible to look at the ugly shit of someone else without cringing in disbelief. I know what soul dark stuff looks like, and it's ok. I've lived through it when it was mine, and I can live through yours. Because, seriously, if I didn't kill myself over my dark shit, I don't imagine yours is going to get me to kill myself. (If on the other hand you attack me physically... well, I'll fight back, then we can talk (or yell) if you want.)

But the courage to stand up to face all that from someone else? To in effect say, "Yes! Louder please! Let me see you!" It's born out of trust. Again though, it's a two-way trust. I have to trust me... that I won't die, and that I won't be mortally wounded. And I have to trust the other person, that they don't have the power to actually do me in... and that they know what they mean! That person... doing the yelling? She is trying to tell me something! I have to trust that the feeling behind what she is saying is real, that the meaning of that feeling makes sense to her. Maybe she doesn't identify it in words. Maybe she doesn't know how to articulate it accurately. Whatever. The feeling has value and is legitimate. If I don't "get it" then it's my job to stay and ask for more until I do "get it."

That is... if I want to feel the connection of love. If I don't care that much to feel the connection with that person, then hey, I'm always free to move on. But if I stay, and I listen, then love is born out of empathy and compassion. Not sympathy. Sympathy is distancing. Empathy is being right there with someone. Compassion is an embrace of empathy. It's being there because I want to, with all my heart. When I reach compassion, magic happens. It's a rare thing.

Ok... I've said a lot of stuff about the ideal. The way I see it when it works. What about when it doesn't?

Sheryl mentioned to me that sometimes, expressing love leads to the feeling of it. Meaning that if we act in love, then the feeling follows... the compassion and knowing and appreciating (by my definition) should follow in the action's footsteps.

I never did really address that, since we got sidetracked (really? who'da thunk it!). All I can say though, is that for me, everything... and I do mean everything... moves from the inside out. All of my philosophies, all of my scientific theories/cellular ideas/experiences/everything moves inside out. All of it.

I know for a lot of people... well, pretty much for everyone else that I know... things can move outside in. That's how the theory of expressing something and having it come true strikes me. It works for a whole lot of people. It really actually seems to work for them, and I'm so amazed that it does, for so many. It just doesn't work for me. It can't work for me, since I'm wired to go inside out.

It's taken me a long time to get to the point that I accept that I'm wired to be inside out. I'm not going to get convinced otherwise at this late stage. LOL I spent the first half of my life trying to find me by going outward. I kept moving away from me in doing that though. I tried to make myself fit the perception of what was the right way to be. I tried to enact the behavior... the ideal... and waited for the true feeling to follow. It didn't work. What I ended up with was a feeling of looking at myself as if I was a pencil in a glass of water. There was a jarring disconnect between the surface-and-above reality of me and the depth of me. (I had a Lake Erie metaphor all ready to insert at this stage of the discussion, but I'm starting to feel a little winded, so I think I'm going to just wrap this up for now. Maybe I'll come back to Lake Erie at some point. (And why Lake Erie? I don't know. I just like that one. LOL))

So anyway, my point was that I turned myself like one turns a sock. Reached down into the darkest depths of me and pulled me out by the toe. Suddenly, my world started making much more sense to me. And it took nearly 20 years to do it. LOL So, yeah, I just need to accept that about myself. It's been a long journey to here, and I'm not really interested in going back to trying to accomplish something from the outside, in. It just doesn't work for me.

Next thing though, is that I don't love everyone in my environment in the way that I've described here. That is absolutely true. And another long post. A teaser: the key word for the next batch of food for thought is vulnerability. More later.

Flashback for Moira

2007-04-04T12:03:00.000-04:00

Moira said in the comments to this post:

Did the would be ghost towns remind you of the Disney Pixar movie "Cars" by any chance? That's exactly what sprang to mind when I read it, but that could be because the boys watch it approximately once a week so pretty much anything reminds me of "Cars".

Which makes me age myself rather rudely. LOL ;-)

See, when I think of "Cars"... I don't think of Disney or Pixar. I think of this (video link).

If I I watch it, I will either:
a) bop (younger-folks... that would be kind of like "dancing")
b) laugh or
c) sit in bemusement

because
a) it's still cool,
b) the fingering on the up-close keyboard shots is so simple (and now I know it, since Patrick plays the piano), or
c) didn't I know that guy in high school?

Vacation days... all the rest

2007-03-31T22:15:00.000-04:00

We're coming to the end of the picture parts, so the rest will be mostly words. Poor you. I'll try not to bore you too much. ;-)

So we left Kingman on Wednesday morning, the 21st of March. Mike had been driving quite a bit by this time. Hoover Dam was good though. Fascinating engineering marvel! Yup... I have a couple of pictures for you.

From the Lake Mead side (as we approached it, from the east):

From the Colorado River side (after we'd taken the tour and were about ready to leave):

We did the whole tour thing, saw the way cool huge generators, and the exhibits about how it was built, got some gift shop stuff, and finally continued on our way to Las Vegas.

I think we might possibly have stayed in one of the... er... more unusual hotels on the Vegas Strip, but I'm not positive. Vegas is a pretty strange place anyway, so it's hard to say. Our hotel fit right in with the general theme of our time there, though, given that we were going to see Spamalot. Hmm... Excalibur... Spamalot... you decide. LOL

Checked into the hotel, then headed down the strip to make sure we could find the show. Yup. Found it. (Took ages to drive down the strip though. Wow.) Back to the hotel to settle in, kill a bit of time (gamble away $30), eat a late lunch/early supper, and get ready to go. Saw the show... loved it. We had a blast. Fun show... well worth your time and money if you like Monty Python!

Back to the hotel, after an unfortunately aborted attempt to get to the self-parking section of our hotel's lot, we had to head back down the strip to recover, and finally gave it up and went with the valet parking. It's almost like they design it that way... completely confuse the guests with the lanes/parking configurations so they'll be forced to use the valets in desperation. LOL

Slept, got up, had breakfast, checked out, got the car back from the valet, and started the drive back to Phoenix.

The drive was rainy and windy and just generally long. Around about the time we reached Wickenburg, I asked everyone how important it was to them to go to Tuscon as planned. Not so much, it turned out. So, we decided to stop in Phoenix instead. By this time (Thursday) we were all pretty worn out. It had been a really busy several days, with a lot of driving and a lot of sights seen, and frankly, we were just ready to take it easy for a day or so before heading home.

Our friend Eileen had left a voice mail to see when we were planning to be in town, and I called back to let her know that actually we were in Phoenix already, and eliminating the planned trip to Tuscon. We looked for a hotel room, but she suggested we come on over (a night early, mind you) and we ultimately decided that was a good idea. So Thursday night and Friday night we stayed with Eileen and Charlie, and chilled out. Friday, we saw a bit of the Thunderbirds practicing from an Air Force base near their house, did a little shopping, had a barbecue outside and watched the sunset. Saturday, we organized our junk for the trip back home. Left Saturday afternoon... and finally arrived home around 1:30 in the morning on Sunday.

And here, let me just say again... Eileen and Charlie... thank you! You guys are totally amazing and I really, really appreciate your having us there a day early. We had a great time, and can't wait to see you all again. I think next time we may think twice about trying to fit so much into the trip, though. LOL

Everyone else: That is all. It is done. LOL ;-D

Vacation day 4

2007-03-31T21:38:00.000-04:00

Sedona. My place. As I mentioned, this (Tuesday) was my Mood Day, unfortunately. I didn't start the trip to, and in, Sedona in the best frame of mind. Frankly, I made everyone a bit miserable.

