A few things to do today.

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To bed just after17:00 last night, the day was very long.  More so because my schedule is changing.  My bed times went something like 10:30, 9:30, 11:30, 13:00, 17:00 these last five days.  Sleep has only been usually eight hours, with two sleep cycles being nearly twelve hours, so I am probably running a bit sleep-shy.  While it is good, I think/hope, it is rough too.  As I suggested, I didn't really plan it, it just happened.  I couldn't wake until about 4:00 this morning, roughly.  I woke to pain, probably from the longer but needed sleep.  The pain was intense, but rather short lived.  I will suffer a mild pain all day, the neck is out.  Pftftft, though.  If that is the worst of it no problem.

The seeds should be well and truly soaked.  I didn't end up using saltpeter to soak the tomato seeds as they didn't really seem to need it.  I supposed for a shorter soak that might have been fine.  In a few hours, after waking a bit, I'll begin figuring out the planting.  I bought seedling trays, with covers.  Several, and probably too many, which is fine.  Better to have too many than too few.  As for first, and indoor, replanting after the seedlings sprout I have disposable cups and potting soil, somewhere.  I am very much looking forward to this.  Further, if this goes well, I might finally get started on an indoor/outdoor herb garden.

Herbs and spices have been on the schedule for a very long time.  I have been thinking about an herb garden since Iowa.  I just... well... the whole gardening thing was so new I simply didn't know how to get it all going.  I miss using top quality herbs and spices.  Drying some would be nice, but honestly I'm just concerned up front with fresh, and before that just getting it all going in the first place.  Simply put, unless you grow it or are rich AND on top of your cooking and refrigerator, fresh spices are simply too much hassle.  The thing is, with cats, I am going to have to... be creative in how I protect plants.  Well, cats aren't the only concern, especially if any go outdoors.

 Mint, basil, thyme, and on the list could go on indefinitely.  Ginger is actually easy to grow as well.  Love that stuff.  The thing is, many are annual or biannual, meaning replanting fairly often.  It would be quite a task to keep up on them.  My guess is I would experiment with a number of them, finding some core that I not only want to use, but love above the others.  Sticking with that core, adding a few changing varieties from time to time, would be the key.  The other spices and herbs will simply have to remain storebought for occasional use.  Six to twelve should do nicely.  You really do have to ease into things, I guess.

Dishes need to be finished, planting will begin before too long, and I have a haiku contest to arrange.  But first?  More coffee!  The girls are off my back, food does that.  Time to meditate on the day... and wake.  Later.

Pepper seeds have started.

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Yes, yes, I said I was going to do that yesterday, along with many other things.  It didn't happen.  Sometimes, often, it won't.  You should know a tease when you read one by now.  Woot!

I did, finally, do a bit of research.  The first thing I needed to know was whether the seeds would even survive cooler than optimal (85 F) temperatures.  Sure enough, though it may take longer to germinate.  As well, there is a trick or two to consider.  Moving them from this, the computer and cooler at night, room to the top of the refrigerator (which stays warm) might help them.  They get light and warmth in the day, warmth at night.  Another trick concerned saltpeter, which I had ordered so have on hand.  I had to research how to use it, whether it was poisonous (which would greatly affect how I would use it, and in what... but it is not... it is actually used IN foods).  Warm water, it seems, and soaking overnight, in saltpeter, will act on the seeds as a bird that eats such fruits, to quicken germination.  That has started.  So, tomorrow, they will be ready for planting.

 At this time I have habanero, jalapeno, Tai, and Serrano peppers soaking.  There are enough seeds of each that I have no real concern about getting some peppers, assuming I do my part, a bit.  I hope.  I am not sure, but I may be doing the same with tomato seeds yet today.  I will be looking that up.  Why seeds?  I believe it will be cheaper.  But more?  I love watching plants grow.  I simply enjoy the notion and the reality.  I like having a little thing to fuss with.  I feel much more attached to the process.  Money is only an afterthought, really, if a handy one this particular year.

I still need to find a farmer to plow a dozen or so rows.  Oh, I won't use all that, but I will be doing my own sort of area farming.  I believe I will do my peppers on the corners of the area, by type.  That could keep cross-pollination to a minimum,  if it might complicate watering.  Then again, if I used the rest of those rows for other plants, it might work out well.  This is my first real year, if it all works out.  In faith, it is how I walk, work, live, for I do not know anything.  I'm already a living ghost, and yet I push.  It's glorious.  Even a failure is a success.

What else?  I don't know.  A quick review of the tomato seedling process, and perhaps getting those going as well, then?  I really want to fire up the torch and just remove two brass fittings that will open up that process.  Cleaning the pipe and even the fittings, while I do that, hopefully, so as to practice if nothing else.  The pipe will have to be cleaned.  The fittings I could just toss, but I don't truck with that.  *sigh*  It isn't even that I am cheap, if there is that.  It is just that I truly hate waste.

Well... on to a bit more research.  Good day.

If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword?

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Absolutely.  But.  What does that really mean?

When considering teaching another how to war, I would make a few things clear.  Crystal.  Absolute.  What is taught is not taught for you, personally.  What you learn is not for your personal use.  What you learn is so that you may act in agency for one who cannot act, and for the correct reasons.  Okay.  What does THAT mean?

Hmm? Wakey time is it?

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Staying awake to sometime after 15:00 I believe, then waking for dinner when it arrived which I gobbled.  Good and hungry, if the latter is best the of spices perhaps.  I crawled back to unconsciousness without a thought.  Sleeping until 22:00 and change.  Until now I wasn't even sure if that was the right amount of sleep but that seems fine.  My days are rolling over again.  Today was a huge push, if not an intentional one, after several days of plateau and even a morning where my progress collapsed a bit.  I should see days roll around before too long, again.  More bright shiny sky candy will help with that.

What am I doing though?  You aren't seriously asking me, are you.  It doesn't take two hours to wake, especially when rolling my schedule.  I'll let you know in, like... three more hours, if I am lucky.  I do feel strength, and vigor, returning.  Which is often separate from my schedule rolling around.  Though the sun is the moon to my internal oceans.  When I can align my days with the sun, my world has a better chance of flowing.  Broken clocks and all, being a Leo does seem to indicate that I am a creature of the sun.  And that is true.  But more, as summer comes around, now that I can keep the heat in check for the most part, or at least shelter from time to time from the worst of it, I might truly be able to get to work... or not.  *le sigh*  My life is, after all, what it is.

But, really?  Gosh I love to work.  More since I can take breaks.  If I can just get to it.  I hope you all can get to it today.  There is nothing like being productive and reaping what you sow.  Now to get my sowing machine working!  :p

A meandering mind.

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It isn't the kiss. It isn't more. It is breathing, living, acting, as one, while still two, that is love. Most won't take the time to appreciate. I know I have failed, and lost, thinking to have slipped a noose or four, and more. Odd that I couldn't see at the time? No, carnal knowledge isn't even the goal, though that has always been true for me, save in my youth when I simply thought that was all there was to love. That is just a fringe benefit. It is truly creating life, living with, knowing, spending time with, a lover. Enough, perhaps, that for moments, the bond is real, true, and sure. Those moments, as when heaven can be seen clearly, or when life has offered a natural relief from the many pains of life. Just moments, harvested through years, precious and rarer than diamonds. The world, my world, had no patience for such. It is good to know, now. Without a lover, I can now find these little gems, if more rubies or other lessor precious stones if too more commonly, in my daily life. Still, diamonds are on the mind.

Not everything here is deep. I enjoy being a child. I still am, you know. A thing in time is was and always will be, when kissed by God. Few have not been kissed, if the kiss has conveyed different... gifts... to His various spawn. When Sam looks at me with that, "You have had enough, relent." look, I sometimes abide. Sometimes I simply decide to roll her and make her my new toy. Thankfully she is a beneficent and gentle dame cat. Sassy never looks at me with such a look. She merely looks intently then decides whether to join in herself or run hide until I am through being a rogue child spirit. A gentle giant, I suppose, to be true, even in my childishness. Then again that is all I ever willed. It's just that my will was not what the way allowed.

No tears about it, in many ways. I see those who where gifted a gentler life now unable to even give a reason, or put up a fight should they find some remnant of the backbones they were born with, why they shouldn't be slaughtered, supporting the very people who would kill them for being exactly what they are. If it where merely an animal world, and more did not concern me, I would most gladly allow it. I am pleased to not be in that majority. Saddened by what such a gentle life does to those gifted it, cursed it. To be powerful, and be able to choose to be gentle, is far better than to be so gentile that one becomes one's own enemy. Sad.

