Another dimension of the bizzare. . .

Once upon a time, my neice and I were strolling innocently through the Ross Creek Cedars when, suddenly we stepped into another forest that looked much like the one we had left. Whereas in the previous forest there were flora and fauna that kept to themselves, this grove had within it entities that did not. As we tred carefully past the giant trees that seemed to bend a long hard look to our presence, tree clams suddenly opened their maws and reached for our faces!

We ran and ran, looking for the exit but eventually finding none. So we took up fallen sticks with which to defend ourselves and proceeded with extreme caution.

As we continued slowly on our trek, we encountered cave-like openings within some of the trees. Cautiously, we peered inside and found to our horror several people who had been taken in and wrapped in thick webs, and who were fiercely guarded by more tree clams who giggled diabolically and had short little legs.

Again we ran and frantically searched for a way out, yet still found none.

We then decided to make a small camp as night was encroaching across the sky. A small fire going, (made with wood not related to the animated trees), we sat around it and listened to the night.

It was very quiet. Too quiet, and we began to fear for our very lives. Would the tree clams hunt after us while we slept? Would the trees gather our slumbering bodies with their crawling roots? These and other questions kept our eyes wide open and our hearts drumming.

But it remained very quiet within this dark place and we had no way of knowing what was planned for us.

Then hunger overcame our fear and so we cooked up a little meal and ate in silence, all the while clutching our meagre defence of sticks.

Suddenly, something landed with a thump in the fire, and when we looked, we saw a large pinecone. Knowing what happens to pinecones in fire, we jumped up and stepped back a fair distance for safety.

Nothing happened. We looked at each other and decided to wait it out a little more. But still, nothing happened in the quiet of the forest night.

Then we heard it. Faint at first, there was what sounded like laughter, a high chirping sound that echoed all around. It grew louder, and then louder still until, suddenly, we were surrounded by ninja squirrels with light sabres. They circled us in a dance-like formation, waving those terrible wands at us and laughing maniacally. Then more pinecones fell from above, each one aimed at our heads with uncanny precision until, finally wearied by the onslaught, we succumbed and fell to these horrible entities.

"Dinner's ready!" says my brother.

My neice and I shut down the game and thankfully took our normal seats around the normal table and ate our fill of good food within the safety of our home.

We then lived happily everafter.

The end.

Uh oh. Religion.

Now that Thanksgiving is over and the "holidays" have officially begun, I thought I'd take a moment to share my recent ideas about religion.

This is a thing that has been on my mind for the last few weeks and, quite frankly, I am disgusted by what I've discovered.

What is religion? Rather, what is the purpose of religion?

Mysterium Tremendum. That which is beyond explaination.

A friend of mine and I were discussing this recently. She is a pastor at a local church and so understands what religion is supposed to provide in the way of self-betterment, enlightenment and Humanity's evolution toward these goals.

But that's not what is really happening. Bureaucracy has taken hold and thus compartmentalized religions all over the world to the point where there is separation, (to the extreme of violence), of Humanity and of the very nature of the Myterium Tremendum. Religion was never to be used as a means of social control, information hoarding or discemination, to put one's self above others, to condemn those who think and feel differently, to use as a rallying point for war, or to do anything else that infringes upon free will.

I am not against religion. But I am very much against the orginization of it. Bureaucracy is very, very bad and should have never attempted the task of controllong how religion works. Mysterium Tremendum is way beyond the materialistic and should remain so. Enlightenment cannot happen otherwise.

Coffee in Hand

I have only three types of companions when writing: music, cats and coffee. . . A lot of coffee. I do not like it black and I use soy milk for creamer. The Cats? Not much of a choice there. They don't like coffee, especially when they "accidentally" knock mine over and it gets all over them. The faces they make while licking their fur are a bundle of laughs, their vocal protests jarring with the Steve Roach music in the background.

Seriously. . . I think most artists have an addiction or two, and one of those addictions happens to be of coffee. So what is it about coffee that makes the creative world go round? Is it the actual taste? But coffee, I hear, is an acquired taste. And there are many different blends, beans and roasts to choose from. I personally like the so-called French Roast. Sumatra is good too, especially on rainy days.

