Dragon's Blood, Irish Whiskey, & Land Speed Record

I came home from an eight-hour factory shift to find a still very pregnant, bored daughter just waking up from a day-long nap. "Can we go somewhere? Can we do something?" she queried.

"No." I retorted.

Just plain and simple, no. Had been hoping for a dinner date with hubby, but he phoned awhile ago to let me know he's disinclined to go out in the cold, so no date, and I figured I'd better go and see about starting dinner.

I don't know how I failed to spot the Leaning Tower of F*CKING Pisa in my kitchen sink when I came in from work. I must have been tired. (Imagine that!) Or preoccupied. (Imagine that!) Or dreaming of relaxing and knitting, or listening to music, or ALL THREE AT ONCE. (Imagine THAT!!!!)

Oh, well, I'll just unload the dishwasher and re-load it, since bored, pregnant daughter couldn't be bothered, and then I will push the rest of the dirty dishes aside and cook something.

But the dishwasher has been ailing and failing, and ladies and gentlemen, today it finally bit the dust, and its replacement will not be here until February 5th. I turn in dismay to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and realize, with sinking heart, that it equals four dishwasher loads, plus I have to re-wash, by hand, the dishes the dishwasher failed to clean.

I thought about how satisfying it would be to smash crockery, then realized that would make an even bigger mess to clean up than simply washing. All. Those. F*cking. Dishses. So, I commenced washing and grumbling, and even the divine Mr. Hart on the headphones only managed to bring my blood pressure down about half a notch.

After listening to me grumble and bang things around, Miss Preggers finally bestirred herself to come dry and put things away. Still, the job took over an hour. My desire to cook anything had long since evaporated, so hubby has been ordered to get himself a sandwich on the way home from work, or else he won't be eating tonight. He will pick one up for younger daughter as well, who has been out having Social Plans all afternoon, la-di-da!

Pissed, pissed, PISSED!!!!! This one has "gone to 11" yet again. Twice in less than a week, but at least this time it hasn't brought on chest pains.

So, here I am in my office -- my sanctum sanctorum -- burning Dragon's Blood incense, quaffing a big auld honkin' helpin' of Mr. Jameson's Finest on the Rocks, and blasting Husker Du's most excellent, noisy, abrasive "Land Speed Record." Since this is a very short album, and I probably have only 5 or 10 minutes of listening pleasure left, I'll probably be switching over to some Dead Kennedys or perhaps checking out another Flipper album.

Angelic chorister turned punk rocker. All those albums I never dared to bring home when I was 18, I am enjoying now. Yes, ENJOYING! No shame, no guilt, no apologies, no regrets.

The only odd thing, really, that doesn't quite jive with this picture is, when I'm done with this little rant, I'm either going to pick up my knitting or sit down at my spinning wheel. [TILT]

But the incense, whiskey, and Grant's raging against "Data Control" are calming me down. The f*cking dishes are done, the kitchen is clean, and I don't have to cook. This could be a relatively pleasant evening after all, especially if I add another wee dram of Jameson's...

On W.S. Burroughs

I confess, I do not always understand William S. Burroughs. At first, I wasn't even sure if I liked his writing or not. Part of this may have been due to the fact that I first picked up Naked Lunch for a serious read while I had the flu and was taking Nyquil. Too weak and sick for anything else, I would eat a popsicle and read a bit, then pass out cold, the empty popsicle stick still clutched in my hand. Nothing I read made any sense at all, but I forged ahead and finished, not long after the flu had finished ravaging me, and left behind only weariness and a vague malaise. No wonder none of it made sense. No wonder I failed to find any humor in it. No wonder there are so few lines highlighted.

I fared better with the Nova Trilogy. All three books have been pretty well marked up with vivid, hot pink highlighter. Some passages are gross, scatalogical. Some sexually intense, no matter what your proclivities. Some out and out funny. And some -- my favorites -- shimmer up from the page like jewels accidentally dropped in the mud, and they take you by surprise and leave you breathless with wonder.

