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.

Writing rightly, part two. . .

I have just completed the first draft of book two of the Writing Project and then decided that, since it is a four-book project, I will be working on all books at once. I came to this decision because I recently found that writing, for me, is very much like working on a visual piece where all parts are worked on simultaniously. Some writers can do a series in succession and it works. Not me. The story that I'm relating is very much like the ghost in the above image. It cannot be picked apart bit by bit nor written like a school paper because the story is an entire entity. It comes to me in flashes, vague or solid, and then begins to fit itself together as other aspects are glimpsed over time. This adds time to the Project, but I also have come to accept that, because Time itself is relative and cannot be hurried.

Out There. . .

If immortality were possible, say through cryogenics or some other passive process, I would opt for it just so I could have the opportunity to go out into space. That is if and when our species decides to get its collective head out of its arrogant and spiteful ass. At the rate we seem to be going, it looks as if we may never go beyond our solar system.

But if we do manage to survive our large collection of mistakes, if we start paying attention to the young and energetic and brilliant minds emerging from this mess called society, then perhaps we'll make it to another system or even another galaxy.

So then I would opt for immortality. . . just to see what is out there and to be reminded that we are not alone, that we are a part of something extraordinary and can learn from it.

Someday.

Writing Rightly. . .again

Having now gotten over what I term the "Moon Fever", I have taken up the Writing Project task again. Not that writing emotional poetry and prose is a bad thing, but it gets in the way of the things I feel I need to do in order to remain Human.

Book two of the Writing Project is nearly ready to be put on the computer and edited thus. For those who don't know, I write by hand first.

Which reminds me: there was an MSNBC article about the death of cursive. A shame, really. I mean, what would people do if all of a sudden they could not use their computers to communicate with the written word? Talk on the phone all day and night? The USPS would see a rise in service. That is if people even remember how to write with pencils and pens. Even though I understand that computers and keyboards are yet another set of tools, I strongly feel that we should never become too reliant upon them. We already suffer from, what the late Frank Herbert termed in his "Dune" series, "hydrolic dependancy". I certainly hope our great nation never has a nation-wide black out.

Hated Eros

It is the original Eros, first born of Earth and Heaven, primal, elemental, who has struck my flesh with feathered flames and blinded my mind within a labrynth of falsely lighted night. Against such raw forces of pure nature, I am absolutely nothing, save but as an irritating spark in your eye and never more than a flagrant leaf torn apart by those fiery winds shot from the ethers of Tartarus.
I scream at the Gods above and at the Titans below to grant me the key, any key, for my quick release! But, like you, they refuse to answer, remaining as silent as their rotted-out temples and the scattered dust of forgotten offerings left by history's countless love-sick fools.
If only you would cause me to hate you completely, instead of this half-measure notion pierced and polluted by arrow points of taunting memory and false hope, then I could complete my chosen and godless destiny to string my own flames and let fly the stars. Then, and only then, could I thank you for your lessons, light a flame in your memory and thus forget you utterly.

Obsessions

While in Montana over my weekend, I was thinking about criminal minds. (I was watching that particular show as well.) What we see on TV and in the news about criminal minds in the cases of obsession are the extreme sides of such behaviours. Obsession in of itself is an extremely difficult thing to deal with, not only for the object of said attentions, but also very much for the one obsessing. It is an incredibly debilitating experience, often getting in the way of what would be considered a normal life and leading to the high expences of psycho-therapy. Make no mistake, I do not think it is okay to obsess. However, one must take into consideration that, in most cases, the person doing the obsessing DOES NOT WANT TO think about the object of the obsession. Things like "getting a hobby", "going out to mingle" and other such jewels of advice simply do not work. Even therapy does not take away the seed that was planted. Nor does time erase that which precipitated the often painful experience of having unwanted thoughts popping in unexpectedly.
So my advice to anyone who is obsessing over another poor soul is: bite your lower lip and learn to live with it, because it is forever a part of our lives and rarely will the object of our obsessions succeed in turning our thoughts of them away. Oh, and don't do anything illegal because you actually do have a lot to lose whether or not you think it.

Montana wolf hunting

When I read an article about how it was going to be allowed for hunters to meet a wolf hunting quota of 75 wolves and that it was even going to be allowed in the first place, I don't think I have ever been quite so angry. Now, before anyone gets their panties in a bunch over the "fact" that wolves are predators and "deserve to be hunted", let's just take a moment to evaluate the Human equation. Wolves and other predators do not create nuclear weapons. They do not fly aeroplanes into buildings. They do not fight and kill each other over money or other material objects. They do not rape and sell children. And the list goes on of all the nasty, unecological and immoral things Humans have done and still, to this day, do. So the question is: what creature on this planet is the worst kind of predator?