I did finally get it together, here:

Snoopy Rock. There is a sort of "pit" at the best viewing sight for this particular formation, and I took a little breather, went off by myself to the pit, and had a bit of a time-out on one of the lower ledges.

I could feel the vibrations of the rocks through my jeans, but not as well as I wanted to (my energy was just too off-kilter) so I went ahead and stretched out on my back so the chakra in my neck could touch the rock. That was good. The vibrations came through loud and clear then, and I started feeling much more centered. After I settled myself down, I rejoined the family, and showed them my pit. Here, Patrick and I are looking it over, from the edge above where I took my quiet time, while Mike takes the picture from inside:

By the time we left that site, I was so calm that I was unnerving Mike. He asked if I'd taken some anti-histamines or something. No... no drugs... just rocks and sunlight.

Then we moved on. Went to several different formations in Sedona (and yeah, I've got pictures, but you've already seen some of them from our last trip), and went up to the Chapel of the Holy Cross where I sat to think for a while, lit a candle for Lexi, cried a bit, and felt another extreme sense of calm wash over me. Then, finally, I was completely centered and ready to move on. We'd had a very late lunch, and found a Starbucks. Time to start the drive to Las Vegas, through lots and lots of desert, finally stopping in Kingman for the night.

Vacation day 3

2007-03-31T20:36:00.000-04:00

By the way, in case you were wondering, no Lexi didn't end up going with us to Arizona. She'd gone back to Vincennes by then. I missed her so much while we were gone, and we miss her still.

But. This is the recap, so I won't get into the details of all that occurred before we left. Suffice it to say, it was hard on everyone.

Ok. After we left the Grand Canyon, we each got to have a melt-down day. Well, actually Katie's Mood Day was the day of the Grand Canyon... Sunday. Then Monday we moved on, and Patrick had his Mood Day. Tuesday was mine, and Wednesday was Mike's. The moods made the trip interesting, you could say. It was a fascinating study of our family dynamics in the petri dishes of the rental SUV and hotel rooms. Don't worry, we are all fine. No permanent damage. :-)

So, we moved on. This one was Patrick's Mood Day, and we had a minor fuss about when exactly we were going to get to do our Vegas thing. (Seeing Spamalot, primarily). Figured that out, somewhere along the line, and went on to the Meteor Crater for the time being. We took some old Route 66 sections out to the crater, as well as on the drive to Vegas (later), and found the remainders of the 50's and 60's somewhat bittersweet. Some of the towns are eventually going to end up as ghost towns from that era, I think, since the landscape around them is so empty, and there is really nothing in the towns to keep people going there. The interstate has changed so many things. It's kind of strange to drive through all that emptiness and witness the slow death of the towns.

The interesting thing about the emptiness though, is that it gives a person time to contemplate life in general. It's a really grounding sort of energy, and by the time we arrived at the Meteor Crater, Patrick had thrown off his mood with the realization that he wasn't really enjoying having it. I love the West, primarily for its emptiness, but also for its colors. The trip toward the Meteor Crater and beyond to the Petrified Forest took us through some of the Painted Desert, and it was really beautiful. The Petrified Forest wasn't exactly worth the $10 entry fee, and I felt a little let down by it, but it was pretty in a way.

I was expecting actual standing trees to be petrified, I suppose. I know... a bit silly... but that's what it sounds like! LOL But no, it was a bunch of logs, mostly parts of logs, really, laying down in the sand and all turned to stone (or quartz, I guess). And after a while, unless you're a geologist or some other similarly strange science-type, the logs kind of all start to look alike. As do the piles of eroding landscape. It kind of just looked like the rest of the desert... only more lumpy. We did buy a petrified former-tree-bit for each of us, as well as one for all of us to share, so I guess you could say we bought into the whole thing. Or you could say we're suckers. Whatever.

So... summation of Day 3 (Monday)... Good-bye Grand Canyon... Hello Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest... then back to Flagstaff for the night. We did stop off to the side of an empty road, heading into Flagstaff, to watch the sunset over the desert. Very Pretty. Then after dinner, we drove back out of town again, to look at the stars from the vantage point of the empty desert. "Up" was extremely pretty... we really do have a lot of stars surrounding us out there... but "outward" was damned dark and a little bit creepy. I had the visceral, primal feeling of wanting a cabin solidly at my back to run into in the event of any hungry wolves (or other large nocturnal hunter-type animals) lurking around, waiting for a good human snack. Shudder. Really. We were in the middle of Nowhere. Shudder again. The hotel and Flagstaff felt pretty nice after that. Aaaah... civilization.

Now.... Pictures!

First, as we entered the Meteor Crater visitor center, a nice gentleman offered to take our family picture by the Apollo space test capsule that was there. Here we are, then:

A couple of pictures of the Meteor Crater:

A Petrified Log:

And part of the Petrified Forest, as a general impression:

Next... On to Sedona!

Yes! I'm telling you about our trip now! Days 1 and 2 anyway.

2007-03-31T19:40:00.002-04:00

LOL Ok... so I know you've been waiting somewhat patiently. (Can't say "extremely patiently" but still... you've been very gracious, all things considered. ;-) )

We've been home for about a week... our flight left Phoenix on Saturday, the 24th, and although we didn't technically arrive home until very early Sunday morning, it's still close enough to a week to count. In this past week, I've got our lives back in order. Did the unpacking, laundering, dog retrieval, mail sorting, bill paying, and all the other assorted tasks that come into play when one returns from a vacation. Not a very fun week. :-) But, alas and alack... did not blog. :-( I did finally manage to get the pictures correctly sized and uploaded a couple of days ago though, then had my folks visiting here Thursday evening, Friday and today. So you see? I have excuses! LOL

You want pictures though, don't you? Time to relearn how to do pictures. Sigh. ;-)

Alrighty... Let's take it day by day. Left here on Saturday the 17th. The flight left Indy for Phoenix a little bit late, but we made up the time pretty well, so weren't too late. Didn't really matter, since no one was expecting us. We got the rental car, and started driving north on I-17 toward Flagstaff. Stopped somewhere along there for the night, paid too much for a hotel room, but who cares? We were tired. Ate dinner. Slept. Got up and went to Wal-mart after breakfast to get our bathroom stuff. (We didn't pack our shampoo and junk since the airlines have the crazy regulations... just figured it would be easier to buy everything there. And we did. And it was. :-) )

Finished the drive to the Grand Canyon and stayed in one of the lodges there Sunday night. The room was a handicapped accessible room, which was a cruel joke on some poor wheelchair bound people. Seriously... they would have had an awful time in that bathroom. I felt sorry for the theoretical handicapped people who were supposed to find that room "accessible". The shower alone was enough to drive the most able person insane.

Anyway... we spent the day on Sunday doing the Grand Canyon stuff... crying over its prettiness (me), getting souvenirs (all of us), oohing and ahhing (all) and hiking down just a bit on one of the trails (all). Taking pictures! Yes! First pictures in the post go here!

