God forgive me for what I am about to turn loose on the world

To Everything (Peep, Peep, Peep)
There is a season (Peep, Peep, Peep)
And a Peep for every purpose, under Heaven

A time for rabbits, a time for sheep
A time to nibble, a time to eat
A time for yellow, a time for white
A time to gorge, a time to keep

To Everything (Peep, Peep, Peep)
There is a season (Peep, Peep, Peep)
And a Peep for every purpose, under Heaven

A time to stock up, a time to throw out
A time to dunk, a time to burn
A time to give away boxes, a time to gather Peeps together

To Everything (Peep, Peep, Peep)
There is a season (Peep, Peep, Peep)
And a Peep for every purpose, under Heaven

A time of blue, a time of red
A time of pink, a time of purple
A time you may gorge, a time to savor every moment

To Everything (Peep, Peep, Peep)
There is a season (Peep, Peep, Peep)
And a Peep for every purpose, under Heaven

A time for bats, a time for birds
A time to tear, a time to eat whole
A time to adore, a time to be sick
A time for Peeps, no matter what the reason…

StrixusOokami: btw,
will you agree with me that Peeps are made out of the Primortial Stuffness that
all Life and the Universe was made from?

damien667: Yes.

StrixusOokami: ok

damien667: Which is why they can be Disolved in
Waffle House Coffe

StrixusOokami: because apparently there has been
yet more proof of this, and their link to the changing of the seasons

StrixusOokami:

sophestry: Cocoa Bat Peeps

StrixusOokami: omg

sophestry: Yeah.. that's what I said immediately before "Ness needs to
know about this."

damien667: Every season, a new kind of Peep

StrixusOokami: <sings> For ever season, Peep
Peep Peep...

StrixusOokami: oh god, that works too well

damien667: >_<

damien667: Quit it!

Weekend is over, another week begins.
I went on a bit of a shopping binge yesterday, bought some clothes from Kmart (very cool stuff, actually, including the great little hoodie I am wearing today because its cold), some shelving from the container store, along with another over the door rack, and some stuff to fake a table top on the shelving.
Anyway, time to go get my PACE form beat into something resembling logical graduation shape.

I lived through test day hell, and a Day of Rest was declared for today. And so it was.

I've been in an odd turn lately, taken to keeping at least two sticks of insense burning in my room at a time (current is a personal favorite of which I have a 1/4 lb bag of called Wings), along with prefering candel to incandecent light. My music taste has also gone a tad weird, going back to the very oldest of my CD collection, with my limited but well loved Andreas Vollenweider albums. My very first CD, given to me along with my CD player by my aunt and uncle years ago.

Currently playing is Book of Roses, a sort of combination of neo-classical and fusion, with strange places in between that defy description. The opening track, La Strega (Her Journey To The Grand Ball), never fails to evoke one image in my mind - an autum wood, the leaves fallen and blown by wind, the smell of winter just in the air, an overcast sky, and the ravens who caw (actually in the track its self) as you walk near enough to startle them. Many of the other tracks evoke equally beautiful images, making you dream of things and places far away, or very close to heart.

Now, a classical guitar plays, evocing both romance and blowing wind. I now go to sleep, wrapped in the sweet smell of my blankets, and the first cool night of autum, whoes air touches me through windows left open for this purpose alone.

Good night.

Tomorrow is test day.

GRE: 12-5pm
Latin: 5:30-6:45

Wee.

I will do well on the GRE. I will at least pass my latin test. And that is all I hope for.

One step closer to graduate school. One step closer.

*claps hands twice and bows head*
Tenjin, Tenjin, oh most wise of Kami
*claps hands again*
Grant me some of your wisdom
That I may pass these exams
*claps hands again*
Tenjin, Tenjin, oh most wise of Kami
*claps hands, bows*
Take this, your most favorite flower, as an offering to appease you and grant me your blessings on this day of my exams.

