Like the Spring… Attraction Begins Anew

Entry 03/31/2025 05:58:31 PM: Mentat 2551

It is said that each time someone falls in love, it always different.   Each person you encounter and get to know has a different effect on your approach to love and loving that person.  For me it always starts the same way: strong attraction.   However after that initial reaction, I can say it’s always different.

So the question is — how do I describe that difference this time?

Intense.  Once the hesitancy disappeared, the amount of emotional energy the man generates can be felt hundreds of miles away.

There’s definitely a strong feeling of magnetism here.  More so than I have experienced.  The want and desire to meet, match and perhaps even exceed the sort of intensity I often felt when attracted to someone else.   It doesn’t have words, currently it is pure emotion.  I want to find the words to make it solidify and crystallize, yet at the same time it’s like both of us are trying to find exactly what words best describe the feeling to the other.  Like it’s waiting for the right moment, or the right amount of trust before it makes itself known.

Do I feel safe?  Yes, currently.  Better than I felt 6 months ago when I ran into him again after the issues that he had to work through and ended up being slammed with a new set of issues he was still trying to prepare himself to face.

Do I feel the same thing from him as I feel for him?  Yes I do.   It’s as clear as a morning when the fog has been  lifted.

Do I wanted to explore more?  Oh  god yes.  I can imagine that there’s a lot more going on in the unspoken than the spoken.  It’s just…   Waiting for it to all come pouring come out.  It’s as though those words are at the door, holding the knob and waiting to turn it, before stepping out and being known.

…And I’m willing to wait.

I actually look forward to how this year and a day is going to go.  It’s a partial feeling of anxiousness, excitement, expectation and exploration as we get to learn more about each other and how we can work together.

There will be more on this as the days unfold from Spring to Summer.

All I will say is this…  It can all be summed up with one word:

Nick.

Until the next time.

No, this is not for April Fools. Not at all.

Entry 04/02/2022 01:05:25 PM: Mentat 1830

I know I haven’t written a public blog since about the new year. On the one side, it shouldn’t be too surprising really given that I’ve been suffering through the post holiday blahs, coupled with the extremely psychotic weather of the area. On the other side, I’ve been dealing with family and personal issues and the non-stop tug-o-war that created. But more on that in a few moments while I try to deal with the mundane before I get into the struggles and the frustrations that caused for me.

To begin… The Post-Holiday Blahs struck first, and that struck me hard this year. More so than any of the years that I’ve taken off for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays since I started on entertainment Usenet groups since the mid 90s. I would like to blame the fact that this is post COVID isolation repercussions/reverberations, but the truth of the matter is that as I’m sitting here and thinking about it; the isolation requirements in these post omicron COVID days, I’ve been pretty much secluded for through most of my life since living in Atlanta back in the early to mid 90s. So this really isn’t much different really. Good friends know me well when they say, “you do no suffer stupidity, ignorance, or patronizing bullshittery lightly. And believe me, in the last three months I have witnessed and even personally experienced Olympic levels of this in the last three months. to sum it up as eloquently as humanly possible, if I were to describe the level of blahs (coupled with frustrations) I’ve been having in a single video-linked phrase, it would be this one.

I tried surfacing and resurfacing (that is being a presence in all the usual places) a couple of times, but quickly went back underground and enjoying most of my solitude with my cat being more present in my proximity in some way or another. Hell, to give you an idea, this is what I’m looking at right now as I’m working on this entry:

The last couple of weeks Moe’s made it a habit of ensuring following me everywhere he can (just as long as he doesn’t hear any loud noises or the dog going ballistic for gawd only knows what reason is going on in that dog’s head), then he’s “you’re on your own” for a couple of hours before returning back to ensure I’m where I’m supposed to be and doing nothing that would make him think I “abandoned him” to the dog and the rest of the family.

Now for the ever present psychosis of the weather here in the Taint of the Bible Belt. Basically I didn’t have the usual two seasons that come from living here in the Deep South. We had Summer, followed by a hotter than average Autumn, followed — what can best be described as — Mother Nature completely skipping her daily doses of Lithium and singing every day, “I don’t need this! I’m perfectly all right!” Since the New Years, temperatures have been frequently fluctuating between 40 F (4 C) through to 85 F (29 C). We’ve had at least two tornadoes touch down (knock on wood neither of them were nowhere near my hometown). Also in these three months we’ve had a horrible medium strength rainstorms to “Noah, get the boat” moments of torrential thunderstorms. And thanks to these rainstorms all passing through the area, they bring with them warmer temperatures from the tropics to make sure that temperatures reach 75 – 85 F (23 – 29 C) before dropping back to typical winter-like weather when the rain has completely passed through the area.