This first one is from our first stop, about when I was all teary and the kids were just sort of soaking it in. Mike's taking the picture:

Next, we have the kids and me from a different angle. I think this one is at the same stop. (Please excuse the resolution problems. I had to re-size all of these, so they may look funny. Sorry.):

Moving right along... the kids and me on a wall at another viewing site:

Aaaaand: the same general timeframe. Mike as viewed by us as we sat on the wall. (Two cameras, of course.):

Mike playing at falling in the Grand Canyon:

Patrick and I worked on several attempts at getting a decent picture of me to post on the sidebar here at my blog, and finally came up with one (which I'll try to get posted sometime soonish). Anyway... these are shots from Mike's view of the attempts to get the decent pictures:

And finally, here's a shot of Mike just enjoying himself the next day, when we went back to say goodbye to the Grand Canyon, before moving on to the Meteor Crater:

Time to close this post... it's going to take a long time to load, so I'll do the next few days in another post. More to come, of course. Soonish. ;-)

We are committed

2007-03-02T09:25:00.000-05:00

Five tickets have been purchased, and the car reserved. Doggies will be at their "pet hotel" and Bryan's going to house-and-kitty-sit. Official plan is to fly into Phoenix, rather than Las Vegas as originally thought. The fares were cheaper to do it that way.

So... we'll fly to Phoenix on the 17th, get there in the evening and start driving in the general direction of the Grand Canyon, stopping somewhere for the night. At some point before we leave a week later, the Montagues (family friends) can expect a visit. It'll just be the five of us after all, and not seven. Mike's folks decided that the thin air at that altitude would be tough for his mom to breathe with her partially removed lung on one side, and the cancer in other spots of her lungs.

Now we just have to make it through the next two weeks here. All the females in the house are currently battling colds. (The guys are popping echinacea like it's going out of style.) Plus there is the musical to get through next weekend. After that, we'll all be sooooo ready for a break.

We're on the homestretch! Woot!

Latest looks at the home front

2007-02-20T22:32:00.000-05:00

This is a purely personal post (love alliteration), for our family members and anyone else who is interested. Yes, Friday I drove down to New Albany to pick up Lexi. Took a bit longer than I had thought it would, since I wasn't exactly sure where I was going, and couldn't get a google map before I left since my internet was down when I needed to leave. (Love Run-ons too, apparently) So... with the help of some really good directions... I got down there to pick her up. Yay! Go me! :-)

We went to pick up some personal items, since she was running low on things, and Patrick took her shopping for a couple of shirts and some jeans. But the real nifty thing is her new hair! Have a look...

"Once a month is not so bad"

2007-02-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

Yeah... if you get that line you win the prize. Name the movie, and the actor. If you can recall the situation too, that would be funny.

The prize is my kudos. Woot! You rock!

Ok... I've been asked to blog to keep folks up to date with the status of me. Not much to report.

There you go.

More? Sheesh. Demanding lot, aren't you?

I made a new playlist with Patrick's help today. I like it.

I had a meeting with some drama parents regarding a potential need for large amounts of fundraising for the drama department and wasn't surprised by the result. We came up with a more sustainable sort of plan... but I'm supposed to send out a mass mail email to the entire group, and I sort of forgot what I'm supposed to be saying, so I'll have to look at my notes.

Patrick's wearing himself out with rehearsals and has to be at the school at 5:00 a.m. Saturday to leave for a Show Choir competition. Thankfully it's the last one. He's not thrilled with their show, and really isn't enjoying bringing a sub-par performance to competition.

Grey's Anatomy tonight! Yay!

(Yes, this is stream of consciousness... why do you ask? Snow Patrol on my playlist... playing right now... that's why... "Please just save me from this darkness.")

Speaking of which... had another case of elephantitis neck and tongue today... where the spiritual energy pours in the back of my head and makes everything feel huge... (Ok, so it's not dark energy, but bright, but seriously, the coming up Grey's show feels like this will be fitting somehow.)

Aaaaaand... now it's Keane. Somewhere Only We Know.

Which is making me think of the Gilmore Girls... (don't know why, exactly, since that's another Grey's song) and sheesh, I hope we are finally done with Christopher.

Enough yet? Do you see why I haven't blogged? My life is not really very exciting sometimes. I have to pay bills, do laundry, enjoy the time off when there are snow days and no one thinks badly of me for not going out. :-) Patrick's felt pretty good about his couple of snow days too, and has had a chance to rest and get caught up a bit. Katie has to make up missed Sylvan lessons though, starting tomorrow.

Speaking of Katie, she has really bad eczema on her hands. Very frustrating. Can't seem to get it under control. It's making her nuts. Moira... you need to send me some of that cream that you use on George... I can't get it over here, apparently. I looked on-line... no luck. Help.

Right.

That counts as a post. A rambly, really unedited, un-thought-out post. But it is a post.

Enjoy. LOL ;-D

---
February 16th, edited to add: Turns out the Show Choir is not going to the competition Saturday. A combination of factors... the big one being that their show is not really put together the way they'd like it to be, due to last minute changes and missed rehearsals on snow days. Also, the travel could be hazardous at 5 a.m. on Saturday, as we're supposed to be getting more wintery weather that morning. Patrick's really glad to be off that particular hook.

Chasing Muses

2007-01-13T17:27:00.000-05:00

A muse is a skittish thing, a specter... a ghost. Chasing one is like trying to capture a ghost. You can barely see her out of the corner of your eye, but you know she's there, and you know she's not going to go willingly where you want to lead. So, you have to sneak up on her, or let her get close to you while you stand very still. Then you put your fingers on her shoulder with a very light touch to let her lead you to where she wants to go, hoping that she'll take you to her own cave and show you a new way of looking at things you thought you knew.

It's a miserable thing to have your fingers on the shoulder of a muse, only to have her distracted by someone solidly anchored in reality coming into the room. Yes, he's going to be as quiet as possible, that very real person... he promises not to bother you, but just the strong energy of reality in the vicinity is enough to make some muses scatter to the four winds.

I'm just saying, by way of apology really, Reality-Prone Folks... I'm sorry I drove you out. Please don't be offended when I hiss "no, no... please go away" when you walk into the room. It's just that I don't have time to explain to the muse before she skitters away, and sometimes the gifts she gives are just too valuable to lose.

Aw Heck.

2007-01-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

Not as bad as Hell, but still grr-inducing.

First the good news. I did reach my 7 hour goal for the writing challenge during the first week of January. Now we're in week two. I did one hour yesterday. I've been in a mood the last few days. Kind of just mildly annoyed at everything... my characters included. So, I wrote a fight scene.

My biggest freak out from yesterday though, came when I read Jenny Crusie's Anyone But You last night, and realized that she had started from basically the same "What if?" as my current project. (I'm trying to catch up on Crusie novels, so that the Cherries won't have to shovel me to death over at CB Bar & Grill.) Anyway, my WIP starts off... 45 year old woman leaving an empty marriage, getting an apartment, with her dog (who is not a shelter dog, and has been with her for a long time), and good-looking veterinarian divorce-dude lives upstairs.

Ok... my guy isn't 30 like Crusie's (he's a few years older than my gal, so none of the age difference thing going on); and my Julia's just in the beginning of the divorcing process, where Crusie's lady has been divorced for a year; and Julia's dog is a golden retriever (actually he's my real dog, because I like retrievers a bunch); and Julia's dog doesn't use the fire escape (he has normal walks, like a normal dog. LOL). But still... the similarities gave me a moment of "oh, crap... I don't want to look like I'm copying something that's already been done."