Something I heard on the radio on the way home got me thinking. It is, of course, the month of Tishri, the Jewish High Holy month, the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Now, I am not a practicing Jew, nor am I practicing of any religion, nor of any religious upbringing, but I find a particular draw to this time of year on the Jewish calendar, because of the theme it brings to mind: Forgiveness. It is the last month of the year, the time for forgiveness and reconciliation, for mending of things broken in the last year, and the forgiveness for interpersonal transgressions.
My own personal issues, at least the majority of them, stem from one cycle of fear: the fear of transgression, the fear of failure to repent properly and fully, and the fear of the lack of forgiveness. When I sin (for there really is no better word for it, dispite the religous connotations), I repent as fully as I can, and I hope for the forgiveness of those I have sinned against. And forgiveness is given, most of the time.
But the issue brought up on the radio as I was driving home was simple: Is it alright not to forgive those who trangress against us who give no rependance, who display no true remorse for what they have done? The answer given, and I think rightly so, is yes. If there is no repentance for the act, no recompence made, no remorse felt, then forgiveness - the reciprocation of that repentance - should not be given.
Yet there is a danger in this, one i know well myself - to know that repentance is true, and fully given, before forgiveness is given. How does one know? It requires an element of trust, something which in such a situation is nearly impossible. And so, those who have transgressed and repent truely are at the mercy of those from whom they seek repentance, a mercy tainted by those who act repentant to escape punishment or retrobution.

Who after his transgression doth repent,
Is halfe, or altogether, innocent.
- Robert Herrick, Hesperides--Penitence

.... If only it felt that way...

Your latin for today is the word crustulum.
What does it mean?
Cookie.

Let me say this clearly. I like rain. I hate being wet.

I am currently soaked from the knees down, my sandles and feet have seen the worst of city flooding. Thanks to this.



This is what my shoes currently look like. I wolnt even go into my pants.



*sighs* yet another day of being soaked to the bone. At least this time I had a rain coat with me, so the damage is only lower limbs. I still worry about the fact I may catch cold - or pnuemonia - thanks to how bloody cold the class rooms are.

So I haven't talked about this on here yet, but a good number of you already know about it. I'm just begining the process of applying to graduate schools. I take the GRE on Thursday - hopefully I will do well on it, but the math section gives me the heebie geebies, not because I haven't leanered it but because its been so long since I've used that sort of math.

Last Friday I went and met with the director of graduate studdies at UGA - where I want to go to do my PhD in Philosophy, for more reasons than one. Things seem to have gone well, and I hope I made a good impression on him as a bright and eager student, worthy of consideration for one of the larger stipends, and willing to work for my keep and tuition waiver. My only real fear is that I know there are people out there better than me in Philosophy, better at playing the game, and that these people will come between me and my plans, which UGA is an essential part of.

So what are those plans? Moving out of my house, settling down with my love, and making true on a promise I have made twice now. There are some promises that brand our souls, and this is one of them - one I will keep in my heart every day between then and now. The only way I can make good on that promise is to make good on my plans - and make good on them as fast as I can.

So again I bind myself to my studdies, nose to the spine of the books, and dream of the day when I wolnt wake up alone and cold every morning. I have to continue to endure this just a little longer, and then everything will come to fruitition.

Either I am a fool for raising my hopes so far, or I am determined to make those dreams come true. I hope I will not be proven a fool, for the results of being proven a fool would be too painful for me to bear. I cannot let down those whose hopes rest on me. And so, I work, I strive, and I try my best. I only pray that my best will be enough.

Just a reminder, loyal readers, banned books week starts this week. Go pick up something the prudes dont want you to read, and read it just to spite them.

Personal favorites include:
A Wrinkle in Time
Flowers for Algernon
A Light in the Attic

and of course

The Anarchist Cookbook

Enjoy!

The worlds oldest woman

She turned 116 today. Something about this article gives me a real sense of wanting to live... of wanting to be loved this much.

On this afternoon, home is a warm, crowded place full of family. "We are going now, great grandma!" chorus eight-year-old Kengo Tamura and his 10-year-old sister Sachiko, as they hold her hand.
Not longer afterwards, her 17-year-old great granddaughter, Tomoko Kurauchi, arrives, as she does every day after school. Mrs Hongo has a strong bond with Tomoko. The pink nail polish is Tomoko's work.

