Business.

.
.
I found the number to call the lender for my auto.  It seems a long time since that was being paid, after looking over my bank statements.  At least six months.  Yeah, I was sweating calling them.  I have enough stored to service... a while.  But a long while and maybe not.  Further, if the thing has gone into collection, I might not even have that option.  Ah, a web site, then another, and another.  No phone number until I got to the third site.  Not shaking, mind you.  Not in a way that could be visibly seen.  Twitching, just a bit.  If again, not visibly.  This is why it took so long to call, and maybe what has been disturbing my sleep.

A bunch of number games.  Looking for the best, or most efficient way, to get to an operator as close to my issue as possible.  Messy.  But rather quick and clean this time.  I didn't know my account number, haven't seen a bill for a while either.  I toss, these days.  Perhaps I toss a bit too quickly?  Really?  Maybe.  My social security number worked instead.  The process is a lot slicker these days, and I got to an operator rather quickly.

"Hello".  Yes, I am calling to figure out how much I owe on my account.  "I'll need some information first.  Name, this, that, address, etc".  There you go.  So, what's the prognosis.  "Well sir, your account is fully caught up".  Huh?  "Well, it seems that the vehicle was paid in full not last August, but the one before it.  We sent the title".  I never got the title.  "Is there anything else, sir"?  Oh, could you send another title.  "No, sir, but I can connect you with someone who may be able to do so".  ---  Snake eyes, of the better varietal.  What a weight lifted.  Hmm, better start taking better care of her.  She's all mine!  :p  Crazy worried for over a week now.  Ah well, it isn't all bad all the time, not even for me.  I'm going to party likes it 1880, when my house was built!  Now... where is that fattened calf!  :)  Hey, they partied more with food, I think, in those days?  Never mind.

Now to get on to some other things.  Medicine order, hmm... and some other things.  Don't know, almost don't care.  Big load and huge worry taken care of, right there and then.  Plus...  I'm RICH!  :)  Bleh, have to figure out how to get some of that to someone who needs it more, and for better purposes.  Sheesh.  Can't catch a break (he says, after catching a break). 

Later.
---------
Ah, right, the potential for finances isn't the only risk.  So, I called and tried to make an appointment.  The clinic might not be open today.  I left a message and will keep on that.  I ordered medicine while I was at it.  Doing what I can.  Now to try to stay awake as far into the day as possible.  At least until 16:00.  If they are going to call back for scheduling, it is usually before that.  Though not always.  If I need to crash, I'll take the spy phone in with me.  Usually don't.  Creepy little device.

As per...

.
.
While my long naps aren't, exactly, perfectly, on protocol... they are close enough.  Four hours of sleep, as close to the minutes as would be possible without external force, and actually maybe to the minute, I woke.  Sleep was good.  I know I dreamed, I simply do not know what it was I dreamed.  I remember something about a submarine, being down.  Minor problems, but it all worked out.  Just another day(s) under the waves.  Oh, right, and it seems the hook in the bait from my spiel about a recent dream has caught more fish than I expected.

What hook, what bait?  Ah, calling so-and-whositz a servant, peasant.  Hmm?  Oh.  First, for the most part, in America, there generally isn't such a thing.  That was, and is, Europe and the rest of the world.  There are some who might recall analogy, blue-collar workers, for example.  But it isn't even true there.  But it does bug a lot of people, if for no reason I can understand... save ego issues.  You see, if there were such a thing as peasants, I would be considered to be among them.  As for being a servant?  My whole career was closer to that of a slave.  If your boss told you to run into gunfire, or play with explosives, or shoot at people, would you?  Only if you felt he was right or saw the need.  My boss was not like that, and had the power to have me shot, if I failed.  Slave, not even a servant.  Although one of choice, once that choice was made it was no longer available.  Damn kids, don't get nothing these days.  Yeah, that was tucked in one of the dreams.  A dozen, and more, yammering about my dismissive tone.  It was aimed at one.  If you stand in front of my target, by the way, you will be hit.  Further, if I had to guess, he isn't a peasant even by European standards.  Which... hurt him even more.  My words are more potent, as a peasant, than his will, even though, I suspect, he is well monied and well insulated by some institution or other.  Oh, the funny, the funny.

I am actually fairly well awake.  My mind.  My body, however, is not in accord.  As often as not, the opposite is usually the truth.  Save, as I did, when I take extended naps... gap encroaching naps?  Yeah, something.  If I press it, for a while, I end up have two shorter naps through the days, rather than one sleep period.  It's inefficient, leads to one form of sleep deprivation and one form of over-sleeping syndrome, all at once, and rarely leads to any better of a schedule change.  Then again, usually it happens through health issues, not a willful thing.  Or health issues breaking on a need to roll the dice on when I will be awake because there is no other way.  Huh?  Just... just trust me.  It's a messy thing.  Still, as now, it is the only real shot I have at being awake at a time so that I can conduct business that is vital.  And, so it goes.

The last of last month's purchases arrived.  Sure, any axe might serve.  My plans to get out, in a lighter fashion, have decided me on the notion of going for fewer but better.  In this case, it was an axe.  There are a couple of renowned manufacturers.  I have questioned the price to quality point, myself.  I am quite cynical, or doubtful, and more, on many things.  My desires are always questioned, will I even get out for example?  Some things can only be offered faith.  And with recent doings, if a minor fall or two since, I trust, or at least hope.  But on claims of improved, or better, or quality through price, I have some great doubts.

The thing is, if you have doubts... great!  That is where you should start.  Doubt the heck out of anyone and anything that suggests something you find preposterous.  For, most likely, and to some degree, everything suggested has a bit of untruth to it.  Salesman, in other words, lie.  However, look further.  Find testimonials, do a bit of research, decided what extra or sure value a bit extra coin might actually provide.  You will never find perfection.  You might find better and worse.  Then, look at the coin involved and the mission or use required of it.  Is it vital?  Might your life depend upon it?  If so, a bit of checking and a bit extra coin might make that worth your risk.  It comes down to finding doubt, comparing that with the faith of a few others, and subjecting that to a risk assessment.  Do this and... you will still be lucky to get out alive.  :)  I bought a Wetterlings forester axe.  It doesn't need sharpened, but a bit of linseed oil would be good.  I have some minor work for it, when it warms again.  It has snowed, several times, lately.  We almost had the ground covered!  Sorry for those of you who are snowed down.  For my dollar, I'll take my way.  Anyway... when things clear, I have test material.  And I have some weathered logs I could chop out back.  Been meaning to break those down.  I have another axe, but...

Sometimes, a little extra gelt for tools or equipment really does make the difference.  The thing is, you can't spend extra on everything.  Pick the things you will need to use for all of your life and upgrade those.  Things that, if used correctly, will last beyond even your time.  Or, as mentioned, things your life may depend upon.  Then care for them, and hand them on when your time is done.  That, my friends, is how wealth is passed on.  Something the generation before mine have seemed intent on ignoring.  A disposable world is only a truth if you make it so.

Huh?  I don't know.  I just woke up.  The mind does that, wanders.  Hmm... I ought to get a cup of coffee, maybe some breakfast, perhaps read blogs or my ebook, and... shake this blathering thing.  Later.

Hmm, sleep, maybe.

.
.
I am going down hard.  Not sure why, exactly.  It's, technically, still my morning.  In any case, this is good.  It might help me work my schedule around.  I just need a couple of hours, four really, of office-hours daylight.  Two to wake up.  I could talk, but can't really.  It does, usually, take a lot to become awake enough to do some things.  I can, in a pinch, in life or death or demand... from time to time... push through that.  But it's not a usual thing, or to be expected.  So, two hours to wake, clear mind and voice, and then start making calls.  I am sure, however, that if I sleep now, it will be a short sleep.  I will probably get no more than fours hours down, though that has more variability than my need for wake-up time.

I have started reading another book, and anthology of monster stories.  I ate the first one very quickly.  One or two bites I think.  The writing was good, the story solid, just... so short.  I don't know if that is the usual for this book.  The other anthology had only three books, but they were almost full-sized books each.  No real complaints.  It is enjoyable to be reading again.  As tired as I am, I am tempted to take the dang ebook in with me, again.  But I won't.  If I am this close to sleep I don't want to jeopardize my prospects.  However, I may try to use it to help wake up... whenever that happens.  The problem is, reading... when I first wake... is only slightly less problematic than trying to conduct business.

A review of other blogs, a post of my own, a shuffling through news links, perhaps a spot of food, definitely coffee, and medicine.  And time.  That is my recipe for finding a normative platform from which to begin living again after the little death that sleep might poetically, or literally in some cases, be called.  Right now, sleep it howling in the softest but most compelling way.  Sleep it is.  Good night... for a while.