The good news is that we’ve only lost power through all of this once and for no more than 90 minutes one late afternoon/early evening. The bad news is that because of how topsy turvy to psychotic it’s been — it’s caused me to have some difficulty staying asleep as the barometric pressures rise… And they rise every time a new storm is blowing into the area. Thanks to all this, according to my various health info I’ve been averaging less than 7 hours of sleep a night just prior to the storms. This alone is probably one of the biggest contributor to my negative attitude since New Years…

The other came wrapped up with my family. The truth of the matter is, my mother’s health has been declining in recent months, but it’s not entirely because of her age. The long and the short of it is that she’s been eating poorly for more than 2 years. Couple this with her inappropriately taking in her recommended daily water in a house with HVAC (which is new to her as we’re Yankees used to having a lack of centralized heating and air), and she’s worked her way into dehydration. I thought she learned her lesson on this back two winters ago when she had to be rushed to the hospital for dehydration and needing saline IVs to recover from that, you’d think she’d’ve learned..

But no!

We go through that a second time. But the second time let’s add malnutrition to the mix and we have a hot mess involving the need to be calling an ambulance and a rush to the hospital for a 4 day stay to start the process of recovering fluids, showing my mother how to properly exercise both for muscle reinforcement and BPPV which she has acquired during her decline.

Four days in the hospital and a few weeks of occupational/dietitian and physical therapists later the several weeks since her discharge, I’m finding myself in a never-ending battle of teaching my mother the value of a High Calorie/High Protein diet, on how to plan eating according to this, and how to avoid her never-ending want for calorie shortcuts with inordinate amounts of sugary foods and sweets instead of protein and carbohydrates. And hell, how to be able to plan through the day so that she doesn’t end up with either a caloric deficit by the time she heads to bed, or having to eat more than she can handle at the end of the day.

Leaving her to her own devices she has — at least three times — not even made it to 1800 calories intake on her own (never mind the way protein and carbs are well below that 1800 calorie limit). Two of the times I had to make a concession that Sunday is considered a “rest” day where she didn’t have to eat 2200 calories/22+ grams of protein/380+ grams carbs and the third day I had to go into argumentative mode because she was trying to cut down her intake to less than 2,000 calories a day. Couple this with when she got to 100 lbs. (45 kg), she declared she could stop the diet completely because she was done. Mission accomplished and all that, according to the passing remark from the dietitian. Never mind the fact that she had anywhere from 4 – 20 lbs. (2 – 9 kgs.) to be in her ideal weight for her height. Never mind that after this diet, she’s going to have to be maintaining 1500 – 1800 calories a day intake in order to maintain her weight and energy requirements. But this is a battle I’ll be better ready to confront when we reach that bridge.

As I said to my friend the other day, I can see why my brother and my mother never got along. They fight the exact same way: a combination of flat out dislike of something, coupled with the stubborn disposition of they’re right, you’re wrong. With the icing on the cake is that they will belittle you every step of the way either through ignoring you or make you walk a minefield until you give the hell up and leave the room in anger, frustration or complete contempt.

Seriously on three separate occasions, I have thought of either calling the dietitian or her primary physician to explain the problems we have on the homefront to ensuring she’s eating properly, and continuing the weight gain. I also wanted to discuss the probability of an eating disorder (after all, my mother has been on some sort of diet for losing weight for the better part of 40 years), and either supply better suggestions to ensuring she continue to take care of herself, or have some method to getting her to stop fighting me at every opportunity for her self-improvement.

At least the good news out of this, so far, it hasn’t reached that point: I haven’t had to make any calls to her physician. I can see my mother has mulled through much of what I’ve explained to her and actually makes an effort to eating better. And she has finally admitted that she understands that I’m trying to do my best for her well being and that I’m not trying to sabotage her attempts at doing things her way and only her way. It’s just one of those back up plans for that “just in case” moment where she’ll do it her way and cheat in the process. That’s something my brother learned somewhere and something they do share in common..

That’s where I’ve been for the last three months.

All in all, it looks as though until my sleep patterns return a better normal, I might be able to write publicly with a little more frequency. Until then — it continues to be a struggle here. I’m off to post and watch something else I stumbled across. More on that another time.