Deep, again. How about this? I still like my notions of the early stages of love, and wish again to show it. Tiefer, deeper. While it seems all fun and games... it was very much a setting up of the home. Limits are set, stretched, reassigned. She barks, I bite, next we switch. She uses her charms, me my strength. The dance is to wear the other out. Notice her sniffling and snubbing at the start. Watch him stare her down. Lovely. Both take our turn with come here, come here, come here, go away, go away, go away, ad nauseam. It's quite a thing. Fitness tests, most stringent ones. If those are passed? Tiefer.  While it may not have provided diamonds, I won't say the rubies were bad.  I just know there is more, now, perhaps.



Still up, and it is 15:08... 3:08 pm for most of you.  Time to get to bed, or at least nap, lightly, anyway.

What a day!

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The last few days have been sunny, I think.  Yesterday I was about ready to sleep by the time I remembered to open my curtains.  The days before I didn't have enough going to even remember to open the curtains.  Today I not only remembered, I wanted to open them.  The sun, but the view!  I suppose I have described what I see out my windows before, being ringed by mountains, mostly.  I call it the dragons maw, as it is shaped appropriately if huge, the mountains appearing to be the teeth of the bottom jaw of a dragon, the throat leads into Idaho.  What I see easily out of my big front window is a perfect view of one particular range.  I ought to get a corner desk so I can see out of the other large picture window, which views the  whole of the northern Wasatch range. While still more snow capped than the picture, the shape doesn't change.  I'm not on the water, mind you, but that isn't far either.  That is about exactly my view.  I really need a camera, a good one.  This will do until then.

I am not sure what will happen today.  I have been holding off doing things for a couple of reasons.  I have promised to help a neighbor with a sort of big job.  So swimming is being delayed, I don't want to tire myself too much, if gas and reconsiderations have also been a plague.  Then too my schedule is off but I am afraid to mess with it too much.  If I try to stretch it right now I might be in really poor shape to help.  Though sometimes that works out perfectly.  I never can tell.  Still, I have things to do and I am finally feeling up to trying to do some of it.

Hopefully, today, I will go ahead and start some of the seeds.  Perhaps all of them.  Tomatoes, peppers, the works... at least what I will do ahead of time.  I might try a couple of half rows of various root vegetables.  Kohlrabi, turnips, that sort of thing.  But those can go in the dirt directly and later.  The seedlings have to be started to have any chance at having viable plants to transplant.  I suppose I could buy a few plants, but that is expensive and no more promising.  No, seedlings it is.  I must at least try.

As well, I might fidget around and try to work out of my various problems.  The dishes are becoming a real nuisance because my kitchen sink faucet (new) has clogged from all the damned government regulations on flow.  The water here isn't even that bad.  It is just that water control on faucets is a poor technology, or has been poorly implemented.  I didn't buy the cheapest faucet, not even close.  I actually went slightly higher end, wanting some looks and specific functions.  I don't even know how to fix that, or if the only fix is to do weeks of research on reliable faucets or pay hundreds for a faucet.  I am, to say the least, more than a little put out with the government right at this point.  It's tough enough for a cripple to get around without assholes shoving stumbling blocks in my way.  *grumbles*

As well, sometime soon, I want to begin work on my on-suite bathroom, getting the fittings undone and redone.  The weather is warming enough that, should the unexpected and unwanted occur, the problems won't be too severe to deal with.  In dead winter, or when freezing is just the way of things, gushing water just isn't something I wanted to deal with.  Last summer escaped me in the heat and even with the AC finally up and running toward the end I didn't recover in time to get to it.  I would also like to go out and level the area dug up for the new hydrant.

No, I mean I want to do these things.  They aren't seen as chores, or duties, or anything that could be seen as negative in any way.  These things sound fun to me.  Like swimming, really.  Or hiking, fishing, dancing, meeting women folk.  Fun!  Well... ideally.  :p  It's just a matter of being able to walk.  Bleh.  I'll... get to it all, and soon, I think.

The rhyme just comes to mind when I am setting my mind to doing many and varied things.
Tinker, tailor,
soldier, sailor,
rich man, poor man,
beggar man, thief.

Well... on to something.  Good day.

It seems the haiku wreathe has been placed upon my pate.

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I am still... reeling... from the topic.  When one speaks of the hunt, among a few other things, I see more than the Hubble is capable of seeing.  The Hubble sees so much in so small of a space that some are impressed.  What I see, using the correct lens, pointed in the right direction?  I see everything.  As War, everything from food to breath to, well, war of course, is... the hunt.  If one doesn't hunt, war, one doesn't live, exist.  Even what is not living hunts, if seemingly ignorantly, as stars seek matter to eat into it's mass or serve as planets, galaxies seek stars, and black holes seek all even light.  Even our planet seeks us, through gravity.  Everything hunts and is hunted.  It isn't primal, it has merely become primal through our awareness, or more through our emotional realization that life is... precious, perilous, precarious.  And more, it doesn't stop at survival.  The hunt infects... or blesses... even love, right to being required for the propagation of the species... if who is the hunted and who is the prey is... often even a much deeper topic!  So primal many have sought to escape the truth of it by trying to fudge and become vegetarians, virgins, or other things, and be far removed from it all.  Some weary from it so greatly they just cease to be.  And yet they cannot escape, they merely become pure prey, unless they break and become visceral secret lethal predators, out of their mind, terrible and horribly so.  I did what I could, but there is... more there.  There is more there than I could ever put here or anywhere.

As events approach I must take to wing.

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I have two major events on the horizon.  My mother will be visiting in June, then a trip to Burning Man in August.  One is a recurring thing.  I love having my mother here.  I just wish... it could someday just be a visit.  Oh, she loves to help.  She likes... arranging, cleaning, and such.  It's just, it would be nice to have her simply as a guest.  I just don't have a means of doing that quite yet.  I simply have to figure some things out.

For her visit I am hoping to work on the kitchen.  For that to happen I need to strip off the old wallpaper.  I had hoped to talk her out of putting wallpaper back up.  I just don't like the stuff.  Oh, I understand, there are uses for it.  And there are places where it is better.  There are some who simply love the stuff.  As it turns out, her gentleman friend recently stripped a room of wallpaper and painted.  It seems he and I have more in common than even I had suspected.  She, of course, helped.  She was impressed enough with how it turned out that she has decided, on her own, to go that way here too.  As well, I need to get started on the seedlings.  I would also like to plant four or five dozen plants.  Habanero, Tai, jalapeno, and some other peppers, for a mix I make.  Well, that and maybe a dozen tomato plants.  But I have to get on that, fast!

As for Burning Man, I need to begin planning some purchases.  On my end, I am hoping to supply tables and chairs, perhaps.  Containers for water and fuel.  As well as a portable grill.  I have been through those items.  I found a number of items I liked, but would like feedback from my brother in fire.  Actually, there is some hope, if this goes well, to make it a yearly pilgrimage.  I will gladly skimp on the fun stuff this year in the hopes that if that works out to lay a solid foundation for future events.  Work first, then play, it really works out a lot better that way.

For both events, I want to get back into the water.  I need to swim.  Part of what has been keeping me away is the expense.  It shouldn't be that expensive, I'm not exactly sure why it ends up being so pricey.  Never mind, I need to do something.  While I am still in 40's, I had been nearing 38 waist jeans.  Now not so much and I hate that.  In my prime, at 240, I wore a 31 waist.  While I will never get to 31's, I wouldn't mind, and it might be possible, to get to 36's, maybe 34's.

Genetics does play a huge role, more so than most think.  If your genes say no, then you won't bulk up, shrink down, and be even interested in trying.  My problem isn't genetics.  I was built to be a tank, if I only ever looked like a slightly buff swimmer.  That wasn't a bad thing, it's just...  even at my prime... Well, I had always hoped (without "juice") to buff up a bit more.  It never happened.  I now believe it isn't possible, for me, even then.  Now?  I don't know.  The heart is really beating me up.  The more conscious I become, and even my recent spells are better than even some of my better times mere years ago, I realize just how much of a bind I am really in.  I am getting better, but it is glacially slow.  Hurry up already!

Academia, science itself, is in aposty. But not to religion.

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Perhaps I should have written that those institutions are not in disaffection just to religion.  They are in tergiversation with truth itself, in all it's forms.

I can only guess that, at some point, academics realized they could not find truth.  Whether contorted in their failure to find truth without God, on their own, they decided to deny truth and seek the majority of what else is out there, deciding to not even aim rather than miss the mark, therefore making everything but the truth the target, or whether simply corrupted by their insistence that there is truth without God, or some other possibilities, I cannot say.  What I do know is that the father of lies is the master of modern academia.  It would be better to allow the most insane of men to run the institutions.  At least they would be running it with a truth, if one of their own seeing, rather than directly from falsehood, for it's own sake.

Did I just go through the wash cycle or what!

