Problems?

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Solutions.

Someone has been using my sink, in the bathroom, to clean oily, greasy, hands, tools, or something.  I have been setting things up so that it is more difficult to get in.  But that doesn't completely stop all of the activity.  They used to leave the bathtub and sink like that, now just the sink.

Well, that was causing a backup, or slow drain anyway.  But, right at the moment, just in the sink.  I have stuff for that, and it works quite well.  But I had to get the mechanical drain plug out.  I... first had to tinker, to remember... exactly... how to remove that.

Some have a hook, which can be undone from the bar.  This one has to have to bar removed from behind the drain pipe.  I was, after a bit of tinkering, able to sort that out and get it done.  A bit of tinkering... then... oh yeah... best put the bar and attachment assembly back on, or drain water will go out the back as surely as it will go down the pipe.  Check... right after a dose of reality hit the floor.

Fine.  So, I had to chase Sam out.  But she was just in seeing what I was up to.  Didn't like getting chased out.  Women and underfoot, cat, human, dog... all the same.  Anyway, yeah.  The chemical puts off rather strong odors, and Sam doesn't smell so well these days.  I opened the window, put stuff down, ran hot water... which activates the stuff, shut the door and got out for a while.  I turned on a fan, too.

A bit later, I returned and gave it another shot of stuff and hot water.  Then, again, scooted and let it do it's work.  Returning a bit later, it seems to have done it's work.  Then, to degrease the sink.  It really gets filthy.  I had been wondering if it was backup, from the septic tank.  Which... might have been true if it was both the tub and sink (at least, but lets just say they offered relief enough that it didn't get to other plumbing drains).

The problem with it just being the sink is... that wouldn't happen.  Assuming the above assumption, it would need both.  Further, it really wouldn't bring grease in.  I don't put grease out.  No.  This is someone using my sink for washing filthy greasy hands, or parts/equipment.  I better not catch whoever is doing it.

Yes, I sleep so hard I wouldn't know.  I try to keep the place locked up, but... you can't keep the dishonest out.  It happens rarely, anymore.  Though, I am not sure if it is a misuse, or if it is sabotage.  I best not ever catch them doing it.  Things, people, will be broken.

Anyway, I just had to finish up.  To one degree, the good thing about doing this was I was finally able to get the drain plug set back up correctly.  I have been having to manually reach behind and down, and pull the bar.  I may have to work on it more, but I got it fairly tight and well done.  Still, you know how these things go.

After that, I used degreaser in the sink basin.  It did work.  The last stuff I tried didn't work well.  Too mild.  This stuff is... nasty.  Rubber gloves and eye protection highly recommended.  It did work.  But it also tells me that the stuff in the sink wasn't backup.  It was something being added to the sink, down through it.  As I said, misuse/abuse or sabotage, that I don't know.  There are some who... would do so, locally.  On both sides of various fences.

But, for now, it is done.  I used some of the new degreaser on somethings in the tub, but that didn't work.  I don't know what it is in there.  It looks like grease, but has had no reaction to any degreaser, soap, or various other cleaning supplies I have tried.  I have no idea what they put in there, or dumped in.  It's been a while, is wearing off a bit, but... I just don't know.

As I was finishing, I was beginning to feel very off.  Couldn't be blood sugar.  I just had a pan of beans and burger.  With a small dose of insulin.  But, I was wrong.  Blood sugar had dropped to 58!  This is really becoming annoying!  I do little and it crashes, I do a lot and it ends up over 200.  I wonder if they are adding things to some of my food in the fridge.  You aren't paranoid if they really are out to get you.

A couple of rolls of glucose tabs later, and I'm almost feeling human again.  Well... as human as a non-human can feel.  Later.

Oh, you tease, flirt, jest...

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Echoes of others?  I... don't think so.  A warning or threat... or offer... more like.

Why the worry?

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If it's not you then think on it.  When have you been asked?  Potential inclusion here is rather scant affection.  It assumes you read here.  If you aren't interested, as suggested, you... wouldn't read or listen to the music.  I really think any problem you might have would, pretty much, be self inflicted.  Besides, aren't you wed yet?

A day of resting.

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Just because?  No.  I did too much while too tired.  I didn't break anything, if everything was stretched.  All good.  It does a body good.  Even the dead should dance from time to time.  The bread, and other mild efforts, haven't been a problem.  Actually those have helped.  Good food should help in recovery.

I pushed, did well.