Hot Days, Cool Days, Scares and Contemplations

Entry 05/30/2014 09:59:56 AM – Mentat 701

So it’s hit my attention this week that the program that I had originally thought of showing the douchebag landlord on better organizing the work that he needed to dole out to his “employees” is closing in less than a month. Springpad — a program that I had only modestly attempted to use — is set to close 25, June (which on my calendar is coincidentally Emancipation Day). Of course, the folk at Springpad are suggesting I move my data to Evernote, which I’m having issues at the thought for a couple of reasons. The first has to do with the fact that the icon for it, the elephant, while it symbolizes the memory of an elephant never forgetting, instead gives me the feeling of being huge and bulky… The second (and more importantly), shortly after considering the migration, I was met with problems. You see, I never set up an account with Springpad — having opted to use my Google+ account login instead. Then, I was mat with problems migrating. And finally after thinking, “oh not a problem, I’ll go through the export and decided to import it into Evernote instead.” That’s all well and good, but what I was greeted with once I finished the e-mail verification was advertising to “Go Premium”.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate when a company that offers a good product is looking for money from their user-base (to expand the use). If their product is good, then yeah, I’ll throw money in their direction. What I don’t like seeing is the advertisement for that money on every screen that I’m on when I’m trying to use their product. That’s way too invasive (not to mention desperate) for my taste. So, three minutes after creating the account and seeing the costs for use and ‘Go Premium’, there I went deleting the account. Screw them and screw that. I only need it for an organized (and mobile) to-do list or six. I didn’t really use Springpad for picture and recipes, etc. What won out for what I have been looking for was Google’s Keep.

I might have considered using OneNote instead (and still do when it comes to the desktop), but the problem is that since transferring to an iPhone instead of a WM or another Droid, the manner for which synching information between phone and desktop is… well, messy. Not to mention relies entirely too much on SkyDrive: a product a lot of multi-platform users have had issues (security, taste and synching concerns) with the product on the Mac Forums. So in the end, Keep was precisely what I was looking for without all the hipster bullshit associated to sites like *dry heave* Pinterest or Evernote.

Still… it’s sad that Springpad’s being discontinued, although stumbling across an article while looking for the replacement for Springpad’s service I found a posting that talks about a sort of planned obsolescence scheme to such cloud-based services. A planned obsolescence scheme that definitely raises an eyebrow (as well as several speculative concerns) to present and future services of similar nature. An approach that I strongly believe has its roots in the dot.com crash of the early 21st century and will continue to generate continued distrust to products offered “in the cloud” for free or with no visible catches for use of their service.

Another thing that hit my attention a couple of days ago was the Ransonware exploit aimed primarily at iPhone users in Australia and New Zealand; though I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it makes its way to the States (and the rest of the world). Lifehacker (via Gizmodo) has a detailed article covering this rather annoying (and for some, frightening) exploit including on how to overcome it. Fortunately for me, while it might be moderately easy to hack my KeePass master password, all the other passwords that I use on the Internet are 16 – 22 character alpha-numeric-special character monstrosities and unique for each and every service that I have; with only a handful of them being interconnected.

Further, I just did a quick check after re-reviewing the information I passed on here and it seems that I forgot to log in my phone to iCloud. Which means that until I log in my phone to it — it’s pretty safe from being exploited. So it’s one less thing to be worried about until such time as the perpetrator of this exploit is removed from the system (read: arrested).

I don’t understand Moe’s patterns at all. Up until the one day where it was warmer than usual — Moe was slowly changing over from cloying and clingy to completely standoffish and aloof. He didn’t want to be touched, picked up, petted, given attention (other than his usual chasing the little red laser dot around the kitchen). Then when it hit the low 80s F/26+ C, he wanted positively nothing to do with playing or me. Then the day after when the temperatures turned raw and colder than usual (52 F/11 C was the high for that day), it wasn’t until I simply held up so that he could straddle over my shoulder did is personality change to being cuddly. Now that the days are once again Spring-like and comfortable has he become completely clingy, cloying and wanting. Through most of the morning he’s been crying for attention and only until I took my quick little power nap shortly after lunch (and him sleeping on me) have I gotten a moment’s rest from his neediness. What’s worse is I’m sure that when it warms up again in the week (or so) to come it’ll be back to his being standoffish and aloof.

I can only attribute his patterns of personality to my being like the third owner in a chain of them. That the first owner was the person that he completely imprinted on, and everyone since are just the consolation prize (so to speak) for his needs. Sure, the plus side is that he rarely if ever hides from me and is beginning to run to the door when I come home. But everyone else? Gone in three seconds to becoming a lump under the covers in the bedroom. And anything else? Well it’s all dependent on what he needs and when. If he doesn’t need anything, off he goes to sleep on the bed, or some cubby away from the noise and occasional chaos of the neighborhood.