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I did get the trash and recycling collected, bagged, the cat litter changed, all of it out, and the bins then to the curb.  I am losing perspective on time, even days, so I only suspect it was... right before the sun came up, I think.  I knew it was Monday, for a number of reasons.  What I didn't know was... oddly... that it was Monday.  I have no idea what days, in my medicine set, I had been using, but they were way off.  No, I've been taking my medicine, save that one day off.  But...  It is all confused.  I am living in a tornado.  Up, down, left, right, north, south, east, west... I have no landmarks, no internal senses, no intellectually constancy by which to attain a heading.  I am adrift.  My mind works, but as for putting things together, I just have nothing.  Literally, imagine being in a device that safely maintains a tornado and you in the center of it, but being twisted and turned by the wind as it will... It's been days now, I think.  On the other hand, it isn't terrifying, just annoying when I want to get something done.  You know, some people pay a lot of money to get this feeling, and then can't maintain it.  If I could bottle this I would, if without scruples, be a very wealthy man by selling it.  Me?  I like vanilla.  A lot.

I'm not weak, and I'm not losing my marbles, at least.  Really.  I'm just up in the air and twisting in the wind.  I don't think most could handle this.  It must be something to do with health, but I couldn't say what.  I suppose I should... actually I am just lying back and trying to see what works and what doesn't.  I don't panic.  I would have been a great test pilot.  Actually, I have to think that being in an out-of-control flight pattern at super-sonic speeds would give you about the same mental sense that I am getting, it really is mixed up.  All I lack is the physical pressures that might go along with that, if I believe I could handle those even now.  Ugh, though.  When I hit terra firma, if I am not buried in it I will kiss it.  What a ride though.

Up and at it though.  All good.  Wow. 

I am busting my hump to try to swing my days around.  I seem to be at a plateau, though, and losing ground on it.  I keep trying to stay up later and later.  But that is literally killing me.  I end up not even remembering when I am going to bed because I am absolutely zapped.  Then I wake to a fog from having gone to sleep in such a state that I couldn't find my bearings to sleep land and merely fell unconscious.  I think I will back off that throttle and just go to bed when I am tired enough.  No more pushing for a bit.  That may be what is sending the cockpit into vortex simulator.  Seriously, the physical directional confusion is enough that I think most people would lose their lunch.

All good.  I'll figure it out.  Later.

Fat with thin?

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Oh, I feel great.  I do.  At least what I feel.  I'm pretty much numb.  That can be better than some options if it is definitely not optimal.  I took a break from medication yesterday, on purpose this time.  I don't think it has much to do with the numbness though, that was already setting in.  Every once in a while, for me, it is good to stop medication for a day, maybe two.  It gives my body a break.  These medicines are tough to take.  I also believe I will be cutting back on the diabetes medicine.  To be honest, I think that is a larger part of the problem.  I will know soon enough.  My A1C was coming down so I am not terribly worried about that.

Ugh.  It can be ugly trying to figure things out without a body and mind that will connect with each other then function in the world.  I am hoping to get the trash and recycling policed, collected, stored, then taken to the curb.  I have only a few hours.  It seems so easy, and it is an easy task.  Like I said, sometimes there is a disconnect that doesn't allow something to happen.  I've jacked the furnace up and will take medicines.  Yeah, I know.  Easy.  But...

As my days and nights are swinging through the dark, I keep losing track of what day it is.  Waking one day, then going to bed on another, seems to add to the confusion.  Being awake through the night, though, is confusing all by itself.  There isn't anything regular, like the sun, to monitor progress.  I did stay up until past 10:00 today.  Progress towards days is decent, but more measured than last time.  There is some hope that as days come around this next time that I can latch onto it.  I have been able to do that a great deal better in the last few years, improving more than not I think.  Without requirements on top of health though, this will always be a difficulty.  As I have said though, when with a woman, my schedule really straightens out.  Even if I don't really like her.  :)

Hmm... time to warm up, then try to get going.  Later or good night.

Haiku - Prey, revisited.

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I'm still not getting it.  Still, I have a few more.  Perhaps the composite will provide... something.  Yes, this is why I will never be an artist or writer.  The money couldn't be enough to tolerate the sense that I am not getting it, or giving it.  Gah!!!

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All innocent, sweet,
She smiles, frolics, promise love-
Into her dungeon.

Some of us are immune, at least to the darker of daughter(s) of God.  Whether via professional courtesies or... nepotism, take what you can get I suppose.  As interpreted, mind you, using a brother. 

Though nephilim, of course, are not from angels and demons, but angels, fallen and perhaps not, and women.  Then again, she... isn't all about truth.  She prefers her versions of things, of course.  Still, she is mother. Probably from before her corruption.  Maybe that was how she was corrupted?  I was never told all the family secrets, if I suspect.

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(click the picture)

You don't know my name,
You think you know all you fear-
I come, Bogeyman.

or

You don't know my name,
You think you know all you fear-
I come soon, wolfman.

Which do you all like best?

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He is near. I smell
his will, my fear, I loathe, know-
Every day. Somewhere.

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She loved and lost.
She was with country, then not-
The price was enough.

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Double Gah!  I had to redo a number of these.  My salable counts were off.  My brain failed.  Ugh...

Still a bit in zombie world.

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I can't tell you what the problem is, as usual.  I have decided to push the clock on around.  As I remember it, the last time my clock was coming around to days it was coming in too hot.  I staved off the inevitable for several days.  Then the schedule kept on going.  I was up until 9:30 and change.  I need to keep pushing to get back to days.  But pushing carefully.  How do you do that, by the way?  Idiot terminology if you ask me.

My mouse was acting up the last few days, making even internet searches impossible.  Being a bit more on the ball, if not all that active still, I started considering what the problems could be.  Of course, viruses and other such are always possible problems.  I checked, for what that is really worth.  I found nothing.  I decided to tear the mouse down.  Well, okay.  It looks like the mouse started growing a fur on the inside!  I cleaned it, then tinkered with it.  I figured out how to completely disassemble the thing.  Some of it was tricky.  And being that hard but cheap plastic, I really had to be gentle, and depend a bit on luck.  I sort of amazed myself.  Cleaned, to the point of no hair.  I used tweezers to get out every last bit of it.  Then scraping skin cells where they had collected, and other debris.  I reassembled it and well.  Tried it again.  Nope.  So, I took the cover off to try some things.  It was the module that accepts the click that had failed.  Not broken, probably shorted.  Either the hair, time, or aridity had simply gotten to it.

I didn't want to go to town, if I did need a few other things.  Still, either to town or go without the machine until I eventually got to town.  It happened so quickly it surprised me.  A shower, dressed, and I was sitting in the Xter before I had quite decided, myself, if I was going to town or not.  It happens.  I figured I would need to stop at both Walmarts.  Sometimes one store carries my brands, sometimes it is the other.  But for midnight shopping, I am simply not going to complain.  Milk by three gallons, whole, my brand.  More cat food, wet.  Additional (for storage) toilet paper.  Finally, the right mouse.  I don't want wireless.  They almost don't sell wired mice there.  On the good side they are extremely cheap.  No, I don't want the ball either.  Then again I don't even think they sell those anymore.  I was expecting $50-$60, so less than $10 was nice.  Nice enough I decided to consider a new keyboard.  The old one worked fine, save that I had worn the finger placement bumps down.  That was only a few years old too.  Cheap plastic indeed.  A few other things and home.

It still seems more like a dream.  I never woke up today.  It just doesn't seem like that is a requirement, always, at least in these times.  I am definitely doing much better, if that is mere fractions of a degree, it does mean the difference between just sitting here and doing something about the problems I think I can solve.  All good, all good.  And they work.  You never know, anymore, when you buy anything, whether it will work when you plug it in.  Quality control is gone.  Then again, we went through that with every emerging market producer out there.  First with Japan and Germany, then South Korea, Taiwan, and the rest, in whatever orders.  By the time they work themselves up to quality merchandise they price themselves out of the cheap market but begin vying for better, and local, markets.  It's a beautiful seed to watch grow.  I still think it will end up killing China's communism, or whatever form of socialism it is insisting on acting like or calling itself when it comes to it's end.

Never mind.  It's nice to be back online.  Later.

What about prey?

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It is such an interesting topic for me, personally.  I have been both hunter and hunted, in conflict and in love.  More, I loved it.  I have even hunted food animals a few times.  I have dreamed of being a bear, a wolf, and an eagle.  To be honest, what was on my animal minds in those dreams?  Food.  It was all about finding a source then getting too it.  Berries to bunnies to fish, it was all, in the animal psyche, about filling up.  Day after day, week after week, it is all about food.  The hunger in them is terrible, brutal, feral, final.

Okay. Well?

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I tried to stay up longer, in order to reset my schedule.  I didn't.  I had hoped since I went to bed so early (a local low) that I would wake earlier.  I didn't.  I slept fifteen hours, if my... memory serves.  Oh, that isn't going to work.  I simply don't have a way to fix things, change them.  The girls woke me a time or two.  In stirring, however, I could not attain consciousness so drifted back into the nether.  I simply don't have function or control currently.