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I didn't get much done.  I called the doctor.  They called back but I didn't hear the call.  I guess medicines won't be reset until next Tuesday or Wednesday.  Whatevs.  I did stay awake until 16:00, give or take.  Meaning my days and nights are getting sorted again.  It was interesting speaking with my last, and her finding out that I sleep, and wake, every day now.  She was almost shocked.  Now the term "day" has slightly different meanings for me and for you.  You live in a 24 hour day, I live in a Picasso day which can vary from 16 to 36 hours or something.  And, yet, that is different from my "day", a period of sleep and waking, taking up a week or two in sum total.  You would think that sort of thing would permanently damage something in the brain... something would overheat, or stretch as in recording media of some sorts, or become burned in like televisions and monitors... especially for as many years as it went on.  To think that even a bit of heart medicine, the right kind, could have helped so long ago.

Though, even when they realized what it was, or admitted it(?), it was quite difficult to find medicine that worked without making my already horrid existence worse.  They didn't care.  I think the V.A. is simply supposed to sling out medicine as fast as they can.  Maybe I am wrong.  But it just doesn't seem right.  In my condition, then an now, I have to fight just to stand or think sometimes.  I can't allow that to be encroached, if by those who might seem to trying to be doing it for my good.  A notch down, especially from where I was, was death.  I have a bit more room to negotiate, and yet even so will negotiate in a mean sob sort of way.  I can't afford all that much.  A big part of their income comes from medicine, somehow.  Their interests are split and the customer will lose his ass if he doesn't keep his head on a swivel.  I've seen medicine crippled men toted in by their wives.  First, I don't have a wife, second, I wouldn't allow her or them to do that to me "for my own good".

Still fighting.  Mostly dead and I won't really give an inch.  Although, to be fair, I have given doctors and medicines more than a reasonable shake.  These medicines, I was told, would become easier to tolerate as well as improve my condition so as to need less or handle the effects better.  Nope.  The medicines, even after years, never really did more than add just a tiny bit of improvement.  I have wiggled that into, comparatively, a vast life... with long, mid, and short term memory that is pretty okay, the ability to focus enough to work and think sometimes, and even play sudoku with a best time at five seconds.  I couldn't have done that before.  Now, I won't ever write a novel, or a sonata, I won't learn seven languages or even recapture the three I had down fairly well to very well, I won't learn to play a violin, or put a masters or doctorate level presentation together.  But I will enjoy a relatively, even now, elevated capacity to imagine, write, think, and play.  Perhaps becoming more physical, especially if Alaska is in the cards.

I think medicine has spent it's wad.  I think it has improved about as much as possible.  I will continue taking it, due to needing a doctor script to drive.  If I get to Alaska medicine will be the first thing to go.  For many reasons, availability being one.  Though, who knows.  If I think they are helping, or at least not hurting, and a doc up there is up to offering six month scripts and a lenient refill counter, can handle being seen every few years since I'll be dumping my driver license, perhaps I could continue.  Who knows.  I keep saying it's a year off.  It's more like two years away.  So long as my license stays in play, I have a bit more time to order my life, arrange things, and get more fully ready for the road.  Then again, for a few years, it might not be bad to have wheels, too.

I dreamed, yesterday night, about fighting.  Not physical combat, but debate.  It was with Vox.  I didn't like something he was proposing.  He didn't like something I was suggesting.  We both walked from the program... for a bit.  I, for my part, realized my pride was the issue.  Not the baby with the bathwater, so some say.  I don't know his gig, he can be rather tight lipped, until he punches you.  Maybe even then.  Or I just don't hear things.  Anyway, we ended up back at the table.  Yeah.  It means I am voting for Trump, if I can hump it to the polls.  It isn't for Trump, it isn't even against Hillary.  It isn't for a broken social, or civil.  It's because the tribe has decided this is the thing to do and I am, in a very loose way, tribal.  So... yeah.

Hey, I best get on to something else.  Sleepily blathering like a darned fool.  No defense, guilty as charged.  But, then... why are you still reading?  :p  Good morning and day.

Well, okay.

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I got the bigger shelf together.  Yeah.  It was bigger than I had quite imagined.  I should have measured but, you know, sometimes you just... do.  Or is that just me?  It'll work.  It is exactly what I wanted, generally speaking.  It is like adding a small walking pantry.  In one sense, even if I will have to tinker a bit to fit it where I wish, I am glad it is larger.

These new wire racks are easy enough to assemble.  And no single part, or groups, are all that heavy.  The work comes with doing exact settings on four posts while keeping the weight of the shelf balanced, and so as not to let the shelf dislodge the keeper pieces.  If you haven't done it, the process can't easily be explained.  If you have, you know exactly what I am talking about.  Especially with a forty eight by twenty four inch shelf.  Tricky.  Which actually, in it's own way, is more taxing than simple brute-strength tasks.  At least for me.  But then, duh.  Ogres are born that way.