Dreams, imagination, and a new day.

.
.
Yeah, I didn't make much headway on changing my schedule.  I had it all planned.  Up a little longer since I couldn't go to sleep early.  All I needed to do was *zzz*.  *Bam*  Didn't even see that coming.  No idea when, though I don't think I stayed awake as late today as even yesterday or the day before.  *Bam*  Well, okay, on the way down, I did actually read that one freebee history book.  Don't know why he bothers argue with an academic, especially a female one.  They are chosen specifically because they can ignore the facts all their senses perceive, which would be fine as a starter.  But then they are taught to believe anything but the truth.  And women, when they choose it, can do it to levels no man can.  Even the unholy trinity don't seem to believe all their own crap.  Just making a little money from it is all.  And the morons who eat their stuff up don't have the capacity to know the difference, just looking for emotional comfort in their faux stoicism.  Has to suck to be lower on the male scale.  I guess they have to have something, since thumbsucking is poo-poo'ed, even by their own.

Anyway... Dreams.  It wasn't a constant, or seeming all-night thing.  Just frequent.  Whimsical things.  I don't remember anything, other than that I enjoyed them immensely.  It's as if I were a cheese lover, dreams being cheese, and I was at a large cheese tasting fair.  Then, I didn't stuff myself but sated my physical appetites just so, correctly.  Plus, every type I tried ending to be both new to me and pleasant of the highest form of goodness.  Mild, simple, grand, surprises of, in a way, my own choosing.  Such a night of dreaming is good for ridding ghosts and memories which haunt a soul... for a little while.

I do remember being called imaginative, as if to dismiss me, my stories.  Oh, I understood.  From a distance, especially from someone who is quite imaginative but with limited life experiences, I may seem that way.  Especially being gimped up, so seeming incapable, at times, of having done and seen what my blog might project, I understand.  Test as you may, you will find underneath it all that these things are not just smoke.  Very few have done and seen and gone where I have gone.  Fewer yet survive.  It's just the way of it.  From personal combat, to seeing things few men have seen, to loving as if there was no tomorrow because that really wasn't expected, to other such.  I have lived deeply, darkly, but brightly in various ways too.

Once you have survived against the seeming reals of fate, tested your metal, tasted more of your own blood than you could possibly spill of others, climbed peaks, delved deeply into oceans, and done things that just aren't believable, a form of muscle... or existence... memory is created.  Much as if you learn to lift well over twice your body weight, in some ways, you will always be a strongman.  It gets into your bones and psyche.  Something fundamentally changes about you.  But for those who have lived a cautious and mild life, they cannot understand.  I didn't bother explaining this to the questioner.  I merely had a bit of sympathy for his cries for attention and mild contesting of what I suggest.  Too old, he was, to dare now if he would not dare when young.  So, just a servant, a peasant, and an unhappy one, he would remain.  Fine to be such a thing unless regrets are all that remain.  So, I simply felt sorrow for him, and some of his shame at his own cowardice.  Still, the sadness was not my own, so was not of great import.

Today?  I don't know.  I am feeling better, and have been for a while.  I am simply not able to act upon it.  Another book, trying to stay warm... my body just refuses to keep heat in.  I have been running the furnace up to 76 and I am barely staying warm there.  I have been taking medicines.  I have been eating, if mildly since I... I am simply not hungry and my system doesn't seem all that able to handle food.  I'll keep working on it.  Probably just reading today.  A new book has been chosen, another anthology, if in truth I have only read one of those so far.  Still, another.  I'll get back to housework when I can.  Not, probably, today.

Well, off to... read your blogs, see if I can find what the news is hiding or glean truths through shattered teeth of the town criers.  Liars, and cross my heart, and something hoping they die or some such.  Later.

Things to do, tricks to play.

.
.
The things to do require the tricks to perform.  I need day hours to do some business.  My sleep is off so that I have been waking around 16:00 to 17:00.  That simply will not do.  So, I may try to sleep early, quite a trick if I can do it, and wake much earlier.  An odd thing about my system, body, mind... or some such... is that, while I can stay awake many hours I cannot easily change my waking time.  I mean, if I am waking at around, say, 17:00, if I stay awake for two days, and attempt to sleep at noon for example, my body would still try to rise at 17:00.  Likewise, if I go to sleep at 5:00, or midnight, my body would simply try to sleep until 17:00.  I can move the waking time, but only gradually, usually.  A few hours here, a few there, perhaps a backstep as I fail, and on until my schedule is changed to how I would like it.

I have altered my schedule more quickly before, but usually I cannot function when I do so.  Basically, it drains almost all of my energy, and I simply become as a zombie until my slow-to-recharge batteries recharge.  A risky thing, as being that drained, any flaw or disturbance or extra taxation might cause me to relapse, or worse spiral out of sleep control.  For a while.  Much as the efforts of Sisyphus.  And, yet, oddly... sometimes... those things help.  I can only get the bolder to the top for a very short time, and that isn't always certain.  Not in the flesh I wear.  And yet, I work on it, and better, than any medicant seems to think is possible.  Suspended unbelievably between life and death... at least to their eyes.  But they see with indoctrinated eyes, not with faith.

I do seem to be doing better with their assistance, so long as I do not give them complete control.  I take the tools they offer and use them as my system works best.  It's been a bit of trial and error.  Much as with sleep.  Only, so long as I can maintain the usage, my bolder stays fairly well put.  That particular task is a little more functional for me.

Ah, right.  I need to make an appointment with the heart clinic, to get them to sign off on something, or try.  Not sure how difficult that task will be.  Then I need order medication.  Further, I would like to find about the auto payments, and get that back on track.  And, while I am at it, talk to the utility I have been overpaying so as to clear all balances at once.  But... as I said... I need to be awake, and functional, during daylight hours.  It might be today, or a week from now, but I have to fight my way through.  Bleh.  I'll get there.

Oh, I did begin that book, perhaps the other night.  I only read a chapter/unit at a time for the first two or three.  Then I finished it this evening.  It's rather short, and not a book of books, not this one.  Still, well enough written that I traveled through it easily enough.  And it was entertaining.  Not as good as the first book, but not bad.  I have heard that the other book I suggested, the free one, was on the shelf.  I may hit that one up next.  Then take a couple days off from reading.  Then, of course, choose a next book.  I am reading much faster, I do believe.  Now to break on through and begin reading more, perhaps much more.  Not just science fiction, though more about history and a few other topics.  Still, I will probably always have a bit of room, probably a lot of room, for fiction and science fiction.  I even remember... if not names then the characters.  I track well, from my own reviews, of the story line, links, connections, and even the more abstract thoughts.  The remind me of my earlier thoughts, so far, so it isn't as difficult as all that.  Quarks and quacks and oh my's!

Good night.

Is anyone else surprised they survived their youth?

.
.
I don't even mean from all the stupid things done.  I'm just talking out the forbearance our parents had.  It didn't stop after potty training.  Well, not for me.  Just a salute to all parents who... don't kill their kids and stick it out.  You... you do know... kids are a life sentence, don't you?  :)  Thanks, mom!

Alright, history nerds, pay attention.

.
.
One of my fellow bloggers also writes for a living.  Yeah, I didn't know I could be getting paid!  Never mind.  The thing is, he read a book about history, by some ivy league lightweight midwit, and countered with his own book.  In any case, he is offering his book for free.  I'll post some of his post and a link to the... well... link.  It might boost his rank, as a writer, but it also might give you something to chew on when whatever else you are reading seems to... well... if you want to read something a little more solid.  I can't swear to the book, I can only say I read the author's post often enough that I give him some space to make points and have some faith in the man.  Can't hurt to help a fellow of the more conservative and traditional lines boost his ratings, if nothing else.  A friend of a friend and all that. 

Over on the Worst history books thread at Civil War Talk, El B nominated:

Encounters in the New World: A History in Documents, 1999, by Jill Lepore. This is a junior high textbook (written by a Harvard professor and published by Oxford, no less) that is so bad, we use it in our grad school to break first-term grad students of their innate fear of credentials. ...

When your history book is used to teach the next generation how *not* to write history, it's a bad book. 

Anyway, after writing a scathing review at Amazon, I decided that a better approach would be to publish my own dissection of Lepore's SJW approach to history* and make it free as much as possible.

Yeah, I already got mine.  So... hush.  I already told him I'll read it when I can.  The book bombs have started going off from at Vox's, so...  Who knows.  Still, there you go.  His actual blog (the author) is here, if you care to visit.

Feeling pretty good.