Haiku - Prey.

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It seems Rafael has won the gig.  He will be is hosting the show for this weekend, and as suggested, the theme is "prey".  He has the full details at his site, I would recommend you heading over and taking a... gander.  I love this topic.  It is a major essence of my nature, even if I can't seem to live it currently.  I just hope my muses help me find the mark, even if it is by escaping the becoming one.  Never mind.

I had a feeling these were professionals.

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Just that I couldn't sense anything.  That means one of two things.  Either I am out of touch, or the people involved are highly trained.  They can keep their minds shut.  I look for these types, even in my daily daily, when I get out of my cave.  They have dead eyes.  Machine guns, grenades, public gun fights.  Sure, could be a form of jihadi, or industrial terrorism.  But this is a level, or three or more really, up from the typical.  At MIT?  I wonder if they have cover there?  I'm almost betting they did.  Lots of professors would not only offer them cover, they would actively support them.  If they back up what they say.  Still, I would be surprised if any investigation is done in that direction. 

I am guessing this is just the beginning.  Gun free zones, cities, now states... are extremely soft targets.  And yet, if this is just the beginning, my guess is they will try to hit even my areas.  Depending on how well my folk are prepped, and whether they stop an event quickly, will tell if attacks continue.  A half a dozen failed ops and they will stick with the very soft targets.  Then again, it might just be a single operation.  But it was pro.

My guess is the 'idiot' (standard) jihadi doesn't function well in America.  Life is good, easy, and it beckons.  And it is too complex for a simple stoned suicide grunt, from over there anyway.  They have had to train up these folks, or find those born here but also filled with hate.  Even those have to be trained.  My guess is, with all their normal (old usual) methods shut off, and operations being sniffed out left and right, the recruiting operations will be smaller, hand done jobs, with little to no back traces.  Something perfect for college campuses, which have huge cover.  Should be interesting to see what shakes out.

I am hoping the FBI is allowed to do it's job and finds the MIT sources.  This could change everything regarding campus politics and the old Uncle Joe mentality.  MIT has a lot of clout, and the rest of the Ivy Leaguers will hang together.  Which is fine, so long as if there is involvement, they hang.  I'm easy that way.  Time will tell.

Too tired. Then dizzy?

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My friend called, twice.  I didn't hear the first call, and didn't avoid answering when I did hear.  Sometimes I... can't answer.  Especially when the news is bad and I am very tired.  No shooting today.  I simply couldn't do a thing.  Tired.  Very tired.  I can't sleep but I might as well not be awake.

I became dizzy about an hour or two ago.  In spite of having a very bad heard and being on extremely heavy medicines, I have never been dizzy.  Usually I nearly literally jump out of bed.  When I head to the bathroom or kitchen, I jump from my chair and move very quickly to my destination.  I move very fast, not just for a gimp.  The dizziness made me nervous.  It is something I only notice, historically, when I used to drink in extra excess.  A case won't deliver that.  Add a fifth, or two, to a case and then I start getting that level of spatial issues.  I was able to maintain my balance, I just had to... be sure.  It seems even when I am dizzy I can still move at a good clip.  It really didn't have a thing to do with standing, it was just something that was static, but I didn't notice it's onset being focused on what I was doing.

I'm back on meds.  I had the furnace up a bit today to get me going for shooting.  I've been eating better.  I simply don't know what the problem is.  Back pain, lethargy, internals hurting, now this.  It might just begin going back to medicines, and at even higher doses.  At least sleep is good, solid, and of sufficient length.  And I am staying up a reasonable period.  It is just that all the odd little complaints, along with exhaustion, is leaving me high and dry.  Oh, I'll keep looking for opportunities.  I'll do what I can, when I can.  I've definitely had worse.  Bleh.

Later.

I suppose I can do something.

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When the neighbor lad was getting things ready for mowing, he found that the front adjustment for the wheels was not holding.  It dropped to the lowest setting.  That both makes it very difficult to push and cuts grass too short.  I like a bit o' green.  It's healthier grass when cut less harshly.  I tried manipulating the metal parts, but it simply would not hold.  I tried a simply large bread-tie type wire to hold things in place.  That worked very well for about five minutes.  Hmmm...  After looking the thing over, closely, there simply wasn't a way to wire the thing well.  However, the housing is plastic.  I considered drilling a hole, but the area was so tight...  The Dremel!  I knew I bought that for a reason.  It was tricky even with the Dremel.  A little patience paid off.  Once the hole was drilled, I found some solid 'bailing wire', threaded that through and around the parts as needed.  Done.  Not a problem with it since.  I threaded it through twice.  That is not going to break, if it might end up stretching.  No problem there, either.  A bit more tightening and adjusting over time and that will become... well... hard wired.

Tonight for my second meal I looked over my thawed meats.  I wasn't quite sure what to do with spare ribs, but that sounded good.  I ended up having to cut it in half to fit the frying pan.  I then fried each piece decently on each side.  Then I smothered the pieces in some barbeque sauce and baked at 350 for about 20 minutes.  That worked.  I need food to get going again, I think.  While I have fattened back out a bit, food is required to get going.  Then again, as I have mentioned, I get fatter by eating less.  I have to have a certain amount of food coming in to raise my metabolism, I suspect.  If I want to get back to swimming I have to figure out food.  Four meals a week simply won't do it.

Well, bedtime.  Good night.

I was built for pain.

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Thankfully I am set of body and mind to deal with it.  Today?  My innards are giving me fits.  Imagine the feeling that half of your inner organs are bruised somehow.  No, it's not an extremely rare thing.  Usually, though, it is just a few of them.  Today it is all of them.  At least it isn't a screaming pain, like my back the other day.  It's more a soft discomfort, like muscles several days out after a slight over-working.  It's just around my midriff.  The heart and lungs feel fine.  Never to worry though, I might be able to get to something or other anyway.  I didn't get the trash and recycling out.  That might happen today.  A load of dishes needs to be rerinsed then dried and put up.  A load or two of laundry could go forward.  It might get done.

The hope for tomorrow is to get to town, weather permitting, to get my friend to the range.  It's been longer for me than him but we both need a little target shooting practice.  Plus, it's just good getting out of our caves.  Even being grumpy old men, spring has a beauty and comfort that will soon pass into the brutality of summer.  It would be good to enjoy at least a few days of spring before the summer onslaught.  Fresh cool air in the lungs, a fine breeze on the face, the verdant flora for the eyes.  Yes, to the range.

My neighbor's son has started mowing my lawn for the year.  While, perhaps, at this time, I could mow, maybe, the thing is staying up on it.  And... I'm not sure I could mow.  You can't drop out of life for weeks then try to catch up on everything at once.  I am perpetually behind.  And I am not sure I can mow.  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Odd how easy things are at times and how impossible even taking a shower can be. 

Well... on to my day. 

Sometimes they tell it true.

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Everybody has regrets.  I have met none who believe they have not made mistakes, some greater, some lesser.  Some would change nothing, to include myself.  My error wasn't usually... in action, but in purpose, reason, direction.  More, I did the best I could with the understandings I had.  A pawn?  I reject that, save that we are all pawns in the bigger pictures, but very much self-selecting in the final analysis.  Terrible things, and yet wondrous, have I seen and done, been as a player, and known.  A visceral world with life, love, hate, and death as constant companions.

I always looked for more.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I believed that there was better, or more perfect, or simply perfection itself.  The truth is what I was and was doing is probably as good as it gets.  What was missing was a belief that life, freedom, requires blood.  No, I suppose I knew that, believed it, had to believe it.  What was it that was missing?  An underlying belief that it was more than just us versus them, or merely our survival versus their will.  Perhaps it was merely that my belief was too shallow.  It was not grounded in my earlier life.  I had no anchors.  I do believe it was the correct belief.  I do not count surviving, personally or communally, at least now, as any type of sin or stain.  Or perhaps I just got so deep in the chaos that I lost my way.  I doubt if I will ever simply know until I am shown.  I would have had to go through this someday, I guess when I did, for the reasons I did, was satisfactory.  As I said though, I would change nothing.  What needed to be changed has been altered.

Escaping the cave.

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In spite of not getting to bed until about 5:30, and missing one call from my friend, the second call was heard and woke me, and quickly enough to talk.  I have no idea when he called, either time.  After a quick discussion, I promised to be in.  His bank closes at 5:00, most likely, perhaps earlier these days.  Saturdays are gone, at least for my bank.  And they are shutting down the longer drive-through hours too, I think.  Cut, cut, cut.  The majority of those who voted, voted for this, whether they knew it or not.  I would love to say 'once burned', but that is never the case with many.  Anyway...

