Hmm, days coming around?

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I made it to a bit after 11:00.  It's been a smooth ride.  It rained last night for the first time that I am aware of it having rained in a very long time.  That was good in a lot of ways.  It is approaching bedtime, swiftly.  The swelling in my ankles has dissipated on it's own, my headache seems to be gone, sleep should be grand.

I need to get my days shifted to try to get to Church.  A few days in the pew on weekdays, when the crowds aren't deafening to my nearly hermit ears, blinding and too enervating for my other senses, should make a proper showing a little easier.  But I have to be firmly daybound for a bit.  Masses during the week are at 11:00 or noon, or such...  I'll be checking that as I get closer.  And I NEED confession.  Which... makes the Eucharist... right(er).  I have no serious sins, and Mass does deal with venial sins, even my collection.  :p  Still, I like to... give those out as I believe I should.  God already knows and my priest, after some number of confessions probably has me pegged, but that isn't the issue.  It is about facing sin.  It ain't easy but it is wonderful.  I'm getting there.

I was feeling some pains.  At first it sort of concerned me.  Then I thought, how long has it been since you have eaten, dork?  Ah, oh, since Wednesday?  Yep, since then.  Ah, well, then, you should hurt!  Duh.  So, I need to get into town and get some stock of meats.  I think a pan of hamburger, beans, cheese, and maybe even some veggies and tortillas would be good.  Keep it as simple as possible.  The only reason I am considering romaine lettuce is because I have an odd hankering for it.  Tortillas are great, better than bread for this because you can just fix a "plate" of the good, and eat the "plate" too!  Can't really taste the lettuce, so it might be a bio-hunger.  Or my lady friend praying to the gaia for me to eat healthy, and God intercepting the prayer knowingly and lovingly, and agreeing?  Dunno.  Maybe tonight, and a burger and fries for being a good boy by getting to the store in the first place so I don't have to shop and cook on the same night?  Yeah, maybe. 

Shut up! 

Good morning and good night.

The Answer.

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I have spent all of my conscious and some significant part of my unconscious life seeking one thing.  Every face I have seen, every tree, town, structure, stream, field, view of the sky at any given time, patterns in from or by anything from frost to human social behavior, every texture I have felt, every taste I have sensed, every smell, sound, and extrasensory perception has gone into a bag.  I have tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle in that bag into a coherent understanding of life.  There was math, but it is limited exclusively from everything and all, choosing to define more what it can't do than what else there is or everything altogether.  Then there was science, digital in particular.  What a lark.  Science doesn't even honestly understand what engineers simply DO, let alone believe there is anything beyond what the limits of the eye can see!  Just as math failed to allow the humble bumblebee to fly until quite recently.  Engineering seemed the way, and I would have liked the work, but... it wasn't an answer or provider of answers, merely a more interesting way to have spent my time on this glob of seemingly solid matter.

The Answer!  Perhaps it can be found in other people, women?  Do they know and just not tell due to their diminutive nature in various ways, the terribleness of the truth?  Is it a part of them, only found through carnal knowledge?  What is it, where is it, how to find it.  The search also took me to faith, religion.  Is it in the bible, is it in the hymnal, is it all around.  Where, pray tell, is The Answer!  Like a squirrel I sought The Answer.  Round and round, up and down, over here, over there, under, around, and through.  Just... where is it?

Ah, but really, the Answer is quite simple.  Oh?  Well, yeah.  It is the Question that will get you.  So, what IS the Question?  You will have to ask yourself.  Just... you will know if you are asking the right Question or not, you have The Answer.  Believe me.  You might have rejected it, but you... do... know.  Time in meditation won't get you there, time dealing with the broken, rotted, dark part of your heart as an immortal is the only way to tunnel through to the light.  It's a long haul, it isn't for the timid, but I'll send you packing with a shovel that might help...  You are loved even in your darkness by the only One who can love you fully.  The only way up is down.  Get digging.  There is light at the end of that tunnel and it isn't an oncoming train.

Sure, there is that...

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Yes, new tires.  Of course, taxes.  I know, plane tickets to get my mother out here.  Yeah, yeah, and shut up already, I heard you the first time.  Still, my thoughts wander to computers.  This tired nearly as dead as me machine I am using is getting quite... grating.  Every time I turn it on I have to dance and sing to make it work... an ugly proposition, let me tell you.  And it won't do many of the simple things even this simple old machine SHOULD do.  It's ganked, been hacked, and... I would love to share time and talk over it's problems, just... not type one damn more word through it.  Still, money is what it is.  But I can't help but look.