.
.
Nothing fancy.  Just not bad, and not foggy, mostly.  Sleep was good.  I dreamed a really interesting one, but lost it.  I think other minor dreams knocked the notion out of my mind-hands.  Still, all good.  I enjoyed chewing the fat of that first dream while I could maintain it, even behind the curtains of the sleep-mind.  I don't remember much of any of the dreams.  Interesting distractions as I was spinning from waking to sleep and finally back to my feet.  All good.  I do enjoy dreaming, if only I could remember more of them.  The spooky ones, if they are just of normal mind-wander-matter, are among my favored.  You call them nightmares.  I call them home.

Today?  Ah, well, waking first.  Dinner arrived.  I am starved, so I am about to devour.  Oh, and pull meat from the freezer.  I need to make room for beef, eventually.  And that fresh hog is delicious.  Rich and right, if done properly.  I have about, for now, a 70% chance, or better, of hitting pork's sweet spot.  No... not the kidneys!  Though... there is hope even for that, eventually.  I need time to empty up the freezer a bit, to make room, so perhaps it is good that my fiances are in disarray.  God teaches... guides.  Sometimes with a carrot, sometimes a stick.  Why do I so often get the stick?  DON'T answer that!  At least I'm listening.  Mostly.

Well... on to dinner, then coffee, then reading... then a shower... then...  I don't know that! Oh, right.  New BOOK!  Later.  ;)

Dark musical musings.

.
.
Odd stirrings.  Of no real import.  Moved to cast about for a song or video, finding both in one.

Reading headache.

.
.
It's a lot like those headaches you get when you eat icecream too fast.  I don't know, in comparative terms, how fast I read.  I downed the last 13-20% of the book since my last post.  It was the denser part of the book, with many characters in play, various science theories being bandied about, and the end being nigh the push to finish clicks in as well.  I just posted a review of the book.  Yeah, no spoilers.  Hate spoilers.  Even if I hate, more though if I enjoyed, a book, spoilers just aren't right.  I gave it a good review, if I did warn that it might lead to a headache.  I should have added that ymmv.

I hope that as I read more, perhaps I will not give myself a headache in the reading.  I actually think I ripped through that last part of the book at a terrible pace.  One particular part I ripped through so fast I was sure I didn't get much, but upon rereading the section I was amazed that I really had caught it... even the complex.  I wasn't reading pages a minute, I was reading sections in that time.  I am reading on my smartphone, and was surprised to realize I had to keep my thumb right on the edge because there really wasn't time... or at least it was annoying... to have to move my thumb or finger back into position to click for the next page.  *zip, zing*  The book, by the way, was Awake in the Night Land.

It seems I may have been a little incorrect in some of my early assessments.  One perspective, or an early take on what is going on, can lead to confusion.  Much as any Christian has doubts, and might even have friends who feel nothing, or do not believe anything.  The book covers these eventualities and thoroughly, so that one can be immersed in some of the questioning, and so wonder about the points of the book.  All good, fair enough.  I'm older, I get to be grumpy and fidgety.  Or... is that because I am still young at heart?  Gah!  I don't know that!

I have already picked out the next book.  Same author.  I decided to go with the same author because I have just been introduced to reading for pleasure again, and just discovered an author I can tolerate.  I don't want to push too far from that, even if the author may very well do so, in order that I keep enjoying.  There is, sometimes, a minor trick to these things.  A trick I must endeavor to perform.  If I wish to get more fully back into the reading game.  I don't know after that, but I suspect I will find another author.  I just hope the other author(s) are as good as this one.  He really ought to charge.  Oh, wait.  Never mind.

The next book is another book of books... is that an analogy of an anthology...  shut up.  Anyway, I've chosen One Bright Star to Guide Them, by John C. Wright.  Dang nice if he hasn't lost his touch.  He's not that old yet, though.  Closing.  :p  Aren't we all?  Better be good.  I'll try to temper my enthusiasm a bit though.  Oh, and take some painkillers.  Not starting it tonight, probably.  Gah!  Probably.  I am a glutton for punishment.  As I wrote that, I... already knew.  Hmm, if I make something to eat, first... and take some headache stuff, perhaps I'll be in better shape.  Later. 

Nearing the end of the book of books.

.
.
It has been an interesting read.  The notions near the end have been heard before, contemplated on my own, at least so far.  Things like, when nearing a black hole, or such phenomena, time and proximity close in... or that for every x there is an x' or x-not, and probably more as in points on the positive and negative x,y, and z axis, only perhaps with time and possibly some other... dimensions, spaces, or elements.  Yeah, you... might not think about such things.  Fair enough.  But I really do, and have for a great deal of time.  No, not scientifically.  If for no other reason than science no more studies these things than it studies God.  Scientists may, or may not, believe in these things.  But, depending on which way the winds are blowing at any particular time, to enter the hallowed union halls of science, only those who believe whatever the prevailing winds prescribe may take up the mantel of being a knower.  Once in, to a very small degree, they may agree that they know little, far less than they preach, and what they preach is more likely wrong than right, but that... is another set of matters.  No, but I have contemplated these things.  I am, often, agnostic about any particular notion.  At times I may sway one way or another, and there are some I fancy more than others.  Evidence and notion, as well as emotion, swaying my fancy. 

Also, however, in the books within the book, certainly as I near the end, some notions of what I have discussed here.  About myself, about God, about the horrors of darkness, even nephilim are noticed and discussed lightly.  Hmm, there was that one that appeared in the last book, but from afar to the character, mostly.  There are things in this last of the books that certainly... seem familiar.  Amazing to see writers who have seen what I have seen, if only, possibly, from the point of fiction.  I wonder how they would feel to see some of these things in their dreams, as truths?  Stories.  Just stories.  Or so some require so as not to frighten the children.  How often does a mother wish to hear no more, for the children's sake, when the children aren't at risk?  Ah, yes.  It depends upon the audience.  I make none visit.  And yet they visit and hate.  Interesting.  Wait until they cannot hide behind the ether of electrons, and must face their fears, fears they have ignored and attempted to quiet through quieting those who speak them, those with whom they disagree because they cannot handle the truth.  That will be the first of their hells.  The rest will depend upon what they did to hide that truth... what evils... what corruptions... to themselves and to others.  Hell hath no fury as... well... hell.  A scorned woman is but a mere kitten.  I should know, on both accounts.

Loverly.  Still, it does bow a great deal to science fantasy to which, quite often, I no longer fancy.  I have doubts about black holes.  I am positive their notion of them is as their notion of unclean spirits that at one time they demanded be bled.  If they would discard their hubris and entertain the mantel of the studious, the curious, and blind and humble, I could abide them.  And entertain their notions with a some belief, or minor trust in their efforts.  Time will fix this.  The end is not nigh, not of man.  But the end of the fiction of the wealth we have known is coming to a very quick and sharp close.  Everyone is trying to give away what ceases, but never really in the first place, exists in order to buck for power while others are grabbing at every leaf as if it was gold or gold itself as if that would save them.  Some, perhaps many, of us, are merely hunkering down and in for what is promised to be a long bumpy road, the end of which we most likely will not see, nor will our children or grandchildren... or theirs.  We have, collective, bought real things with unreal monies, burning through real resources for nothing of substance.  How valuable is your smartphone?  The day you bought it?  The day after?  A year later?  Three years later?  I tell it is as valuable today as the day you bought it.  Which should tell you more about money, and men, than cellphones.

Never mind.  I'll go back to reading and let you wet your skivvies in fury or fear, or laugh with or at me.  Makes no difference to me.  Not one iota.  You will learn these truths, and in a way there is no means of escaping.  Which will force you to grow up.  After going to your knees if you do not know this place.  Unless you die first.  That has already been covered.  Best to learn, here and now.  Don't waste the opportunity.  Suffering is your, perhaps, only hope.  As it was mine.  Later.

Cheer up!  I've only got a couple of decades, or four, unless one of you... breaks the seal.  Double yum!

Questions of sanity.

.
.
I have, of course, easily, had the status of my mind questioned.  Fairly, of course.  Initially I spent much time discovering the truth of falseness of the question and my proposal regarding it.  Initially I took the doubt seriously.  As time has passed, I realized some things.

Since my feet landed on this rock I have not encountered sanity.  I realize not a man, woman, or child alive is capable of sanity.  In our present limitations of flesh, further in a fallen world, we simply cannot contain enough of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, while dealing with our various hungers thirsts and fears, to ever attain sanity.  More, I realized the people most in doubt of my sanity were some of the people who had completely surrendered their already meager grasp of the notion in order to be in a position to doubt the sanity of others.  Doctors have sold their soul for the good life.  Whatever they are told, whatever is suggested to them, they have learned to accept.  Those who can't are washed out, or understand and leave.  Only those simple and docile enough to be manipulated, transformed into machines of untruth, will make it through the processes.  Most of them aren't even bright enough to actually know it.  Tools, dull ones, for a machine that is meant not to help, but to conquer, men.  Useless, and worse.