I rearranged a few things, hopped in the shower, dressed, and was out of the cave in almost no time flat.  I believe from the call to hitting the highway was less than an half hour.  How that works sometimes I don't know.  No shooting today, it was snowing when I left.  It has snowed since.  For me, the 40's are fine, for my friend, not so much.  I got him to his tasks, then had a bite to eat.  It's good for both of us.  He would be out almost every day if he could drive, or even pedal a bike.  Well, maybe three times a week.  As for me, I would be out a lot more too, if I could.  We each have slightly different sorts of problems.  Perhaps it makes slipping our various caves better when it happens?

Thursday, if it is sunny, we are planning our next great escape.  A bit of target practice.  I am reluctant to shoot too much, with the scarcity and expense of ammunition.  I should have enough .22 though.  I think I have between 2k and 4k, I think.  I'll have to look.  Most of it is the large boxes of mid-grade stuff.  My guess is the government is buying even more than what it is suggesting.  Through third parties it is buying ammunition and guns, both new and used, with the remainder of the last 'stimulus' money that went unspent.  Illegal, immoral, probably unconstitutional if it ever gets publicized and to court, but just like much else this current and even past admins, they simply don't care about the rule of law.  I wonder if they are simply destroying the guns?  Many of them aren't that useful to the government.  The durth of .50 rifles, even .338s, has me very suspicious.  But it doesn't stop there.  Part of my suspicion is that prices haven't soared.  I am wondering if they aren't literally controlling prices, in an unofficial gun buy-back program.  It is getting spooky out there.  As such I would advise that if you sell a firearm, make sure it is going to a real citizen.  Don't sell through an auction site, or blindly.  And be very careful when you sell.  Very careful, for other reasons.

My goal, now back on meds, is to be back in the pool by Friday.  That will give me the weekend to catch my breath.  I may try to continue swimming, but cut it to one or two times a week, max.  Until I can sort out my finances, that is all I can do.  Walking just doesn't cut it.  While not quite afraid of the wide open, I am afraid of being out there and crashing.  While driving, I can continue on and get home.  But if walking, and several miles from home, I would have to push things to get home, which throws the whole ball of wax out of kilter... sometimes for days, sometimes for much longer.  Walking locally, say around the block, just gets too old too fast.  Maybe this summer, if I get up to it, a walk to the local lake to swim might be possible.  I just don't know right now.  I'm not sure how safe it is, with all the boating that can happen.  Or even driving there.  Just... thinking.

Well, dinner is here and I am hungry again.  I have been eating mostly just what has been brought in for too long.  I need to fix things so I am eating more, and more regularly.  Meat has been thawed, so hopefully food is back on the menu a bit better.  Later.

Seeing.

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Things are shifting, quickly.  Who, what, where, when?  It is about wills.  On earth it will pertain to flesh as certainty has not been... granted, yet.  A clash of flesh, unlike a clash of spirit, will leave havoc and corpses.

Catch 22.

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One of my mothers, a woman who raised me in that capacity for some number of years, had been extremely cleanly.  Beyond, life and her home was orderly.  Books were organized on the shelves, linens were put in their place, good items where kept in a special place.  Oh, my main mother was quite clean and such, but... she was just one, and we boys were two.  She tried.  This other mother, however, had a husband, and at the time two of us boys (one of us was not... orderly, the other was relatively organized).  This other mother, though, was amazing.  Not only her stuff, my dad's stuff, and the house stuff, but the materials stored for the various children where kept amazingly neat.

Okay, day two on medication and?

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And?  Frankly, not much.  I can't say I am more able to do anything.  I felt rather blah, if the weather has been cold and cloudy.  I've enjoyed the girls, if they are a little put out that food (wet) is being cut to twice a day.  I have to get my money in order.  I am cutting... everything.  Ugh.  They aren't outright revolting at least.  They are, actually, giving me a lot more attention.  I can live with that.  Further, they will only starve if they choose that.  I now keep the hard cat food available for their leisure.  Now, to make their points... while I type?  They sit on one of my hands!  Oh well.  I'm rather easy going about it all.

My friend called.  My phone was both charged and in functioning order.  Apparently he tried to call Saturday and Sunday.  One of those days the phone was off, the other day I set it to "airplane" mode for sleep but had forgotten to reset it to normal function.  It will probably be raining, snowing, or both tomorrow.  But he needs something so I plan to figure out how to make it to town.  There might be a small window of opportunity to take a few practice shots, so I will be taking a pistol just in case.  If nothing else, it will be good to get out of the cave.

Tired.  It is early.  I wonder if the medicines are doing their thing, that is stabilizing my sleep patterns, or if they are doing their other thing, that is trucking me down when I restart.  I'm not sure if I have been off them long enough for that though.  I never can tell.  Hmm... a few more things and then some sleep.  Consciousness is draining exceedingly quickly.

Good night.

How DOES that happen.

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I did wake at a... a better time.  Anything before noon is good, at this point.  I was up just a wee past 11:00, I think.  No, I know.  I did this, fed the cats, then that.  Started the machine while I took care of another daily.  I read a few blogs, and seemingly a few minutes later it is already past 13:00?  I think Jim had it right, bottling time.  That is the way.  Does anyone have a recipe?  He certainly caught the rub in that song somehow.

Meds just went down the pie-hole.  I am not up to swimming today.  Well...  I should say that I AM up for swimming, if that means little.  The body has to be functioning well enough and it isn't.  Tired?  Simply not working?  Who knows.  It won't happen.  That I do know.  Being back on medicine means that may be happening sooner than not.  Then again, perhaps until spring has sprung, I will be stuck.  Further, once a week will probably be it, due to the expense of it.  Just gas prices, it's killing my budget.

Hmm, on to my day.  Good day.

Just like that.

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Whatever seemed to be keeping me off track with medicine is over.  I set me medicines up for the next two weeks.  Not wanting to have wrestle with this for an extra day, I just set aside medicines for today so that I didn't use a dose out of the set.  I really ought to consider getting another medicine set.  That gives me two weeks to set up the off medicine container.  Usually I find my way to it in that time.  Plus I am still on medicines.  It isn't like this is a problem every time.  However, I have problems all the time with various things.  Taking care of one of them, to the degree that it is possible, would just be... good.

I have been, for the most part, taking my medication like a champ since my mother visited and helped get me back on them.  Which, actually, is extremely good, given my track record.  When I recovered from getting back on them, I even started to swim, if that has been lagging.  I would guess the colder weather finally got to me.  Spring isn't too bad, and we have had some very nice days.  It isn't even overstaying, yet.  It's just that I did well in the winter, but finally fell to cooler seasons it seems.  I'll take that.  A few down months sure beats six to nine months in a near coma. 

I just feel better today, all around.  I've set some food out to thaw.  Meats, really.  I am HUNGRY for meats.  I have bacon thawed, and will use some of that along with eggs for tonight.  Dinner came, and it was good, but as I said, sometimes I am simply terribly hungry.  Then again, it is about time for another meal.  The Lord knows I would love a woman who put even two squares a day.  I could figure out breakfast.  I wouldn't even mind helping out with food.  Prep cook today, do a sauce here or there, and make the whole thing so she can come home to a good meal once in a while.  So long as she takes care of some of the finer details (shopping).  Dishes aren't an issue, I would help with those if she would help clean the car.  One thing I've noticed about women?  If they don't help clean a vehicle, they will use it as a trash can.  Hmm... sort of like my room... maybe the whole cave?  Gah!  Shut up.  It's only because I am ill and genetically impaired... that way.

Yes yes and one more yes.  I need to get the cat litter changed, the trash and recycling collected, put in the bin, and the bin to the curb.  I could finish off a few dishes that are just rinse-soaking too.  Then a bite to eat.  It's been, and continues to be, a good day.  Maybe swimming tomorrow?  I do love to swim, when I can walk.  Later.

Awake and well. Now to finish the haiku notion.

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Still not back on medication.  No matter how much I try to keep that on my mind, it seems some aspect of me is drifting.  I don't have anything to tether my will, body, and the world so as to make them interact.  It's as if my body makes the finest grade dissociation drug money can't even buy, fills my blood with it, and...  The pain is gone.  I have no idea why my back hurt like that for one day, exactly.  It isn't even grumpy today?  That just doesn't make sense.  I do not exaggerate the pain, either.  It was almost enough that I lost bodily control a time or two.  Weird.  Whatever.

Ah, but some notions have come full circle.  I think I should close the haiku notion more fully, at least as to how they concern real life, applications.  The reason the most recent haiku thread seems a bit... shallow... is because I wasn't sure I wanted to put in the final piece of the puzzle as I see things.  Not just for a reason, for several reasons and for general principles.  But... we are all adults here.  Except for the kids.  Yeah, I know.

Anywhile, here is the score.  Why can't I get my medicines together and started?  Why can't you lose weight perhaps?  Why can't a doctor save this life after just having saved a worse case?  Why?  It really does come down, sometimes, to God's will, or even how He designed things to work outside of His conscious will.  We hear people discuss whether something is a bug or a design element, in programming or electronics but the notion has spreed to manufacturing in general.  Something we would like to see in a product, that just doesn't work.  We wonder if the designers made it that way, and if so whether that decision was intentional or not.  God is like that with this world, all of the universe of flesh, perhaps beyond whether we will ever understand that as living beings or not.