So, that was enough to get me to start questioning whether I really wanted to continue with this one. (See how easy it is for me to bail? LOL) I decided I'd go ahead and continue writing it. I can change details later, if necessary, but the characters are still speaking to me, so I'll let them. It may take a ton of work to alter details enough to make me feel better about it... but then I suppose I'd better never read anything again, because I'm bound to come across something else that sounds like it started from the new "What if?" details. sigh.

Or I can resign myself to not bothering to try to get it published. But I'm not going to worry about that right now. I'm just going to write it and sort out the other stuff later.

Anyway. Short version of my status for week two: 1 hour, on day 2, and a big freak-out.

Aw Hell

2007-01-06T11:19:00.000-05:00

I knew this was coming. I mean, it really couldn't not happen, given the fact that I'm working on the first draft of the first story ~~that I've ever decided to follow through and focus completely on~~. (Now I'm looking at that last sentence and mumbling "upon which I've decided to follow through and focus completely." I don't care. This is a blog. ("So, you don't have to fix things on a blog?") Screw it. Ok. Fine. Strike it out. See? Happy now? Insert the other stuff in your head, Self. But for Pete's sake, quit arguing with me. I have a post to finish.)

Deep. Breath.

Focus.

Ok.

I'm back. As I was saying. The writing thing is driving me a little around the bend. Yes, yes, I know... "short trip." Ha ha. You're funny. Can I explain now?

Thanks.

I spent a large part of the evening yesterday, looking at Jenny Crusie's essays on writing, and also looking at information from the Crusie Mayer writing workshop (only two lessons thus far, but definitely enough to make a person think). Taking that information to bed was stupid. I spent so much time fretting over knowing what I've done wrong so far, and worried about fixing it, that it was a bit hard to just go ahead and go to sleep.

Part of my problem is that for some reason (which honestly makes no sense to me) I seem to think that if I don't fix the problem immediately, then I'll forget to fix it. I mean... it's not going anywhere, right? And now that information is like a thorn in my brain, just irritating the heck out me. It stands to reason then, that whenever I see that first page info-dump and trite beginning I'm going to cringe and try to get away from it. I have a tentative plan too, for how it should go. So. Why in tarnation should it just keep swimming around in my head keeping me from falling into blissful sleep??? I ask you. Does that make a bit of sense?

I have either got a bad case of OCD (which is somewhat laughable given the state of my house), or I am going off the deep end. More likely the latter, since the writing group doing the challenge together is called "Write Off the Deep End." It just didn't take me long to get there.

Funny thing though. Now that I've ranted here, I feel much better. LOL Though I do gulp at the prospect of a year of this.

Today's goal: I fix the beginning. It's pretty crappy right now.

Just an FYI

2007-01-03T19:46:00.000-05:00

Patrick's posted new pictures on his photography site. He got a new digital camera for Christmas and has been playing around with it. I think it's fairly safe to say he likes it. :-D

Here's the link.

WODE Challenge for January

2007-01-01T16:47:00.000-05:00

Sheryl's group Write Off the Deep End is hosting a challenge, and guess who has signed on. LOL When I said in my last post, "it's a perfect thing to commit myself to in week one of January's writing challenge" I was talking about my writing challenge goal. I've decided to aim for 7 hours a week, on the same story, for the whole month.

I figured that hours a week would be more do-able for me than a daily goal, since so many days in my non-vacationing life seem to fill up with obligatory stuff. When I do get a chunk of time to write though, it's usually a pretty nice chunk, so I feel pretty sure I can carve out 7 hours somewhere each week.

The hard part will be the commitment to writing on the same story. Oftentimes, when I start anew working with one, they all start clambering for attention, (I guess since they've been neglected for so long) then I end up feeling swamped because I don't have several sets of multi-processing fingers matched up with the various voices all needing to be heard. This challenge will be a test of my ability to tell all the other voices to "have patience." They all want to go first.

I sound a little unstable when I put it that way, don't I? LOL I do know the difference between imagination and reality though, y'all... trust me... no need for meds. Yet. ;-)

The Felicia and Ayla story, "Leaping"

2007-01-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

Okey doke. It's just about time to stop writing about writing and start writing. Again. I've pretty much settled on doing this Leaping story first. It's contemporary (very little research); it's perfect for the new Harlequin NEXT line, (so it would be a good idea to finish it while the line is reasonably "fresh"); and it's short-ish (won't likely go all crazy by flying in a lot of different directions).

The folder containing "Leaping" currently has roughly 4,500 words, since it's really the newest story in the line-up. It's got much less already decided about it, and I've got some room to play with details. There are parts of it written out in long-hand at the moment, but I'm not sure how much is there. I never did enter that into the computer. I knew that as I eventually did it, I'd start editing too, and frankly I liked the way the long-hand stuff came out. LOL

But. As we all know, nothing that is written should ever go without editing, so really, it's a perfect thing to commit myself to in week one of January's writing challenge.

I started this story as a "what if" several years ago. Then it quickly got away from that "what if... about me... on a green path alternate reality" sort of beginning and turned into a story about some woman that I'm not sure I know very well at all. I suppose I'm not really good at guessing "what if" about my own time-line. I do better surfing my now moments to get where I'm eventually going to end up. It's like maybe she's on the purple line. In other words, my main used-to-kind-of-be-me character was nearly instantly possessed by some woman who decided to take the opening as a way to tell her story instead. I even had to change her freaking name, since she didn't like the first one.

I started watching what she was doing and going "dude, I don't think that's what I had in mind."
Then she'd turn to me and say "well, whose story do you think this is, anyway?"
To which I'd sigh and say, "yours, now, I guess. Fine. Do it your way. But don't say I didn't warn you."

That woman has some trouble taking direction. And who is that guy she was married to anyway? Some bizarre stranger, and with a name like Evan, I feel pretty glad she's moving on from him. I have no idea where he came from. My alternate selves do make some interesting choices though, distant as they might be from current me, so it should be a fun ride.

Another Felicia Story, "Cameron"

2006-12-31T13:48:00.000-05:00

Story folder number 4 contains the 9,200 words that form the kernel of the "Cameron" story, named for the last name of the main character, Lindsey. Lindsey happens to be an accidental time-traveler, who has jumped from the present into... you guessed it... the mid-to-late 1800's. (I really love that time period.) Arizona. (I really love that state. LOL)

Lindsey is a thoroughly modern woman, missing her iPod and internet, thrown into a baffling set of circumstances and forced to rely on the kindness of strangers for everything. She also doesn't take too kindly to thugs with guns who want something that she isn't quite sure exists. (Turns out to be the very thing that created the opportunity for the time-travel. So, obviously, she's got to figure out what the thing is and how it works. Currently it's a locket. May or may not stay that way though.)

Anyway. Kinks to work out include: Making the portal thingie believable; needing a very good reason for her to be unable to get back; figuring out how to handle the woman who has accidentally moved to the future in Lindsey's place. (Is she dead... alive... do I tell her story... is that another book?) I also have to move the initial locations, since I discovered during my trip to Arizona in March that my original locations won't work geographically.

I guess the classification here would be "time-travel romance." It's another relatively short one (80,000 to 90,000 words), from the feel of it. (Not like Diana Gabaldon's huge muscle-builders.) I like the story quite a lot, and it is fun to write. Felicia's energy feels very smooth and comfortable while I'm working on this one. I'm not exactly sure what my personal relationship is to the story (not like in the Caleb and Felicity one), but find Lindsey's mindspace easy to tap into. The story feels self-limiting, not at all like it will go off in a thousand different directions. I like my hero, and I like the situations that turn up between him and Lindsey... such as the discussion about Lindsey's jeans.

