>I hope I
> don't get old and grumpy and become a drain on my
> kids. Someone should shoot me then. However, since I
> plan to live to be 100, I hope that doesn't happen
> until I'm at least 99 plus.
> I told you I could write a book.

and I've always wanted to consider 100 middle age...

ever read Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein?... living forever, or for thousands of years, is appealing to me in many ways and yet, my curiosity about whether there is or is not any consciousness after this life is appealing too (I love unknowns)... and yet, I smile at the challenge of seeing just how many centuries it would take for me to get bored enough or frustrated enough with the follies of humanity before I'd simply want to move on to whatever, even if it's nothingness... I'd like to see what the universe (and intelligent life) is like in a few million years, or billions... and I want to know if the universe as we know it really will end, entropy, atrophy, or whatever physical changes might occur in however long it takes... might be lonely sometimes, but my mind is gleeful with the possibilities...

I would truly love to read your books...

now where's that other half email... ah yes, there it is, part two of this two part part two letter to you (got it?), and here it is now:

>Some of the
> sweetest doctors I know are oncologists.

hey, was that a good segue or what? (completely unplanned, which is an even bigger smile)... and dropping the beat for a moment, death is scary for most people... maybe it is because I never had biological attachments to anyone or maybe it's just my perspective on the unknown, but I do not fear death... I cry over loss, profoundly... and I feel an infinite emptiness when
anything stops living life as we know it and have a sort of eternal shrine inside for every person (place or thing, too) that ever became a part of my heart and passed out of this physical life... but I also rejoice in the journey and the possibilities that something much more sensible and beautiful might be happening after we die (as we know death)... anything is possible, so I leave my mind open for the best possibilities and when I am deeply sad - I send my mind ahead and hope to follow (Harry Chapin, "Everybody's Lonely")...

I only come down so that I may go up again...

>I wouldn't
> want to do it. Is your work sad? You said you work
> with kids with problems that must be heartwrenching,
> too. I like people and I like to help people but I
> don't think I would like to do that all day (or all
> night). Do you ever feel used up?

I feel like I've answered this already (it's an odd feeling borne of being less organized in my writings than I could be), but I find no words stashed anywhere that seem to be part of this response to you, so I shall not fret over the possibility of lost words and continue now...

sad is relative... yes, from the perspective of seeing how many children are abused and neglected and left to be very confused, permanently scarred, and possibly permanently "disabled" (physically or mentally) adults, it is a profoundly depressing view of humanity as it is today... and from the perspective of seeing, on a daily basis, how few people truly care to do anything about it, how systems of government neglect and abuse children and waste money intentionally and unintentionally is beyond depressing, it is exhasperating... I believe that if there is any sort of decent existence after this life, many people would be better off moving on... and sometimes I think this world would be better off, on the whole, without some people in it...

but those perspectives are not where I live... those perspectives are not even where I work, for I enter that world in my own little bubble of love (because I would not enter that world, intentionally, in any other way) and do the best I can to do the most good until my bubble of love no longer supports my positivity and hopeful perspectives and then I retire from the field for a while... I did it from 78-90 and returned in 2001... though my return is back at the ground floor where the money truly sucks (which limits many aspects of rebuilding a full life), but the rewards are the greatest...

my focus remains on the light in a child's eyes, on the moments I can feel that my presense gives that child the sense that someone truly cares and that they are genuinely worth caring about... those moments can (and hopefully will) last a lifetime or longer for that child and just maybe it will help them realize that all the crap, all the abuse, all the betrayals by parents and other adults and the system can be overcome... that all that has happened to her was from the outside, not from her insides... that she
did not deserve to be treated the way she was treated... that she can live with the hurt and get over it because she deserves to get over it because deep inside she is beautiful and she did nothing wrong... no guilt, no shame, no blame can be stuck on her, unless she wants to carry around the dark cloud of poor-me and pretend there's no sunshine right behind it, because she meant no harm, because she is a true innocent, a beautiful, wonderful person... and if she can look into my eyes and see how much I
believe in her, she just might find some belief in herself she can carry away from that moment...

lather, rinse, and repeat...

that is the rejuvenating experience I seek every day in the madhouse...