Do I believe that God literally wills someone to be dead?  I dicker on this.  I think, in most cases, that is not the case.  Usually the way things work out is happenstance based on, to us, incomprehensible actuarial charts.  Improbability is not a miracle.  And what is even possible, literally, is not known.  Further, it is probably literally unknowable.  Still, it is all real, and it is based upon some mathematical functions based within laws of physics.  None of those understandings is within our grasp, mind you.  And yet, I fully believe, if God wishes to do so, He may keep a being alive at His whim.  He has, literally, even raised the dead, both when He walked here and in events perhaps before but certainly since that time.

How do angels defeat demons?  God's will, if applied.  How does something miraculous happen?  God's will.  How is my medicine container going to be filled?  God's will.  And why hasn't it been filled?  Honestly, that too, is God's will.  Part of the reason I didn't wish to put in this part is that too many people will take that to assume that, if God's will is the ticket, then what we do is irrelevant.  Or worse, that we need not try.  Quite the opposite is true, even, maybe especially, when striving to do a right, or even good, thing, seemingly against what I am generally declaring as God's will.

Feeding the poor is God's will.  But better yet is teaching those people how to feed themselves.  Which is most sublime?  I say the latter.  And in that contest, one will create, the other will destroy, if left to become entrenched.  God's will is a tricky thing.  How do you know if something is meant to be?  Is it just that it happens?  Sometimes doing God's will is a struggle, sometimes it is the only way to do something.  And the next, going against one sort of God's will is so damned easy.  This gets trickier yet.  I am not even sure if it is easier to follow God's will, or fight it, even being the multi-headed hydra that it is in practice is it possible to do either, really?  It does get dodgy in there.

For me, I just put my mind to doing what I have learned to perceive as right, good, true, and while I think on these things, I don't let them dissuade me.  These are merely measures I employ while contemplating God.  They aren't even questions I ask God.  These are merely tricks I use in order to align my mind upon God.  Once there, there is only God.  No questions, no doubts, even my sins fade and fall away in those moments.

Anyway, that is the rest of it.  Yes, God's will, consciously active in heaven or set in motion through the flesh, universe, what it means is the rest of the thing.  Angels and men do according to it, willing or not, failingly as we are wont, but in faith, blithely ignorant of faith, or against faith, we will do God's will.  And God's will is done, over, under, through, by, for, and seemingly even against us.  And... for my little part...  I really do enjoy the show.  *grins*

Haiku - Persistence

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Hmm, well?  I really want to put something in the basket.  Sometimes things come to me, sometimes I simply have to force the issue.  The irritating thing is that contest is interesting to me.  My problem is that my muse has abandoned me.  It isn't really the pain, or down, it's just what it is.  Still, I have written several.  Just to say I did something.  I am hoping for something better to pop, but it may not be possible?  Creativity, in any area, is a rare thing.  Even if you can see the solution, you can't always put the pieces together with what is given, or stretch the givens.  These are what I was able to cobble together and put up.  I am still hoping for something better.

Feel the pain of body.
Enter oblivion quick-
Spring in each skip-step!

The stork grabs the frog,
Into the beak, down throat-
Not so fast, Charlie.

I had thought about the following, or something like it.  I dunno.  I'll keep thinking.

Doctors imply death.
The body shows signs of grave-
And yet life springs wild!

 The first is simply today.  While I have managed to back the pain off, I have taken it merely from nearly crippling to an always fiery, rhythmically fluctuating, assault on my senses.  And, I got on with my day.  I have even enjoyed my little day to a small degree.  The last was based on the memory of a cartoon drawing that has been a theme from before I saw the cartoon.  The caption is usually "Never give up!".  From what I have seen in my life, whether you live or die can absolutely come down to holding on when all seems lost.  You would be absolutely amazed at just what I have been through.  I can only imagine how many stories there are out there of people who made it when most would not have by choosing to live.

Actually, it reminds me of something that has been on my mind of late, on a rather different, if roughly associated, topic.  While many, Christians at least, believe that there was a war in heaven, I have some serious doubts.  Actually, I have some doubts about a war, as such, at all.  Sure, there is the notion that there are angels in heaven to bear terrible weapons to this very day (at least to that writing, but I haven't seen that suspended since).  This too has an explanation.

I do not believe Satan and the fallen literally battled with the heavenly host.  Certainly, in any case, not in heaven.  Why?  Well, in heaven, is God.  I have a great difficulty imagining, that in the presence of God, one even could fight against God's will.  It would be very much like a criminal, seeing a police officer, or group of them (to more better convey the notion), and committing a serious crime right in front of them.  While that latter is still possible, and even probable in a very odd world, in a state where there is shame, even simple public propriety, a real understanding of the law, and some other things, as heaven truly exists, such a thing is less than unthinkable and nigh onto impossible.

As for the various angels and demons fighting in other places?  My issue here is that I think the will of God is so powerful that an angel doing God's bidding... wars with certainty, truth, reality.  Even ones who where the most potent of angels, who fall away from that, are not capable of standing up to that.  The most humble angel in heaven carries graces the greatest demon cannot challenge.  How did they war?  Most likely through discourse.  Much like the bad-seed child approaches the good lad, a demon would choose to attempt to get the angel to 'see the light'.  He would offer things seemingly of value, or peer pressure, or simply offer temptations.  No, I don't believe there was a terrible war, of the sort men wage.

How is this related to persistence, choosing to live at break-neck speeds then doing something, and all?  Well?  It has to do with life, flesh, spirit, eternal, being about choice.  Our personal war with death or an angel's decision to... live...  That is, to stay with God.  It is all about choices.  Now, whether the angels truly did war, or whether we always get that choice?  All I know is that I believe as I do, in spite of being a warrior.  And that I will choose life, every time, feebly as that is at times.  Just odd things, theory, maybe.

Good night.

Oh? Could the answer be that easy?

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Hmm.  Oh, with google analytics... When you activate g.a., you need to instal code into your blog page html.  This allows the two services to share data.  When I changed my blog format a bit, or did some tinkering, perhaps that snippet as they call it either was damaged, or just as likely removed.  I thought I had replaced it, but in the echo chamber, everything is suspect.  I have reinstalled the snippet, and actually in a place which might... more accurately read hits.  Things change so fast that the producers of these goods who offer only general information can't keep their advice current with the facts on the ground.  I guess you just get lucky and snag the right information once in a while.  Unless... that is outdated and not as functional?  Bleh. That would explain why I g.a. was broken.  It is about the only thing that would explain it, I hope.

My "morning" was going along just fine.  I wrote the above, barely awake, and put the snippet in place.  I was noticing something though.   PAIN!  I don't mean a bit of stiffness, a little ache, even a headache.  My lower back has a spike in it.  That spike is sending pain in all directions.  My legs aren't weak, at least.  But the spasms are simply ripping through me, in constant waves, peaking in from just horribly painful to 'hold your breath and tighten your hole body because this is going to be be blindingly painful'.  I have zero idea why my back hurts, either.  Standing works to really cut the pain, unfortunately I don't have the strength, even given the pain reduction, to stand for long.  A handful of aspirin and more if needed.  Damn.  You know pain is bad when it shoots up through the arteries in your neck.

I'll figure it out.  Always do.  I have no idea what could have caused it though.  Meh, I have something solid to complain about today, which makes it all good.  *grins*  Later.

Update:  It looks like I have solved the mystery of g.a.  It seems to be back online.  Now, perhaps, I can figure out how to exclude my own hits.  Gah!

Another Update:  Okay, it looks like g.a. is not counting my hits.  Which means others really are looking in from time the time, and for longer periods.  How do I know?  I've been tracking when I've been online.  Not only is the timing wrong, but so is the length of time.  One of those variables could be off, for whatever reason.  But both sort of put the kibosh on the notion.  I mean, if it read some of my visits, it would probably track all of them.  I'll do a bit more tracking to see though.  Interesting. 

So much for stats.

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Google Analytics has simply stopped tracking any visits. The only thing I tinkered with was adding a filter, tinkering with it twice, then deleting it. Now nothing works. Sitemeter continues to indicate no visitors. Blogger itself, of course (I guess?) shows visitors. Well, and comments empirically prove others have visited, barring having at least a dual personality that creates blogs in my off time and... never mind. I mean, no matter how unlikely something might be, it doesn't mean that what is clearly probable is the only solution sets. If too, the unlikely, and more improbable, are very rare conditions. No, I'm pretty much sticking with the notion that G.A. and Sitemeter are dead to me, or at least my purposes. While I did tinker, but then erase my tinkering, on G.A., Sitemeter? I was never even able to log into it. I can't have mucked that up. Oh well.