I have looked at components.  If I chose, I could cobble a passable machine together.  It would last three years for internet gunk and about a year for mediocre gaming and cost at least $1k.  If I tried to build a more lasting machine, say three years of gaming and five years for general, now... that would cost about $2.7k (uhrm, or more).  But I would have to put it together, keep track of warranty information, figure out what isn't included with what I buy and try to track down the cables, parts, and bits on my own.  Or, I could buy a better machine than I could hobble together, with (the same) room for an upgraded chipset (as the $2.7 diy'er) and memory (if even 16, possibly 8, is more memory than will ever be needed by this chip line and the next one or two as for gaming), and have it pro-wired, pro-soundproofed, and shipped in a week with a three year warranty for just over $2.3k.  I'm thinking... sweat shop?  Hey, who knew a degree in history would be worth less for getting a job than one's interest in gaming, but... there you go.  *laughs*  Even if it barely pays China's minimum wage.  Never... mind...

Yes, but at $2.3k... I'm seriously sweating bullets.  Oh, and games cost $50 per, plus.  Could catch up on some of the older games though too.  Then again, computer gaming is... pretty much run through Steam and other online gate keepers.  Personal home gaming is nearly dead too.  They want us all to join epic battles against each other and crazy stupid things.  Hey, I'm NOT in the military anymore, I don't go for hurry and wait.  And I do remember saying, when I got out of the service, that the first line I wanted to get in was the line to get out of lines.  As it turns out I hopped the fence and can't even FIND a line to stand in.  Can't stand in lines anyway, so...  So many games are simply... getting in line!  Ugh.  However, there are probably some games out there, if one looks very carefully before buying (ignore the professional reviewers seller whores, look for reviews from players, specifically players who list games you like as games they prefer, or thereabouts).  And, it would be nice to have a machine I can more surely and seemingly securely communicate and write through.  Ugh...  But $2.3 is just...  Yeah...  Eye-candy, for now.

Just... letting you know what makes an old dog drool.  Oh, and while I have cleaned up my act, there are still these.  But... let's not go there too far.  I have ENOUGH trouble with celibacy!  C..osmi...c joke...  I'm saying...  Black dragon t-shirt girl, and for some reason the bottom one, have my... undivided attention.  My eyes are distracted by the dragon girls face and bombs, so I can get HOURS of entertainment just on her.  She has a beautiful smile, I think? Is she smiling? I'll... check again.  No, just... looking for... data? patterns?  Summit.  I'm... purely chaste in... woah am I lying.  Ugh.  Oh, and thank you Jawa. I'll... deal with my celibacy, you just... keep... helping?  Not sure "helping" is quite what it seems, but some suffering is good for the soul... just a little??? please?  :)
Later.

Ah, some of the notions have returned...

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While looking over Avenged Sevenfold's material to see what else the kids have been up to I found a couple of vids that seem to have struck some nerves.  Like them?  Well, yeah, to a degree.  Not as much as that first vid I showed but not bad.  They aren't quite as heavy as it seemed.  But they have some talent, they do work their songs to mean something.  They are writers, not just players.  Nice.

Loverly to see some things, even if...

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Brutal.  I am just hedging back and forth in that pain.  I think a fistfull of aspirin is necessary right off as I wake tonight.  Pain can be good, at a minimum, for a while.  It tenses everything up, good for the autonomic reflexes, and some other stuff.  When it goes too long though, it... becomes quite an annoyance.  I took a shower first thing after waking tonight.  It's only been a few days but I needed a shower as if it has been a week.  I think pain stresses the body into overdrive, which would explain the benefits it procures.  Pain can be like a workout.