As to my sanity?  That does have to be questioned, for my own purposes.  And there are variations of it, much as their are shades and hues.  More light, or less.  A certain frequency reflected, or several.  Sanity is like that.  How do you gauge sanity?  A first test is to examine if the difference between the simple real, and the perceived real, track.  How close do those perceptions get.  They won't, for any, stay in perfect alignment.  Nor, most likely, will they ever be on an exact same trajectory, save perhaps scant moments of intersection by happenstance.  No, you really do not understand what is happening all about you most of the time.  Oh, well, you can get the big things.  Sure, the sun is up.  But is is partly cloudy?  Is the sun shining every moment?  Are you aware, sure, enough, to guarantee that?  Why the surprise when you step out and the sun is behind a cloud?  But the little details... does so-and-whositz actually like you?  Or merely put up with you?  Or stick with you because you are there and no one else is?  Is your thinking right, on a topic?  Or are you merely believing it because you can't handle the truth.  Now, start digging on every topic you consider you know, not just the ones where you know you are unsure.  I have done this.

So, for me, I am satisfied that my understanding of reality, on the more simple plain of things, is rather accurate.  Blue is indeed blue, no colorblindness.  When I hear as sound, I am positive something external, or something I am doing, is causing vibrations in the air to which my ears... even skin and bones if serious enough, can sense.  When someone, however, says they like me... while I take that at their word, time only tells the truth.  Even more deeply, even if someone does care, their version or understanding of care, or hatred, may or may not be expressed as it might be expected.  So, while I am sure of the rock solid earth, my eyes in very simple ways, and ears too, I am not certain about much more.  Further, I can't be.  The shades and hues are what they are, I can only, on very specific things, differentiate in small ways, carefully.  Which, to me, makes me imminently sane, within huge limits of the capacity.  However, I also believe that brings me closer to sanity than those many who have never questioned it.  Not sure that it was worth the serious testing, but when your health is, even falsely, tied to such a question... and you can do little else... you will spend the time to find out.  And so I did.

Just... thinking... out loud as is often the case.  Now, scoot, you crazy wombat!  *chuckles*

Yeah, I'm up.

.
.
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.

Reading.

.
.
Half way through the book of books.  More than that actually.  But I picked up a small stack of books of books, so I have no worries about running out of reading material.  And I have other books I have been meaning to attempt.  If I end up sprinting through the material I have, and have increased my reading durability enough, I may hit some tough material.  Summa Theologica looms large in my eyes as the prize of my heart's desire.  I have read a minor portion of it, excised or somehow made into the form of another book.  I have stepped into S.T. before, only to fall as my health waxed and waned.  I was so intrigued... I have to keep trying.  No, it's not the bible.  But it is... beyond poetic or historic.  There are some things in there that call.  I have tasted of some of the divine in it, and found it to be right.  There is learning there, understanding.  Serious fat to chew.

The books I am reading currently are nearly poetic.  I am rushing through, sometimes too fast in my hunger.  It has been some time since I read for simple pleasure.  And it has been some times since reading was a pleasure, much of it junk... or worse junk?  Then again, from what I see, this is rather mainstream in it's ideology.  The author is, or was at the time, afraid to deny atheist scientific "truths" which are not only far from proven but dubious and becoming more so, of it's own accord.  Petards, hoisting... by their own hands, with enough rope.  And my but they have been given a lot of rope.  Still, it is what it is in that regard.  Can't expect bravery to question from those who are targeting, in a general way, the very sorts who believe in rubbish... if denying they have even a hint of faith while believing what they know they can't even hope to know.  At least it is cute, if childish.

Still, I am having a grand time slamming through the pages as if a life were on the line.  Not mine so much.  I don't worry for my life, it tends to take care of itself.  As do most problems.  Enemies find out just... exactly... where the lines where drawn in the ancient ways and who is on which side.  Most especially the devious ones.  Light not only disinfects, it slays.  Not for me, but I come from a very long line.  My kin, while disparaging at my choices perhaps, and even hating me... for a number of reasons more now than past but in the past as well... hate those who would go against one of our kind even more.  Dangerous folk.  If you are just and right, bring your charge.  If you are dark and devious, my kin are even more so, though can be bold and brutal.  Watch your way when you walk in what was my world.  You cannot win there.  Just a bit of a friendly warning.  I am not longer on their side if they are still, as a clan, quite on mine.  *wink*

Interesting tales, more to go.  I'll get back to it.  A bit of rest this weekend, as I can't seem to do much more.  So it goes.  It did get chilly again, dropping below freezing as is usual here and now.  After such nice weather, it's sort of like fall again.  The readjustment is difficult.  The cold leeches will, strength.  Reading, and maybe wrapping up in another of the blankets.  The furnace fails to warm, even at 76.  But a blanket seems to do the trick even down at 66.  So long as I stay in it.  Bleh.  At least, to me, they are not scratchy.  It is 100% wool.  Then again I am no longer, if I ever was, exactly normal.  Who can walk on hard frozen ground barefoot, or pluck eggs out of boiling water, or cuddle into wool without a stitch or itch?  Why... me.  :p  Later.

Not too late.

.
.
Always pushing.  With deadlines in hand, sometimes I can push hard enough, sometimes not.  Today I got to it.  My friend wanted me in early enough to go to his bank, then got all picky and suggested that we go when it was open for business.  No fun there.  Still...  A shower and a sprint.  I think I got most of my clothes on, and correctly.  I think?  Well, no one complained, or looked more sideways at me than is usual.  Which is a rather weak measure, because they do look pretty sideways, often, when looking at me.  Dinner and just a bit of shopping, then a stop to look at some of the new toys my friend bought.  I told him I would try to make it in next week.  With my schedule doing somersaults, I can't make any fast promises. 

On the way home I checked the mail.  It looks like the state is trying to strip me of my driver license because of my health.  The V.A., once again, screwing with a vet they don't like.  They well know I've had this condition for longer than some of them have been alive, have driven across the country many times, and have done many things that people with my condition aren't generally believed to be able to do.  This is just trying to stick it to me, again.  I'm a bit hot about it, so I set the paperwork aside until I have calmed down a bit.  I wish there was a legitimate advocacy board that could spank the V.A. when it tries to fuck with vets.  This harassment has been ongoing and continuous.  Zero has simply offered more cover, and incentive, to kill, disparage, and attack vets, even more than what was already in play.  Neither party actually cares much for vets, we cost money that they would otherwise be able to send to their cronies back home.  Just the truth.  We aren't supposed to live this long, and if so, not be independent.  They don't like the facts so they screw with the rules.

It looks like google backed off from their threats.  Not sure if they did, or if they are just going to come at conservatives from a different direction.  Don't believe that fairytale of chasing porn.  That would be easy, and they could have done that at any time.  They aren't going after their bread and butter, if they may chase some of the profits.  No, they are coming after those who don't believe in their crony lies, progressive agendas, and nasty ways.

Hmm...  Well, dinner was good.  Omelets, for me.  I will, eventually, get a bigger pan.  And with practice, learn to make omelets correctly.  Money issues are about to hit and I'm not sure how bad those are quite yet.  I'll live, just...  It's going to hurt.  Going out will probably not be happening too often, though it's not like I eat out even once a week as is.  A minor treat, all good.

I did show my friend my new dagger.  I think he thought the thing was funny, until he saw it, held it, and it made some sense to him.  I won't say he was impressed, but I think he... liked it.  Probably thought of it as a waste of cash, but that's him.  For him it probably is.  Perhaps for me, but... it is my cash, and my heart.  It has been on my list since before some of you were born.  I just... back in the day there was no internet.  Not a common, or easy to find item, not in the back woods.  And you could never be sure of quality, while even so having to worry about being completely ripped off even if the quality was there.  I came from the time where much merchandise was of the back of the comic book type.  Things have changed.  Things have improved.  But the false economy supporting all of this is about to die hard.

The other thing?  Saving money is a fools errand.  Not that getting into debt is any better.  Actually, that latter is worse.  Take your extra money and put it into something that will have value.  Leaving it in the bank is losing it.  Betting on the stockmarket, before it's collapse, is worse than saving, if not as bad as debt.  About right in the middle.  Trust me, you don't know what you are doing with paper, and your stock manager, if you go that way, doesn't either.  If he does, he will sell you down the road for the big boys who run the game.  If not, he will simply lose it.  Buy, but more wisely.  Perhaps not all of my purchases are the best, but... for some things... they may never be available, at that quality, in my lifetime again.  Or yours, your children's, or your grandchildrens.  Might be worth more than it seems in less time than you think.