No, I did not get restarted on medication yesterday. I guess I am taking an unintentional medicinal holiday. I'm coasting downhill in the meanwhile. Then again, if I had control, I wouldn't be coasting or on a holiday. The transmission must have slipped and I'm permanently parked on a hill... no, a mountain. Thankfully it seems I was designed for this sort of abuse. I just chuckle when the docs tell me quitting these meds at these doses is potentially lethal. Oh, I'm sure they are serious. And I'm sure to some, perhaps most, it is. I don't even get thumps, or palpitations, or... I just continue to be tired. *laughs* I don't bother correcting them any more. I don't really argue. I just look at them and try to stifle my chuckles and funny faces. I've read what they are saying in places, so I suppose they aren't just teasing. I've read what all I am not supposed to do, what could be lethal. I've compared that list to my life and it doesn't match up, at all. At least they don't get me jazzed and fearful anymore. Still, I do need to get back on medicine. That is still a goal. I'll work on it today. I'll just try to keep it in mind.

The sun is up and bright. I didn't get to bed until 5:30? Then I didn't wake until noon or something. A shorter sleep. Zombified a bit, but not from the lack or sleep. Been here before, will dig myself out, and will find myself right back here before long. The good times are more frequent, if not all that much better in some ways. The bad times are definitely less bad. I am staying more on medication than not. I won't complain, mostly. Good day.

Some days I can hear her.

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Her call is so strong.

Haiku Monday is already in full bloom?

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Yep.  I teased her about hurrying up and she took it to heart.  Serendipity has started the thing early, and extended the thing a day (to Tuesday), seeing that the taxman cometh.  Oh, and she didn't go easy on us either, if the challenge is healthy and entertaining.  I look forward to facing you on the field of haiku mortal combat!

To think, I got in on this... more as a favor to Aunty.  I was deep in my cup'o life, not even wiggling.  I wasn't even sure I understood the rules, and couldn't quite get the rules into my mind through the fog.  It seems I got them functionally, just not intellectually, or deeply, at the time.  If too those rules are something that only come with, or in, time, fully.  I didn't even realize I was signing up for a contest, let alone that the prize was hosting.  I was fully unprepared for hosting, and yet blathered through it.  Then Jean went all crazy and won.  Being a previous champ, then host, and friend by happenstance, I felt obliged to post there.  Now I am sort of... caught.  The dog with a peanut butter sandwich I suppose?  All good.  It's cultural and everything, don't you know?

Gah!  Doom and culture is like Conan the Destroyer and ballet.  While it actually works, as ballet is superior combat finesse training, the notion still goes against instinct... and public... sentiment? topical sense?  Bah!  I'll do it because I want to do it.  See you there.

Still sort of on the skids.

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I never did set medications, or take my doses yesterday.  It wasn't a bad day though.  It isn't a bad morning.  My mother woke me with a call, but gladly.  I didn't feel like waking though I did want to get out of bed.  The desire versus the felt is just the way of things often.  That dichotomy lead to a bit of 'one leg out of the bed' lead into finally putting both feet down.  The goal is to focus enough to get my medicines going again today.  The rest will just be what it will be.  Yeah, probably not a lot today.  Just being out of bed before 9:00 is doing something, if that really might be it for the day... that and medicine.

Ah, but it looks like the sun will be peeking in from time to time.  I will be looking for opportunities, small or large, if I can get to them.  It is a good day, especially for pushing back my schedule, a trick I still haven't really mastered.  My life is a broken piano.  The keys that work aren't even all tuned.  The pedals only work sporadically.  And yet I play the damned thing like I knew what I was doing and with what gusto I can summon.  While God may plug His ears from time to time while watching, I know He has to just grin and applaud lightly in spite of it all from time to time.  This son just doesn't know when he is licked, I could hear Him suggest to Christ or the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes, I wonder... is that the... answer?

I hope your own tune bangs out, good or ill, as if a pauper to the King.  Good day.

Working with a blog analyzer.

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It is sort of a cold turkey type of thing.  Sure, I've taken some hefty statistics courses.  I've worked with charts, graphs, raw numbers, and such, using algebra through vector calculus, even into differential equations for what that was worth.  :p  Sure.  But the definitions were a bit more simple to access.  Not that they were more clearly defined, that was my homework often.  The information, through reading deeper, the internet, grad students assigned to assist, and the professor, would yield much better understanding.  Then I had to do more homework to put the definitions into functional alignments.  And while google analytics (g.a. henceforth) seems to be a decent program, it is not for the novice.

On the good side, I have figured out that I am being read locally, through several sources.  I had feared all the local hits were my own.  After a bit of digging, and going past just browser and version to a further subcategory of domains, I was finally able to see that only a third of the "Logan" hits are mine.  Or, potentially mine.  That assumes all the local hits from my ISP are mine, which may not be the case.  My ISP is probably the most widely used provider locally.  That is, assuming g.a. is even tracking my hits.  Sometimes it won't.  Right now I just don't know.

A bit of music as I experiment with things.

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It's another good day.  I probably pushed a bit yesterday, and I haven't refilled my empty medicine container for the next two weeks, so haven't taken my medicine today.  Well, and I woke quite late.  The four to five drinks I had over the course of the evening probably helped me break.  It wasn't so much the medicines that are pushing, as it is getting out and 'heating up the engine'.  I had a relatively long day yesterday.  As such, coming down is always difficult.  Oh, but I sure enjoy a toot now and again.  More so a mild set.  Aye, but I've already had my first coffee so I'll be coming around again before long.

Ah, but music.  Nothing heavy, or purposeful.  Prophecy and power and love are for other days.  No, just something to wrap the mind and body in a glove of nostalgia, or comfort of other sorts.  Or at least what passes for such around these parts.  I suppose this is what you get when you imbue a blue collar man with an academic and moral learning?  Nothing ever comes out perfectly, it, like old film, just produces what was put on it.  And who has ever been able to account for taste?  Never mind.  Oh, and nothing too raucous.  I'm just not up for that today either. 

Comments regarding the blog layout changes appreciated.

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Hmm, just tinkering.  I'm not sure how easy it would be to go back to the original layout.  And, should that be possible, I probably wouldn't do it in any case.  However, to ease reading, I would gladly take advice as to color corrections, and tinker with those.  I very much like some changes, such as the wider main body, which allows pictures and videos to be viewed much more readily.  Of course, with the wider screen comes a much more "in your face" viewing of things... which... I dunno... It seems a bit much.  I did dim the text, but it still seems a little... too much?  Any suggestions?  I would certainly make modifications for a trial.  Urhm, do NOT suggest yellow!

I liked the old template.  I did not like that I could not widen the main section, nor could I use that section as a secondary sidebar.  Then again, one sidebar is more than enough.  I simply wanted a wider main body section.  I'll look at it in the morning.  Bleh...  I hate this sort of crap.

Good night.

Update:
Works in progress.  Watch your footing, and that step?

If you were wondering where my posts were disappearing?  I am working on a couple of things.  Among those things is putting videos "below the fold".  As well I am working with link coloration for visibility without eye-crossing brightness or contrast, and yet with my preferred color schemes.  No mean feat for me.  While I don't think I am all that different, in some ways, what I see as verging on too bright some of you seem to not be able to see?

Not bad at all.

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I had to mess with some dishes, then shower, groom, and dress.  Not even an issue.  On to town.  I had a couple of things to keep on my mind on top of the things to do.  Other than what I had to do in town, I needed to send something to my mother, call and let her know, and call the folk who usually feed me on Tuesday at 17:00, to cancel for tonight.  The time was crucial.  It should be early enough that if they planned something in particular, or decided to arrive a bit earlier, that they wouldn't be out or inconvenienced, or avoid cooking something special.  It sounds easy enough, but I had a number of things to do in town on top of it.  Trust me, all that floating in the mind is more than I could have done conscientiously for the last month.  It has been well beyond my ken.  Today was different.

The letter went out right away, so that was no issue.  Then I called to inform my mother.  I sent what she asked and a bit more.  She wanted to do extra work while she is out.  I begged her off that.  More work would kill me!  Still, it would have been easy to forget.  It was too early to call my neighbor, so I had to just go on into town and hope for just the right point in my efforts in which the time was within ten minutes and I was out of traffic.  I really don't like using the phone while driving.  I can, and have, but this was actually a more complex call than arrival time or a yes/no question or such.  It worked out, and I made the call.  I have offered to help this neighbor in a task he has coming up.  The problem is he doesn't know when he will need the help.  I just wanted to remind him that I am available, and really quite up to it at this point.