It's just generally a fun little story which would give me a chance to see what I can really do.

New Note to Self

2006-12-30T12:47:00.000-05:00

Notes to Self are fun.

Do more of them. :-)

Note to Self

2006-12-30T12:37:00.000-05:00

Maybe the reason I never blogged about that dream was because the dream took place in March! of 2004! And, listen up Me... I didn't start blogging until November! D'oh!

March is waaaaaay before November... just for future reference, Self. Calendars are pretty too. Become familiar with one, soon, ok?

Reviewing old posts and a freaky dream

2006-12-30T12:02:00.000-05:00

Looking back at things I've blogged about, I noticed a rather glaring omission. Since I've posted dreams, and talked about what Elias calls the "Shift in Consciousness," I don't know why I never posted this dream. There is much more to talk about wrapped up in it, of course, but it lends itself more to the "philosophical blog" idea. Even though we're off into the writing blog direction, I wanted this one out there, because the old version of the blog just doesn't feel complete without it. So here you go... just to freak you out a little. LOL

March 9, 2004

It was an old-timey setting. People dressed as if they were in the Little House on the Prairie series on television. I was the mother on a reasonably large homestead. I was in the house, in the late evening, clearing up from the last meal, when my husband was called out to do something on the grounds.

Soon after he left, I was approached to tend to one of the horses. She had recently given birth, and was now rejecting her child, which had apparently been missing for a short time and was recently found. The hands were trying to reintroduce the pair.

Since my husband was not available, I went down with them to the barn. I greeted the horse-mother, while someone said again that "she won’t recognize him as hers."

I looked at the horse’s child and was shocked to see that it took the form of a human child with a horse-face, and was covered in horsehair. I looked at his feet, which were human in form rather than hooves. The longer I looked at him the more human he became, except for the fact that he was still covered in hair, and his face was still very elongated and horsey-looking. "I don’t blame her," I said quietly.

I patted the horse, then put my arm around the child to turn him toward the house, saying "We’ll take him."

The scene shifts to a classroom setting. Old-time desks are set into two rows of about six desks each. The room is extremely narrow. My teenaged son, who resembled Patrick very much, was teaching the horse-child on a small bench. The horse-child didn’t have his own desk as yet, but two men came into the room carrying the wood and tools to build one for him. One of the men was my husband, and the other was a brother or a brother-in-law.

"Now he’ll have a proper desk," my husband remarked. The horse-child glowed with pleasure.

Then the men began talking about the younger man’s wife, who was in labor. They were exhausted looking, and joked that "the next time we say let’s go to bed and get some rest… Let’s go to bed and get some rest!" They had been up all night, waiting for the blessed event and they looked ragged.

I was behind them at this point, and asked how long it had been. Over twenty-four hours, they said. "She will not push."

I left the schoolroom, and went out into the yard. There was a very pregnant woman there, in her shift. She was being assisted by two other women, who were attempting to get her to relax by stretching her against a large roller type device… it looked like a huge clothes wringer, and they were using the rollers to try to massage her belly so that she could push effectively. Patrick had followed me outside and was wondering what they were doing. "They’re trying to help her," I said.

Suddenly, the woman crouched down like a Sumo wrestler, and began to scream a horrible high-pitched screeching scream. It went on and on, and seemed to be ripping her in half.

Patrick remarked "it seems like some people make it a bigger deal than others," and I could see he was thinking of Phoebe Buffay from "Friends" and how, when she gave birth on tv, it seemed so easy.

"It is a big deal," I said to him. "It’s very hard work."

The screaming continued, then suddenly the baby started appearing from under her shift. My horror grew as it kept coming. The child was bigger than the mother… fully clothed, as a gingham Alice-in-Wonderland, complete with shoes and stockings. Her black hair was curled in ringlets and fell to her very pale shoulders.

Her face was as uncomprehending as a new-born babe’s. She was a full-grown woman though.

I woke up.

Here's my take on the meanings and symbols in the dream, from my dream journal: We are giving birth to something larger than ourselves… and fully grown. The horsey-child would represent our previous awareness. We are no longer simply animals, and our animal selves would not recognize us. We required teaching. The fully grown baby isn’t aware yet that she is a woman, but I felt that cognition could not be far behind. I was horrified by the unknown quantity that was that new woman. Would she have a baby’s cognition or a woman’s? Would she be human or a freak? Was she even real or was she a storybook character? And the biggest and scariest question: What happened to her mother? I don’t know. All I could hear were the screams, and all I could see was the new-born woman, flopping on the ground, helpless as a baby.

The men in the dream, including Patrick, were very grounded and solid. I felt very secure having them around. They handled the tools, and kept things in perspective. Patrick seems to have taken on the "voice of reason and objectivity." He observes and comments in the dream, but does not seem to take the odd events with too much worry or horror. He seems to just accept that these strange things will happen, and these strange creatures are natural.

Felicia's Story, "Felicity and Caleb"

2006-12-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Story intro number three. As you can see by the folder title, and the name of the main character, in this story the Felicia energy is pretty strong. It consists of about 8,600 words at the moment, and most of them are words that can stay. (Yay.) As a story, this one is running pretty cleanly, without too much information coming from seemingly nowhere, and without confusing the scribe. I can see its trajectory fairly clearly. Mostly because it's actually based on a remembered lifetime of my own.

The big events, I remember, but the details between them are fuzzy, so it gives me something to work with in the "creating fiction" realm, while also bringing quite a bit of clarity about where it could go.

One thing that I remember, but don't want to actually happen in my telling of the story, is Caleb's death. So, I took the liberty of giving that outcome to his brother. Maybe not the nicest thing to do, but really, I don't remember him actually having a brother, so I don't feel too bad about it. I'm pretty sure the brother is just a creation of mine to add needed elements to the plot. Or if not, then I suppose if Caleb had to die in the real life version of the story, the brother wouldn't mind taking on that job for the fictionalized version so that Caleb and Felicity can finally have their happy ending. That's my rationalization for killing off the poor guy anyway.

If this story ever makes it to print though, now y'all know that it was actually Caleb that died that way. I just refused to let that version of reality stand. And history is written by the survivors, right?

I don't mess with crossing timelines or altered spaces in this one, fortunately, so that eases the composition. I also don't have a lot of extra plotting. Enough to create about 75,000 words or so, but not much over that. Just the right size for a Harlequin type line, it would seem. It's historical, of course, taking place in the late 1800's in the American West. Starts in Arizona, and moves into Oklahoma, where the stuff that I remember happened during the land runs.

It's fun, it's dramatic, and it doesn't confuse the hell out of me. It has a clear plot direction, and a natural ending point. It's not going to spin out of control. I love the characters and the research is interesting to me. Nobody that I know now is likely to recognize elements of themselves inside the covers of the book (except maybe my son, who knows that he was also my son in that lifetime). Seems like the ideal one to work on first, doesn't it?

But wait... Felicia has two more that are also good candidates! LOL

Next time...

Musing About Muses

2006-12-28T21:21:00.000-05:00

Sheryl got me thinking with her comment on the Maps and Muses post. She said:

I had never heard of a character as a muse until Gabby. It's an interesting concept.