I noticed the pope seems to have gotten stirred up about the concept of a god of war.  Oh, yes, I know when the dork in a dress is talking at me.  So much for his "native" side.  Hey, pope, your Roman is showing.  If he had any real connection with his "homelands" he would know that peoples around the globe, other than Christians, have bumped into everything from angels to demons, and some say Christ Himself paid them a visit.  What does he think those people do?  Just forget meeting things divine, spiritual, terrible, right, evil, or whatever but beyond their ken?  They know something happened.  They call these things as best as they know.  Without knowing the God of Abraham, without some texts, context, even social and cultural norms based on these things, they can only know them as gods.  The same with any pagan people.  Who were, most likely, quite beset by dark things in their days of stirrings.  For they had no resistance, no means of dispelling.  I have even had a Navajo shaman call me Coyote and refuse to speak more.  They fear, and for God damned good reason.  So... go pout in your pseudo-religious, but truly secular and worldly final moments before you meet what you don't even seem to have faith in.  You say you fear holy priests who are serious, and fear?  You should.  And, more, you should take their council.  It seems you are lost and blind.  I pray you see before you have no choice and at great cost.

I have found a source of spooks.

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Nothing fantastic, so far.  Though nothing so stupid... well, okay, stupid, but not soul-eating.  There are serious limits.  I have dumped several, giving some time to the producers et. al.  If they can't fly that balloon well and up front I move along.  To be honest, I'm not even a great fan of someone like Kubrick.  Certainly not those who go even further out while trying to... extend on his work?  Perhaps he was a generational thing?  A product of the 70's, and 60's really.  Trash.  As I see things.

Although, once in a while, a small if simple movie gets a spot.  I don't need cgi or other special effects.  I don't need jump scares, though a well placed one, not over done, is good.  Simple acting that doesn't look to be acting is a bonus.  But it really is the story.  It doesn't have to have an ending, or meaning, so long as I understand the point, that there is something... or something else... in there.  That the basic story is one foot in front of the other, though with some of that all not adding up as it should.  A story that is just one plus one equals two, unless somehow personal and interesting, just isn't worth time.  There has to be a trick to it, even if it can't be fully obtained.  But if it is all trick, as I consider Kubrick type work, it is, to me, just as worthless.

Something I was consider while watching a small little movie a bit earlier... acting...  If someone is acting, but doesn't seem to be playing a part, is that still acting?  Is that good acting... or bad... or does that depend on the medium or part... say stage versus movie or television show, or main part versus a servant perhaps.  And, if an actor is obviously acting... again... is that bad?  Further... who doesn't act?  Am I believable?  I must admit, I don't think most people are.  If too, I don't think most people are aware that they are in a play, playing a part.  They simply play their part, until they are in a different scene with someone else, or are by themselves, producing a soliloquy or simply setting the stage for the entrance of another.

Is acting incorrect?  Or is that how we socialize?  Perhaps it is less about socializing than communicating?  Though, when is socializing and communicating different?  I am sure there are times where they are distinct and when there is some crossover.  Oh, well, just... thinking.

Yes, I actually thought the acting was good, specifically because it did not appear to put on.  That is actually difficult, even for people right before me quite often.  People are horrible actors, even playing the simple part of life that presents them to me.  At least as I see things.  I wonder if that is because so many people have simply lost the skill, spending most of their social time texting.  They have no feedback about facial features, don't know how to respond, are essentially dead to non-verbal cues?  I'm starting to think so.

Just a few thoughts.  At least there are still a few movies that seem to bring out the simpler humble life I remember having been normal.  It'll come back, but probably not until after the inevitable, and probably at this point necessary, collapse.  I'm thinking a massive emp might be fantastic.  I just... I realize it might well be my end for a number of reasons.  That... too... might be good.  Zombies of one sort or another need to be sorted out.  At least this one doesn't need a safe space when discussing the truth of things, even when they are quite personal.  Later.

Oh, right.

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I am not staying on top of some things as I should.  Though some of it is not a choice.  The doc called Monday, I believe.  Wanted me to call back.  I called yesterday, no answer, left a message, no call back.  I called in and made contact today.  Front desk sent me elsewhere, the nurse?  Dunno.  Doc is out of town, so...  He hadn't left any notes.  I was going to take the drivers license thing in but he is out of town, no use today.  I could do some shopping, but I am tired and worn.  I will wait until I know whether I should even bring the paperwork in.  I don't know if he will sign off.

