Friday, October 10, 2008, 08:18 AM - Random Thoughts
Indigo Incarnates
Egads! The "dark" time of year is pretty much at hand. It's pitch black when I get up in the morning and the sun is just crossing the horizon by the time I get to work. My energy level goes way down and I'm a lot more prone to depression when I can't get enough sunlight. Changelings need sunlight. It's going to really be distressing when the clocks change for daylight savings time (an antiquated practice that I wish would be abandoned). The practice of adjusting the clocks by an hour has the effect of making it be dark at 5:00pm. Once that happens, I basically won't see the sun again until spring since my office has no windows, I arrive for work pretty early, and I get off at 4:30pm. By the time I get home, it will be dark. I'm really not looking forward to that. I've survived it every other year and I'm sure this year won't be any different. But that doesn't mean I like it.
My mom's health continues to deteriorate. She's down to 90 pounds. I feel really sad for her, since she spent almost 40 years having an alcohol problem and being a heavy smoker. About two years ago she went to detox and quit alcohol and got her smoking down to about a pack per week. The damage was done, however. And then Uncle Jimmy did a bunch of unsafe home improvements that had the net effect of being the straw that broke the camel's back. All the dust and mold from his cheap/shoddy demolition/reconstruction pushed mom's lung condition from "dangerous" to "terminal". So mom won't get to enjoy sobriety very long. I really feel sad about this because I love her very much. It always seems that rich psychopaths get whatever they want, whenever they want it, and never have to face repercussions for what they have done. I wish that Uncle Jimmy would have to pay for what he's done, but he never will. He follows YHVH, and the angry desert god rewards the strong, the rich, and the cruel.
I start getting my own cases on Tuesday. I am glad that my office is away from the rest of the Case Agents here. I won't get easily sucked into the office politics or the tangled web of gossip and drama. I think most of my coworkers are kinda phoney anyway. After all, not one single person will own up to making an anonymous complaint about my Tree of Life, but one of them must have for me to so quickly have been ordered to take it down. I'm not going to make a retaliatory complaint, since the various Christian sloganeering in their offices don't actually offend me and I don't spend much time in their offices. But it does bother me that I am the subject of a double standard and that someone finds Wicca "offensive". Well, there has never been a "holy" war instigated by Wiccans, and no Wiccan has ever burned a Christian at the stake. so whose faith is "offensive"?
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( 3 / 1401 )Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 11:32 AM
Indigo Incarnates
So, on my first day at my new worl location, I discovered that the majority of the employees have "Jesus" stuff hanging on their walls. This could be a cross/crucifix, a framed Bible message, an inspirational posted with a scripture passage, or whatever. So, I felt emboldened to hang up my Wiccan "Tree of Life" wall hanging.
It was up for 90 minutes before somebody complained to both the supervisor and the supervisor's boss. Apparently the anonymous plaintiff declared that my Tree of Life was "offensive" and that Wicca is a "creepy religion". So I was ordered to take down my Tree of Life.
Now, the Christians still get to keep all of their religious inspirational stuff in place. I also found out from a Jewish employee that she got the same response when she tried putting a Star of David on her office wall.
What's creepier? An image of a tree, or an image of someone being crucified? Gimmie a break.
Double standards suck.
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( 3 / 1329 )Monday, October 6, 2008, 07:03 PM
Indigo Incarnates
I had a sort of blogging disaster that shook my confidence last week. I closed my blog until I got a grip on things. The trouble with being an alter instead of a full person is that alters lack a certain amount of resiliency that whole people have.
But I'm getting better again. :)
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( 3 / 847 )Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 07:53 AM
Indigo Incarnates
I had my first experience doing community visits this week. this is a Case Agent duty that involves driving to the defendant's residence to determine if he/she really lives at that location. This was a real trip.
In the ghetto, it seems there are only two kinds of services open. There are a whole bunch of itty-bitty fundamentalist independednt churches (read Christocult) with groovy names like "Living Water Bible Tabernacle Christian Worship Church". Yeah, as Java pointed out, the smaller the church, the longer a name it has. The other service the ghetto offers are these ratty, hole-in-the-wall liquor stores that also do lotto, prepaid cards, and check cashing. In the latter, it's more likely that it's welfare check cashing.