I've been playing with the concept, or how to describe it, all day today. LOL One more thing to keep me in the "zone" I suppose... getting reacquainted with my friendly neighborhood muses. I'll try to take a stab at the way the concept works for me. I hope I get it across adequately. Maybe Bryan can jump in and add a couple of cents about his experience with Gabby.

For me, the muse is like a very large essence or "megasoul" if you prefer, trying to bring that energy into this tiny segment of reality occupied by me and my fingers. Ayla's essence is the most powerful one I know. A character is just a small fragment of one aspect of her, but I'll never be able to cover every aspect of her, no matter how many characters I write channeling her energy. I can open up to Ayla's energy to write the characters, choosing to repeat myself in my exploration of her, or choosing not to repeat myself. She has so many layers or facets to explore that I could write hundreds of books using her energy (theoretically) and not make any two characters alike. Ayla can't be contained in one character and I just don't know her well enough to ever feel sure that I have had the true essence of Ayla expressed.

Really, neither Kajah or Felicia can be contained in one character either, but I'm much more familiar with the feel of them. Felicia is essentially my own "oversoul" if you think like that. She is all of the me's throughout time and space, combining energy into the larger, guiding, knowing self. None of myselves are the same as this me, and none of the characters she inspires is just like the others. She knows them all though, and allows me glimpses into those mindscapes. As the self-outside-time, she knows where we're going with this, much more than I do here in my tiny little head. If I follow along, and listen, we get good results. If I don't open my mindspace to her and instead stay too much in my head, without reaching for her energy, it comes out incredibly forced. So, the key is to listen to her, of course.

Ayla would be like thousands of Felicias combined with a stronger, more forceful energy, and mixed with lots of other oversoul-types too. Felicia might be a volcano, where Ayla would be a sun. Fall into the volcano, I get charred and then boil away, but still it's a recognizable earthly energy. I still know me as the one falling into the volcano. Fall into a sun, and it's just obliteration, no time to think about what sort of energy that is. I can only handle a bit of Ayla before I find myself trembling and sweating, and trying to find myself again. I'm half afraid I'll lose me if I let her play too long in my essence space.

Kajah... he's very real to me. He is an essence that is often around Felicia, a soul mate, if you will. I don't believe he's actually incarnated in body form in this timeframe right now, but he does often lend energy as a sort of spirit friend. I know him very well. I feel his presence often, and he'll continue to exist in my life long after I borrow some of his traits, or some of his essence, for my story. I basically started his story because the real and dream encounters with him were just too amazing to keep to myself and no one would really believe they were real anyway. So, why not create a story out of them? Just give a little flavor of what he's brought into my life, but do it in a fictional form? It seemed like a fun idea and he didn't seem to mind. The trouble is that being outside of time, he has a tendency to ignore timelines in stories. It's up to the here and now bodied-participant to sort out the timeline. I just have to trust he'll give me the information in his own order, and in his own way.

The point in all of this (other than to freak you out with my ya-ya stuff) is that the reality of the muses can't be contained in any of my characters. Characters can contain some part of a muse, but the muse is so much larger and so much more permanent than the character, to me, anyway. I see the characters oftentimes as deeply-aware outfits that the muse agrees to wear for a while, to entertain me. I borrow a bit of the energy of the muse, mixing it up in various ways, like colors in a kaleidoscope, to create the character. The character is like a light-suit, so to speak, as in this dream.

Anyway, that's kind of how it happens for me. Any of it sound familiar, or am I just nuts?

Yeah. Don't answer that.

Kajah's (is or owns?) Dream Walking

2006-12-28T14:16:00.000-05:00

I guess Kajah both Is and Owns Dream Walking. This is the biggest block of stuff I have. The coolest, and most fun, and most heart-fluttering (to me LOL). There are currently over 20,000 words lurking in the Dream Walking folder, so as you can see, I love this story.

Unfortunately, it's got to have probably half of it cut. Gulp. Really daunting. I just started in the wrong place, and if I make those cuts, so much really fun stuff is going away. Honestly, though, that material happens just way too early for the beginning of the story so it really must go. But... but... I don't waaaaaaaannnnnaaa! I looooooove it! (Sob. Hiccup. Boo hoo.) Poor, poor me.

The other difficulty with this story is that it's a pretty complex idea. There are villains, though I'm not quite sure yet who they are... they just keep turning up and doing rotten things, but haven't revealed the totality of their nefarious plans to me as yet. I have an idea what they're up to, but I'm not sure of all the details. There are supporting characters with their own agendas. There are my main characters trying to sort it all out and learn the stuff they need to learn. There are changes in location and scene into some pretty interesting spots, but my characters haven't told me yet how they got there either. And to top it all off, the story itself exists in kind of an "alternate plane." The rules of that place hold together well, and it appears a lot like this one, but some things just aren't as they seem to be on the average everyday level.

The biggest stumbling block for me on this story, with my level of inexperience though, is that Kian (Kajah to you and me) and Sarah (who I believe is a version of Felicia) pop up and just start talking. They don't turn to me and go "oh, by the way, dear, we are now two-thirds through our story and are at this specific location." So, I'm left going "well, WTF? How did we get here???" and trying to get through the transitions on my own, for the time being. I basically sit down for the ride, taking my dictation like a good little scribe, and try to figure out where it fits later, which leads to the story looking like a pretty chaotic mass of Events! without any Transitions!

Helloooo, muses. Events without transitions do not usually make a normal sort of book. We could be going the impressionist route here, I suppose, but I'm betting that'll be hard for a beginner to sell.

Long story shorter... this one needs a lot of work, and some amount of discipline, as well as a clue. The muses may think it's fun to keep the writer in the dark, but if they want their story told properly, a little more help would be appreciated.

I'm just sayin...

Ayla's main story, also known as "Aunt"

2006-12-28T12:29:00.000-05:00

This will be the briefest introduction post, since this story currently consists of 4 scenes written and a lot of scenes in my head. The trouble is, the whole of the story started back in 1996, when I got a "flash forward" to a potential reality, so it involves variations on real people that I know. The specifics aren't exactly what's occurred in the here and now, of course, but this story is based on an alternate reality that felt very close to the one I inhabit daily.

For an explanation of what I'm talking about, reviewing this post might be beneficial. It's as if 1996 was when the green and purple lines were together, and I started writing what I saw as a potential purple version of where we might end up. Choices have altered slightly though, so now we're on a green path more separated from the purple one. Seriously... go look at the post. LOL

Anyway. To continue writing this story, I'd want to take off from the point that I started from back in 1996, and paint the purple path in its entirety. It would end up being basically about real people living variations on real events, but the events themselves would be less real, in the commonly accepted definition of "real." To continue this story then, I'd need to talk to my niece; to let her read what I have; and to see how she feels about me describing the purple path to the end.

Or... correction... I could write the story, of course, and not let it ever see the light of day. But to share it, or even contemplate publishing the story would be a different scenario altogether... the one I painted in the previous paragraph.

So, if I write this one... as things currently stand, it will only be for practice. There will be nothing to blog about. With Ayla running the show here, it's a tremendously powerful story. Very emotional and important to me. But it's really close to a pretty powerful here and now reality that might not need further exploration at the moment. That closeness to current reality has been what's kept me from pursuing this story. Part of me is afraid that if I write it, the questions of chickens and eggs will get awfully confused and we'll all end up scrambled. So I'd like to be a bit more confident in my abilities before I take it on for "real."

Housekeeping

2006-12-27T16:54:00.000-05:00

Ugh. It's not fun on Blogger either.