Ah well...  On to some music, back to reading, and relaxing a bit.  I never had the chance to really wake up.  I'll take it now.  It was, though, quite good to get out.  I suspect my friend appreciated it too.  Later.

Odd coincedences, and dreams.

.
.
An eruption of dreams.  One I had pretty much stored, remembered well.  As it neared the time to wake, a storm of dreams struck.  So many and so fast, each so deep and intense, that all memory was lost in the whirlwind.  Wars, and small home life as a child, myself or you, up, down, and away.  I literally lived through a dozen different lives and lifetimes in, probably, at most it seems to me, the last two hours of sleep.  I would hit one dream, then dump out of it, immediately into another, like the clicks heard from a girl jumping rope.  But the dreams, each themselves, could be intense but span a shorter part of a day, to time expansive in which I live a whole lifetime... or three.  I'm not a normal cat.  I don't... die when I die, not even always in dreams.  I've got slightly (extra) blurry vision and a minor twist of them mind because of it.  It would be like trying to study differential equations, while practicing a piece by Mozart, listening to Motorhead, on a treadmill, eating a sandwich, while thinking about my past loves.  Let us call it overload and be done with it?  Yeah. 

I called my friend last night.  I told him I would be in.  I also let him know I didn't know when.  My swing shift is in full rotation.  I have no idea when I will sleep, for how long I will sleep, or in what shape I will be when I wake.  I just knew that I wanted to get out.  And I thought he might want to.  His answer, to paraphrase, was... "Do I!?!".  So, yeah.  He just wanted me to show up in time to get him to his bank.  Uhrm, it might happen.  But I won't have time to run through my waking subroutines.  Oh... 'teh' horror.  Give or take.  My subroutines are splendid, but silly, things.  Probably a good way to give me a heartattack, but it hasn't worked yet.  *listening, anyone?*  :p

I love my gallows humor.  The cosmos seems to like it to, but like me doesn't really give a... ...what I think.  Oh, it roars, sometimes... when it doesn't get all stern like a woman who thinks she owns a part of my hide and doesn't think I should be painting a bullseye on it.   Doesn't quite always get my humor or lack of... uhrm... hmm... seriousness.  *bite me*  All good.  I love getting that solemn prissy feel from the universe.  And women.  Yum like bubblegum.  Chewy too!

I... knew Spock would be gone.  I see it is so.  No great personal loss.  He seems to have lived a good long life.  I hope it was good, I hope it was right, I hope he was ready, and though I didn't know him near as well as I knew Adam, I'll pray for the reposition of his soul.  Not a thing I do for all, but since I saw it...  I always feel a little guilty when... is foreknowledge causative?  Doubtful, but does one ever know this?  Or anything for sure?  No.  I also, as I was finishing the second of the books in the book of short stories, ran into the rare word... stiletto.  Used as I suggested about the dagger I purchased.  Sometimes things come together to... reinforce... or if I haven't done some things yet, to push.  God uses angels, but He also uses other means to communicate.  Especially for us whom the angels do not favor.  Or even fear.  So be it.

Ah, right... a shower... then all the fuss required to be to town.  Hmm... legs and ass are suggesting more coffee or they will go on strike.  So... I'll finish this, whistle past morning duties, and swing into the saddle as if I knew what I was doing.  Good day.  Oh, right, since I have to get to it, might as well be just a tadge grumpy, so...  Get off my damned porch!  Ah... now I feel better.  *grin*

Another day, or night really.

.
.
Feeling good, all around, more or less.  It's just a day, so far.  I was, and remain, confused about today.  There just isn't anything going.  Can't focus.  A shower.  Beautiful thing that is.  Plus it finished washing the crap and most of the smell away from having washed the blankets in the tub, that first time.  Nasty stuff, that.  And yet... better that than holey bug filled blankets.  I suppose.  New ones would be a fortune or (maybe and) poorly made.  Some tech seems lost to antiquity.  With furnaces, warm clothing, work (where heat is provided if usually not considered a benefit... not these days), and the rest, most people do not think of warmth.  A forgotten necessity, for the moment.

With a shower to warm my body and bolster the spirits, a bit of coffee in me, I decided... to put more coffee in me.  I don't know what I might get to.  I will, I believe, read some more, while putting coffee into the tank.  I am hoping to make a meal.  I have meat thawed, and haven't grilled in a while.  Sure, it's back to well below freezing.  As I like to say... "And?".  I do what I do, when I can, when I see the need or want, it's just the way of it.

Still, I would like to do a bit in the kitchen.  Even just sweeping, a few dishes, and maybe cleaning some of the surfaces I have been partially opening up by relocating the small kitchen appliances.  I suppose I could sort that whole microwave cart idea out too.  Who knows what I will get to.  I know what I would like to do... sleep another four or ten hours.  My body wants to, my brain knows it isn't going to happen.  I can't make myself sleep any more than I can make myself healthy.  What is, is, or it isn't.  Sleep isn't.  It's not too bad though.  Like I said, a bit of coffee and more reading.

Reading has been quite good.  I've finished the first of the stories in the first book, and am nearing the end of the second story.  I read fast enough.  I just don't have the stamina of the psyche that reading demands.  Something of which some you are aware, others are not, though true for all.  Eyes go bleary, or the mind begins to wander too much, and the reading must be set aside.  Further, even for this sort of reading, little breaks help the story come together.  Much as, when you are listening to someone speak, you blink from time to time.  That's not just to moisten your eyes, but also to take in what your ears have heard, and allow your mind to function on that.  I may never be a master reader, again, or to the level I was, but I can enjoy as I may.  And I am.

I was thinking about that dagger I recently received.  Yeah, I ordered that about three weeks ago.  Good things take time.  Perhaps they even actually made it in that time.  Or finished it from parts?  Shipping was quite slow, but not a bother if known.  And there was at least one stall in the delivery.  Some city in Georgia, it seems, received a freeze.  Georgians are simply not used to such.  Or... there was something else.  One never knows from the snippets of data passed on.  Oh, about that dagger?  Of all the wars fought, that dagger, and other tools like it, have ended even more wars before they ever went further than minor words or deeds.  A prince, king, general, rouge, arch bishop, or other, who for good or ill was beginning to set forth plans, ended up meeting such a tool in a final way.  The greater friend of their enemy was closer then their true friends and protection, and so the notion slipped from history as they slipped into the ground.  More than you will ever know.  Who received the lesson was not always who you might think, either.  Sometimes it is the principality who must be silenced, sometimes a seeming innocent catalyst.  Sometimes that didn't work, either.  One never knows, not even those who one would think should.  God allowed man free will, and that has wrought terrible confusion on all, save I suspect, God Himself, should He wish to know, when He might so desire to know.

Ah, reading, coffee...  a meal... perhaps work.  Just hitting midnight and my day is just, potentially, beginning to begin.  Bleh.  *smile*  Later.

Nice blanket.

.
.
Two washings seem to have taken care of the smell, or... well enough.  The scent has invaded my home, and will be here for a while.  I aired out the bathroom last night, which was the worst of it due to the long soaking.  If I ever buy another woolen, I will do, pretty much, the same thing... only next time I would open a window to let it vent.  I did close the door pretty quickly, when first wetted the area absolutely reeked.  Live and learn.  But, for warmth, I was amazed.  Just because you order something, and the seller says it is one thing, doesn't mean it is.  Actually, you can count on it not being what it is said to be, one way or another, more so in these times.  The question is, is it good enough.

I ordered something else I have been meaning to get my hands on.  I have been looking for this for a very long time.  Thinking about it for even longer.  I have daggers, dirks, folding knives, and the rest.  But something I have known for longer than I have known this life, and... kept some faith with on a personal and *cough* social and political score... kept haunting my dreams.  You might or might not know of it.  You, most likely, think of a woman's type of shoe when you hear the name... stiletto.  Or, perhaps, if you are more keen to... various blades, but are of a modernist bent, you might think of a specific sort of switchblade.  Much as you might think of a claymore as an anti-personnel mine.

I remember various sorts of stilettos.  Daggers, of various sorts, used to pierce mail.  Well, you would call that chain mall.  In one time, at least, mail was a mix of metal plates and chain-linked undergarb or supplementary additions to plates.  This dagger was devised to penetrate the rings and to find the edges of the plates and pierce through undergarments.  And it does so with an efficiency and ease, for a pro, that the hearts of knights could never be at full ease.  It is one of the terrors that came to the dreams of knights... after a few... introductions.  I can use such a device as you might a can opener.  'Over the plate, through the knot, past the stuffing, into the voice-chamber.  No scream to foul the play.'  Or... some such comes to my mind.  I can't remember it, thus write it, correctly, for the tongue is both ancient and foreign.  Neither of us would understand it fully, or probably at all.  They used to speak horrible English.  Probably French, but ancient French is even worse horrible English!  The meaning should be clear.  Anyway, that, finally, arrived after days and... a week, two?  No worries.

