so whatcha upto?... I'd like to say that I'm vacationing in some tropical paradise, but you know what happens when you call a place paradise, so I'll point out that the wind chill factor probably dropped to around 45 degrees Farheinheit tonight and put on a flannel shirt and went to work... yeah, I know, you should be so warm (feel free to throw snowballs, my dear frostbitten friends up north... it's winter here in the semi-tropic swamplands)...

this is last night's entry, in case it doesn't become obvious... the previous entry was also last night's entry, but it was a continuation of the mind dumps, however was not purely a mind dump so therefore titled something else, bvut it's somewhat related to a mind dump... say a second cousin...

speaking of second cousins...

the usual Sunday night lack of professionalism and negativity fills the air around here and I am doing my best to ignore it since reporting it to higher management is ineffective, sometimes backfires as management is paranoid, overreactive, and retaliatory, and the shift supervisor is right in the thick of it...

and me, I'm nodding off because I barely touched the bed this weekend because I was so gung ho (at least until I collapsed in the big green chair and lost consciousness) for the first half of the weekend... after that the gung-ho-ness was all in the mind and the body just laughed when the mind suggested we continue where we left off... it (the body) even went as far as creating severe pain in deep in the tissue beneath and just over from the solarplexus (approximately speaking) so that breathing because painful enough that I paused to assess whether it was a muscle strain or a major organ crying out for some attention...

the potential culprits include the heart, though I was not short of breath or showing any signs of low oxygen or heart-strain that I could tell even when walking quickly with Saki (Bert and Berry's dog, remember?), except for the ripping pain of deep breathes around the right rib cage... the next most serious potential pain source I pondered was the liver and surrounding stuff, but a gall stone is reported to be much more painful and doesn't only hurt when taking a deep breath and same for the liver... I pondered the pancreas and possibly the endocrine system next (for no apparent reason, perhaps), because I dramatically altered my diet a bit in the past few days and the body might be reacting to needing more bile and insulin and still to break down fruit sugars and tear into fat cells for nutrients I am not consuming that would ordinarily come from fat... next I pondered my navel, just because I do that now and then... it's now lint-free again...

ultimately I am deciding that sleeping sitting up without realizing I was sleeping somehow wrenched some muscles, tendons, lingaments, or some such binding material around my right rib cage and sitting erect or breathing deep breaths require those muscles so doing either notifies the brain that those muscles need rest...

ridiculous, the brain says... all the do is rest...

yeah, and that's another thing... it's been two years since the last gung-ho exercise period started (well, two years and some six weeks or so... and it lasted just over seven months until the hurricanes shut down the gym and the park and laid trees and branches and other large obstacles all around town making a running trail at best dangerous and at worst impassable without using rock climbing skills, which might have been fun except for the time consuming nature of the activities and anyway, the seven month return to the gym habit was broken again) and I was all set to start over again when I stopped again...

see?

did I do anything on that page that links takes you to?... I suppose I'll have to check... it is the goal page of the exercise log which is embedded sneakily withint the land of the mostly dead journal just so I don't forget how much of a farce this physical life can be when you know...

if you have to ask, you don't know...

there's a quote that goes so agrees with what I mean... where's it from?... something about faith... those who have it require no explanation and those who don't, no explanation could explain it... or something like that...

anyway, the whole pain in the side deal could be a restructuring of vertebrae as I roll over in my long sleepwriting mostly dead phase... after all, most of the little muscles that matter the most are dormant, probably atrhopying to a certain extent (I wonder if anyone searches the web for specific phrases, like to a certain extent... I wonder if she finds me, reads me, exists)...

so the body shut itself down on Superbowl Sunday and all I did was watch the reruns of old Superbowl synopsis shows between walking Saki and cat-napping in the big green chair... I did wak to see most of the game, but Rasputin had to tell me about the blown call on the holding penalty that cost Seattle a go-ahead touchdown and turned the game around... add in the shady first touchdown the refs gave Pittsburgh and a few other very questionable calls and there's one more nail in the coffin of my enjoyment of the game... either do the replay thing right or don't do it at all, but don't replay clip after clip of a play and then ignore what the super-slow motion shows and why not use digital frame by frame?...

I'd like to believe the refs reviewing the plays use digitized frame by frame stop motion visuals to make their decisions, but who gets to choose?... too many key plays and calls in playoff games were missed from what the TV showed me... and then in the biggest football game of all for the year, the championship is tarnished because of a few, at least, game-changing questionable (or just plain wrong... Rasputin says the holding call was just that) calls effected the score and unfortunately benefited the winner...

holding happens on virtually every play in every game... the fact that it gets called on game-effecting plays might be a sign that the refs are trying to keep the holding from effecting the outcome of the game, but when it's called on one team more than the other, the refs themselves effect the outcome of the game more than the holding would...

the sad fact of professional sports (and life itself) is that the team that gets away with more holding and other rule-breaking usually wins...