~vast music in the throat of God~

~Dream singing came before body without a shadow without relics

--face healed and half-healed in wind and rain~

~These colorless sheets are what flesh is made from

--Becomes flesh when it has color and writing

--That is Word And Image write the message that is you

on colorless sheets determine all flesh.~

~So I am alone as always

--You understand nova is where I am born in such pain

no one else survives in one piece

--Born again and again cross the wounded galaxies

--I am alone but not what you call 'lonely'

--Loneliness is a product of dual mammalian structure

--'Loneliness,' 'love,' 'friendship,' all the rest of it

--I am not two--I am one

--But to maintain my state of oneness

I need twoness in other life forms

--Other must talk so that I can remain silent

--If another becomes one then I am two

--That makes two ones makes two

and I am no longer one

--Plenty of room in space you say?

--But I am not one in space I am one in time~

And startling profundities:

~who programs you

~who decides what tapes play back in present time

~who plays back your old humiliations and defeats

holding you in prerecorded preset time

~you don't have to listen to that sound

you can program your own playback

you can decide what tapes

you want played back in present time~

~Modern man has lost the option of silence.

Try halting your sub-vocal speech.

Try to achieve even ten seconds of inner silence.

You will encounter a resisting organism that forces you to talk.~

I could quote a lot more. There are many highlighted passages in my copies of the Nova books. But one last quote, this from Burroughs' beautiful book of essays/visions, "The Cat Inside."

~This cat book is an allegory, in which the writer's life is presented to him in a cat charade. Not that the cats are puppets. Far from it. They are living, breathing creatures, and when any other being is contacted, it is sad: because you see the limitations, the pain and fear and the final death. That is what contact means. That is what I see when I touch a cat and find that tears are flowing down my face.~

And at that, my friends, I found tears flowing down my own face. O, dear God!

The risks one takes, in simply making contact with another soul, knowing one day it will end! Or at least, what we have known will end. Life will go elsewhere. To Heaven or Hell, or recycled by the Almighty into another body. (Some might call that sort of recycling a form of Hell...to relive and have only vague memories of what you might have f*cked up in a previous life, yet know, somehow, that you did indeed f*ck up, and you have been sent back to right that wrong.)

The end brings change. If I have known "you" before, will I know "you" again? Will I recognize "you," or at least have a sense of "you," and who "we" were?

Dear old Bill, sometimes the way you make me think hurts...

New Sweater Prototype & Musings from Within the Bubble

I will have plenty to keep me busy when the kid does go into labor. I've started a new sweater design, using the basic shape of one Grant got in Austria and adding some special Mad Angel Creations features (braided cables) for a sort of medieval look. This first one is for me, so I can get it right before going on to do one for him, in his choice of color.

Here are the beginnings of it, draped over my amplifier.

I haven't felt much like designing in a long time, so I'm especially excited about this one.

Baby is due today, but so far no signs of labor, so hubby and I will grab breakfast nearby in a bit, and maybe hit the bookstore.

Sore from yoga this morning, but feeling calm and relatively content. If you ever have a chance to go to a gong meditation, I recommend it highly. There is something about that wash of sound, especially after an hour of yoga to uncloud your mind. I was able to do a full Reiki treatment on myself while the gong player worked his magic with a wide array of gongs, all with different sounds, sound colors, and pitches. One cannot help but feel a Divine Presence. It is there, whatever Name one chooses to give it.

As usual, social time afterwards was an agony for me, so I simply remained silent, watched from a distance, drank my tea, and left. I managed one conversation in the hallway with one of the class leaders, but no amount of gong music or meditation can blow away the Asperger's quirks. They come back in full force when there is a crowd, all talk, and no more music. I feel a desperate need to stay in my bubble, and will only come out of it in a one-on-one scenario, or in a group of ten people or less.

There is a balance game I sometimes play on my Wii Fit, in which the obese little cartoon icon that represents me is supposed to walk in a bubble down a winding river, avoiding all obstacles. My balance is not good -- flat feet and pronated ankles -- so my little icon inevitably smashes into obstacles after only a few seconds. The bubble bursts, and my icon goes splashing into the river. It's an excellent metaphor for how I deal with social situations. I don't like to do anything that might make me go splashing into the river suddenly, so I am very careful to guard my bubble.

