Saturday, January 31, 2009, 04:36 PM
Indigo Incarnates
I actually managed to get some sunlight on Friday and Thursday, which means I actually had some energy today. Whoooo-hooo! So I went to the gym and did a hard core workout. Between the treadmill, eliptical, and the stairmaster, I did 12 miles and 2000 calories! Yay!
November and December were hard months since there were only a handfull of sunny days over a 10-week period. I didn't exercise much because my energy reserves were so low that it took all my effort just to go to work and back every day. It sucks that I gained some weight too. Fortunately I only need to lose 8 pounds. I've lost a lot more than that before. It should be easier this time since I no longer drink alcohol or eat meat.
I did have one of my rare non-nightmare dreams. Every once in a while I am able to assume my true form when I dream. This physical body may be human. But *I* am not and I never have been. In the dream, I was as I actually am.
Of course, the dream was pretty inconsequential. I was at a flea market somewhere and the little stands were closing up. There was some biker dude who had a baked goods table and he had a sheepish expression on his face, so I asked him what was on his mind. He replied, "Well, if you're a biker and you like to bake, folks think you're queer!"
I said, "Really? I didn't know that."
I didn't find out if the guy was actually gay.
Suddenly the wind started blowing and I was able to fly. So I did. I can't do it as easily as Thistle can. I can only fly when dreaming and when I'm in my true form. But if was nice to be my *real* self for that brief time.
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( 3 / 1615 )Thursday, January 29, 2009, 10:35 PM
Indigo Incarnates
Doug and I had a fascinating experience yesterday. We went to this other New Age bookstore across town to get some flash paper (since the one where my Wicca instructor teaches at discontinued stocking flash paper). So this other bookstore was pretty neat. It was bright, had all kinds of witchy stuff, and had a coffee bar with WiFi. That part was cool.
What was cracking me up was the bookstore's *other* services. For instance, for $100/hour, you can get negative energy purged. Or for $50 per 15 minutes you can get you FOOT read (as opposed to your palm). Yeah. I'm pretty open-minded about a lot of stuff, but some of these services seem like utter fluff. A foot reading... Oy.
And, man, the friendly people there are experts in the add-on sale, har har. Being an ex-salesman, I recognize the technique. On the bright side, I did get my new quarter candles and a packet of flash paper.
I think I like Aleta and her bookstore better. But I suppose I can put up with the dazzle of the other store here and there so I can get some things that my usual store doesn't carry.
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( 3 / 1263 )Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 06:45 PM - halo's thoughts
halo incarnates
is cold out. am cold. house stays too cold. fingers get stiff. amm not afraid of the dark but don't like cold. am cold. want body to be warm. can't make it happen. house won't heat well. old house. old windows. old everything. hate being cold for so long.
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( 2.9 / 2100 )Sunday, January 25, 2009, 03:42 PM - Random Thoughts
Indigo Incarnates
This weekend was a heck of a lot better than last weekend. Most importantly, my hip finally stopped aching yesterday. It's been warmer the past few days and it's been less damp. So I was able to do a short workout yesterday (2 miles) and a regular workout today (5 miles).
It was sunny today and Thistle was able to fly. I am so glad to have energy again. I know most people don't understand what it's like to have a companion spirit that can travel outside one's body and feed on sunlight. But that's the case. I'm not human either; I just occupy and animate this human body. It's good to have energy again. Winter is always such a difficult season.
The battery in my 2001 Accord is almost dead. I'm hoping that it will last three more days until payday. The cold weather we had last week pretty much finished it off. I suppose it doesn't help much that my drive to work is fairly short so the battery gets utilized for starting the car but the alternator never runs very long on the way to work.
It's only three more weeks until my initiation. I have to say that the Wiccan path has been a good one for me. Wicca isn't for everyone (nor do we say it is). But for me it seems like the right spiritual path. I've been a lot happier and Halo hasn't inflicted injury on the body in a very long time. We still go to church once per month since Thistle is a Christian, but he doesn't mind that we go to a Wiccan service once per month too. Life's too short to pray to an angry, hateful, capricious desert god. I am really glad to be loved by the Goddess.
The game on Friday night was pretty cool. I'm roleplaying a shaman that's sort of a redneck. He spits, drinks, and gets into bar room brawls. I was sort of inspired by the redneck demon hunter from the series "Supernatural". In that show, the dude has a Caterpillar hat, a bowie knife, and then says stuff like, "I was up all night translating this here cuneiform parchment. Now get your ass over here and help me cast this spell!" Ha ha ha ha!