But honestly, I think it's the idea of coffee. The warm, rich and mild or bold taste only enhances the coffee experience when coupled with the artistic moment. It's the idea of something just outside the accepted realm of general society, eccentric, classic, artsy. . .and my personal favourite, sophisticated. Or rather, it used to be slightly outside the norm. . .

An instructer from long ago had opened up a coffee shop called Brew HaHa. I remember how proud she was of having this tiny cafe in the middle of downtown Spokane because there were, at the time, so few of such places. I also remember how she had become a bit cocky with the notion and often likened the cafe-owning experience to something foriegn to this country. I think she actually tried to Frenchify it, thus revealing she had been in love with the idea rather than the actuality. (She too was an artist.)

But it is the idea fitting so well with the artistic circumstance that makes it so very intriguing, almost other-worldly, perhaps even magical.

Until you find a few cat hairs in a full cup. . .

Writing Rightly. . .again

One of my bosses, a co-worker and I were talking about writing and how we make notes for large projects such as college papers or stories. The co-worker does the spider web type of notating where as the boss and I are linear, either to the side or down below or both. The co-worker informed us that Microsoft Office has a new notating program that employs something like the spider web bubble type. I made the comment that I can't do such a thing on the computer and that all my notes have to be hand-written, along with everything else. Knowing that I'm writing a book series, the boss asked if I write out everything. I said yes, and then explained that because I wasn't exposed to computers until I was in highschool, I hadn't become reliant upon them and so the creative process melded to pens and pencils. (Though now I use only pencil.) She also knows that I write very, very, very small. The running joke at work is: "Don't let Mary write anything by hand because we can't read it without a magnifying glass."

Seriously though: The skill of hand-writing is a dying art. And though I see that computers, like the word processors and type-writers of before, are tools and that we can do nifty things, such as blogging, with them, I fear that we may have become too reliant upon them. I run into kids now that have only a two to three-week training on cursive. I remember learning it in forth grade and being required to use it for the rest of my school carreer. And when encountering these young people who text rather than write, I feel very much like the ghost ship above.

Swine Flu (part two)

Need I really say more?

Actually I probably should so as to warn anyone who reads this about the wonderful anti-viral medication called Tamaflu. It has the propensity to excite the oracular centres of the mind in such a way as to show alterier dimensions in the space-time continuum and elsewhere.

As if delerium wasn't exciting enough.

However, I will admit that, despite the entertaining side effects, had it not been for Tamaflu I would have ended up in the hospital in critical condition due to a very, very high fever. I have not been this ill for over twenty years. So I now consider myself very lucky to have caught the symptoms in time and taken action to get through it without a hospital trip. (Though the other trips were quite fun. . .)

Today is actually the first day without a fever, and, if cleared by the good doctor, I should be able to return to work this coming week, for which I know my supervisor will be very, very glad. . .I hope.

Swine Flu

Whenever the flu season hits, I hardly ever get it. If I get it, then it's usually just a mild cold that lasts a couple days. When working in a shelter this seemingly strong immune system is a very good thing.

But now there is this swine flu to which I have fallen without much grace. It has been at least two decades since I had run a temperature above 101 and so I had forgotten what it's like to be a bit delerious. (By the way, my normal body temperature is about 97, so a 101 for me is like a 103 to others.) The closest analogy I can come up with is that it's a lot like being drunk under water. (Don't ask.) Also, all one can do is sit and watch TV while wondering why the cats do nothing to help which then leads to some pretty wild notions of bio-technology for the cats so they can be of assistance. Then this train of thought begins to include what is occurring on the TV, which happens to be the SciFi channel, with the heroes going to other worlds through the stargate with the cats. The cats return, seemingly unaffected until their eyes glow and they begin talking with really deep voices about how I too must become host to a symbiote.

The good doctor stuck me in a kind of quarrantine where I cannot go to work for at least seven days, (which really sucks on the financial end and especially for my supervisor who has to fill the shifts), then prescribed Tamaflu and a lot of water and juice. So, once I could gain some semblance of reality, I went out to get it before I experienced more alien abductions of cats. (But the cars, on the other hand, were driving on air.) Now, thankfully, the Tamaflu is cutting the symptoms in half and so only one cat has been abducted instead of both of them.