Sometimes guarding my bubble and staying safely within it means I run away as quickly as I can, striving for the balance that will keep me away from obstacles. Sometimes an obstacle surprises me, and I'm in the river before I can draw a breath. Other times, I make my escape successfully, bubble still intact, but what, exactly, do I win when I succeed?

In the Aftermath...

Still playing the waiting game, and hoping this baby does not choose tonight to begin her entrance into the world. In my quest to find non-pharmaceutical ways to de-stress, I plan to attempt another yoga class this evening, though I'm still pretty damn sore from the last one on Thursday. I really feel like The Deity -- by whatever Name one chooses to call He, She, or It -- directed me to exactly the sort of class I most needed.

First off, music, upon which I depend so much these days, is incorporated in this class. The instructor plays a CD of chakra-related music while we do the poses and exercises. Then there is a time where she plays a gong, while students lie back on the floor and listen, and meditate. I used this time to do some Reiki on myself, which I've been trying to remember to do more often. Then came a time of seated meditation, one hand over the heart for awareness of its beating, and one hand raised in a prayerful gesture. I cannot achieve "easy" position -- which appears to be a variation of the lotus position -- but I expect with practice I will get it in time. For now, just sitting cross-legged on the floor is enough, and it hurts like crazy. My physical flexibility is not the greatest, and part of this process I'm going through is an attempt to improve it. So, eleven minutes of sitting in this posture with one hand raised was probably the hardest thing I had to do all night.

Eleven minutes is a LONG time! But just when I thought I couldn't hold the position any longer, a beautiful golden light filled my eyes, behind my closed lids, and I felt a Divine pressure coming down on my head, and surrounding me. It made me cry, and I didn't want to. I was supposed to be focusing my intent on what I wished to pray for. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I was supposed to re-focus my intent elsewhere. Where better than to ask for help in learning not to be ashamed or afraid of my own tears? To let them come without fighting, and let them pass. By the time the meditation ended a few minutes later, they had indeed come and gone, and I did not feel like a fool.

I stayed and spoke with the instructor for a bit afterwards, told her what has been going on in my life, and about the heart attack scare, and how much I need music to be a part of the things I'm doing to de-stress. She said she felt I had found the right place to come, then told me not to worry if emotions came to the surface. Just let them come, and let them be. Having emotions surface like that is proof that the meditation is working for me. She advised me to build slowly to the eleven minutes, and to try and take my meditation time at the same time every day. To build a habit and create a routine. So far, I have failed in that, but it is in my mind. Now, to implement it.

But I did feel better after the class, and though I did have a couple of crying jags at work yesterday, I simply went into the restroom and allowed them to come and go. Both times, co-workers came in and wanted to talk, and I was able to communicate easily enough, and not fight to hold the tears back. Let them go. Let them be.

I'm really looking forward to the session this evening, come what may emotion-wise. There will be a lot more focus on gong meditation, if I'm reading what the ashram's website says correctly. Some Kundalini yoga, but much gong music. The man who is leading this will have more than one gong, or so the instructor told me on Thursday. I expect it will be interesting, at least.

On Thursday I will go back for another class. I like the quiet focus, and the general atmosphere of holiness without excessive chatter. Sometimes going to regular church with my family is just too noisy, and fraught with distractions.

There is too much talking in this world in general. I find more words of wisdom in songs, and withdraw so those voices are the only ones I hear. They keep me sane, especially, though not solely, Grant's. His voice and words are a great comfort, even though this piece triggered a crying jag just before lunch yesterday.

I'm thinking so much about beginnings and endings and changes lately. Something old in me has died, and something else is rising to the surface. This being is not kinder or gentler at the moment. This being will do his/her best not to hold everything in. This being is determined not to allow a pressure cooker build-up again. This being is striving towards NOT wishing for death during sleep.

"It's not that kind of world. No one knows and no one guesses. There are no nos, there are no yeses..."