After reviewing my order, over and over, I started to have concern.  Had I ordered the wrong thing?  Was this merely a dagger, being passed off as something more?  I hate being fooled.  But that is, more often than not, the way of merchants these days.  I thought, mildly, about just canceling the order.  Fearful thoughts can do that.  But, no.  I wanted to see if my various research and belief had been true.  It arrived today.  And, yes, it is as my heart desired.  I would say it is even better than I could have imagined.  This thing is wicked.  It has the point, but beyond, over some distance, turns into a, nearly, fine (but thick) tri-blade, well fullered and thick enough to not be fragile.  This thing is a bit of a redesign from my times-memory.  But a very solid redesign.  I am well satisfied.  Oh, I do know my gear.  Some part of my dark ancient heart is happy.  Do not think it does not still have a place on any field of battle, small or large, personal or grand.  War knows his implements better than you have known any of your loves or professions.

Fit and finish are sufficient.  Balance is slightly blade heavy, with an easy roll hilt to point and back even so.  For my purposes this is preferred.  It came slathered in packing grease, so a bit of work was needed and done.  Then a thin film of oil to coat the blade as it waits for something or nothing.  A show piece, for any who might ask.  But little do I have is merely for show.  No vault or wall queens, nothing I would not, or could not, use in a pinch or push.  For I have not the wealth for such.  A thing that brings great ease to the mind of one who has mastered these things.  And, yes, even in these days, armor will not withstand such a culmination of old tech, knowledge, and skill.
----------------
A dream, early, as I was waking this morning(evening).  Yes, days and nights are tumbling again.  Jews.  Some personal friends, some about the general alliance between two old enemies and friends that our religions and nations have been.

I remember friends, Jewish, half Jewish, or... whatever they called themselves.  For some reason, in my doings, I have met many... befriended many... on a very personal score.  The ones I knew had a common problem.  Either hubris beyond belief, or humility beyond despair.  Not one or the other, but both.  Initially I went for the ride, and would cheer or woe with them.  After a bit, however, I saw the game.  I let them, those of them who were my friends, know that I would not put up with it.  I have the same... difficulty.  And I don't, when I realize it, allow it for myself.  So... hush it.  Realizations as one matures, noting ones political and other history, and things... notions... mature over time.  I can't say if all Jews are this way, just the ones I knew well, and as a common trait.  Not just with each other, however, a shared thing... despite my not being Jew.  Oh?  I don't care if you like my dream or thoughts!  A laugh in your general direction.

The other notion in the dream was about the West's, or really America's (until this admin) alliance with Israel.  While currently we have an Israel-hater in the WH, if too an anti-American traitor so go figure, we have generally politically, and as a people, been allied with Israel.  Some have suggested that Israel has not always played nice, been friendly, and some other things.  True.  Guilty as charged.  We play that game just so as well.  Allies, peoples with some.. more... common causes... than difference... always play that game.  It can be played to a very thin, fine, edge.  And so it has happened.  Our differences can be more pronounced on a little or big issue.  Still, overall, we have much more in mutual common as peoples.  We both, also, currently, have an enemy in US offices and bureaucracies.  They have gone through this themselves, and, as a smaller state, have had it worse... almost to the point of surrendering their nationhood.  Wounds, time, hope.  Just... a dream.  But it seemed to sum a few things up to me, personally and politically.
----------------

I have some... things to do.  Mostly just to wake, right now.  But the hope is I will get back to my ventures and hit the kitchen, perhaps prepare a meal, and just enjoy my day and time... while... fancying my stiletto.  I do enjoy the feel and... having filled another part to my personal warchest.  It is so good to receive something that was done right an well, to have an ancient tool that lives well even in these times.  Yes, more coffee... just brewed a fresh spot of it after emptying the old into my "cup", then belly.  Be well, be warned, be wise, be ready.

Reading and washing.

.
.
It was something, anyway.  Then again, washing those blankets was less a want than a need.  No chemical headaches, at least so far.  But that mothball... they say... smell was intense, at least for the one blanket.  I've been around moths and never... well... maybe they were all female?  Or that isn't what mothballs really smell like, meaning the odor is from something else.  The blankets were washed twice, soaked in the tub for... a while, a good long while.  Then washed and tumbled dry.  I won't say the worst of them is great, but the other two are pretty good.  I'm about to hit it, and I want to test one of the less smelly ones out.

I continued to read.  I read so late, and long, before the last actual bedtime, that I read past an important bit in the story.  No worries, through this and that I caught back up and figured it all out.  That's what happens when you have a reading addiction and a health problem.  I like it, even so.  Keeps me on my toes.  Excellent reading.  I like Vox's atheist antithesis.  But that was a book I... had to be contemplative while reading.  I didn't, or made great attempts, to not let that book get out ahead of me.  I generally agree with him, but if he can lead you into a mistake, but one he prefers, or believes, he will.  There were a couple of times when I could have just blithely went along, until I had to sort it later.  Being well aware of the skill and ways of the author from years of blog reading, I watched the trail a little more carefully.  In the book I am reading, it's like the difference between tracking big dangerous game on snowshoes, and getting to take a snowmachine out in a relatively easy course, but at full speed.  Snow bank?  No problem.  As I mentioned, I even flipped and didn't catch it right, but still went on and did fine.

Yeah, well, it is about bedtime again.  Bleh.  What the heck happened to the kid energy I used to have?  Actually, I think I did the same thing then.  Burned it like I had it, as I had it, then went to bed for as long as I could.  Some things just don't change.  Some things, like just how much I had to burn, do.  At least I no longer zip anything I shouldn't, where and how I shouldn't.  Yeah, I probably pushed it a bit too hard back then.  Thankfully, nothing was lost in the making or telling of this tall... tail.  So it points backwards.  Blah... the bedtime blather.  Good night.

Napped like I earned it.

.
.
I hadn't been awake long, well, really awake.  I hit a wall like a speeding car.  Came to a dead stop, crashed, but didn't burn.  Good sleep.  Really good.  I was hoping it would reset my schedule, or offer the opportunity for it.  That didn't work out.  Still, gotta do what you gotta do. 

Before I found out I may have a minor financial disaster to work, I ordered some things.  Among the items are a couple of wool blankets.  Not the pressed ones, the real things.  They do come covered in... something.  Something nasty.  Reminds me of  the peacoat I was issued in the service, at least before it was sent away for cleaning.  I think that was the first thing that happened, before we even took them anywhere.  Fitted, name stenciling, then off to the cleaners.  The other smell was of the dungaree blue.  They must have died those things for a week, several times.  I don't think that odor ever came off.  Still, no problem.  But I don't want to take them to a dry cleaner.

With a front loading washer, after an initial cold wash, I'll probably just hang them somewhere.  My clothes-line isn't strong enough to handle them.  I'll figure something out.  They weren't actually too awfully smelly until they got wet.  I had almost thought to just let them go, but... just couldn't.  Glad I didn't.  I could only imagine being out in the wilds and having them get wet for the first time.  Beside being nasty to the nose, the stuff they use is damned toxic.  Won't kill a critter like me, but could make me sick.  Out in the bush is not a good place to be sick.

As I said, I am gearing up for functional camping.  I won't have a cellphone, I won't be taking home appliances, I won't have this, or that, or the other thing.  I hope to have just the basics, man style, perhaps a fishing license and minor gear, enough food to allow me to merely scrape by though for an extra three days, a couple of means of cleaning water, basic cleaning and medical kit, cordage, cutting, and fire starter gear with a notion to learn how to make fire without that.  Some hiking, some fishing, and sleeping as need be.  The first trip will be, perhaps, what others consider a two day trip.  I will give myself four days, and prep for that, just in case.  I can choose where to go, to make sure I have a source of water, room to camp without being trampled by hordes of others, and some other things.  I haven't decided where to go yet, but I have been, roughly, looking for a while.  There are several possible choices.  I have to take an easier course first.

Maybe just a pipe dream.  But it's there.  I have most gear, I just wanted a decent axe, wool blankets, tarpline, and a few other things.  I do have 550 parachute cord, but it isn't dependable.  I bought it before I realized that there are a lot of fakes out there of that.  I want cordage that I know.  I'll compare some of the stuff I buy to some of the stuff I have, to see where it really fits.  Who knows if I will ever get out.  I will be ready if I end up, one day, after planning and plotting and hording, to just go.