I never met my great grandmothers that I remember, but I have heard many stories about my paternal paternal and maternal maternal great grandmothers, that I am very much like them in personality and apperance. My father's father's mother came to America with barely a word of english (she spoke gaelic), possibly as young as 12, with a permanent limp due to a broken hip at a young age, and found a job, and a husband, and a life she loved. She may have lived to be over 100, if the babtism records we found in her home village in Ireland were right. My mother's mother was a strong woman, apparently the most beautiful in the area where she lived. She had long red hair, past her waist, and my grandmother remembers helping her heat water and ladle it out so she could wash it before they got running water. My great grandfather wouldnt have plumbing or electricity or even a radio in the house, for fear of lightning.

I wonder, with all that has changed in the last 100 years... what will I see in my life, even if I life half of that?

The Child's Aria

(A dark stage, no set. A male child, perhapse seven or eight stands slightly to stage left of the center, in a single white spotlight. The child is dressed in oversized, patched night clothes, and hugs a pillow to his chest that is tattered and limp with use.)

Oh, Mother, Oh Father,
Voices carried through the floor,
I can hear you, from where I lay
Listening, not understanding,
But feeling frightened all the same.

Do you love me, do you hate me,
Will you love what I grow to become?
Rich or Poor, Wise or Bore,
Hold me back, or let me go
The choice is yours, there's no mistake.

Oh, Mother, Oh Father,
Faceless, nameless, arms that I seek,
You are my comfort, my shelter,
forget me not,
Oh, Mother, Oh, Father,
forget me not.

It seems like the most eventful parts of my life are the least blogged. Perhaps that is best, since those of you who read this who I Don't know about may have a totally different idea of my life than is the case.
The point is - I'm making some changes in my life.

No more nights out drinking with my friends when the love of my life isnt there. No more dual life of intelect and person, no more extention inclusion dimorph of existance between love and friendship. (As the song says, the Drinking bone's connected to the Party Bone, the Party bone's connected to the staying out all night long, and she wouldnt think its funny so I'd wind up all alone, and the Lonely bone's connected to the Drinking bone) If I'm going to have friends, they will be OUR friends, not mine or his.

I'm going to make an extream point of taking better care of myself and my enviroment. I cannot neglect the external or the internal physical, because their neglect is causing my emotional relations to suffer. And that I have to stop from coming to a head worse than it has already.

But more changes than externals. I am on an inner quest, in a way, to examine reality around me - to become, as the zen budhists say, more present. To think about each thought, feeling, and action and its origin and cause and reason, and to understand it before acting on it or feeling it. This is my excersice for myself for my life and living. To do nothing that would cause negative emotions in others, to do well and do good as best I can.

Does that make any sense? I'm not sure it really conveys the shear scope of what I'm trying to do, but its the best way I can say it.

Famed fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and his gruff assistant Doctor Watson pitch their tent while on a camping expedition, but in the middle of the night Holmes nudges Watson awake and questions him.
HOLMES: Watson, look up at the stars and tell me what you deduce.

WATSON: I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it is quite likely there are some planets like earth, and if there are a few planets like earth out there might also be life.

HOLMES: Watson, you idiot! Somebody stole our tent.

Human beings, dispite all their flaws, are capable of the expression of some of the most profound emotions possible.

I assume too much.
I am human, as are all of us here on this earth who think and dream and plan and scam. I am no better nor no worse than any of them. I may plan, and dream, higher than the others, but I am no better.
I should not, and can not, ever forget this.