Hubby just stuck his head in the door announcing some errand he wishes to do, says he'll be back in plenty of time for me to go out, and says he hopes I don't mind that he isn't going with me. I laughed, and said I had no intention of bringing him in the first place, because he can't sit still and be quiet for five minutes, and I would not dream of bringing him to an ashram. Never mind that he would probably hate it as much as he hates my drumming in church. Repetitive percussion of any kind drives him crazy. Is it mean of me to be glad of that? Is it mean of me to feel I need my own spiritual exercises, separate from those I go through the motions of doing with him?

But after church I am always left feeling as if I got cheated out of the feast everyone else seems to be enjoying. Why do I not feel sustained, fulfilled, uplifted? There are good people in that church, who I like very much.

Perhaps it is the lack of stillness, or my lack of ability to create that still space within my environment, or maybe even a feeling that it would be sinful and/or selfish to create such a space in such an environment.

I don't have the answers, but I am seeking, and hoping it will lead to contentment, and a better tolerance for what works for others. But first I must find what works for myself.

Heart Attack Scare

I ended up leaving work today at noon, and heading over to the local ER. I had been trying to ignore low-grade but constant chest pain since about 10:30 last night, and at 11:45 AM, I quit trying.

They have come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with my heart, which is good news.

The bad news?

It's "just" stress, which is a whole hell of a lot harder to treat. I'm supposed to stay home from work the next two days and rest.

Rest. And how does one do that with a pregnant daughter about to pop, another daughter with Asperger's and hyperemotionalism, a workaholic husband with cancer who isn't doing too well emotionally himself, and a mother who is fast becoming senile enough to be transferred to a nursing home?

I feel like I am really losing my grip, here. And despite spending an afternoon at the hospital trying to sort things out, I still don't feel good.

I desperately need to de-stress, but...how?

If the roads are in decent shape tomorrow, perhaps I will drive to the ocean...

Grandbaby Knits

The countdown begins. Baby is due on January 23rd, but it could be any time now.

All the knitting I intended to do is done.

Hat and sweaters are now just waiting for a baby to wear them!

When Technology Fails...

...just shut up and play your fuckin' guitar...

Today I learned that I have not forgotten how to plug into an amplifier, nor how to incorporate a vocal microphone. My amplifier will support both, with designated controls and plug-ins for each. It hums something awful, but once I start playing and singing, the hum gets drowned out. Must figure out how to eliminate that hum, but not tonight. It is enough to have played and sung and enjoyed the process.

Later this week, I will be back in business with a new Tascam that works, or so I devoutly hope...

Tascam continued

I figured I would have to jump through umpteen million hoops, but Amazon has made it very simple to resolve the problem.

No one should have to jump up and down on one foot chanting, "There's no place like home," in Swahili to get a monitor jack in a recording unit to actually monitor a recording. It would be counter-productive, and no musician would ever get anything done.

We never did resort to the afore-mentioned ridiculous tactic to get the machine to work, but I was almost desperate enough to try. What stopped me? Well, not the utter silliness of the concept. Frankly, my dears, I don't know Swahili, and I had serious doubts as to whether some other language would suffice, or make the unit explode in my hands. So...

I went to Amazon to see what to do, and found out how easy it is to do a return. They do not have to wait until they've received the original unit, as I feared might be the case. Au contraire! I even had a nice follow-up e-mail from customer service saying they were very sorry for my problem and would send a replacement forthwith, which should be in my hot little hands by Tuesday! All I have to do is make sure they have the defective unit back by February 17th, and I will not be charged for the second unit.

Hooray for Priority Mail and its free package tracking service! I will know when the package arrives at Amazon, and that will most likely be no later than the end of this week.

Even if I don't have any real time to do serious recording, you can bet your sweet bippy I'll make sure the unit works as soon as I've got it. Not taking any chances this time. I think one of these little units, in good working order, will be a great thing. I did like what I could hear, until the monitor ceased to function. With 8 tracks at my disposal, I should be able to make my recordings a whole lot more interesting than they are at present.

Off to retrieve my amplifier from my kid's closet, and hoping I can remember how to plug everything in without blowing myself to Kingdom Come.