Reading the news I saw how Harvard is putting it's foot down (haw-verd).  Way too funny.  Every college, save a junior college I attended and only for that class that I can be sure of, cheating was commonplace.  Instructors "helped" pet students (athletes), people copied homework, helped each other on tests, the rest.  Those of us who would not cheat were at a distinct disadvantage, and in some classes *cough physics cough* that disadvantage was monstrous.  The professor, knowing how rigged it was, merely suggested to us non-cheaters that we study more.  He was lying.  I took my test to a physics grad student who thought I was fibbing.  Oh, he got it...  He finished the test with a 90% correct... after two hours.  It was a one hour test.  And he was a theory student so this stuff shouldn't have... been difficult for him.  This was the basic physics course (calculus based).  It was that way in every class at the University of Iowa to some degree or other.  Oh, but they are going to fix it by... picking out some students who weren't included in the academic pick cheat list?  What a gas.  I suppose it is some sort of face saving move to encourage more giving from alumni...  the only people who might be fooled (self-deluded) by their silly action.  What would it take to eliminate cheating?  Expulsion, from any school level from k-grad.  A contract clause allowing even tenured professors to be fired on the spot if caught helping, selling grades, or such.  Not Going To Happen.  So, if you go to school?  If you want that degree?  Learn who cheats, how, and what it takes to be party to it.  Or prepare to work your tail off, and if you are politically incorrect even that won't help you.  That... is that.

Here is a story that I love to hate.  See, this woman is driving, talking on her cellphone (which I am to take is illegal), gets pulled over, gives out a raft of merde, then gets body slammed not once but twice.  The worst of cops versus the worst of civilians.  In some ways loverly, in some ways all ugly, but my sort of thing.  If I were a hog, that would be the mud I would choose to... pacify my angst... or something.  Having been rearended by a phone-talking driver, I really don't care to a degree.  I see some justice in there.  But the cops really were heavily out of line... IF the story is true.  That is the price of living in a city where no one knows the cops and the cops know no one?  Cities, while the pinnacle of human achievement, show why human achievement is... at best questionable.  All good, all bad, all the time.  Bleh.

Well, on to goofing.

Gah? Bah!

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If it isn't one thing it IS another.  Lately things have simply been piling on.

The headache issue remains, if mostly in the background.  I have weened myself off aspirin, that was some serious dosing.  But the headaches still remain a threat.  Low and slow is the method to the ends.  My sleep has become a mess on top of it.  I don't think it was because of the headaches, or me pushing for days, it seems to be something else, perhaps the weather.  I'm working on it, but for the moment I am in freefall regarding when I sleep and when I am awake.  Disarray.  Oh, and my feet are swelling again.  I am simply trying to urinate more often but... that just isn't enough.  I'll have to figure out medicines.  If I can stay awake, if I am not in too much pain.  Gah!

On top of that my blogger bar disappeared.  I just kept thinking it would come back.  Without it I can't (or didn't think I could) sign in to post, if I can now comment.  Argh!  They are definitely having troubles making the internet killswitch work, or at least having troubles testing it, or something.  After a bit I found a work around.  Not a solution, only, while I was checking for solutions I found a place where I could sign into my account, and realized I could port to my blog from there.  Yes, I figured that out all by myself in all of about three seconds.  Still...  I could still be waiting.  It looks to be becoming a more common problem.  The suggestion is to update the template.  Sure, mine is old.  Like... almost first gen.  But... if it ain't broke...  Or... even if it is.  I think they break the old to try and make us use the new.  I just don't want to have to set everything up.  I'm barely staying out of diapers, if adult version.  I really... They don't do a good job with "new and improved".  That saying could go right in with "Hi.  We are from the government, we are here to help you".  *chucks in the circular file*

Ah well.  I have gotten a few very minor tasks completed.  And my "perfect game" is coming along... relatively as planned.  I have avoided the add-on portions that introduce huge buggy and laggy spikes into the game.  I may try those in the final bit, but... not until then.  One of the adds is good, three are buggy and laggy, one of the adds brings bugs and lag into the whole rest of the game.  Not worth the weapons and "experience". 

The electricity went out twice last night.  The first time was for a few moments.  The last was for several hours.  Sitting here at a dead computer in a pitch dark home, I realized I had taken the flashlight (the one I knew the location of off hand) back to the laundry room the other night.  So, without even a flicker of a glimmer, no moon and heavy drapes to boot, I made my way to the laundry room through this room, the living room, the kitchen, into the back area, past the steps down, and finally to the flashlight.  Actually the most trouble I had was finding the switch on the flashlight when I finally found it!  Hehe  Sometimes I am such a dork, just... a magical one in a way.  Half dead and more, in pain, not sleeping or eating well, but I can still find my way through my... busy... home in the pitch dark without really a thought.  Then I almost can't turn the damn thing on?  Yeah, cosmic humor all right. 