Overall though — he’s good and eating his fair share for the spring and summer; drinking where he can. I gave up trying to break him of licking the bathtub faucet for his water. If it’s complete shut off, he’ll drink from his bowl, if not — I can see his ass sticking out from the rim of the tub and the gentle cat-like licking of the faucet. He’s more stubborn than Cricket ever was (and she was a Japanese Bobtail) and nothing will break him of what he’d rather do.

As for me, I spent yesterday helping my aunt with her laptop problem.. And by problem I mean non-issue for me. Seems that she wanted to use her laptop in peace and quiet somewhere in her house and thought that the Internet connectivity was broken. But sitting there yesterday while she had my mother helping her with filling out this incredibly long medical form, she handed me her case and said, “take this home and fix it when you can…” Which translates in my speak as, “fix it immediately”, I plugged it in, turned it on, got to desktop and saw immediately what the problem was: with long periods of being unplugged and the battery losing all charge — she didn’t realize that the Wireless Controls were shut off. Showing her how to turn if on (and changing the icon from orange to blue), that problem was fixed. Well that and a quick explanation of how laptops work.

I’ve had more than a few rage-like flare-ups/episodes since the last journal entry; of which I’m not sure whether it’s from the weird and sometimes troubling dreams that I’ve had (and fortunately for me, I’ve tried not to remember them when I reached full consciousness)… Whether it’s because I’ve been suppressing some of my anger on other things (like the douchey people on the Hill during the warmer parts of the day, Tammany Hall at closing time)… Or whether it’s all of the above. It hasn’t reached a point where I had the shakes from the rage; I was able to cool it off quickly enough when I realized what was happening — but it was enough for me to realize I wasn’t letting go again.

Sure, I know… two steps forward and one step back. I know it happens when something has been ingrained for as long as it had been with me. And two years of this sort of bullshit happening practically every day is more than long enough for it to be ingrained with me. I’m not scolding myself, at all in this. I’m not holding myself in guilt because it happened. I had a moment of guilt that it happened, sure… Though I worked through that peacefully. Right now, reflecting back on it, I just wonder why and what the causes of that were…

More on that the next time it’ll happen (and I’m sure it will).

Since my last journal entry, I’ve also watched Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Lego Movie and RoboCop. The Lego Movie was a combination of commercialism and camp… of things children would love and humour also aimed at adults. While I felt the overpowering need to ignore Will Ferrell when his ugly mug showed up on the screen during the last portions of the film, at least he wasn’t the complete ass-hat that I loathed from his raping Land of the Lost or his pedantic and asinine attempts at humour in movies like Elf and Step Brothers. Had he turned into that sort of comic, I guarantee I wouldn’t have watched that movie to the end.

RoboCop on the other hand, while I was entertained by the movie on the whole, the jury’s still out as to whether or not I ultimately enjoyed the film. For one, I found the angstiness of the Murphy’s plot to be too… heavy handed. Heavy handed to the point where I was muttering on more than one occasion, “enough of this, already…” along with making the usual gestures of wanting to slit my wrists at how angsty it was. Once the movie shook itself off of the angst and started focusing on the action, it moved along at a decent clip. Michael Keaton out-douched Ronny Cox from the original movie and reminded me of the “shit don’t stick to me” attitude that the late Steve Jobs had during many of this press conferences when defending Apple/Mac products. Gary Oldman was almost Knight in Shining Armour as he was in the revamped Batman franchise and was a welcome sight being goody-goody about the morals surrounding the creation of Murphy-come-RoboCop. And finally, Joel Kinnaman… There’s something oddly familiar about his looks that makes me think of another actor. Looking through his filmography, I realize that I’ve seen none of the works he’s been in… But that lingering déjà vu feeling I get seeing him in the Robo-suit keeps haunting me. On the whole though, the black armour that RoboCop/Murphy was given, Jay Baruchel as an PR-executive and the vigilantism of the three corrupt cops that had turned Murphy into RoboCop was enough to keep me from fully immersing.

And finally… worst than last week’s watching The Legend of Hercules with crayon-chewing Kellan Lutz, goes to Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Man the awful things I had to say to family and friends on that atrocity and celluloid abomination!!! Since watching that awful piece of work, I’ve come to the conclusion that Kenneth Branagh should either direct or star in a film; but not both. Branagh should also not be allowed to make action film because he simply sucks the life out of them. In the first forty minutes there was entirely too much blah and not enough action followed by my ability to suspend disbelief was completely shattered and destroyed because everything established within the CIA between analyst and operative was completely thrown out the window.

“But he had Marine training…” naysayers would say.

“Analysts have desk jobs. Operative are like James Bond. They are trained that way for many more months than analysts are in order to work in the field. What Ryan did transitioning between the two doesn’t work for this particular story….”