Even at 9:30AM, there were plenty of scuzzy-looking prostitutes and scarecrow-like junkie bums staggering about like they were in a B-rated zombie flick. Then, of course, you can tell where the dope dealers live: it's the Secion-8 townhouse with the Lexus SUV parked out front. Most of the slums are boarded up and some are even bricked up.
One welfare mama we visited greeted us with a shank. Nice. At least we didn't get stabbed with it. Another yelled "F-- You" at us for no reason. I was crackin' up!
It's always exciting at pretrial.
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( 3 / 1040 )Sunday, September 28, 2008, 06:28 PM
Indigo Incarnates
What it seems to me is that Bush knows that his economic policies have brought our country to the brink of a Great Depression that will probably take at least ten years to dig out of. I think that's why he pushed Bankruptcy Reform and wants to cannibalize Social Security. His latest idea to hand nearly a trillion dollars over to his billionaire cronies only substantiates my notion that Bush has basically wrecked our economy on purpose.
See, Bush is a right wing fundamentalist Republican. He doesn't like the idea of the poor and middle class having the opportunity to ascend to higher income levels. He'd rather have it be that we just "know our place and stay there". Thus, every single policy he's had since taking office has hurt the poor and middle class while expanding the coffers of the rich and the multi-national corporations.
So, what is the point of the trillion-dollar bailout? My guess is that it has nothing to do with stabilizing the economy. It has everything to do with making sure his billionaire buddies have enough cash (on the backs of the taxpayers) to outlast the Great Depression that Bush will have caused.
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( 3.1 / 1202 )Saturday, September 27, 2008, 03:37 PM
Indigo Incarnates
September and October are always fun months because it's "haunted house season". Doug and I visit various Halloween attractions located in south-central Pennsylvania. Last night we went to one that had a possessed elevator, a pitch-black maze, a house with lots of 3D murals, and a haunted house that required us to solve puzzles in order to get from room to room. It was a lot of fun! We got home pretty late, so I'm glad that Jeff didn't mind driving. Doug had a lot of fun too.
This morning Doug and I did our usual weekend breakfast at First Watch. They have awesome pancakes and the prices are pretty good.
I've been on beta-blocker meds for about ten days or so. So I was feeling reasonably good today and I went to the gym for the first time in two weeks (yeah, I hadn't been feeling all that well thanks to what was happening with my heart problem). But the medicine is apparently working! I was able to do a 7.8 mile / 1300 calorie workout *without* my heart rate spiking to 190+ and without me getting dizzy or getting fiery vision. No, instead, my heart rate stayed in the 170-175 range for the whole 90 minutes and I didn't feel weak, sick, or dizzy. Huzzah!
It's been overcast for three days and has rained all day today -- a lot. I would like to be able to get some sun energy but that's not going to happen today. Egads!
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( 3 / 1422 )Wednesday, September 24, 2008, 08:00 PM
Indigo Incarnates
Y'know... sometimes I just feel like a real idiot. I have a small townhouse with a fixed-interest, long-term mortgage that I can actually afford. I have a small, fuel-efficient compact car with a modest car payment that fits into our household budget. I put $75 out of every paycheck into a retirement plan. I have only ONE credit card. I have $2000 in immediate liquidity in case of some financial disaster.
Apparently, I'm stupid.
See, if I happened to be a stock speculator or a CEO, I'd be getting some pretty hefty multi-billion-dollar handouts from George W Bush right now. The investor/CEO class gets some huge checks soon so they their stock portfolios will stay in the black. Personally, I don't care if a guy with a $100 million dollar portfolio loses out in speculation and now only has a $40 million-dollar portfolio.That's still more money than most people could spend in a dozen lifetimes.
Gotta love "compassionate conservative fascism".