Yeah.  Even before Mark Twain, both myself and my brother always wanted to... just go.  A few years, some experience and other experiences, and... perhaps... a little planning isn't a bad thing after all.  It's not like we never did go, but to mixed results.  But then again, that is camping, or even life.  The draw, or the ideal, will never be the real.  But that is why, when you are done, you go home, I suppose.  It's the attempt at perfecting the real that is the draw.  Not to make the ideal real, but just the reverse.  To learn to live with, and enjoy, the real... come what may.  Same with all of my efforts after the brass rounds dropped and I realized I could make real, but real wasn't ideal, and what those differences are. 

Hmm?  Don't know.  Almost sleep talking.  Later.

You wouldn't believe.

.
.
Looking out at a shadowy yet oddly lit sky draped over peaks to the southwest and east.  It's a magical day, to me, in that regard.  There is something about natural beauty, when it strikes me right between the eyes like a bullet.  Sometimes all else is set down just... just to look, stare, know something incredible is before me.

It's more than just a gooder day, it is a good day.  Not just health, but mood and those views.  Some days it's like God Himself has come down and said, "Here is your ticket.  One free pass to a limited view of heaven here on earth."  And so it is.  I'm spending the ticket well.

I still hope to do other things.  Something along the lines of actual work, small as that, or better those, tasks might be.  It's not that I forget, in a technical sense.  It's just that, often lately, when I get up to go do something, before I can reach 'something', my mind has already flitted to another something.  Usually the new something is epistomological, or specifically theological, or from the lit but foggy future or dim dusky past.  It's not a purposeful thing.  Enhanced, but not from, illness mind you.  My head has always sought the clouds.  When I can't rise to the clouds they simply come to me.

Oh, just... chattering to no one in particular.  It is good to share the good, as well as the bad.  A diary will do, and the girls.  Later.

Bad boy?

.
.
I don't think so.  Grinning, insufferable fool, perhaps.  Chasing my, and other, tails maybe.  Laughing and raising as stink, just an adult version of what I did when diapers where the fashion though.  I've been pission men and women off since before I was born, why stop now?  So long as my grin, glib tongue, and fearful nature can keep me from being lit afire or chased to the next kingdom, one way, or kingdom even the one to come, or another?  Well.  Yes.  Don't mind me.  I'm just, probably, not even aware much of the time.  Nothing personal.  Presenting yourself or your petitions just offers me something with which to interact, or spring-board off.  *boing*

Feeling gooder, again, today.  Surprisingly even this morning, first thing.  I woke while it was still morning.  Not that that means much.  Too little sleep is what it means.  Not sure why I woke.  I am still tired, though I should be.  I went to bed at 2:00, or more like 4:00?  But then read until my poor eyes kept snapping open and shut, and my hand kept trying to drop the ebook I was reading.  See, that is good reading.  I've been vacuumed into the fictitious world and can't get enough. 

Oh, by the way, there is a new book bomb going on.

BEST SHORT STORY

• "Goodnight Stars" by Annie Bellet, The Apocalypse Triptych
• "Totaled" by Kary English, Galaxy's Edge
• "On a Spiritual Plain" by Lou Antonelli, Sci Phi Journal #2  
• “A Single Samurai” by Steve Diamond, Baen Big Book of Monsters

Again with the link.  Further, he offers links to some free short stories.  Go, buy, read.  If these are as good as what I have seen so far, you won't be missing the coin (until later).  :)

Wonderful, fine, good little life I have sometimes.  Even through the various pains, ghosts, and the shadows of guilt and shame that can still return to haunt once relinquished.  I don't bargain with them, when I find my course.  I fight them.  But I don't always get the last word on every such conversation, in the short run.  Even these have mellowed, mostly.  Sometimes merely offering a start, as seeing a shadow move behind one in the mirror.  Other times pulling me back to a time when I was that shadow.  Still, just moments.  Moments that help remind why today is so good.  Starts that leave me, in the end, smiling and pleased with the path I have chosen.  Moments all know, to greater or smaller lengths.  Wonderful.  Even when it hurts, mostly.

I will... try to get to something today.  I don't know what.  I seem to be casting about for what will make the legs work and the mind focus.  Not finding it, I simply satisfy myself watching the psychic silver fish swim about in their schools, shifting and sorting.  While it gets nothing done, it is a fine hobby and makes for a pleasant day.  Oh, I'll keep... thinking about more.  When I remember to think about more.  Oh!  Fishes!  Bright shinies.  Yum!  Later.

Oh, right.  I'm supposed to be grumpy?  Yeah?  Then get off my damned porch!  *grins*  Yeah, I suck at it today.  Maybe tamale?  Only if I'm hungry!  Shut up.  Off the porch.  Scoot.

A different nightscape.

.
.
Dinner arrived.  I believe I surprised my host guest.  I was in good spirits.  Something some, most, do not understand... I am always pleased to see a familiar, friendly, and better both, face.  No matter how bad things might be.  Few have died.  Of those few have remembered.  Something I knew before I did was that dying alone was a dark thing.  If I have killed, and had the time and ability, I stayed with them until they were gone.  Not to gloat, but so as to comfort them.  We were only enemies in life.  That time had passed.  So, when I feel the hurt of the memory of death, for myself, of others, a familiar friendly face will cause me to cover the pain easily.  Much as a dying dog will try to lift himself and wag his tail when his friends approach, even at great pains.  An old dog some days.

The pain has passed, as much as it will.  It is a gift, you know.  The pain of loving and losing.  It reminds us how precious love is, how dear life is, and how alive we are.  Can't always see it, but it's there.  Yes, but that has passed, mostly, for now.  An odd and curious notion has taken it's place.  A wonder at women, love, sex, and... just kicking around with a smile and a nature.  For me that is masculine, sometimes, mostly.  But as with good and evil, where one is, the other is sure to be.  Neither have I completely left the other notion.  I am... mixed.  As bastards always are, if not always in the same ways.  I have been delayed, many times.  Others have been delayed... longer.

Death is such a strange thing.

.
.
Whether a personal touch or an impersonal understanding, knowing those it has touched or just seeing some of the results or indications of death... it has a way of moving even stone.  Recent deaths, both personal, social, close, far, and nearly anonymous have been weighing on my mind.  Today, a final installment to break the dam.  Jealousy, too, as I have noted.  Just a little thing, I am sure I will get my turn, again.  If I may get more turns than is usual, as usual, for me.  Still, the notion and loss has me at a disadvantage on this day.  Just a sadness.  Not for those who have moved on, but for us slugs who must carry on, and for those who were closer yet.

Prayers and thoughts.  Prayers for those who left, young or old, right or wrong.  Memories, familiarity, knowledge of how they went, when, but little more sometimes.  Faces, voices, gone.  Some who, only now, realize the value of the prayers.  And yet, there is some hope that grace is a knowledge, or is still available to them.  None, save they, and those with them and before them, truly know.  Still, prayers.  To ease the cracks in the stone that is my heart.  Nothing was made perfectly immutable, not here, not even the Son... the good one.

Just... some thoughts.  And, of course, just a touch of music.  Music that fits.  Won't even hurt your ears, eyes, or serenity, mostly on that last.  No one is laughing, and yet...

Oh, another thing...

.
.
Google has informed that on March 23, any site they consider dirty, or something, will be forced to become private.  I have no idea what their notion of such is, who the arbiter is, though I suspect who they will, and will not, target.  If they, whoever they is, decide that a site is henceforth unacceptable, they will force it to private viewership.  I have no illusions, whether the censors are government bureaucrats or leftist stooges working for the company (do they have any other?), my blog will probably be wiped.  We'll see, just letting you know.

If I had the mojo, I would wrap up my blog and take it elsewhere.  Would for other reasons anyway.  The truth is, conservatives are not really welcome anywhere.  So I am not sure that would help.  A new set of bureaucrats to hassle with, a new set of complaints trying to take my blog off.  Actually, finally, it seems that complaints no longer endanger my site every six to eighteen months.  Yes, I went through lockouts, shutdowns, the inability to post comments, all kinds of crap.  It's been a while now.  Still, looks like they are using the government to help them force some things off the web.  I solidly expect to be among those.  Not much to do about it.  Hey, your tax dollars are finally doing something.  I guess we will see.

Just giving you fair warning, that I have received veiled threats, and that March 23 may be the day the blog dies.

A good start.

.
.
A late start, but not so late as yesterday... even though I stayed up later.  Go figure.  I'm just a passenger when life goes in this direction.  I'm not completely at the whim of those winds, but there are some practical limits to my ability to shift things.  So... I do as I may, put up with the rest.  Still, sleep was good.  I dreamed, several dreams.  All are gone, dissipated before I woke.  Even before waking, I knew they were gone.  I may sleep a little differently than others.  I, usually, have some aspect that is asleep, some that is conscious within the confines, and some that is partly awake.  Perhaps that is normal?  Don't know, but it's the way I know it.