I had several ideas I wanted to write out, but in the blur of not sleeping I have temporarily or not lost them.  I have one, but it is too much work while I am too tired.  I thought with the lights being out and computer and game off I might be able to sink into slumber.  Nope.  When I can't sleep, doesn't matter what else, I simply won't sleep.  I just think just as if I was playing a game, only regarding real life.  Life is huge, you know.  Bigger than any game, bigger than science and much more real, way beyond Hollywood to capture or even mildly portray (if they were ever to give that a real go anyway).  And yet, in one moment, the lives of millions of people can be changed for good or ill, right into finality.  While... some will never understand moments because they are so busy trying to fulfill a very long life.  I have finally decided.  I am not slowly dying... I am slowly living.  Never... mind.

Good day, and unfortunately and again, good night.

I went to bed early, but...

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A phone call.  Want dinner?  I thought to myself, do I want dinner?  Just waking the mind has to... reverberate a question for the words to make sense or something.  Then it was... Do I!  Sure!  So, a couple of large breakfast burritos were over quite shortly.  I am pretty sure there was a homemade salsa chutney to top it as well.  I was too busy scarfing to... take the time to look.  Oh, yeah, hungry.  Four or five days of calorie-pinching has me in a feast or fight mode.  While it did wake me after only a few hours rest, I couldn't get right back to sleep.  Who wants to sleep on a full stomach anyway?

I goofed for about four hours, sparred with D.C. a bit.  Oh, and D.C., don't get all gnarly.  I'm just ringing the bell, checking the baffles, making sure of some things.  Even if you happened to end up liberal, I wouldn't actually hate you or anything.  NO.  I am not saying you are, just... a what if.  And, yeah, I buy your answers.  The vitriol just sort of gets to me, in spite of my own, somehow.  And on the same topic.  Reading Non Sequitur back to April 1st helps.  It's done, but not over I suppose.

Now, back to bed.  The hope is to get up and get out tomorrow, the day after, or when I can.  Good night... and it is night.  Nice...

The hour IS late...

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While I did make it to the afternoon I am pretty much done.  I think I can coast another hour or two in my attempt to nail days again.  But I cannot make it to town.  Aim high, understanding that you may miss more often?  :p  Still, one of these days will see me back in to town to get my friend up and out.  I might even be able to hit several times for several weeks before being clobbered by the next biomonster my system needs to combat.  I am clean.  My clothes are clean.  A few more dishes are clean.  Cat food, milk, and tobacco are back on the menu.  I even have soda, for now.

The days are cooling.  The nights much more so.  I still run the ac in the day, if I am reconsidering that.  I have felt winter, several time, now.  No, not a cold draft or a shiver.  And, remember, I like winter.  No, just a sense.  And I don't think that is a good thing if it is right.  If I am feeling winter this far away it would mean a long, hard, or both, winter.  Ugh.  Still, those of us who want four seasons, need really, sometimes just have to deal with what is delivered.  I would much rather have a brutal winter than no winter, I hated Florida and South Carolina (as I saw things) for that.  In Charleston, at least while I was there and if memory serves, people put on winter coats when it hit... high 40's or 50's.  Something crazy like that.  And they drove in heavy rain as badly as many city-dwellers drive in the snow, neophytes!  I'll take what comes, I'm just a bit... nervous about this winter, that feeling.  Too soon, but there it was, twice, maybe three times.

Oh, one other thing I bought were treats for the girls.  Not food though.  Playtoys that can be filled with catnip, plus enough catnip to keep them loaded for a while.  I have never had a cat that responded to catnip toys before, so I am enjoying this immensely.  And they certainly love the toys this way.  Sassy looks up at me, at first, as if to ask if this is really okay.  When I assure her that it is (mostly) safe and all good fun for her, then she will play.  Sam doesn't even wait.  She is almost ripping the toy up midflight to her.  That's what she has been talking about, she seems to say when looking at me with her glossed over eyes.  I am so anti-pot, but for the girls I just don't think it is that kind of issue.  Cwazy wabbits!

Alright, good night... sooner rather than later anyway. 

Late was the hour...