Further the terrorist against the whole country message is tired. It’s been overplayed. Beaten to death and like a dead horse continues to be beaten… Give it up… Patriotism on this level is two-dimensional. There are bigger issues with the world, and the USA being saved constantly and is the bastion of Freedom sounded as badly as the soundtrack picked for this film.

Did I watch it to the end? Absolutely? Did I take a million breaks when the story took another leap into the unbelievable? You betcha. Do I want the time I wasted watching this film back? Absolutely.

Well that’s it for the time being. I’m off to have the rest of my coffee; iced. And perhaps contemplate something to eat for supper. Until the next time.

A moment of disillusionment from an old Gaymer

Entry 04/06/2013 07:21:28 AM – Mentat 684

“In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects.” – J. William Fulbright

While yesterday was one of those sort of days where I was up and about more than sitting down and calm, I had an incident that gave me a bit of humor and a lot of pause. During one of those interludes while C was off with friends, I decided to play a bit of Star Trek Online because I needed to grind a bit of Dilithium and it’s a fairly good way of adding a bit of routine (and order) to an otherwise jittery day. Here is a bit of the back story to this to understand where I’m coming from in this.

I had left the Fleet that I had been part of because of a difference of opinion on what can and cannot be talked about and me having a problem with anyone censoring individuals or a group, took exception when one particularly conversation (that wasn’t in the least bit offensive) was being censored by some rather loud detractors. So, I went on the market to find another Fleet that I could dump my excess materials, equipment, monies and what have you… and went in search of other gaymers. The largest of the LGBT fleets that I had come across was Stonewall Fleet, so much so that they had their own chat channel within the game that I could configure and join. I remember doing so (configuring and joining the chat channel and perhaps later on, the fleet) with the intent of getting a feel of the people before. Sort of a try before you buy, as the saying goes.

About a week or two into watching and then later interacting with the chat, I got into my first scuffle with a bunch of the more uptight folk in the group. I made a comment about leaving for Star Wars: The Old Republic to troll the kids there, and they got offensive about it. Sure, I know I worded it wrong and made the mistake of assuming that people would understand my nature given I often snarked folk in the week I had been actively chatting, but they went on the attack saying it’s wrong. After 30 minutes of my explaining why I do what I do (I only troll kids that are being tits. After all, I work on the belief, if you’re going to be a tit, you’re going to be treated as such). Only one of the more aggressive understood why I was the way I was (even if he didn’t condone it), while the rest were remaining on the offensive. Basically doing precisely what I do for the reasons why I do it, and denying their nature in the process.

At that point, I decided I was going to remain a free agent and not join their fleet and waited out for better offers.

I did get that better offer from a good acquaintance in Ireland (no, not you Glenn) who had also left the fleet we had been part of because of differences in play styles with the management there and ended up joining a rather nice bunch of folk from the fleet of LaFamilia (otherwise known as “The Family”). I tagged along because I have a good rapport with the smarmy git and the fact that he generally knows how to pick them even if things fall through at a later time. Though I kept Stonewall Fleet Chat active because I wasn’t sure what the mix was with the Fleet, and admittedly it’s nice to be able to chat, be camp, and generally light with folk that can understand some of the humor I’ve come to appreciate (and am familiar with).

Then comes last night. I was in a fairly good mood, I wanted to grind a bit. The queerfolk where in their usual sort of high spirits mood. There was a bit of camp, and a bit of heckling going on. I sort of made a couple of comments, but paid more attention to the grinding for Dilithium that I was doing. And then it hit me while I was heading towards the Asteroid Mine that there was something happening on Bajor. Some sort of gathering. Several of the folk were making cutesy comments that the “speechifier” was going to be speechifying.

I was mining on the Asteroid, and there it was in it’s full and vomitus glory… The leader of the Stonewall Fleet was prattling on like a politician running for a term in office.

I said something about being a politician’s son and that the last thing that should be going on is any sort of aggrandizing grandstanding in a public chat. That it’s better to get to the point.

The leader of the fleet send a scathing whisper to me accusing me of being disrespectful and that he would mute me if I continued.

For one brief moment, I thought about copying & pasting that comment to the Public chat calling out that I must’ve hit a nerve if this “speechifier” is making threats in private. But then I thought twice about it, knowing full well of doing such a thing would cause instantaneous flaming both from the leader as well as whatever quiet spectators were sitting there watching.

In the meantime, several of the fleet called me a “d-bag” for being so “disrespectful”.