>I have a friend
> who is a college professor type and he is always
> volunteering to help everyone and his mother is very
> emotionally dependent and he works long hours and he
> gets involved in everything at the school and
> sometimes he just runs out of gas. I was talking to
> him on the phone one day and he sounded so overwhelmed
> that I drove by his office to give him a hug and to
> try to "fill him back up". However, he is so
> unaccustomed to anyone giving anything back to him
> that I don't think he got it.

your beauty just brought a very happy tear to my eye...

I think there traps we can all fall into (and most everyone does from time to time, some seem to actually live in theirs) that drain us of energy... perspectives and habits that are imbalanced and leave us with a negative energy flow... the first paragraph about my work (sad is relative) just above contain examples of the traps I could fall into in my daily worklife... another is loneliness (again I remember HArry Chapin's song mentioned above, and another called "A Lot of Lonely People Tonight"... both are tools I use to wake myself up from the path that leads toward depressive stupor...

I think we all have weaknesses that can lead down such paths and the key to happiness in this life is either being lucky and avoiding them or somehow learning enough to see them for what they are, mostly a waste of time, and not being afraid of being stuck on them... Harry Chapin, again, has a song called "Changes" that comes to mind... and "Short Stories"... and "A Better Place to Be"...

knowing me is knowing Harry's words and music and life... in this life, for me, he's the single most influential person outside of those who actually lived with me in life (maybe more in many ways)... when songs all but demand I sing them, when they become part of and remain vital to my psyche or soul or anima or whatever we shall call that which is the essence of me, I
treasure the writer/singer... whole CDs that become part of me rank highest on my musical-life influences... Jackson Browne's "Lives In The Balance" comes to mind as I think of the frustration (and anger) my work can produce... John Denver's "Seasons of the Heart" and "The Flower The Shattered the Stone" come to mind when I feel the peace of accepting that the most precious beauty of life also has metaphoric thorns...

I might be able to say that the balladeer, the singer-songwriter is my favorite genre of music... and yet, I would go nowhere without Pink Floyd ("Welcome to the Machine" {actually "Wish You Were Here"}and Dark Side of the Moon" come to mind first) and so many others and I just realized how far I've digressed from the point of my response and time is not relatively limitless tonight because once again, work is in a couple of hours, so I shall return to responding now and hope, later, to share more music with you, yours, mine, and someday ours (I think songs are some of the best bonds between friends)...

where were we?...

ah yes, music gets me out of my traps better than anything (probably because it's quickest and least threatening of anything outside of my own head)... reading takes longer, but words are sometimes just as effective... but people, in magic moments and after what feels like infinite time, are the elixor I want and love most because it can go two ways (just for starters) and expand infinitely...

I know most of my weaknesses, I think, and embrace them as a fool embraces the jester's crown... and I try to remember that while sucking on a pacifier is comforting (, it interferes with communication and getting on with a wonderful life...

>I have always been the
> strongest person I know.

me too... is that good or not so good? :]

>Sometimes, when everything
> seems to go wrong or there are too many demands or too
> much stress I wish there was someone strong enough to
> give something to me.

if nothing else, this I can do... and if this is my only role in your life, I'd happily accept that because everything I sense so far tells me you deserve all the true friendship I can offer... I still trust my instincts unconditionally, in spite of their obvious flaws and past mistakes, and my instincts tell me you are worthy of all I've got... so for all the indecision and confusion I might have about intimacy, I am clear in my mind and sure that you are welcome to listen to Bill Withers and "Lean On Me"...

>I can depend on my kids for
> that, although I'm sure they don't know what they
> give. I just know that they love me. It's that
> unconditional thing you were talking about. They do
> something funny or cute or goofball and it makes me
> want to squeeze them to death. I'm sorry you don't
> have any family.

and all I can do is sigh and smile... I've long accepted the way I was dumped into this world and all the missing experiences... it adds to my uniqueness and I've adjusted to being quite different from the normal human in many fundamental ways... it's lonelier than I want it to be at times, but inner peace requires changing what you can and accepting what is unchangeable (and knowing the difference)... I like my inner peace, so I don't mess with the formula much...