All in all, it was a good weekend. :)
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( 3 / 1972 )Friday, January 23, 2009, 05:16 PM
Indigo Incarnates
Man! I thought this workweek would never end! The urinalysis machine at work was broken for about two weeks but was repaired las friday. So we had to test a huge backlog of samples all week. We ran that machine all freakin' day trying to get caught up. I can't tell you how glad I am that I'm *NOT* the one that loads up the samples, hee hee. It's a really foul job. No, my part is compiling the results so that the individual agents know which of their junkie-bun defendants are getting stoned.
I compiled over 400 results this week. Egads.
On the bright side, Doug and I got another lesson in tarot card reading last night. Doug bought me a really sinister tarot deck, so I think every time I use them the answer is the same: "you're going to get sucked down by a vampire!" Ha ha ha! Doug, on the other hand, is a real natural with tarot cards. He can really tell a story!
The old hip injury (from ten years ago) really flared up this week. My hip has hurt for days and I don't know why. I think the cold/damp weather last weekend was a trigger. It's a lot warmer today, thankfully.
We get to play my World of Gaianar game tonight. It's always fun breaking out the polyhedral dice and doing some hack & slash :)
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( 3 / 1286 )Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 06:57 PM - Random Thoughts
Indigo Incarnates
I have to say how impressed I was by Barack Obama's speech today. It's been eight long, hard, terrible years since we've had a president that knew how to read and write. Obama spoke like a *real* president, not a delusional cowbow. He spoke like a real leader, not like someone who hides out at a "ranch" for months at a time. Obama, unlike who he replaces, has worked for a living. He knows what it's like to have to work one's way through college and to have to pay back a student loan. He knows what it's like to work without a net.
Will Barack Hussein Obama succeed at everything he wants to do? Probably not. But at least we have a president now that understands that minorities are real Americans, that gays are real Americans, and pagans are real Americans. He's going to be a president of America, not president of tthe religious right or president of a handful of multinational corporations.
I wish him well. It's a job I couldn't do.
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( 3 / 1242 )Sunday, January 18, 2009, 04:17 PM
Indigo Incarnates
Ever get the feeling that it'll be winter forever? It's been super-cold in Baltimore for the past several days. In fact, it's so cold outside that the furnace couldn't heat the house above DC for two days straight. It's just draining to feel cold all the time.
I went to the gym yesterday and today. I made raspberry pancakes for Doug this morning as a breakfast treat. I am a thoroughly lousy cook, but it's the thought that counts, heh heh.
I'm just so tired. I need some sunlight. It was sunny briefly on Friday, but it was so cold that it physically hurt to be outside.
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( 3 / 1278 )Friday, January 16, 2009, 05:11 PM
Indigo Incarnates
It's the coldest I've seen in Baltimore in YEARS. The weather got up to a balmy 3-degrees when factoring in the wind chill. Of course, that means our house is cold too. Why? Well, the house is an end-unit that was designed to be an interior unit. About seven years ago, the house next to ours got demolished and that made our house an end unit. Yeah, the wall that faces the parking lot has no insulation in it and there is no way to fortify it. So when thee weather gets super-cold, the house stays cold too even though it cranks up our heating bill a lot. It just kinda sucks.
On the bright sidee, I didn't have to serve on jury this week. Twelve other folk out of the 240-person pool got to listen to some stuffed shirt argue why his client didn't mean to mow down his homie with a machine gun. Better them than me. I liked Phosgene's idea of just bringing a hanging rope to the trial -- it would save the taxpayers some money for sure!
I've been trying out Windows-7 Beta on the secondary partition of my laptop. I have it set up for dual-boot so I can choose between Win-7 and WinXP when I first turn on the machine. This very early beta looks promising so far.. It boots in about 45 seconds (which beats Vista by 7 minutes). Of course, it's got some stability and compatibility problems, and there aren't many device drivers yet. But from what I can see, it looks like Microsoft is oon the right track for a change. The new OS is smaller and faster than Vista. It seems to use about the same amount of resources as WinXP but has a more aesthetically appealing interface.
It's only 26 more days until my initiation. It's hard to believe that I've been studying Wicca for almost a year now, but that's how much time has passed. I think I've learned quite a bit this past year. Doug's thinking about learning more about Wicca too. That would be pretty cool. :)
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( 3 / 1190 )Tuesday, January 13, 2009, 10:20 AM
Indigo Incarnates
For the ultimate in boredom, try being on jury duty. In Baltimore, you get to be packed into two small rooms with uncomfortable seating and elevator music playing. Then you get warned that if you leave, you'll be arrested. Fun.