Mad Angel + Machines = Bad Idea

Trying not to get too discouraged, but it appears that there is something wrong with my brand-new, used for the first time today, Tascam DP-0008. Monitoring what I'm trying to record works intermittently. It'll be great for about 5 minutes, then all sound in my headphones stops dead and cannot be resurrected for love or money. Hubby got it going briefly, and then it died on him, too.

The reviews for this thing said it was "moron proof," so I figured it would be the perfect machine for me.

It is not turning out to be so. I hope it's just a defective unit I can have replaced, and not "operator error."

I am mucho pissed off right now. There are no software or firmware updates at the Tascam website.

Pissed!!!!

Blue Condition

General inertia is now a cloud of blue, and I feel surrounded, engulfed, obliterated. This is life with chronic depression. Some days just go that way. Maybe it's just simply a matter of having a lot on my mind.

My granddaughter could begin arriving in the world at any moment, though the official due date is not until next Sunday. As I wait, I feel terribly unsettled, afraid to venture too far from home, tethered to the cell phone, knowing at any given moment, I will need to drop everything and run.

I am the labor coach, and perhaps it's mean of me to say, but I am not taking on that role for my daughter's sake. I am taking it on, because that's the only time I'll get to spend with my granddaughter for quite some time. She is being adopted by a wonderful family, and there will be future contact with the child and her new family, but...

She is being adopted. She is not coming home with us.

This is probably for the best. My daughter is not ready to be a parent, and I am not in a position to quit my job and raise an infant at this point in my life. I am nearing 50, and my husband has cancer. Though it has been caught early and surgery should eliminate it completely, there are no guarantees. The doctors say it looks good, but anything can happen. In a worst case scenario, I could not raise a young child as a single mom.

This feels like a huge weakness on my part. An admission of defeat. A testimony to my own selfishness. It makes me feel like I totally and utterly suck.

People say I am talented, I am smart, look at all the things I've done over the years, how driven I am, how accomplished, and all I can do on a day like this is look at them blankly. Who, me? Really. I simply can't see it. The things I'm good at -- where have they gotten me? I can't get a publisher or agent to give me the time of day. My yarn business failed. Music? Well, I enjoy playing for my own pleasure, and I record stuff to amuse myself and share with friends, but it won't go anywhere beyond that. I'm too shy about performing these days, and while refusing to perform might have worked for Harry Nilsson, well, I'm no Harry Nilsson. I just do what I do, and sometimes it satisfies me, and sometimes it doesn't.

Reality check. I work in a factory doing assembly. I like the work well enough, but wish I had the confidence to turn something creative I do into a modest profit, so I could quit my day job.

I had better stop now, before I go off on the loneliness/isolation tangent. :-(

Inertia

It's one of those nights. Here I am, at the end of a long work week, exhausted, thinking about doing something creative, and completely unable to motivate myself. I feel restless, and can't seem to settle into anything.

As we approach the birth of my granddaughter, the whole household seems to be holding its breath in an odd sort of way. The atmosphere is heavy as we wait.

I have an inch to go on the last baby sweater, which I should be able to knock out in no time, but I don't even feel like picking it up. Perhaps tomorrow morning, before work.

Yes, work. Maybe that's my problem. It's Friday night, but it's not Friday night, because I have to get up at four, like any other day of the week. This weekend, I do not own my weekend. Five hours belong to my employer.

What I really need more than anything is some quality "alone time" in this house. I tried to record a couple of songs last night, but dogs barked, kids galumphed loudly up and down the hallways, telemarketers intruded, the grocery guy arrived...you get the picture. Too many noisy interruptions! I haven't even listened to the recordings yet. I'm afraid to. It was such an unproductive session, I doubt anything is salvageable. I'll face it sometime tomorrow and see what happens.

Right now, I just feel an overwhelmingly pervasive sense of "blue." Perhaps "bedways is rightways," and things will look brighter in the morning.

Future a tad less uncertain...

Hubby's surgical consult today went as well as one could hope, given the circumstances, if I can believe what he tells me. (He would not allow me to accompany him, so I stayed at work and waited for his phone call.)