I shot back quickly that I’m not a douchebag, and clarified that I generally am good to get along with except when someone is being a grandstanding blow-hard. I went on further to say that he should get to the point as this is a game, not a platform for a political campaign.

The leader went on to say something about “welcoming diversity to the fleet.”

To which I countered, “except when that opinion is dissenting” and got myself banned from their happy little chat.

Admittedly I didn’t realize that I was banned. It had simply gone quiet and I had assumed that the lot of them had moved whatever long-winded speech that was going on to Ventrilo. But after a brief respite from the game, going to chat with C for a bit before he headed to bed and coming back to finish off the grinding and the Duty Officer Missions that I wanted to queue up, realized that it had been too quiet for that Stonewall Fleet’s chat channel. So when I went to look for the channel information, my access to it had been removed. When I tried to re-join I had been denied.

I laughed in LaFamilia’s fleet chat and told them the story, including the banning. There was a bit of chat, and a bit of explaining, but overall at the time before I headed to bed I found it sardonically funny. So did the members of my fleet (though they were a bit confused about how I pulled of being part of 2 different fleet chats).

This morning though? I’m finding it sad. I mean here we are in the 21st century, and what I saw of the leader of this group and the repercussions of my actions to be antiquated. This is something I would’ve expect in the 80s and not now. After all, diversity as it has been taught to me is to accept the good and the bad of the community. It means that sometimes, we’re going to encounter people of an opinion that is completely counter to our own.

I had learned through my years of wandering the planet that a good leader (not to mention a strong one), will be able to roll not only with those of like mind, but also those of an opinion completely counter to their own. To be able to address the group as well as the hecklers, in a way that can bring them all together. Well, sometimes anyway. There are just some that are impossible to please.

This leader of this group however, isn’t one of those that could be qualified as a good leader. If anything, he’s one of the most common of the “leaders” I’ve seen since my days on IRC.

So as I continue to write this entry, I recalled a lot of the familiar patterns of seeing this in the 23 years of being online. The cliquishness of gay men’s (and sometimes even lesbian) groups. The hair-trigger attitude of dissenting voices to whatever the head of the group encounters them. The banning/removing/ostracizing of whatever dissenting voice that comes up — automatically assuming that dissention is equivalent to “the enemy”. That this was typical of someone that has been bullied and picked on that created a power base of being their own Queen of Hearts in their own little kingdom.

Sitting here now, it raises the question: Have we as the abused (from years of being put down for being gay) become the very thing we hated? The abuser? That in our striving for equality, have we lost our ability to understand the very tolerances we’re demanding from others?

I hope not. Because if we have, this is going to be a very dark day in the future when (and if) we get those equalities we’ve been fighting for, all these years.

Anyway, I’m off for the time being. Time to watch a bit of television, make lunch and have a moment or two of peace. Until the next time.

Something incredible happened on the way through Life

Entry 04/01/2013 07:13:01 AM – Mentat 683

“It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter.” – Marlene Dietrich

It’s funny in one of those sadly ironic sort of ways… Every time I try to sit down and write a journal entry, I will start with putting my earbuds in, starting iTunes and trying to play something quiet, melodic, or even something I would listen to if I wanted to meditate. Then the next thing I know, I’m shutting my journal, loading up a game of some sort (MMO mostly), and then off I go to save the city, world, galaxy… What have you. When I pull myself out of the game saying to myself in one of those harshly critical ways that I should be working on my journal entry… I stop what game I’m playing put on iTunes once again, put something classical on and the next thing I know I’m leaving my journal program open (and my desk) to do chores about the house. Cleaning up, doing dishes, making something to eat… If I’m trying to write this in the morning, I end up making breakfast, coffee, getting ready for what’s ahead in the day, and then start writing something that couldn’t possibly be finished in the 40 or so minutes before I’m off to work paying off my rent. Sure I can come back to writing this after a full day’s worth of work, but then I’m too tired, too beat, too sore to want to sit here and write. With my brain being in all the wrong places for me to pay attention to what I should be writing and what I should be talking about. So I end up in the evening looking at what I wrote in the morning, not liking it at all and end up deleting it and starting all over again.

Wash… Rinse… Repeat…

Heh, I’m reminded too keenly of this video that I seem to have stumbled across a year (or so) ago and thinking even now, “yep, this is totally appropriate for what I’m feeling the last two weeks.” Longer the more that I think about the amount of trouble that I’ve been going through since the beginning of the year and most of last year.