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Later or early, made little difference to me.  I took my shower, had a fresh towel to dry with, had clean clothes to don, and so into town I went.  I chose which place to stop, only two choices really available but they are on the opposite sides of town.  I took the shortest path into town, which is usually the longest way time-wise due to heavy traffic, but not at 3:30.  All of it was thought out in half a second as I got back into the X after having pulled her out of the garage then shut the garage door.  Blink.  Done.  And the trip went as planned.  I ended up buying a bit more than I had anticipated.  Extra cat food, while I was at it.  The dry lasts forever but the cans are used up in a heartbeat, as my life goes.  I saw Kleenex on sale, and prefer that brand.  Six boxes for less than half of what the other brands charge, oddly, and more in each box.  Along with what I have in stores and in use, that should last me the winter.  And more soda, this time most of it went down to storage.  I should keep some on hand down there, rotating it every few months.  I would love to do a fresh rotation of that every time but it just isn't in me.  I would like to get a supply for several months alone, but with coffee to supplement I would have enough caffeine for four to six months just as is.  And, what I went to town for?  I found a whole roll of my favored tobacco.  A rare thing.  So, I did pick the right store, no need to store hop.  Then again, I am going to try to stay awake long enough to go back into town later today.  I am going to see if my friend is available, and wants to go shooting, shopping, or just out for a meal.  No promises, it is just hoped that I can push through today.

It is wonderful to be dressed.  And a shower two days in a row has been splendiferous.  I still have that beastly headache back in there, and so I won't be doing anything too strenuous.  Shooting seems difficult, but the ear cuffs cut that way down.  I don't even shoot .22 shorts without them, if I would compare the sound of .22 shorts to a pellet gun.  I have finally trained my friend NOT to shoot before making sure I have earphones on.  It rattles my nerves.  Oh, sure, if called too I could, and would, shoot my pistol, shotgun, or whatever without ear protection, even in close quarters like a home, but I would suffer for it.  I don't choose to suffer.  Hmm, I have even gotten him to wear them, most of the time.  While he can no longer hear the part that is painful, I have asked if he really wants to lose the rest of his hearing?  I think... that got his attention.  Well, and maybe being an example.  Oh, he is contrarian and a bit of a rebel, just like the rest of us.  But... when you don't tell him, but more explain why, and show that their are real consequences...  He can come around... iffin he is of a mind to do so.  Heh...  I'm almost sure he thinks the same thing about me from time to time.  Bah!

I have been lazy about caffeine.  Soda truly is easier, but it isn't quite as good.  Then again, it is cold to start with.  This has been a mean summer.  Coffee sort of loses out because by the time it cools I may have forgotten about it.  There are ways to make or buy ice cubes, but those are the product of at least one more process in a system of failed processes.  In the fall, winter, and spring, coffee is splendid, now that I am back to it and have a system worked out for it mostly.  But... summer?

Some people remind me a whole lot of my eldest brother.  [Uhrm, when I say brother, remember, that could be foster, step, adopted, half (on birth mother's or father's side), or... even a few other things.  I don't even bother to explain which is which, just... brother for now.]  He was a typical hard core "liberal".  Went to college, married a woman (how liberals end up married I am not sure, perhaps it was social imprinting left to them, somewhat beyond their control).  They had several children.  Unfortunately his wife died in her 30's, and I dearly loved her (loved her just for her, innocently).  He married again and went on with life.  He worked in social services, and went on to be the head of that in one county (men usually rise quickly despite all the feminism).  In any case, he finally decided he was no longer liberal.  Now, he maintained his atheism throughout.  I tried to help him understand that he was merely, now, a disgruntled liberal.  You can't really be conservative unless you accept how things really were, in the beginning.  That is what conservative means.  It doesn't really mean back to the 1950's, back to the 20's, back to some fictionally more "conservative" time in American, or even world, history.  The world hasn't been conservative since Adam and Eve were given the boot.  That is what a conservative seeks, and knows he will not find here.  It is a wish to go back to the future.  Yes, yes, silly indeed.  But any learned Christian knows we cannot have heaven on this earth, they know we will not know perfection in this life, and we know this place at least in part because of us is an imperfect, deeply flawed, a sometimes dark and deceitful place.  No, he is just a liberal who wasn't able to pacify his intellect with his heart, he is not a conservative.  Conserving money, a fiscal conservative you ask?  If that is all he is, then he is just as easily a crony capitalist as an outright socialist.  Socialists, in practice, are actually quite often exactly like that.  They only promise otherwise to sway the foolish who have been incorrectly allowed to vote for that very reason.