Blood sugar was 240 today, just a bit higher.  Fasting begins today, just daily mind you.  I am hoping that will help.  Moving into that more slowly this time, didn't like that problem from last time.  Still, I certainly liked having my blood sugar go down to almost normal.  And the fasting really isn't bad.  It's... actually pretty good.  Then again, while not officially keto, I think I was pretty close.  What about carnivore do you not understand.  The only reason I never quite keto'ed is because I would have bread, or something sweet, or pasta, often enough that it would break the cycle.  Which is why fasting isn't as difficult for me as it is for many.  They have to get over going without heavy carbs on a daily basis.  I'm... over that, for the most part.  Still, less protein, more fats.  Intermittent fasting will help cut the protein, overall.  Still, I would like to aim at less protein per meal... as protein can be junked right to sugar without some care.

I did find the other new socks.  Right where I thought they would be.  Three pair, actually.  One pair is the heavier compression, two pair are lighter compression.  I may attempt to wear the lower compression socks at night.  I'm not sure they are needed, I am not sure if I can do it.  They might be too hot.  Though, with the change to keto, heat doesn't seem to be as much of a problem.  Though I think eating the pasta meal... was a mistake.  I am going through hot flashes like a menopausal outbreak.  At least I only go from hot to normal.  Poor dames go from hot to normal to cold in flashes that would make Superman's head spin as if he were possessed.  Yeah, plus... a few days back on keto full-time, plus intermittent fasting, and I should be back to being right as rain as to felt/sensation of heat.

I missed paying my mortgage.  But... that is because I was waiting on paperwork, which never came.  I lagged out, essentially.  Still, my bad this time.  However, when I call in to pay, I will be taking names and company numbers, speaking with a manager, whose name and number will be taken, and I will get this thing worked out.  They are screwing me over and mean to be doing so.  This is how an Obama government works.  Wait until they decide they don't like you.  Every department of corruption, graft, and brown-out will be screwing with everything in your life they can.  I am almost wondering if that isn't the problem with this doctor.  Are all doctors hard-core leftists now?  The women who work are.  That I knew.  Though, perhaps, he is simply swayed by those women, out of fear.  Not known to pick strong men to be doctors.

Anyway...  Yeah...  I'm slightly annoyed.  I can and will do what I must to do what I am sure will work.  If I have to hire a bureaucrat for state purposes, until I can get out, I will.  No more.  If that fails, there are other solutions.  I won't recant or surrender.

Oh, my real climbing rope is in.  Arborist type.  I do have a couple of belay lines.  They don't have enough give to climb in such a way that arresting a drop would be safe.  They are good for a few things, very good for those, but not for free-climbing.  That is, pretty much, all the gear I need immediately to start several types of climbing.  With or without help.  It's just getting to it.  Bleh.  Later.

Yeah, I'm up.

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Not good or bad, or at least yet.  Son, but that was sleep.  On top of it, I dreamed heavily.  Not a dream storm like the other night.  Not in my memory.  Three dreams.  The first was poignant.  I tried to hold onto it it.  It was the first, and seemed to happen early in sleep.  Then a dream that is one of the more potent and harsh dreams I have had regarding life and my place in it.  The first time I had it, I was able, through it, to look at every fraudulent action and thought, every falsehood, every knowing and suspected poor choice.  On and on and on and on and on.  From when I was a child to a teen to an adult, in sickness and health, in grace and not.  It wasn't that I was seeing the bad choices.  The dream was a repeated collection of pictures, but I can't remember what they were.  Like a slide show with potent images of various sorts.  Through seeing this long but oft repeated set of images, I began to flash through my wrongs.  In the dream anyway, the images did not stop until I had covered every single sin, every single bad thought I would have or did act upon.  Nothing was spared until... I knelt absolutely to the fact that I was... am... so terribly far from perfect.  The first time I had that dream I cried, off and on, for a week, two?  Probably more.  This time, when I saw the images, I remembered my failings, but realized this time I was seeing it so as to know I was not alone in that.  I saw you, some of your ways and failings.  Not everyone of you, but a sampling of many of your types and particular failings, man and woman.  Not to judge, just to know.  I knew, before, but not like this.  I now know as if I had made your poor choice, committed your sin.  Different than just... idealizing.  I had a final dream, but that middle dream overshadowed all, and is still with me.  I may not cry for the next two weeks, but I will lament for... a long while.  And pray.  With my tears, in my turn, I prayed more than even I cried.  Lovely.  Really.  For I saw that it was not the end.  Not for you, or me, if chosen otherwise.  Just... hard.  Choose wisely.  Oh, but after being hit by that first, I'll tell you, I'll be on my knees as often before, praying.  Not just for you.  That sort of thing hits home.  I'll be praying for us.