So it is the fact that I’m tired of the work of these journal entries? Yeah, a little bit. Sometimes I find myself overwhelmed with the feeling that I need to be entertaining to those that have decided to tune into my journal entries both on WordPress, Blogger and on Deviant Art (with Facebook, Twitter being included thanks to WordPress’ app section). Yes, I know I shouldn’t be too worried about what other people think when it comes to my entries — this was done back in 2005 (earlier actually, but those sites have been phased out or cancelled and WordPress has them dating back to then thanks to MSN Spaces going the way of the dinosaur) because I had been accused of being “secretive” by a certain ex (who will remain unnamed)… And well, I shouldn’t feel the responsibility of actually being entertaining. After all, I can be that without even trying.

And then there’s the new element that I realize is coming into play since just before the last journal entry that I had been hinting at about writing… With two weeks later finding myself having just as difficult a time talking about it now as I did when I finished that entry. Yes, there’s a special someone that I would like to talk about, and even getting into the details of it… While I have no problem maintaining a sense of anonymity for that individual — referring to him as nothing more than C — there’s still the self-conscious of doing so for fear of the repercussions that my writing about him publicly can cause quite a controversy. Heh, sure I know he has the confidence, and after talking with him, he reassuring me that I have nothing to fear, the problem is that peer pressure has a strange way of affecting even the most confident. That it’s one thing for me to tell him what I’m writing about one-on-one, it’s quite the other when those words can be read and seen in the world at large. Though I might be able to get to this in a few, as I’m feeling rather inspired at the moment in spite of this all. We’ll see how long this lasts before this work of pixels ends up in the Recycle Bin…

Like many things that have significant (and sometimes even life-altering) impact in my life, it doesn’t start slowly. Never does, really. Instead it starts like the headlong rush of riding a roller coaster. Except that instead of the climb up the first hill and then the downward plunge, it’s like you leave the gate at the top of the hill and then you go down… Fast… Unlike other times however, I wasn’t fully aware of what was going on for a while, mostly because I had been fighting through the rage that I was feeling dealing with the ex-roommate and his continued (immediate) presence in my immediate life. When I did realize what was going on, I was dealing not with the rage (or the feelings that I often shut down in order to feel anger and rage), I found myself ending up in the middle of a dilemma that I didn’t know how to respond to. More like hesitant to the consequences of what happens when encountering this question..

The question is, “what happens when you find a Soulmate that is of a different sexual proclivity?”

I know, I know… This is getting to be a reoccurring theme in my life the last six months (and the last couple of years). I’ve brought the subject once before much to the catastrophe that left me frazzled and ungrounded… Not to mention I was an emotional mess the last time because the person that I had encountered — the Soulmate then — was unbalanced and ungrounded and a mess in more ways than I care to recount and remember at the present. Personal Karma (Life Lessons) have a way of interfering with the resonance Souls can have when reuniting in one life or the next, and I often forget to take that into consideration and sometimes because of that, it can make it difficult (to impossible to reunite on a lifetime (or several).

After all, normal people are one in a million lucky to meeting their soulmates in their lifetimes, and yet here I am in my middle-ages and I’ve met several. The thing is though I’m at the point in my spiritual evolution that I can draw those of like energies. Souls that walk the same path that I do and those that have walked with me several times through a Soul’s path to Enlightenment and Purification. To feel as equal toward, and to experience a resonance right down to the soul, and experience a mental, emotional and even spiritual affinity that goes beyond word, feeling and sometimes even understanding (and even in that lack of understanding to feel as though they were always part of one’s life even before meeting them).

The thing is though I’m at a stage in my spiritual evolution where encountering one’s Soulmates through the long path of living on the physical plane will be (and is) more common. From what I understand based on my philosophy is that the reason why I am encountering more of them is because I am in the slow process of shedding all my ties with the physical realm. It’s not so much that this will be completed in this lifetime; it’s not and it would be foolishly egocentric to think that it would complete in this life. I know that it’s going to take a hell of a lot longer than this lifetime for this to be completed. In a way, it’s like saying farewell to all those that have touched me through the walk through spiritual evolution. But I digress…

I found myself very hesitant when faced with that question (above). Most of the reason was because I was jumping ahead of where I needed to be. After all, I needed to work through all this anger and rage for dealing with someone that had committed the three deadliest sins in my book (thievery, pathologically lying and using people — me — for their creature comforts). Add to the fact that I would literally be volunteering to enter a cage of my own making – one involved with unrequited love — and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. A cage that would leave me frazzled, hurt, annoyed, frustrated and eventually dealing with more anger and impatience (for different reasons).

But then again, I know that in my long life — things are never easy or organized. After all, things often get thrown at me in complete disarray, why should it stop now?