Never mind.  Besides, being fiscally conservative or liberal means little, if you look at it in a religious light.  The love of money is the root of all evil.  So, whether you want to protect it for this group or give it to that group matters little, if it is because of a love of money, for yourself or others, it comes down to why you are what you are.  And while I am a fiscal conservative, it isn't on the principle of money, giving or saving, but on property, the ill effects giving money away has yielded, and other topics of a very Christian nature.  As well, one of the most important aspects of Christianity... free will.  Men can not be forced to tithe in this time.  They tithe of their own volition.  Just as they may not be forced to believe.  Charity is fine, just not at the end of a barrel.  That is what redistribution is, forced reallocation of other people's money.

Blather, blab, blah, and so on...  Yeah, I get tired of my own stuff too.  It just... came up while I was thinking about something or other last night.  I know D.C., to a lesser extent mind you, sort of brings up notions of my brother.  I don't know if he was that liberal and changed, or if he has always been a 'third path' guy, or what.  But I know he dabbles in the liberal pool rather deeply.  He says he is just... doing it for this or that reason, but I sense some of his heart is there.  Mother?  Siblings?  Wife?  Is someone he holds dear deep in that pool?  Just... thinking is all.  Please, take no offense D.C.  Just late night ramblings, ponderings.

Good day.  Wish me luck on getting back to town?  Hopefully not good night this time!  Later.

I was sure...

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A couple of funnies for the night.  Someone suggested that underage smoking of marijuana stunts intellectual achievement, even the capacity for it.  No guff!  Have you ever spoken to a teenaged regular smoker of the stuff?  You can almost spot them.  Sometimes they even begin to sport a serious set of facial features allowing you to know them much more easily.  This next one... Well, it is like I have mentioned here and elsewhere.  When a woman is beginning to nag, grump, become just plain mean, or a few other things, it means... well, she needs attention.  And, yes, this helps.  It isn't the complete answer, but it is a large part of it.  A guy still has to keep up his end of things, help her with her things from time to time, and run the ship solo for and at random intervals.  But, sex helps keep everything else in place, especially female psychosis.  Another problem with plasticized false romance?  Yes.  Even thought I was doing things the wrong way, I never could plasticize.  So... at least I sort of made some number of women happy, for a while?  Something.  

I was positive I could be out by 22:00.  Then 23:00.  Now?  I'll... I am pretty sure I can make it out tonight, I just don't know when.  It's not that life is brutal today, I just can't get going.  I did run the whites through a little more drying.  Everything that needed to be hung or folded, save my underwear, has been tended.  I simply can't seem to move much beyond that.  Cigarettes, yuck!  But, for now, it is enough.  I am hoping to get in early enough to hit McDonalds for a burger.  They aren't great, but after half a week of near fasting, anything would be good.  Why McDonalds?  I love their fries!  I am trying to get out while it is dark, cool.  Though that may mean I can't get more than a can or two of my preferred tobacco.  Sometimes they simply run out.  Though, sometimes, I can get a whole carton (actually five cans).  Those last a month, give or take.  Pain and stress can have a carton used in three weeks if ongoing.  Sometimes though a carton can last almost two months.  Beats smoking, in every way.  When I have had to smoke, I end up smoking up to six packs a day.  Summit summit obsessive compulsive on some things.  Yeck.

I didn't get the trash out yesterday, which means it didn't make it to the curb and recycling didn't go.  No problem.  I think I only had one bag of trash, and I have plenty of room in the recycling bin.  I may, if I can get to it, take the trash and recycling to the bins tonight, changing out the cat litter while I do so.  I think I have enough of the traditional cat litter for one more go, then I change over to one of the newer types.  I really need to start tending the litter each morning, right after feeding, though.  If the new stuff works it will in part be because I do my part.

Later.

A new day.

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I woke fairly pain free.  There was some notion of pain back there but milder than it has been for some number of days.  A dose of aspirin just... to make sure.  A call.  It seems dinner was late and I think they hoped not to have to deliver, but I did ask them to.  I was just waking up and I am hoping for a run to town tonight, so food... might really help.  An email telling me that the Saturday event went well, with plenty of hands on deck.  All good.