I picked Pittsburgh to win, thought they were the better team going into the game, but the questionable calls effected the outcome enough for me to want a do-over... especially since in the game I saw Seattle outplayed Pittsburgh most of the game...

so rarely do these super games live up to their hype...

well that sucked... I mean this entry so far and the fact that instead of complaining about work I ended up complaining about football... maybe I should just accept that Sunday nights are for venting, ranting, whining, and generally complaining about the imperfections (gross and miniscule) everywhere in everything...

I think it was Maria Conchita Alonso...

I mean the person who said the quote I was recalling (however poorly) earlier... in a movie with Arnold the Governator... unless I am combining bits from different movies that saturated my brain as I stumbled in and out of consciousness all weekend... maybe it was The Running Man... I don't think it was Hook though a similar theme flows through it in this case... maybe it was City of Angels...

if you believe in something, you make it real and need no explanation or proof... if you don't believe, no explanation or proof will satisfy or convince you...

maybe...

yes!...

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." ~ Thomas Aquinas

that quote has nothing to do with any religion for me... it is about believing in something...

I am all for belief, for I believe that belief turns illusions into tangible reality through actions we take and sharings we make based on the belief... but for me, when the assumption that one belief is right and mutually exclusive to all others, when a faith supposedly based on the truest most holy love of all condemns other love-based faiths based on words and interpretations and secular rituals, I'm turned off...

"When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, and they never will because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains need to wake up."

~ Serendipity (character, not the film)

fairness is only fair when it is fair for all... love is only love when it is love for all... in spirits or faiths, the same holds true for me... and truth is only true when it is true for all... so what is the truth, really?... as long as someone disagrees, it may not be truth, but a mere compromise collectively accepted as truth by enough people so that in their community, it can be unchallenged and therein accepted as truth...

but as in fractals, there is always a bigger picture...

or smaller one...

I believe in love, it's all I've got... picture yourself in a boat on a river or floating along on invisible clouds... suddenly shining the light falls upon them and they run to put on their shrouds... for they believe in fear that comes disguised as love and pretends to set them free - later, above and all the while they're here they struggle in vain as empowered fear only leads to pain... the savior points to the door again, but nobody wants to face the rain of light that can wash away their fear... true love is not welcome here... and yet it exists everywhere...

so what am I saying (am I saying anything?... who am I channeling tonight, thinking or praying about understanding everything, in these words I write?)...

is my love more true, who am I to judge, I open my eyes and step aside... let your love come through, wink, wink, nudge nudge, we're all just along for the ride...

gimme the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in rock and roll...... and so I did... but it was never enough, oh no, never enough... and I lose myself in the haunting of songs... where everything's alright and nothing's wrong... that's where I be, you be, we be all be longs...

here comes the rain again... and

I'm still standing

or floating, depending on perspective... and it's all about perspective, you know... and if you don't know, there is no way anyone can show you... but it we keep repeating ourselves, the same thing in an infinite variety of ways, maybe we'll find the words to the truth in your mind and you can adopted them, make them your own, and become yourself...

meanwhile, I am busy meandering around the leftovers, picking up broken pieces and loose ends and juggling them for no apparent reason, at least at times, other than the amusement and maybe the hope that somehow they all fit together for some good...

and sometimes the light is all wet...

but through it all as I occasionally stretch to sit up and take notice, I realize there is no one or no thing I want to wake up to just now and the dream is not over, it's only just begun... someday we'll all understand...

so I paraphrase in my own key of life:

write your own verse, be all you're feeling, set yourself free, it's all part of the plan... await your arrival, it's simple survival and someday we'll all understand...

I'm not aware of too many things... I was reading about Socrates over the weekend... that's what lead to the Thomas Aquinas quote (the brain is quite a marvelous playground)... but So, Crates, the art of argument for the sake of argument or therein, to explore thought and learn about possibilities and find, if you are persistent and lucky, the words to your own truth... your words... the meaning that feels right for you...

and those who dare believe there is no end to knowledge just continue to explore (or argue) the thoughts, bringing thoughts into conflict in order to experience them as they heat up and inspire feeling... not to be lead by feeling, no to find a final thought, but to continue exploring and experiencing and growing in depth and expanse into the ever bigger picture...

if one can handle the infinite (the truth is infinite) within the finite experience of a life, one is on the road (the road is infinite) to living without lies...

and those who want a shape, a form, a finite explanation, a box to fit into, let them be for they are already interred within their own minds and accept the urns passed on by others... for better or worse, they sing the same verse, an endless refrain between pleasure and pain that pretends to make sense for the same audience that bought every post card carved in the past tense...

having fun, wish you were here...

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