I'm on the new version of Blogger now, and I think I've got most of the elements transferred over. My sidebar links should work, but if you happen to find something bizarre happening, please let me know.

Not sure how I like my new colors and such though. They are just not quite right. I'll leave things as they are for the time being to see if I get used to it... could be that I'm just resistant to change. I'll tweak later if I still don't like it. I'm just fed up today. Enough already.

The Map and The Muses

2006-12-27T10:29:00.000-05:00

Let’s bring order out of chaos first. Currently, my writing/novels folder has about 6 sub-folders, 5 of which have uniquely identifiable stories and characters. The 6th is composed of "who the hell are you and what are you doing in my head?" dictation sessions. Random minor characters speaking without identifying which story or people they belong to. Don’t they know that with that much competition, they really need to give me a bit more to work with?

I've got three distinct muses, each with their own projects and temperaments. I don't have titles for the works in progress, but I do have titles for the folders, so the folder names will be my shorthand for which thing I'm talking about. I'll also identify the muse in charge of the project for the post labels, so maybe... maybe!... we can have some sense of order here. I guess we'll see. My desk isn't a really good advertisement for that theory though.

Ok. Introducing... The Muses.

First we have Ayla. I've gotta tell you, she is the hardest one for me to work with. (And, given the smirk and arched eyebrow she's sending me right now, I'd say she is inordinately proud of that fact.) She came to me in a dream around 1998 and I recognize the feel of her energy every time I begin writing as a "wild woman." It's pretty powerful stuff, though I admit it does scare me a little.

My personal introduction to Ayla, from my dream journal:

I was in my 40’s or 50’s I think, and dressed in a flowing skirt and gypsy type top. I was gardening in my backyard… tending to tomatoes. I was just reaching out to pluck one, when a thin, claw-like woman’s hand entered from the right, and took the tomato. I watched as she squeezed it, and her thumbnail dug into it. It "popped"… the juice ran all over her hand and down her arm. My gaze followed her hand and arm as she brought the tomato in front of her face. She was so similar to me, that I thought she must be a "version of me" representing freedom and wildness that I have repressed in myself. Her eyes were bright and mischievous, her hair longish and blond. Her hair was wild… flowing in every direction, and very untamed looking. She was dressed in a bright "gypsy skirt" and a top similar to my own.
She smiled at me, as if she knew so much more about me than I even knew about myself. I wish I could do justice to the wisdom, mischief, and playfulness in that look. Behind her own sense of herself was a certainty that she knew everything I have refused to let myself be. She seemed to know that I was rejecting my own wildness, out of fear, and though she didn’t like it, (and I could see that in her look too), she was willing to let me reject myself if I wanted to. Then I woke up… she was gone. I felt horrified, in a way… but also as if I had hurt my own feelings by not loving and accepting what I saw in myself.

Ayla's book is the one that lives on the hard drive under the name "Aunt". I'll explain that shortly.

Next muse, I met in 1995 or so. I used to just call him "the Light Guy." I asked him his name in a dream, and finally got it correctly translated. Very hard to do, mind you, since the light guy's word made total sense in my "dream ear" but got garbled in the "waking brain." So, without further ado, meet Kajah. He's gorgeous, you know. I'll describe him later, but for now, suffice it to say, someday you'll love him. I love working with him, but damn his book is going to be long and complicated. I don't think I'm doing it justice at all at this point. His story currently lives in a folder called "Dream Walking." Because he also appears in it as the hero, many of the meetings with him will be included in the story... so no dream journal reprints here. (Yes, I know you're sobbing. Right.)

Moving right along to my muse of simplicity, Felicia. She's the closest and easiest one for me to feel, and has actually been with me all along. In one story, she combines energy with Ayla, either lending a "Felicia story" a slightly "wild woman" feel, or lending a "wild woman" story a bit of a "Felicia feel." I'm not sure which yet, but I'm guessing that it actually starts off with Felicia and gradually moves into Ayla. That one lives in the folder called "Leaping."

Felicia also has the "Cameron" folder and the "Felicity and Caleb" folder (on her own... no obvious occurrences of Ayla in either... er... yet). Felicia's stories tend not to get quite so demonstrably chaotic in the writing process, and also tend to be shorter in feel than Kajah's or Ayla's. And since I'm just really beginning to get into the idea of trying to do this regularly, I think I'll start with hers. But first I'll introduce you to the other stories, just for the hell of it.

In the next posts.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

2006-12-26T12:46:00.000-05:00

Her Gracious Majesty has decreed, after considerate consultation with her subjects (aka: muses) that this blog shall now and for the foreseeable future, be used as a "writing blog." Unless she changes her mind.

(And she notes... the stuffed ballot box has nearly nothing to do with this decision. She haughtily glares in the general direction of the box stuffer. However, the fact that the other options received an excessively small number of votes may have relevance to the decision.)

More to come.

Nice

2006-12-19T12:33:00.000-05:00

I must say... I'm pretty nifty.

I'm a Lotus Elise

"You believe in maximum performance and minimum baggage. You like to travel light and fast, hit the corners hard, and dance like there's no tomorrow."

Take the "Which Sports Car Are You?" quiz.

HT: The Anchoress

If you need a good laugh

2006-12-18T14:16:00.000-05:00

This site had all four of us here laughing 'til our sides hurt. Last night, long after the initial viewing, I was still chuckling as I tried to fall asleep. Our household favorites, in no particular order:

Ok, here's the deal

2006-12-10T20:39:00.000-05:00

My brother has ordered me to blog. So, here I am... sitting, hoping for some sort of reason to do so. The thing is, I'm not that enthusiastic about political and current events blogging right now. Just burned out on it, and am much happier concentrating on my own little world. Which would indicate a shift toward personal blogging, right?

Well, not so much. My personal stuff doesn't seem particularly bloggable at the moment. Could make this a brag site, or an angst site, or a telling-what-I've-got-to-do site, but none of those options seems like something I feel like doing. Who cares what my to-do list holds for any given day? And seriously, all you really need to know about my kids is how totally rockin' they are. Amazing kids. I love them to the ends of the earth, and I know the entire world must be jealous that I got so lucky... but do you really want to know the details of their daily activities? Seriously?

So. Angst? There's stuff going on in the extended family, but I'm not all that angsty at the moment. Sorry. I feel pretty good about being me.

Philosophy... well, that's an interesting direction. Dreams would tie in too. Could be really blog-productive. Problem is that my personal philosophies don't really gel well with many other folks' personal philosophies... plus if I start at the beginning and keep going, it will make for a heck of a lot of writing which will inevitably end up digging a waaaay deep hole, the dirt from which will, in turn, take an enormous amount of time to sift... and it probably won't make sense to anyone else anyway. LOL But, ok... that's a possible direction for this blog to go. If I do that, y'all will just have to bear with me, and realize that it's not really a matter of me caring all that much if you agree. Feel free to go on your way thinking "wow, she's nuts." Whatever. Or look at the page, think "oh, crap... more of that..." and click away. Doesn't really matter to me, but dudes, I'll be writing, right? That's all I've been asked to do. No one said it had to be interesting.

One other option for this blog... turn it into a writing site, as in... fiction. Yes, occasionally I do write fiction. Not regularly enough to make a living at it. And certainly not regularly enough to engage in mutual critiquing with other writers. If I turn this into a writing blog, that pretty much means that the pressure will be on. It will be a case of building it, having them come, and listening to them nagging me to keep building and hurry it up. So, I gulp and pause when I think of turning this into a writer's blog. Sounds like a hell of a lot of work to me.