There's a groovy video that compares the modern jury system to how the Catholic Church used to decide guilt or innocence (ie. The Church used to torture confessions out of people). Of course, under the Bush administration, he's brought torture back to the legal system.
It did make me realize that if we didn't have a *secular* government, the caring and compassionate Christian fundamentalists would still be allowed to torture people to death for being gay, pagan, whatever (while reciting Old Testament passages). So I am glad that we have a secular-based jury system.
I just wish that it wasn't so *boring*. Like, it's crucial for the judicial system to function, but it's so freakin' boring!
Then there's the matter of jury compensation. We get paid a whopping $15 for a full day's service. In what historical era was $15 a full day's pay? (Sure, Bush would *like* to make that pay scale mainstream for the middle class, but he was only able to create a global Great Depression.) The $15 covers my parking fee and nothing else. I think $75-$100 would be more appropriate. Dream on.
I did learn from the last time I served that you won't actually be placed on a jury panel if you wear a tie or look like you have a diploma of any kind. Public defenders like jurors who are ignorant and dumb.
Needless to say, the last time I served, the public defender removed any juror candidate that wore a tie or wore glasses. Ha ha ha. The defendants in question for that case showed up for court wearing sweat suits, Nike high-tops, and a bunch of crap fake-gold jewelry dangling all over the place. One of them wore shades too. Classy.
In the other case I got excused from, the qualifying question was "what should be done with people who do a hit-and-run and also drive without insurance?" My answer was, "they should be publicly flogged". Needless to say, the public defender thought I might be too biased.
Well... We'll see how today works out. It's only 9:30 AM and I feel like I've been here eight hours already. Ugh.
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( 3 / 1279 )Monday, January 12, 2009, 06:37 PM - Random Thoughts
Indigo Incarnates
Well, in just eight days it will be the End of an Error. A "president" who stole two elections and single-handedly crafted the Second Great Depression will be leaving office at last. I have to say, however, that the Bush years did teach me quite a bit about what it means to be a "Compassionate Conservative Christian". Here's what I learned from Bush's many leadership examples:
-- It's okay to start a unilateral, unprovoked war against a Third World country when "god" tells you to do so.
-- It's okay to lie to the American people if it gets your agenda accomplished.
-- It's okay for Christians, Jews, and Muslims who die in the service to our country to be buried with full military honors, but the same is not true for Wiccans. (Bush had to lose a lawsuit in 2005 before that could be corrected).
-- It's okay to give a trillion dollars to millionaire bankers and Wall Street speculators, but to give a dime to the Main Street citizens whose homes were being taken by the same banks that got the "bailout" was out of the question.
-- It's awesome to reform bankruptcy laws while at the same time letting credit card companies charge up to 38% interest.
-- When it comes to hurricane relief, it's important that millionaires get plenty of federal aid while hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens are left behind in a morass of contaminated, hip-high flood water.
-- When things go wrong, blame gays.
-- It's okay to perpetuate the lie that gays threaten heterosexual marriage if it stokes up enough hate that it gets Red State votes.
-- When gays get murdered by Christian fundamentalist who cite Bible passages as the motive for the killing, that in no way should be considered a hate crime.
-- It's in the best interest of heterosexual "Family values" that gay couples should be denied access to employee-sponsored health insurance or Social Security benefits.
-- Tax cuts for the rich is something that Jesus would have approved of.
-- It's okay to start a war for no reason so long as your running mate's company gets plenty of no-bid contracts to clean up the mess you's made.
-- Freedom of speech is great, but criticizing the president is unpatriotic and should be punished.
-- It's consistent with conservative fundamentalist Christian values to detain accused criminals indefinitely without legal counsel or judicial review -- and to subject them to torture for years on end.
-- Jesus was a rich, white Republican who would have hung out with Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson.
-- God make Katrina and 911 happen because Christians didn't murder enough gays and Wiccans.
-- Being a compassionate conservative Christian means never apologizing for any mistake and never having to admit doing anything wrong -- ever.
-- It's okay to ruin the ecology since Jesus is coming back "any day now".
-- It's great when fundamentalist churches use church funds to cause a state's constitution to be ammended in order to further their Christofascist agenda.
-- It's awesome for millions of middle class Americans to lose their jobss to outsourcing if the end result is that a few CEOs get billion-dollar bonuses (along with their federal handouts0.
-- We don't have to worry about Bush's doubling of the national debt. Jesus is coming back "any day now!"
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