By the way, Our debt is already 9.2 trillion dollars. so why not make it an even ten trillion? It's only taxpayer money after all? Oh, it's also your great-great-great grandchildren's money. Remember this $700 billion dollar bailout the next time some Republican politician says that the government can't afford to keep paying Social Security checks to the aged and disabled. They can afford bailouts for hedge fund speculators and people who buy mansions with adjustible rate mortgages, but they can't fix Social Security. They can afford $10 billion per month for the Iraq war, but they can't afford to develop alternative energy. they can afford a $50 billion dollar bailout for Ford/GM, but they can't afford to build high-speed mass transit to connect the cities.
The Bush administration is always looking for it's "legacy". Here it is: "Bailouts for Billionaires".
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( 2.9 / 1338 )Monday, September 22, 2008, 09:12 AM
halo incarnates
am trying to not be seen. trainer is in bad mood. hostile today. am trying to be unseen. don't like being here today. trainer keeps being impatient. trying to job right. trying hard. person keeps hovering. makes us nervous. makes mistakes when nervous. then trainer gets hostile. don't know why. am trying so hard. am trying really hard. am trying really hard. trying to be unseen. trying to not move much. trying to not speak much. trying to have minimal presence. don't like being trained by hostile person. am trying hard. trying really hard. not talking much. am trying to do job well. really trying.
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( 3.1 / 1230 )Sunday, September 21, 2008, 10:20 PM
Indigo Incarnates
As far as weekends go, this one was pretty darned good. :)
On Friday, I got to torment my friends with my World of Gaianar RPG. The brave adventurers were given the task of hunting down and destroying a franchise unit of Murder Incorporated (the local assassins' guild). Of course, the guild was located in the heart of the dreaded Spider Woods which, od course, happened to be infested with giant spiders (the townsfolk are so creative!) So after mashing a bunch spiders the size of Volkswagons, the heroes found the enterence to the Murder Inc headquarters. Of course, the dungeon was a nearly inpenetrable labirynth, heh heh. Mixing mazes with random teleporters is always a blast!
On Saturday, Doug and I did our usual breakfast at First Watch. Yum! I also got to attend a Mabon service at Cedar Light Grove. I also finished writing the draft version of the ritual I'm leading in November. It will be my first ritual as a celebrant.
Lemme tell ya: The Mabon service was great and Pagans are very fun to hang out with. Pagan worship services are not the guilt-ridden, self-flaggelating events that Christian services can *sometimes* be. Then there is the awesome phenomenon of creating sacred space. When the celebrant creates thw sacred space he is esswntially creating an area of overlap between the spirit world and the material world. One of the neat effects is that it can cause heightened senses. When I was looking into the big bonfire, I could see so much detail about the flames, logs, embers, and smoke. I could see all the subtle variations of color and scent that I would ordinarily miss. And I could hear every pop, crackle, and hiss. It was quite amazing!
Of course, it's always nice having munchies and finger food after the service too. :)
Sunday I did a long walk outside since the weather was nice. I could really feel the change between the light and dark parts of the year. It was cool, sunny, and bright. Thistle got to fly. It's good for us to have energy. It'll be harder soon when the sunlight weakens with the coming of winter. So it was good for Thistle to fly while the sun is still bright.
Then Doug, Jeff, and I went to Field of Screams near Lancaster. That one has the haunted hay ride (featuring undead pigs, cars on fire, redneck zombies, and killer clowns), a doomed asylum (I guess it's a HMO hospital? heh heh), and a crumbling haunted mansion. It was pretty cool.
So, all in all, I had a pretty nice time this wekend!
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( 3 / 1151 )Thursday, September 18, 2008, 06:32 PM
Indigo Incarnates
I'm not a big sports fan by any stretch of the imagination, but the Baltimore Orioles have always been the subject of morbid curiosity. This is a team that manages to finish in last place more often than they win the World series. They also hold the record of longest losing streak (0:22) and most stunning single-game defeat (33-3). Well, last night they plunged into last place by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (they ended 7-6 after holding a 0-6 lead for several innings).
So I came up with a concept for a sporting event that even the O's can!t screw up.: the World series of Losing. Basically, you take the two worst teams each year and have them play seven games each other. Whoever *loses* 4 out of 7 games wins the World Series of Losing.
What do ya think?
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