So... all four of you... vote now in the comments. No guarantee that I'll listen, but what the hey. Feel free to vote anyway, if you care. If not... well, I'll just do what I want. LOL

Well, I guess it will take a little longer than I thought

2006-11-08T16:50:00.000-05:00

Looks like the long hard slog just got a bit longer and harder. I still feel like eventually, things will move toward the picture I painted in my last post. Meanwhile though, check out Bill Whittle's Eject!Eject!Eject! He's writing again, and just in time.

He also pointed to this link, which left me feeling somewhat awestruck and very inspired. Just what I needed today, Mr. Whittle!

Must read article

2006-11-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in a while, obviously... and the main reason I am today is to post the link to this article. Finally, someone articulates clearly what I've been sensing in the ethers about the War on Terror.

As an aside to my son... if you ever get time to read this ;-) ... here's what I imagine happening with the parties in this country... all those Democrats who can't stomach voting for the Republicans, but also can't stand the insanity of the Democrats in charge of their party... they'll do one of two things. They won't vote, or they'll vote Libertarian as a protest vote. I feel this in the ethers too... someday, you may get your wish, hon. It may be that the Libertarians are the home of all the disaffected of either party, and the two main parties may become Republican and Libertarian. I don't imagine the Libertarians will gain much control in this election... unless they take it from the Dem side of the aisle... but I can see the day that it will happen. Keep in mind though, that in a whole lot of places, there is no Libertarian candidate at all, so it will be an uphill climb for them. I think though, that a lot of folks are looking at things from the perspective of the linked article, and are likely to go ahead and vote Republican, in spite of their concerns, especially if they have no alternatives on their ballot.

The other reason I'm blogging today is because I'm tired of seeing that "Haunted" post at the top of my page when I pull it up to get to my sidebar links. I know what happened... I got the answers to my questions. Yes, she got her violin scholarship, yes, she went to college. The only question I don't have an answer to, is the writing question. One day, out of the blue, the answer to that one will show up too, I imagine.

Haunted

2006-06-15T11:56:00.000-04:00

A big piece of my heart went to a family that we were friends with until things started heading south between the mother (my friend) and me, about 3 years ago. At that time, I'd been trying to help a young writer, the teen-aged daughter in the family, edit her writing. She was in 9th grade at the time.

It's strange now. I find my mind going to her so often, since school let out. She would have graduated this year, I know... and I keep wondering how her launch into the world is progressing. Is she happy? Is she going to college? Where? Did she get her long-anticipated violin scholarship? Does she still write?

I imagine sometimes, that this would be a tiny bit of how someone might feel eighteen years after giving up an infant for adoption. This nagging sense of knowing that one has been involved, in a momentary, but deep way... feeling a profound sense of awe and appreciation for the child... and then not knowing how the adult is turning out. I wish I could just ask... I wish we would just inadvertantly cross paths somewhere, and I could see how she is doing. I wish someone who knows would send me a note... just answering my questions.

I wish all kinds of things... but mostly I wish I existed to them again. I miss that me.

Introducing Loony McNoodle

2006-05-30T16:29:00.000-04:00

For those of you who care at all about my last post, and know my daughter Katie... Compare and Contrast. See what a really powerful Toon can accomplish!

Each Toontown account can accomodate six Toons, and they all share an estate. Five of our account's Toons have pets, as you'll see below. (Patrick hasn't bought his Toon a pet yet. Tsk.) Katie's best Toon is called Loony McNoodle, and these are just a few of his favorite things.

Welcome to Loony McNoodle's house on the estate:

Here is Loony surrounded by our estate pets (called Doodles). They are handy for tuning up after a long hard battle. Peachy belongs to Trixie McPounce, and Rhino, the green Doodle, belongs to Loony McNoodle. He is the most well-trained Doodle of the bunch and his backflip is amazing!

Here is a shot of Loony in his living room. Unfortunately he blinked while the picture was being taken. Must have been the flash.

And here he is in his bedroom.

Loony is such a powerful Toon (note the laugh meter reading 99, in the lower left corner of the pictures) that he can often accomplish his tasks by working alone. He doesn't do that very much though, because really it is a lot of fun to work as a team with his friends. But for his publicity shots, we've had him work alone to give you a feel for his amazing strength.

Here, he battles a single cog in a street in Toontown Central. Loony considered this shot to be almost an insult to his pride. "A single cog!? In Toontown Central?! Puh-leeze. I scoff at that!"

Sigh. If he must, he must.

Next, we asked Loony if he thought he could take over a two story Cog Building by himself. He laughed. "I could take over a FIVE story building by myself!" But, we insisted he just show us how he can manage a two story building. Five stories take too long.

After all of this work, we decided to give Loony a little rest and relaxation to prepare for his final photo-op task. Here he is, racing in his Roadster at Goofy Speedway.

Finally, we presented Loony with the ultimate test of his strength. We asked him to take over the entire Sellbot Cog factory, and defeat the foreman... alone! (Drumroll please!)

Needless to say... the task was accomplished with flair. And 35 Laugh Points to spare.

Admitting I have a problem

2006-05-27T19:46:00.000-04:00

"They" say that's the first step toward recovery, correct?

I've been informed recently that I haven't posted on my blog here for nearly 2 months. What have I been doing with myself?

Well... I can tell you what I haven't been doing.

I haven't been reading blogs. I haven't been writing insightful, humorous essays. I haven't been keeping up with the news, or politics, or anything particularly important. I have kept an eye on the weather, but that's just par for the course in spring in Indiana.

I have been doing... This. Seriously.

I have a new alter-ego. Her name is Trixie McPounce, and she is a sea-green cat. She's very cute, and dresses quite stylishly, as you can see from the pictures below.

She started out as such a weak little toon, and I just couldn't let her stay that way. Poor thing only knew how to squirt and throw gags at the nasty cogs. I've worked her hard though, practicing her techniques, building her repertoire of gags, strengthening her sense of humor (building up her "laugh points")... and I have to say, I am really quite proud of her these days. She's graduated to the hardest neighborhood in Toontown, as of today... although, I am still reluctant to take her into the cog factories, which are really like visiting the belly of the beast. I do have some mercy for my little creation.

If you didn't look at my link, above, I'll bet you are completely confused by now... so here are some pictures, to give you the general flavor of my latest playground.

First, here is Trixie, at home, relaxing in her bedroom... wearing one of my favorite shirts with a very versatile white skirt. As of right now, her closet (there behind her) contains about six other tops and four other skirts, some of which she will be wearing in the next pictures.

Next, we have shots of Trixie's house, from various angles.

Her bedroom:

This next one has a glimpse of her jelly-bean bank in the corner. This is where she keeps her currency for buying gags, clothes, and other interesting items from the "cattle-log."

Here is her living room:

And here are some shots of Trixie out and about, doing important Toon Work.

Celebrating a battle well-fought, with friends. Taking a bow, and seeing evidence of her increasing strength... (That's another one of my favorite tops, with the lovely white skirt.)

And finally, seeing her name up on the chalkboard at headquarters, after a particularly busy day fighting to take buildings back from the the cogs.

And now that you know my weakness... I believe Trixie has some more work to do... I've been away from her for too long. Ta ta for now...