Neither good or bad this morning.  Just awake and somewhere between frisky and a bit drained.  Go figure that one out.  It's a good foppish day, whatever that means.  It seems to fit, my mind saw the word foppish and latched on, so I type it out as if I knew what I was doing.  The rest from sleep, despite the turmoil in dreams, was quite good.  Getting out yesterday, just that bit, was fine.  I still have great troubles regarding the licensing thing.  If they take away my license I will lose my home.  And I know it is not deserved.  These people are petty tyrants and mean to do me harm.  They believe the disabled should be medicated into oblivion, perhaps even murdered, and given no voice in this world.  Actually, they are just using disability as a means of attempting to quash anti-progressive thought and word.  I know this.  Evil has run amok in our government, in everything it touches, and has become unbound, though perhaps desperate as well.  It sees the resistance growing, maybe becoming insurmountable, and so will lash out with extra fervor while it still holds sways.  Watch yourselves, boys and girls,  It sees all and is coming for you, to.

Today?  Not sure.  I would like to hit the kitchen, but...  I don't know.  The weather has turned chill, and I've lost my weather-resistance from the warm spell.  I am weakened by the constant cool.  Until I find my footing, and acclimatize to the winter again, I'm probably just not going to be doing a whole lot.  No, I don't adapt quickly.  One of the faults of having a weakened body.  Then again, I have been let out of the "class of life" to tend this as I need to.  If I won't surrender to a nursing home, over-medication, and the theft of my disability income, I do have to surrender to taking it easy when I must.  And, currently, I must.  So... I do.  I have had worse.  Before they got the diagnosis correct, they tried to use whip and carrot to get me to jump through hoops.  I still suspect they knew from the start.  They just thought I would die quickly, so didn't really give a shit.  That's what happens when you tie medicine to bureaucracy to bean counters.  It's more than carelessness, it's... shameless prejudice based purely on coin.  I know why they hate me still drawing air.  It costs a pretty penny.  A heart transplant would give their trainees something to practice with, and give me an inception date they can count on.  Open ended is too much, free on top of it is too much.  Yes, I know.

Hmm... coffee, some reading, and a bit of work if I can get to it.  Later.

A tribe of one.

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Well, in some sense, a truth for all, or potential truth.  For me it is the way of it.  Push come to shove, I am alone.  I understand this.  It is part of why I chose many of the things I chose, gone the ways I have gone, and am how I have come to be.  I've pulled it off as best as I could.  I am alive.  And yet, I know, there are times where one is not enough.  So, when I have found various tribes, I have thrown in with them, from time to time.  Yet, not in surrenders.  Any tribe I choose to throw in with had better have the balls to back strong bones and right will.  Oh, sure, I've made mistakes.  I corrected those when and how I should.  There is another tribal effort I am joining.  GamerGate, to some degree, and more along the lines of writers.

This Wednesday, they will be hosting another "book bomb".  There are three short stories/novellas coming up for a push.  The idea is to buy these books, on a particular day, so as to boost their ratings.  Why?  Several reasons.  On the one side, it is to support good writers who might never have seen the light of day due to political correctness in main stream media.  Yes, boys and girls, political correctness and insufferable leftist hate has infected everything, not just the "newsmen" you see on television, or Hollywood, or "newspaper" editorialship.  It has infected prose in all it's forms.  So, some have created a printing company, have begun selecting the best of the writers who have been kept out, and is pushing to end political censorship.  They are doing well.

I choose to join this group for a single reason.  To me, from what I have seen, the work is worth supporting on it's own.  And yet, that much of it would never otherwise have seen the market due to political oppression, right here in America, makes my blood boil.  I have seen it coming, and taking over, starting long ago with academia, but now in everything.  It is the dark spirit of oppressive government, the shadow that comes and uses threats, and isolation, and whatever other tactics it can to gain power.  That is what this about, and what is being fought.  And, so, I join the tribe that has decided to do something about it.  Oh, a little thing, that I do.  A few dollars, a bit of writing, pretty lame.  But it is what I can do.  You can read more below, the content of which is also a link to more information.  Wasn't quite sure how to put it together, so... still, there you go.

Now, there are some differences in the Rabid Puppies and Sad Puppies recommendations here, so what we're going to do in addition to fully supporting the Short Fiction Book Bomb is a) post links to the two Rabid Puppies stories by Steve Rzasa and John C. Wright so people can read them for free, and b) post a link to The Book of Feasts & Seasons which contains two Rabid Puppies recommendations, one for novelette and one for short story, so Book Bombers can bomb it if they wish to do so.

I figured I would give you a few days notice.  The "book bomb", as I mentioned, is Wednesday.  Don't burn the dastardly, buy the good.  If you do, and end up not liking the stories, don't do it again... unless you like pushing for freedom and do so on principal.  But, worth a shot for a few books and the potential for some good reading and an introduction to, from what I have heard, are a pack of pretty solid new writers.  I'll put up a link Wednesday, again, if I'm not entombed in illness.

Does it hurt to try?

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In an ongoing comment conversation, the conclusion was given.  Yes, it does hurt to try.  Why?