I think I appreciate a lot of things that others take quite for granted... I think my experiences (and lack of) enhance my awareness and sensitivity... I think that is my place in this world (so Michael W. Smith's song does not necessarily apply to me)...

>My family (other than the kids) is
> far away but I always think about them and plan to see
> them again. I don't know what it would be like to be
> without them. My mother is going to die soon and I
> don't want to describe what that is going to be like.

that is what I think of death and what I want as a final gift from anyone who cares about me... I wrote it in the 60s, revised it slightly a few times along the way, and it stands today as one of my close to the core rhymes... it's in the 'early' folder in the 'creating me' section of my web world where many close to the core rhymes are found... some where written in crayon when I was very small... some in my teen years... and every year or so another one or few are added... I literally use words to create the concepts I want to actualize in physical form as a human being called me...

one of the benefits, if it can be considered a benefit, of not having been close to any family and not having biological family is I have never experienced the loss of a true parent or relative... all of my loses have been emotional deaths of relationships and physical deaths of adopted family... I don't know if it hurts any less, but I don't need to hurt any more than I have already...

and life ends in death... so the longer I live, the more inevitible it becomes that I will experience more loss and hurt more... it is the roller coaster that I would not trade for any permanently calm seas (though a nice peaceful cruise, metaphorical or actual, might be a good change of pace once in a while...

I hug you and hope your hurts are soothed by good memories and the love that lives inside you that you pass on to others... it's never really gone (suddenly the film "Ghost" comes to mind)...

> She is the best person on earth and my sister is
> the second best. I have two other sisters and a
> brother, who are all way above average, but not angels
> like them. There are 36 people in my
> immediate family.

wow... the closest experience I got to a big family was high school... I was part of a few very tight groups back then (and foolishly I do not use the emails I have to keep in closer touch with the core of those groups now)... this might sound like a sad thought, but it's more a curious child (cuz I can't really miss what I never really had) - I've always wondered what it would feel like to be unconditionally loved by a whole group of people...

> Well, I have to go to bed and you will probably get
> eye strain from reading all this crap anyway. I think
> I could go on indefinitely if I didn't have to work or
> take care of anyone. I love to write, too, and I
> think someday when I run out of things to do I will
> write a book. My problem will be that I will want to
> write it all in one sitting and I might die in front
> of the computer.

lol, that is so me... I fall asleep with the laptop on my lap almost every day... and it is not, contrary to appearances, all about avoiding either (sticking my tongue out now)... not that you suggested it might be all by yourself (I helped), of course, but there's some modicum of insight and education, if only for myself, in my ramblings... and maybe some of it might be worth something to someone else one day (ah, the dream of the editor that will find worth in the madness and cut away the blubber to leave lean mean writing machine works of genius... and if that's just ego-dreaming, well, egos are allowed...

personally, I don't think any of your writing is crap, but then, I am fast becoming quite biased and that may make my opinion more or less meaningful, depending on perspective... your value to me suddenly increases exponentially with each word I read (and now, hear) from you... my dearest wish is that you are, first and foremost and no matter what else, the true friend I have hoped to find forever...

I sense you might be, but I don't want to influence your decision too much (are we laughing at the ceiling now?)...

and so now you have the two part twos of the last two emails you sent to me and I can take a breath and ponder the effect you are having on me... it's good, for starters... I sense you're waking me up and probably will confront me with some decisions about myself and what I want and like and don't want and don't like and more...

and I sense we're gonna have fun...

hope I'm right...

on the web... the main gate, the entrance in the signature is the more personal way in (friends come through the back door back door and the window... the window (though the window is in dire need of updating as it's been a few years since I worked on it)...

yeah, I know, I am always including links to my sites when trying to introduce myself to someone I hope will be a friend... think there's a message to that?...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)