What about prey?

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

Okay. Well?

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

Haiku - Prey.

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

I had a feeling these were professionals.

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

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

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

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

Too tired. Then dizzy?

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

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

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

Later.

I suppose I can do something.

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

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

Well, bedtime.  Good night.

I was built for pain.

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

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

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

Well... on to my day. 

Sometimes they tell it true.

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

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

Escaping the cave.

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

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

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

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

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

Seeing.

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

Catch 22.

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

Okay, day two on medication and?

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

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

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

Good night.

How DOES that happen.

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

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

Hmm, on to my day.  Good day.

Just like that.

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

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

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

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

Awake and well. Now to finish the haiku notion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Haiku - Persistence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good night.

Oh? Could the answer be that easy?

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

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

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

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

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

So much for stats.

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

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

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

Some days I can hear her.

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Her call is so strong.

Haiku Monday is already in full bloom?

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

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

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