I am not right often enough to make assumptions. I must remember this always.

without the mask
where will you hide
cant find yourself
lost in your lies

I try so hard to be what everyone expects of me. Smart, clever, intelegent, understanding, empathetic, all of those things they think I am, think I should be. But when the mask slips, and even an edge of the shadow under it is visible, they recoil in horror, recoil away from me. And then worse, they berate me for having disapointed them. I try so hard to keep that mask in place, to keep in check the anger and the rage, the disgust and the loathing, the jellousy and hate which boils behind this face of humanity and civility. But it does slip, and when it does, even for a moment, the horror under it is enough to drive the world away from me, even those who call me friend.
Am I really that much of a monster, underneith all this facede of human skin?
Do I really want to know the answer to that?
Dont I already know the answer to that?
Shame, degridation, self torment - these are how the mask must be held in place. This false human nature is imposed on me by myself out of fear of what would be thought of me were I to ever let go of it. I would lose everything. Everything.
So I smile at those that disgust me, I hide behind eyes that speak sympathy to those who I condem, I laugh when rage consumes me, I befriend those whom my jellous heart loathese and loves. And that is how I survive. Until the mask slips again, and the rage boils up, or the loathing spills out, and I say or do what I really think and feel. And one day... I'll lose it all because of it.

I know the truth now
I know who you are
And I dont love you any more...

Happy birthday to Google. Happy birthday to Google.

Every nerve in my body is buzzing like a plucked string, jangling and dancing and humming like a live wire. The whole world seems to be eggshell thin, ready to break and burst into anger at any moment. Frustration compounds my anxiety, anxiety compounds my frustration, and the whole world seems bent on making my life just THAT much more twitch based.
My head hurts so badly I had to wear sun glasses in my last class tonight. The hum of the florecent bulbs made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. I could focus, and yet I couldn't, trapped in that medium where everything is tunneled, and sound is a blur other than the one high pitched ticking sound of someone moving in their chair back and forth. Air feels strangely dense moving over my skin, especially on my arms, which feel like they are a half inch above where they actually are, especially the wrists.
I come home, get food warmed, only to have it taken when I havent touched it in 15 min because I am working franticly to finish a story I should have had in by five, and simultaniously being bothered by someone on aim. A writer flakes, and now I am stuck between letting the weekly fall through, or writing it myself, tomorrow or tonight. I need sleep, but I know I will not sleep well, because of how tightly wound I am. I should eat, yet the whole food thing now seems unapitizing because it only serves to get me yelled at. I will wait, and go put it up later, after things have calmed.
Stress from nothing, nothing to stress over. Yet here I am, feeling like I am running out of time, or something, already.
Tired. Anxious. Restless. Confused. Sad.
The air is so cool as to be almost cold in my room, with a fan going in the window. The cold feels good, reasuring, something to remind me that I have skin. Skin to wrap myself up in, skin to keep myself inside me. And as escapest as that sounds, what I want is to curl up inside myself and be warm, and safe, and know nothing but sweet sleep until I wake on my own.
Sunlight, shadow, warmth, blanket smell.
Tomorrow, I have a shrink appointment, hopefully to see how well I am doing. After today, I am not sure just how well I am doing. Yet more to be nervous about, yet more to wonder about. So many things to wonder about. Wonderland, how do you get to Wonderland... over the hill or underland, or just behind the tree? Strangely disjointed things like that keep wandering through my head, memories and things half forgotten, and yet I dont remember half of them three seconds later, unless I'm writing. Twitch of the finger on the key, thought recorded, twitch, record, twitch, record, twitch...
Neurons alive, moving inside me, drifting, pulsing em spikes which dance along their conductive coatings. Floods of neurotransmitters, salts, lithium, and myriads of other things drift along the currents of these trellised pathways. That is what consciousness is, that EM that flows through us, that bioelectric feild that fills our meat with life. We live, yet the frog leg you hook to a battery to make it twitch does not. Semblance and Simaly, Meam and Metaphore.
Meta-metaphore? Did I make a funny?

First week of class over. I'm already sort of slacking on my work. Typical me. I am not, however, slacking on my reading, which is a nice change. Also, my diet was a bust. I'm going to start on a new diet next week, and see how it goes.

Oh, and if anyone wants a total time sink, go play the Lord of the Rings edition of Risk that has been published. Its way too much fun.