We have been extraordinarily lucky. The cancer was detected at such an early stage, surgery should be able to get it all out, and there will most likely be no radiation or chemo to contend with.

They say any side effects from the surgery are just temporary and will resolve within six months to a year.

Phew!

It's not going to be a walk in the park, but it's not going to be a total horror, either, and early demise is not part of the equation.

My frustration now is simply that I cannot just quit my job and deal solely with things on the home front. Work seems trivial by comparison. Damn.

Advance blessings on my dear music friends. You've all pulled me through tough times before, and I know I can count on you now, too...

My Kitty is a Basket Case...

Lord Steven Catsby looooooves curling up in baskets!

A poem

Eggshell

Hard-boiling some eggs, I wonder

If I take the lid off the pan

Will I hear the shells singing?

Bubbles dance and rise

As I bend down and listen --

There!

Steam warm against my ear,

And a delicate hiss,

Then a faint chirp and twitter

As the temperature rises.

If a shell has a weakness,

A crack unseen to the naked eye,

The pressure within

Will burst it,

And part

Of the semi-fluid egg

Will twist itself into the water,

Transforming

Into distorted, rubbery nodules.

But these shells

Are whole this time:

Firm, and strong.

They do not explode.

The eggs within

Retain their shapes.

Shells so fragile,

Like the walls of my heart.

Shells so much stronger

Than the walls of my heart,

Which crack, then burst

As the feelings within pour out,

Mangled and hideous.

No one wants to look at them.

No one wants to touch them.

The eggshell heart

Has broken and died.

Now, how to move on,

Leave the pain behind,

When no song remains

For this eggshell

Heart of mine

To sing?

C.P. Warner

21 November 2010

Writing on Computers

I have been online since 1997. I resisted computers and the internet for a number of years, then finally caved in when we moved to the small town where I still reside. There isn't much going on here, and I don't have much in common with the locals, so accessing the internet turned out to be a God-send.

Being as I've never found it easy to locate friends with even vaguely similar interests in my immediate geographical location, the world wide web really did open up a lot of possibilities for me. I made friends with new folks and learned to communicate with more ease than I ever imagined myself doing. I found my "voice," and real-life social situations, while still sometimes awkward, became a whole lot easier in most cases.

One pet peeve of mine is being told by numerous people that no one can really write anything of worth without reverting to pen and paper. Perhaps that is true of some people, but there are exceptions to every rule, and I believe I am one of those exceptions.

Oh, certainly, I've learned a bit of internet shorthand here and there: BRB, LOL, ROFLMAO, WTF, OMFG, and the like, and I do use them now and then. But by and large, I have never learned the "art" of the misspelled, badly punctuated, poorly constructed e-mail "postcards" an awful lot of people seem to send.

Yes, I will send the occasional brief message consisting of one or two lines, but for the most part, most of my e-mails read the same way one of my letters would. I take care to compose an e-mail, and if I have time, I re-read it and check spelling, and tweak a word or phrase here and there. No paper is wasted, no trees are killed, and in the end I am pleased with my efforts.

I can and do really write on a computer, and have been doing so since approximately 1986. I only resort to pen and paper when I have no computer access, and then, as soon as I can get my hands on a computer again, whatever I wrote on paper gets entered and saved as soon as possible.

I realize what works for me may well not work for other folks. They may have their paper and pen, and more power to them.

As for me, I will stick to my computer. It has been at the heart of many friendships I have established over the years, including one that began just a year ago tonight.

Information, communication, the world at my fingertips: it's a Good Thing. :-)

What Do I Want?

The song says, screamed by Grant Hart with vocal cord bruising intensity over a roaring wall of guitar distortion and furiously pounding drums:

WHAT DO I WANT????

WHAT"LL MAKE ME HAPPY???

NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!

Simple, yes? Almost ridiculous in its simplicity? Perhaps.

But wait...there's more...and no, I am not selling a set of Ginsu knives...

On a good day, I kind of shake my head and chuckle, as there is some wry humor to a song like this one. If a vocalist could scream with his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek, this is how it would sound.