There are many reasons, and angles, involved with answering the why of it.  It hurts to start.  It's one more, of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, of new things any specific individual has had to learn, sometimes to competent mastery.  Some of those things seem simple now, such as pronouncing, or spelling, names... tying shoe laces... even washing properly.  Things we do every day, or as if every day events, without a thought, but things that took us great pains to finally get right, and the be able to repeat without a thought.  One more new thing seems fine, but it's not.  Especially since many of us are at the point where a new thing, such as a language, or mechanically repairing an engine, are vast topics.  Nothing can be learned from a book.  A book, or many, can help in the learning process, but more a a crutch than even the main driver of the education.  Something to help you remember what you have been shown. 

Beyond complexity, and the notion of learning something new... again... there is the price.  Nothing is free.  Taking, at a minimum, time, effort, concentration, and quite often serious coin even if just for practice materials (or mistakes).  Learning is very expensive.  Even more, it requires a literal changing of the mind.  I don't think people appreciate that aspect as much as they should.  Many don't see it.  In engineering school, I realized deeply and personally what was being required.  And it did cause me some serious personal evaluations.  Most of the other students were unaware of the changes to mind, and even personality, that were taking place.  Some of it would be temporary, some of it is forever.

After those things, there is the possibility of facing defeat.  Not all people can learn all things.  Most people cannot learn consciously.  They don't know what they know.  They don't know how far what they know will take them.  One of my difficulties in school was that I was quite reticent to learn what I did not know.  I aggravated some of my professors to no end by demanding that they explain what they were teaching.  I realized, after a time, that many of them do not know what they know.  On the flip side, and what shouldn't seem like a fear that might keep someone from learning, is success.  However, once you know something, or have learned it, you are expected to be able to function within that domain.  Your are responsible for, and to, that body of knowledge.  This one is hidden from many, but I saw it in my experiences with various sorts of education.  I chose specifically not to learn some things, or do some things, because of the expectations that went with it.  And not just in school.

Is that enough?  It is, to explain why many don't want to learn.  It is why people would rather buy food than make it, would rather buy over-price equipment than to figure out a more economical way.  It is difficult, and tedious, to learn some things and then carry them on, at first.  There are even other reasons.  I know several, that I can see, some I only suspect, and some I don't yet know.  I have spent my life trying to learn, and hitting personal, social, religious, and other reasons why to, or not to, learn things.  This list is the most common of them, for me.  I suspect they are more common in general, if not always known or understood. 

Once some things are mastered, the world really can become your oyster.  It is getting over that hump, getting the tools, and taking responsibility for the education and then function, that simply seems to much for many people.  So few people are passing these things on.  Lawyers and lawmakers are snubbing those who choose to master their world.  There is even social scorn heaped on those who attempt to work past the limits of their finances, or current capabilities.  And yet, time and again, it comes down to these people making the world work.  Nobody likes to be sidelined by the capacity of another, until their life depends on it.  And yet no one can be expected to save those who won't save themselves, or even try to bar the hard working from ensuring their success. 

Just some thoughts.  Not complete, but a jab at it.  If there is something you have been meaning to learn... especially something that has an economic or life purpose... gardening, welding, carpentry, even some forms of art like lead window making... go to it.  You might have to start small, and humble.  You might need to borrow the tools to start out, you might have to start with bought plants or even stick with them, but start with a very small garden.  You might have to surrender free time.  It will be a risk.  I guarantee you will have more failure, starting out, than successes.  Gird your loin and go in hot.  If a dead man can risk that dance, how much easier for you?  Get to it. 

Hmm... now to figure out the kitchen cart.  Bigger hammer!  :)

No such thing as liberal or conservative?

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Seriously?  Here is a man explaining one subsection of the differences.  Yes, there is a difference.  Anyone who is trying to say there isn't a difference is a liar, bold faced liar.



While I deny that the Republican party is conservative is another thing.  If truth is relative, then the party can be compared as more conservative.  If relativism is considered fiction, as I do, then being less liberal does not make a party conservative.  Mike Lee, Cruz, even Rand Paul, and few others, I consider conservative within American politics.  Not the party.  Not most politicians in that party.  Not even a majority of politicians in the party, certainly not in the leadership.

If you are Catholic, and believe in the truth the church has been teaching about the family, homosexuality, or just agree with the family and that homosexuality is a sin, and want to track what is going on in the Catholic church, this guy is a pretty solid in-house reporter.  He hasn't been pulling punches.  He does a better job than I do, and has an inside track. 

The pope versus God?