I called my friend.  He certainly wanted a visit.  Done.  I gave him the manual for the camera I offered him.  We got caught up just a bit, then decided a raid was in order.  I needed tobacco, groceries, and thought about looking at ammunition.  He suggested the world is out of ammunition, so I scrapped that, not wanting to be disappointed.  The rest was on, as well as dinner.  First tobacco, for which I had to go to two different stores.  Next dinner, since I had scrapped an ammo hunt.  Finally groceries and a stop for something that rhymes with rum.  Did I say rhyme?  Never mind.

Finally it was time to deliver him to his abode.  And yet, it has been some time since we have visited.  I didn't care to be rude, with enough hum in hand to relieve an pained elephant, I decided to stop for a sip.  Which, we did.  He started it.  Oh, I had to go a bit short, and stay a little long to have just a pepsi to cleanse the palate, so to speak.  Pepsi isn't my preferred.  Yet I have found if you hum it, it isn't all that bad.  As well, I sort of set up a shoot for some time later in the week.  Between weather and the neighborly task and swimming if I can do that... everything is up in the air.  Then again, for whatever reason, when isn't life airborne?

Safely and happily back home I brought in the goods.  Not wanting to let it quite die there, I decided to load up my dumbbells.  With 105 pounds each, plus whatever the dumbbells themselves weigh (I don't include that because I can never remember), I brought the little systems into the cave.  Ugh?  Urhm, no, how about bithch!  Dem's weret heavy.  I'll... definitely readjust downward.  I'm not quite up to that at the moment, and will probably never use that much weight on the ball in any case.  Still, one has to aim high, innit?  Shush.  I suspect starting with 30-40 pounds will be quite enough, if not, then 20.  Difficult to know.  When I am just sitting here, not paying attention, it is amazing what I can do.  Even when I am blind, cold, and stupid.  If I can have it right there, I simply don't even notice.  Actually more when fully numb.  We will see.

What a day!  I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow.  Good night.

Sun is shining and the axles are greased.

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That is much more like it.  For the first time in weeks, listening to music hasn't hurt.  I am no longer cramped and frozen.  I don't just feel good.  I feel great.  I am still going to have to limp back to the starting gates and begin all over again.  It won't be like starting fresh though.  I have stored away some strength and stamina.  I have made inroads into where I want to go.  It might be a day off, perhaps two days, but I won't just be sitting until then either.  I think I can begin meddling with some side projects, minor cleaning, and whatever else might be noticed on my way to the gates.

You have no idea how delicious this is.  You simply can't know.  It isn't like recovering from serious wounds or surgery.  It is like being half way through a very long recovery, then being healed the rest of the way in one day.  My strength, of body and mind, have returned.  I can literally focus and see so vividly that 100 yards is but an inch.  My senses are all particularly sharp again.  It is nothing beyond my normal, only it is my normal, if my typical is rather extraordinary.  My strength is back to it's fullness.  I can't wait to get in the pool tomorrow.

Hmm? Wow, so that was the problem?

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Okay, maybe not the whole of the problem, but...  I'm guessing it was the largest chunk.  Blood pressure is fine now, actually a bit too low.  The general malaise may take a bit to recover from however.  It wasn't the new medicine.  It wasn't this or that.  As I started to fall, generally, I stopped consuming caffeine.  That by itself can be a showstopper.  All of you out there who need your daily daily know what I mean.  However, in my case that response has a multiplier.  Essentially caffeine keeps my heart medicine from being too potent.  It weakens it.  In other words I have been dosed up to compensate for the caffeine.  Aye, it's true.

So, the thing, I think, went something like this.  I had the dose of several of my medicines increased.  Which is fine, it usually takes a bit to... readjust to the extra load, just as if I was carrying a 40 pound pack and they added ten pounds.  Then the weather closed in, slowing the recovery.  Perhaps setting the whole operation back a bit on top of slowing any recovery.  Then, in there somewhere, I simply lost track of far too much, and coffee slipped off the radar, then I ran out of my backup, soda.  The combination was simply beyond anything, ritalin or will power, to overcome.  Just noticed yesterday, ground some coffee for this morning.

I have a pot brewing, the sun is out, I'm feeling a bit better naturally on top of those things.  My blood pressure was a little too low, actually, after a two day climb which had me concerned.  And, yes, a lack of caffeine will raise my bp, at least in the short run.  I knew I remembered that type of joint pain in the head and neck, just couldn't remember from where...  Yep, caffeine deficiency.  It happens every time.  I just don't sleep correctly.  I've quit caffeine before, to no good ends mind you.  So I have been through the whole system.  Caffeine may be slightly bad for people, though I won't swear to it.  But for folks like myself, caffeine is just another medication.  Without it I would sit more than I do now.  If nothing else, on the worst of days, it forces me to get up for refills and restroom breaks.  All considered, that ain't bad.  On the best of days it gets me out and about much more easily.  I'll take it.

At 110/70, my bp is actually a bit spooky low.  Keeping that at 120/80 is the midline I actually like.  More and the doctors rattle the 'more medicine sabor', less and I become zombified.  Weight is staying right at 280.  I'm still amazed to see my weight locked in, with or without swimming, regardless of what I eat or don't eat, 280, plus or minus 2 pounds, for... months now.  I think Since Thanksgiving.

Just in case you were worried.  I think the... cycle is headed toward improvement.  Good day!

Memories, tic-tac-toe, and love.

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Sitting here doing nothing my mind began to wander.  The one man I knew as father.  The first girl with whom I tried to know love.  His guidance and understanding.  The only time in my young life where everything was ordered, including the certainty of things, nature.  Even he knew my nature.  He had known it.  And perhaps still knew it.  I haven't ever seen Mad Men.  I have heard notions of such, at least in the beginning of the show.  My father had been a Mad Man, initially as a blue collar man, but certainly when he hit it rich.  Earning $100k in the 50's, upward bound at that pushing to $150k when he chose another life... he was the real deal.

Clouds and doldrums.

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It is just not working.  The engine is running more smoothly.  In spite of that the drive gear simply isn't engaging.  So here I sit.  BP was up a bit, but I am going to give it a week to engage and settle.  If it simply isn't working, on any front, this project will have to be scrapped.  On top of that, for the last two weeks I have been dealing with a low grade fever that comes and goes, joint pain in my head and neck area if oddly no headaches, along with exhaustion.  I haven't been complaining much, other than the fact that I am stuck.  As well, since they doubled the medicine for diabetes, my blood sugar has been going up.  I may just start splitting those pills, going back to the amount that was helping, or at least not hurting the numbers.  Then again, I think diabetes has more to do with the heart than it does with the organs normally involved.  A bad heart hurts everything else.  They really should have diagnosed the heart problem a very long time ago.

Grumble, mumble, and such.

I have been meaning to get something to my mother.  Not getting out the cave has meant that hasn't happened.  I'm going to try to get to it today.  I told her to call me tomorrow at 14:00.  If it isn't done by then I will do it then and call her back.  While I want to get it done today I am not sure that is possible.  With a day advance notice and a backup plan, I should be able to do it tomorrow.  Yeah, that is just the state of things.

More grumbling.

At least I am feeling a bit better on the new addition to meds.  The aches diminish much sooner in the morning, as with the fever.  I think a bit more clearly.  Improvements end there.  Ah well.  Can't say I'm not trying.  Later.

I hope things improve.

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Upping the dose to 10 mg did seem to show signs of improvement.  I couldn't do more.  I simply feel and felt better, from the start.  Perhaps it will take some time for a therapeutic level, perhaps the weather/season is simply playing havoc with life.  I need to check blood pressure every day for a while.  Checking weight a few times a week is fine, now that it has become rock steady.  Just to make sure.  Testing blood sugar will continue, if only a few times a week.

I simply can't be sure if anything will help.  The blood pressure and heart pills I am taking are extremely hardcore.  Most people who take them are... being tended or are simply hospitalized or in nursing care.  My extremes go from being somewhat active to being catatonic, and lately it has been closer to the latter.  Two or three cloudy days, plus rain, has dampened the spirits.  Yet, as I suggested, today was a pretty good day.  There are two things to look at, for me, direction and location.  Today was rather down, but with a very good direction.

Blood pressure is good. Houston, we are initiating second stage.

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I cannot believe how rough I still am.  I won't say the new medicine is hurting me, though getting me half way there may be more troubling than not setting out?  I have counted my medicine and, at least until I call tomorrow and know more, I will probably just continue taking the medicine, only jumping the dose up to 10 mg.  As I said, bp was good.  Blood sugar was a bit elevated, but it does that.  Besides, whether it is supposed to be or not, my fasting blood sugars are almost always 10 to 40 points higher.  I don't really understand blood sugar.  I've been eating less, if anything.  I'll check them again after I have a bite to eat.  But that isn't a part of this experiment so it just is what it is.  Whatever the case, because of the limits of my supply, I will only ever be taking 10 mg.  Even if they set up an appointment for soon at early a.m., and told me to just take a full old dose, I wouldn't. 

Zapped.  I'll see if 10 mg offers something useful.  Ugh.  Later.