On a bad day, this song has the ability to break me out of whatever foul mood I'm in. Though the inducement of laughter was probably not what Mr. Hart had in mind at the time of composition, this is what it does for me. But it only works in this way when I'm in a ridiculously self-pitying mood. Sometimes it takes more than one run-through -- like, maybe a dozen, because the song only lasts about a minute-and-a-half. If I can, at some point during multiple playbacks, laugh at the sheer absurdity of everything, then I know the bad mood was not as bad as I thought, and I can put things back in perspective.

On a really bad day, I wonder, what, indeed, do I want? What would make me happy? And in response I feel as if I could scream "nothing, nothing, nothing" at the top of my lungs until my throat exploded. I could probably outscream Mr. Hart, and that's saying something!

Today, what do I want? Things that are simply impossible to get.

I want the life I envisioned in my optimistic youth, in which I am successful as a musician and novelist, published, recorded, and happily earning my keep with no bullshit from the outside world. (Epic Fail.)

I want to have raised children who are happy, confident, and growing towards success in life on all levels. (I did my best, but...Epic Fail.)

I want parents who loved me and taught me all things were possible, and believed in me. (BEYOND Epic Fail.)

I want a mother who does not believe, and regularly state her belief, that I am the scarlet whore of Babylon, and my husband is a man to be pitied. (Aaaaaaggghhhhh...)

I want a husband who does not appear to be married to telescopes and football -- not that I would deny him those things, which he does enjoy, but -- all things in moderation, yes? -- and also, for the record, I would really like it if he did not have cancer and an uncertain future at the moment.

I want...to have more time to finish writing this, but...I owe, I owe, so off to work I go. Perhaps I will have time to finish later today...

However, as part of the point of this exercise is to keep my thoughts brief and concise...perhaps not. Tune in again later...

On my Battles with Religious Folk

Daemon

Little Lamb hung a millstone

'Round one of the Father's Little Ones

Weighted her down

Flung her into the sea

Washed the grime of corruption

From her fine white Christian fleece

And went on her way

Never looking back to make sure

The Little One had drowned

Little Lamb cried of hunger and starvation

Of not being fed at the banquet table

The minions believed

Little Lamb held sway

The feast prepared was bit by bit swept away

Left behind in confusion

The Unworthy sought for crumbs

But Little Lamb had gathered them

Every last one

No loaves and fishes miracles

No multitudes were fed

A void remains

Painfully constrained

Within a roof and four walls

Little Lamb went her staunch, unyielding way

Destruction in her wake

Believing in her ways and her ways alone

Walking the walk and talking the talk

Sweet, pretty poison in a sweet, pretty package

A creature to fear, a creature to run from

Coldly deciding who is saved and who is not

The minions still believe

Little Lamb holds sway

And where is God found

In the face of this injustice?

All around

Weeping at the cruelty

Shown one Christian by another

In the name of the Son

They attack and wound

Then murder the souls

Of those perceived as weak

Survival of the worthiest

Christian Darwinism

Who says they don't believe in

Evolution?

Murderous Little Lamb

Yearns for the martyr's death

Thinks it's her Golden Ticket into Heaven

The one she tried to kill cannot --

Nay, will not -- oblige her

She's one who isn't worth

The price to be paid

For committing that particular sin

Forgive and walk away, Child

Forgive, but watch your back

Drop that apple and run

Far and fast as you can

For Satan clothes himself

In appealing disguises

CP Warner

1 September 2010

Revised 6 January 2011

In the beginning...

...were my words, and my thoughts, and my dreams...life heading in strange directions as I begin 2011...

I may still do an occasional update on Beware of the Blog, but only when I feel more light-hearted than I generally do these days.

New friends are teaching me good lessons as I approach my 49th birthday and my 50th year. Some old friends continue to teach me as well, while others do not. Those who do not, sadly, will end up falling by the wayside, not that I think they will notice it happening. If they do notice and return to me, then I will know they are "keepers," and I will continue to hold them close. Otherwise?

Life is short. Too short. Not to be pessimistic, but realistically speaking, once I hit 50, my life will be past the half-way mark, and what will I have to show for this?

I feel a need to leave something of worth. What will it be?