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The pope suggest that God is not afraid of change.  Of course not, He wrote history, knows the ending, designed the program, offered men the choice of choosing unfailing truth or lies.  Hell, He created Lucifer.  But that doesn't mean He accepts change.  How can He accept change if He doesn't do it?  Allowance is not acceptance, much as allowing your children to fail, fall, and do wrong, then correct, is not an advocacy of doing wrong.  If the pope wishes to debate things, I suggest he do it in his heart, in prayer, amongst his wiser associates, not with my Church, traditions, Magisterium, or any such thing, let alone logic, so long as it is well known that God is not a being of change, nor for it.  It is clear, that if God changes the goalposts, many will be lost.  The enactment of the Second Vatican Council will eventually be abandoned, or the Church will fall.  It isn't even that the thing was all wrong, it was merely that the wrong signal was sent to the wrong actors at the wrong time.  It will have to be... corrected.  And the bad actors will have to be dealt with.  As the bible says, God does not change.  If the Church changes, then it veers away from God.  I cannot recant.  That would be denying the bible, which is much more than it seems.

I may not seem Christian to you.  But that is because you have been taught very wrong things about Christianity, Christ, and much else.  You have been fed adulterated notions of many things.  You believe in equality, even of sexes.  Equality only exists for those who may be culpable, as they can be culpable, in the eyes of God.  It is not a thing of flesh.  You believe in the state, and law, as morality.  You are dangerously confused.  Let me ask you this, would you give your life for your faith?  Would you even risk your job?  How much of your faith have you tendered for your own gain or satisfaction, or even mere acceptance?  Probably best not to debate this, though feel free to hate.  I would highly recommend against that, but... if God leaves you the choice, who am I to naysay?  *grins*  Hate is a form of suicide, the hate of another cannot damage me.  More so since I know it is flesh that is the illusion, as such things go.

Scoot.  Go cry to momma.  You will receive no succor here.

Servants, not masters.

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I have been having difficulty with one of those who was given the reins of my most important associations.  Some forget that they are servants.  A lord, a prince, even a king, has some grant.  But that grant is extremely, and precisely, limited.  I have written of it, much as I have written of lessor associated princes failing, and the whole system just allowing it.  Thankfully, unlike the US system, it seems the Catholic system is not without checks and balances.  The pope is not getting his way in secularizing and humanizing the church.  I have feet in every grave, and yet I put my faith in the foot I have in life.  It seems I am not alone, regardless of the leadership, in all sectors currently.

Those who divorce, gays, and everyone else has a place in the church.  Much as beggars of all stripes.  To some extent we are all beggars, of forgiveness.  However, we have no right to advocacy for our particular faults.  As a fact, those are only allowed if denied.  A particular sin does not give one special rights.  It actually gives that particular sinner special prohibitions.  I approach the church with this, distinctly, in mind.  I have sinned with many women.  As such, I come to the church in debt for that.  I... love the taste of war.  I crave it.  And, so, I come to the church in suffering, and pleading.  I look for mercy and guidance, not... acceptance.  I bleed, in the church, for my sins.  I know each has cost Christ.  Hell, even if I am called to dark things, even then, I would do so reluctantly, cautiously, prayerfully.  So well taught that I don't want even what I greatly desire.  I will hurt for want of not doing what may be required of me.

Thankfully, unlike broken democratic republics, the church refuses to ignore truths.  Some still know what a servant is, and how that differs from being a master.  Even Christ suffered when He could have chosen otherwise.  He certainly did not want what He knew was His to bear, asked that His price be recanted, but then accepted what had to be.  This pope doesn't understand that.  Oh, it's sliding.  From top to bottom, as communards says and devise.  But it hasn't completely fallen yet.  And... don't just look to my church.  Look very closely into your own, and your heart, and God's words.  Thankfully, no pope, bishop, priest, or layman, alone or possibly together, is the faith.  Know that for yourself.

I will review the new writ, see if the church is salvageable.  My faith is beyond doubt, it just may have to exclude liars, thieves, cheats, and despots, but more... sinners who choose sin over truth.  What is odd to me, is that the so called conservative bishop is the one, and from the nation, that pushed for this... egalitarian pope.  Thrown out on his ear.  An abject lesson in politicizing faith.  Just deserts and whatnot.  Woke grumpy, you ask?  Nah.  I was born grumpy.  I enjoy it when I'm not ranting... well, okay, some rants are quite a pleasing thing, when righteous.

Later.

Brutal.

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Not my day.  It is good.  Other than needing another day of rest.  It wasn't completely unforeseen.  I spilled the wind from my sails fairly liberally last week.  My lower back was spasming yesterday and last night.  I couldn't roll to a place that didn't cause problems, or get my legs situated so they didn't cause problems.  Anicin has been a friend.  Now the pain has worked up to the lower part of my shoulder blades.  It almost always, for me, works it's way up.  It is milder, where it is now located.  I honestly wonder if the pain moves up, because as my body braces for the pain, it stiffens and makes itself sore.  The option is that I can, sometimes, only sense just so much pain.  So I feel the worst.  As that fades, I then sense the next worst, and so on.  No worries, but that isn't what this post is about.