I found a pack of cigarettes that allows me some tobacco hit from time to time.  While it is my house, and actually for that very reason, I won't smoke inside.  The smell lasts for weeks, even months.  While I was outside puffing, Sam decided to join me.  Yuck by the way, that instant massive hit of nicotine is... too much!  I don't know how smokers do it.  If there is a link to heart attacks and such, my guess is it has more to do with that instant huge hit.  Anyway, Sam kept checking my hands for treats.  Ah, I remembered.  When my mom is here, Sam is always out with her.  My guess is my mom is Sam's treat vending machine, same with Sassy.  I got a little peeved, then I realized... she is probably a candy machine for the children of my brother.  *chuckles*  And it doesn't stop there.  She probably spoils any small to medium sized children she can, and some adults too!  It's just... how she is.  She is called grandma by more children than you can imagine or than I can count, literally.  And, actually, I don't begrudge her that.

Of course, this lead to the notion of the fine art of seduction.  Oh?  Well, yeah.  No matter how fancy or complicated we might try to create the notion, it always comes down to a very few things.  Giving and getting.  My mother gives to my cats to get attention.  My cats take what is given in exchange for proximity.  It often ends up that there is more to it, the proximity allows the cats to be petted, which is good for them and us.  We change the cats by our notions, and lead them to a more human understanding through when, how, and if we choose to treat.

And there are many things that can and do seduce us.  Often our education, then job, lull us in.  Our loves and lovers, potential and realized, certainly draw us in.  Our hungers and thirsts, both right and wrong, can pull us strongly.  Which pulls us the most depends more on our needs and wants, or perceived needs and wants, than anything else at any particular moment, within our ability to accept.  We are so easily purchased, we sell short, we know the end.  With death as our future, and the time being completely unknown, plus the notion that even if we live we might not be able to earn, it is difficult to bet by holding out.  Best to sell while the animal is still viable? 

I doubt if much of this goes consciously into the equation.  That is why tradition, standards, and other things are so very important.  Without those we have no real idea.  When those have been set aside, or we are told all traditions are equal so we should just pick, then we are fodder for the control of fools who will lead us into our own destruction.  You don't need children, they say?  Oh?  Genetic suicide is wise?  Really?  Who will tend us, or at least take a measure of our needs and wants, when we are old?  Why, everybody will, they say.  Oh, I see.  Stick with tradition.  I have never known such a thing.  It was never involved in my equations.  Then again, I look around me and see... people coming from good homes have absolutely abandoned traditions.  I actually cling to a Euro-based traditionalism more strongly than most who were gifted it.

All that from a yucky cigarette, a begging cat, and a few days of pain.  Hmm, I don't think I'll make that trade again though, given the choice.  :p

Another smoke, another shower, then into town.  I hope.  Soon...  Later.

Hey, not bad.

I still had to dose a time or two, and am about to dose again.  But I almost feel as if something is getting better.  I did three loads of laundry.  One was quite small, just three or four shirts, two pair of jeans, and a pair of slacks.  The other loads were large, typical really.  Underwear doesn't have to be folded, if I much prefer that.  But for now, at least I know I have clean unders, a few shirts to add to what I already still had, and fresh pants to wear, several clean towels for the bathroom and kitchen, and a few other items that just... add to life.

I even did a partial load of dishes.  Some of them needed more of a soak for this reason or that, so I put them to it.  I wasn't sure I would get a shower in though.  Time was passing by, my function juice was being gulped by little and big things here and there.  But, no, in the last inning... outta here!  Showers feel so good when you have been robbed of them for a while.  I begin feeling a little Golem-esque.  I don't quite consider raw and riggling a menu item descriptor, yet, I do sense that whole cave recluse thing going on.  Mine!

I was actually hoping everything would come together quickly enough that I could make it to town this morning, or earlier this morning really.  I am out of tobacco and some other things.  Again, it shows how ill I am when I can't get to town for a literal addiction, doesn't it?  Caffeine?  Meh.  Nicotine?  OMG where is it!  Still, I can't get in.  Maybe tonight, with this prep work done.

Another hour to dry off, then to bed I hope.  Good morning and good night.

Same same.

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Yeah, it has been a rough half of a week.  It's like I am not getting enough oxygen.  Which really might be the simple case.  Even with medicines, sometimes things aren't going to be right.  Perhaps my liver and spleen demanded oxygen for survival so my body decided my brain could go without for a bit.  Only, I didn't get the memo.  Well, okay, I got the memo in the form of a sledgehammer hit to the head every morning and throughout the days.  These things are going to happen from time to time.  I am honestly surprised my body hasn't cannibalized itself, shrunk to an easier form to work with, or such.  I suppose, when the end approaches, if my body can keep some balance, I will know because I will fade to bones and skin.  On the upside, if my body is keeping balance, I am far from fading. 