I am feeling much better today, and most of yesterday actually.  I am going to make a stab at getting to a few things today.  Nothing much, but along the lines of what I am hoping to accomplish in my home.  Cleaning, clearing, arranging.  Stupid stuff, but it does actually pay off.  I'm not a domestic diva, I am just hoping to optimize a few processes and clear the home to clear the mind.  Yeah, it works, if you can do it.  I am almost as good at this as I am gardening.  Never mind.

I am hoping to get a couple of dedicated portions of time just for reading.  I am actually excited to get back to it.  I have tasted of such prose in a coon's age, perhaps more.  Tasty.  I wonder if my dreams, or at least one of them, a look around this new world I have found through reading.  As I think about it, I suspect so.  Sharks have teeth by which to test the world, I have many things.  One of the more potent is dreaming.  I can't program so as to make worlds and delve, change, control, and monitor.  But I can dream better than any machine.  Simply, though, I can't always remember.  Never to worry, mind you.  Memory isn't just a thing for your conscious mind.  My subconscious and unconscious mind also have their own memory stacks.  And... it does go to show.  Consciousness is the tip of the iceberg.  If you learn how to tap into that other, you will never be empty.  I have been forced to do so by my medical ailment.  Some do it natively, or for other reasons.

Oh, yes, a good day I do believe.  I might have to, slowly, work on getting my schedule back.  But I won't let it interferre with getting back on my feet in other ways, not yet.  I can only push just so much right at the moment.  I'd rather push to my goals than to a daytime schedule up front.  Who knows what I can do, still a bit off.  But feeling so good I almost suspect I could dance.  So, dance I will, as I may.  Good day.

Reading was fantastic.

.
.
I had thought to begin one of the books purchased in the book bomb, the last one.  While I purchased those ebooks, there was another from one of the authors which... called to me.  I have never heard of any of the authors, save through the site to which I posted a link.  I have read a small, perhaps medium, library worth of sci-fi.  For years reading between two and five books a week.  But the sci-fi/fantasy world was, and remains, a vast ocean.  There seems to be no limit to choices, if there is a limit to quality writers and time.  Even of just, what I would call quality writers, there are far too many too know.  Truly.  Well, and writers tend to wax and wane, sometimes cyclically, sometimes like a light switch.  *click*

I saw a book, however, as I was buying those other books, that... just caught my eye.  I have seen it before.  Not in flesh, in dreams.  I have seen the tower on the front, or one like it, also in dreams.  Actually, when I saw the cover, I knew it was for me before realizing it did happen to be written by one of the authors of the books in the book bomb campaign.  How fortuitous.  Still, I had to see if the books I purchased were in a series, and where to start, and all that jazz.  Such things, when I am ill, take time.  That done... I then had to propose to read the books, and wait until there was time, or a time, when no other calling, disturbance, or illness itself, precluded reading.  I am beginning to think I understand how aristocracy works.  Oh, trust me, it wasn't God that granted them anything.  It was merely that as some became wealthy and came to power, they became stated, stodgy, conservative in all things, and... things took on a life of their own.  Poor, perhaps, but I am an aristocrat in some ways even so.

In any case, after having all of the reasons not to read taken care of, and all of the information I required in order to read read and to my satisfaction, I accidented into a time for reading.  Right.

The book I chose was Awake in the Night Land, by John C. Wright.  I wasn't expecting too much, nor too little.  This author seems to tickle some of my favored rascals of the interwebs.  I can't say if I have heard this book, or any other, specifically mentioned.  But the author has been noted often enough.  Then again, I try not to remember what I don't think will pertain to me, or personal tidbits that I think might... be troublesome in some way should it fall into the wrong hands.  I'm... odd, but true, that way.  In any case, I was curious.  There is always hope.  But as often as I have read crap books by authors hoisted with laurels who should have been toasted and hoisted upon petards, which if studied back to origins, might be fairly saying I could also fart in their general direction.  Love how words work, innit?

As it turns out, it is... a wonderful start on the stack I have just purchased.  I couldn't have asked for better writing or the start of a finer story.  I dropped into it, like in the old days, when I was young and sci-fi was catnip.  I would still be reading but my limits, whether for work, play, or even reading, are real.  I have little stamina for these things, currently.  Still, I'll hit it as I can.  Loverly.  Truly a wonderful thing.  I just hope they are all this good.  Or at least good enough to draw me back in.  Nerd crack, I'm telling you.  If they are all along these lines, I might get back to my old reading schedule.  They might even get me up to finishing, or restarting, Summa Theologica.  I know I can do it, I just have to be in some kind of reading shape.  The bible calls me, sometimes, and I just read it.  Other things take a bit more... something.  Even should I enjoy greatly.

Hmm... not sure what to do now.  It's almost bedtime.  I'll figure something out, music perhaps.  Good night.

Ah, reading, I guess.

.
.
I'm a bit burned out with the blog world and stupid news cycles.  More information is being hidden than what is revealed.  It is becoming very difficult to find any accurate information, and that is just regarding America.  What is happening is Europe, Africa, the Middle East, all shrouded.  You can find bits and pieces of information, from sources that haven't received the memo, or aren't beholding to some establishment or government.  But it is like finding hens teeth.  Even my usual sources seem to have sold out.  I knew some of them had sold out long ago, mostly to the establishment GOP.  Some have sold out to... unknown concerns.  Some of them are true believers.  But they are no longer, strictly speaking, alternative news sources.  Still, once in a while, perhaps in comments, or on topics they haven't sold about, there are bits.  The rest have to be pried from a dying internet.  It is being lorded over by governments and businesses through lawyers and laws.  It is dying a slow wretched death.

I researched the books I purchased.  Most of them seem to be stand alone anthologies.  A good way to preview an author, and consider buying more of his work.  And good for short attention spans.  I would game, but I'm not up to that either.  I have a couple of bluray I haven't watched recently, but that doesn't sound interesting.  I'm not in really great shape, if better than the last few days.  So... reading... I suppose.  If the books are good enough, perhaps it won't be as miserable as reading can be, in this sort of condition.

Oh, yeah, the life the the morgue party.  On the good side, shut up.  I'm not really that grumpy, just stuck between here and there and not sure what to do about it.  And I've got some tough business coming up, when I figure out how to even go about it.  Bleh.  Later.

A tribe of one.

.
.
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.

Went in hard.

.
.
But slept long and well.  I almost feel that an alley, around an upcoming corner, might get me out of my own little slice of hell.  If not this next one, the one after.  I'll keep looking for a way off this River Styx that I seem to be stuck on.  When taking out the trash and recycling end up being too being too big of a job to just do... forgetting is one thing, a different thing... then I know I am in trouble.  It took four hours last night, and I was zapped when I was done.  As well, with the thermostat set at 76, I was cold.  Even though I was fully dressed and had warmed by taking a shower.  Crazy.  Then again, I have had worse.

I did realize I had an appointment coming up tomorrow.  I was really pushing to keep my schedule in order, so that I could go in.  But that failed.  Waking, today, at 14:00, and hour after when my appointment is scheduled for tomorrow, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to turn back the clock.  So I called and changed the date.  That is an improvement.  There were decades where if I became ill, I had zero chance of calling in, let alone even knowing an appointment was coming.  I can't even imagine how many appointments I missed.  I had no chance.  It's a dental.  As I said, I am very leery of going to a V.A., knowing Zero is pushing to have ebola patients shipped in.  The V.A. is the one hospital system that is so political controlled that they could force doctors to treat such patients, and do it secretly.  Not even all doctors, admin, or staff, would necessarily know or be told.  Dental is off-campus, a bit, so it is probably safer.

Today?  I don't know.  I plan on breathing.  Maybe eating.  I might go get the barrels from the curb.  Well, you asked.  That is probably it today.  Long days, in my condition, beat the crap out of me.  And I don't have much poop to start.  So... I'll recover, I guess.  I might grump, too.  No, no might about it.  *f'ing grump!*  Oh, but I suppose I can do some research.  There are a few things I wanted to check, a few new things I want to know, and... just... well... things.  While I won't even plan a day, I will plan for a time when I can plan.  I don't get to die so I won't just quit.  Dang rules!  Yeah, but there... can be some humor in it.

Oh, don't be morose about it.  I'm not.  Heck, grumpiness means that I haven't quit.  Being grumpy, as I see it, is a dissatisfaction that precludes surrender.  It's believing there might be better, but not being able to lay hands to it immediately.  I'll keep fumbling blindly in the world, until I can lay my hands to it.  Light a candle rather than curse the dark, you say?  Yeah, well, where are the fucking matches!  Urhm, yeah, trying to help, I know.  But you aren't helping.  I know what to do, just can't do it.  Later.