As I have said, I used to be a royal sob.  No, you wouldn't have known it from talking to me.  It was how I lived.  Hard.  I played, worked, and socialized in just such a manner.  I made, and broke, women, friends, and coworkers.  I demanded the sky and gave no room for error, sloth, laziness, and such.  Given the givens, that is still true.  I didn't help, nor hurt, I had my own things to do.  I wasn't even happy with perfection, when I could produce it... within mortal constraints mind you.  Hard as steel and twice as cold.  My folk loved to hate me, and I didn't care, regardless of what I said.  And they knew it.  Can't lie with a certain look on your face.  "Sure, that's fine.", I might have said, while viewing them with the same look I give to dead decayed fish.  Harsh.

That, to be honest, hasn't changed much.  I still have to be careful with my expressions.  Children, and even grown women, can cry when I get a sour gloom on my puss and they take it personal, or sometimes even just seeing it.  Hell, my cats will hide, or get that guilty look, at times.  While I have come to God, I am what I was.  I use Him to temper the wrong parts, but do not shield the righteous parts of that.  None shall pass who haven't really thought about things.

I don't even always like what I am.  It would be so much easier to just get along to go along.  It would be much simpler to have no literal or figurative limits, objective realities and qualities that must be met, and such.  I sometimes even dream of being a simpleton... a graced existence in many cases.  Though too, without guilt, there is no real innocence.  It is... a bit of an illusion.  I won't claim to know that area of God's will or His way with it, only... that it is different.  It is hard to attempt to be a right man, especially being a sinner on top of it, and a failure as well.  I simply have no choice.  I was made as God wanted it.  My choices are slim.  I do attempt to afford their use, to benefit, when available and I am able.  Still, as I have mentioned, I am a bastard.  And it is a bitch to be one.

Way late to bed and waking.

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I got... stuck... in the game.  Ah well, it will happen.  Yesterday, pretty much, was a day for no rules.  As such, almost as if I had a bit to sip, which I didn't, I have a bit of a type of hangover.  It's a bit different but has some key features.  It'll pass.  Well, and I have upped my insulin to... 40cc's is it?  Something.  That is making me a bit off.  Actually, when discussing diabetes with a friend who also has diabetes, I suggested they compare and contrast hangovers, drinking in general, and diabetes.  As a past frequent, and heavy, imbiber, and now as a pseudo diabetic, I have felt things very much in common between the two.  Now, they won't.  For being spotlessly secular in it's approach, medicine has created it's own set of sins.  Among those sins is alcohol abuse, despite a particularly nasty problem in the medical field of drug abuse by practitioners.  So, they won't do such studies.  Then again, with as poorly as studies are allowed to be run these days, I'm not sure anything they do is worth doing.  Still, if a legitimate study could be performed, leaving morality, secular or faithful aside, I think a range of projects in this area could yield great benefits to alcoholics, diabetics, and our understanding of how the body uses fuels and why some fuels are so desperately wanted once found.

Just waking up.  I should have a bit of coffee.  Don't want to be caught off guard.  Yes, yes, coffee. I saw a nice relaxing scene, then... saw something just a bit off.  See if you will notice.  Anyway, I thought I would share.  Oh, but this sure makes me hungry.

h/t 90 Miles From Tyranny

There is something in there.  I know, personally, that before they were treating my illness properly, alcohol probably kept me alive.  At times it would get to abuse type levels, but addiction did not occur.  Which means, I suspect, the alcohol relaxed my heart, and rest my undiagnosed... probably at the time occasional... diabetic symptoms back to normal, somehow.  As I have suggested, my diabetes aren't normal, don't track well from what I have heard medical types discuss on the topic.  Fluid is the one thing that can alter my numbers, a bit, but by volume, not type.  A case of beer flushed everything.  But, also, it probably relaxed an overtaxed heart, and maybe did some other things.

No, I don't recommend that medicine.  But if the body has a problem, it will see possible solutions, and use them, if the medical field doesn't deal with the problem.  Funny how that works, and probably, as I have suggested, part of why I am still alive, nearly 30 years after receiving an illness that, left untreated, has a one to three year life expectancy.  But, no, the medical field won't explore areas it considers to be a secular sin, and won't explore medical options that don't make it money.  A perfect pair for a hellbound lot.  Funny thing is, these are the very people to pour derision on the greedy, the wealthy, and even more so on those who believe more in real morality than their version of a health based morality structure.  Oh... right... /rant

Later.