More aspirin.  And I will certainly be on the horn tomorrow.  I can't keep this up.  I will figure out a way, get a ride, and if I were in better shape might even have considered hitchhiking.  As is, if I set up an appointment, I might head up the day before and stay over to make sure I will be there without having the stress of driving while struggling with too much pain.  I think there are places to stay within a few blocks of the clinic.  Further if they send me to the hospital, but at the hospital the hotels have drivers to take you to the hospital.  A further expense, but... At some point gold has very little luster.

One thing or another, I heard someone say recently.  Why, yes it is.  I am glad someone else noticed!  I am not even really complaining, it is my lot.  Sometimes the thing is beyond simple help, sometimes I try to solve it myself, sometimes I just have to wait it out.  I won't even say it is worse now than ever.  It's... all about the same.  The only difference now is I don't have people telling me I should just keep a stiff upper lip and get right in and get a job to fix my ills.  Like what they said for the first twenty years.  Doctors, friends, family, they all had the same script.  Shame the gimp, that'll snap him out of it.  Yeah, okay, some bitter taste there.  And, fairly I do believe.  Bleh.

Another handful of aspirin, a shower if I can pull that off, and I really need to do some laundry.  Everything is so very wrinkled.  Maybe just three or four shirts and two pairs of pants at a time.  Something I know I can handle hanging up.  Then underwear and then socks, wool socks have to be done separately.  A few light loads per day.  Ugh but I have gone soft!

Enjoy your day.  I'm going to do my absolute best to enjoy mine.  I just won't give in, out, or up.  I won't.  Now... where are the girls!  I ought to see if they are still ticklish and independent minded.  *grins*

In spite of the grinding start, the runtime isn't too bad.

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Every four to six hours, roughly when I feed the girls, I dose.  It does seem to keep most of it at bay for the moment.  I had been trying to stick to eating very small bits of this or that but my body, last time I tried that, pretty much just shoved me aside, shoveled it in like it knew what it was doing, then looked at me funny when I went to grab another little snack bit to add to it for my own gratification.  Stupid body.  So far, though, so good, with that. 

These times make me more nervous about stroke.  A massive heart attack, while not pretty or painless, is quite often quite lethal.  A stroke though?  Yeah, you could die of it too.  Though I think you would die of thirst first.  And you would half know it.  No, stroke bugs me.  That is part of the reason for dosing with aspirin too.  They say aspirin can... mitigate the affects of a stroke if taken right away.  At the doses I am needing to take to allay much of the pain I would already be dosed.  Hmm, doesn't it also help with a heart attack?  Though I think you are supposed to put it under the tongue or some such in that situation?  Something.  I just... hear things.  My dad (foster dad, and his was from arterial blockages unlike mine, so... not genetic or family or such) had a really bad heart so I heard a great deal about stuff then, and sort of had my... antennae up when new things came out about the topic.  His heart eventually gave out and killed him.  He lived for several weeks after, beyond the doctor's understanding.  I know he was waiting for me, but I was not allowed to see him.

I finally got what is to be the perfect run up and going in my game.  What I have found though, is even with foreknowledge of most things in the game (some things are random events so cannot be planned as they are more likely not to be experienced in three whole playings than to be found), is that... it still doesn't matter to some small degree.  In otherwords, if you optimize one area, thing, field, experience, it often comes at the cost of some other area, thing, field, experience, or even several other things are affected.  There is too much to truly plan for an honest optimization, though you can do a great deal more toward your various goals with the experience garnered from playing through a time or three before.

I am using... cheats.  Not literally cheats, bugs in the game that allow... early advancement.  Just pretend I had parents that could and did arrange things a bit, or... serious natural talent?  Something.  Still, the bugs I exploit don't honestly make the game easier, just easier to set up the way I want to play.  Actually the big one makes the game more difficult as it seems enemies advance and get more powerful relative to both the player and his allies.  So that when random events or even static "pops" occur, I have to hustle to make sure my peeps don't eat dirt.  Still, I enjoy doing it.  In part to order things all at once, ie leveling choices.  But I also like, a bit, "sticking it to the man" (the game makers).  So much in games is scripted, a series of jumping through hoops.  Sometimes it is nice to just get the damned treat NOW!  hehe

Well, back to goofing.  Later, maybe.