Instead of wrestling with the problem I did what my family is famous for; going into denial mode and simply not want to think about it. Well at first. The thing is, my instincts told me, I wasn’t the only person feeling this. And at first when I had posed the question to C in a way that he would understand it (what would happen if one were to meet their Soulmate and they were of the same gender?), his reaction was rather…. Extreme. Well at least at first. Off on a tangent he went saying that it would be wise for him to explore this with a woman even if that woman ends up being a hooker…

I left it alone for a bit, explaining how it can sometimes work with finding other Soulmates and that he didn’t quite have the right grounding/centering for finding another. And explored with him why he had such an extreme reaction to it (knowing full well most of the reasons why).

The second time through though, I approached it more calmly, with more reasoning and explaining the myriad labels of sexuality and sexual identity. C thought about it a little bit and then slept on it. It was in the morning when I saw him next that a transformation had occurred. One that involves taking that leap of faith.

He stated simply and matter-of-factly, “then I would adapt.”

Something changed though.. Both subtle and obvious. C’s confidence was soaring. He was happy and had the attitude that he would take on the world and win. He was infatuated and in love. And it happened as naturally as the sun rising in the east.

Seeing that changed scared me. I thought that I was reading too far into things… I thought I was misinterpreting the signals that he was giving off. So far off the mark in fact, that I found myself allowing hope to things that I shouldn’t be feeling hope about.

He assured me I wasn’t. That what I was seeing, and what I was reading was accurate.

I calmed down, was happy…. Felt all right in fact. Then a couple of days later something subtle happened to me. I found myself speaking the ex-roommates name. Even did it with a smile on my face when I was speaking about the black-eye he earned. Not so much for the savage glee that he’s getting what I think he deserves, but the fact that I wasn’t bothered at all with his continued presence. It was in that moment, I realized that my feelings were mutual for him. I was infatuated and in love with him. That I was even on the road toward healing.

Yesterday, as I began working on the bare bones of this journal entry, I realized that I was trying to rush things. That I was trying to rush things in spite of the fact that C said that he wanted to take his time and make this relationship work, I was ending up wanting to follow the path that I often feel strongly to someone… In fact I ended up being so confused by what I was feeling that I had to stop writing what I was writing and talk a little bit with someone I trust a lot in order to work through why I was doing what I was doing. And after a couple of hours of talking about it, metaphysics and philosophy and everything else in between, I realized that I was simply being foolish and a bit desperate and was able to find myself grounded enough to remember that I often take my time as well… The tradition of getting to know someone within a year and a day. That I was just trying to rush through to getting to the intimacy in spite of the fact that in the last month we’re more intimate (emotionally and intellectually) now than we were when we chatted four weeks ago.

So yeah… Take our time… get to know each other more… help each other understand the nature of the universe, and let things follow the path they’re meant to.

So how am I feeling right now? Well, in spite of the fact that this is before coffee — I’m feeling pretty damned good. Happy… A bit of pride… And looking forward to the next installment of chatting with C. Anyway, I’m off for the time being. I need to get ready for work, have my morning coffee and pray to god that my landlord doesn’t try pulling me in sixteen different directions before lunch. That is never pretty. Until the next time.

Sabbatical Notice…

After a rather disheartening chain of events and the wild impulses that came over me after the event, I have decided that it is in my best interest to take a sabbatical. This means that I will be incommunicado and offline for an indeterminate amount of time. For those that might be concerned and/or want to know the whats and the whys, I will thank you in advance for your concerns and tell you I probably won’t be wanting to talk about it even if I return. If I do return expect there to be a jump in the entry numbers since as I am going to be keeping my journal offline during that time. I am sort of split down the middle on my picture of the day project that I had been lackadaisically working on: we’ll see how I feel about it in the next couple of days.

Until… well, whenever. Best wishes to everyone, and off to the Rim (of real time) I go.

Picture of the Day 05.29.2012

Came across this during my walk yesterday on Broadway. Along the sidewalks in parts of Providence, the city had decided on planting trees as part of the “Return to Green” program some years ago. In front of one of the houses that is rather large and well known for its prolific gardens, in around the roots of the tree they had planted these vines that had finally come to flower.

Called Crown Vetch (Securigera varia (L.)) this is a fairly common plant in the metro Providence area that some folk have been using as ground cover for semi-unsightly patches of barren ground. One of the side effects of this is that, like Kudzu in the south — it’s an excellent plant for erosion control as it requires little maintenance after it’s been planted. As you can see, it’s taken over the patch and doesn’t wander out onto the concrete too much.

Picture of the Day 05.28.2012

With Spring well on its way to summer, many people’s yards are in full bloom. During one of my walks between Atwells Ave and Broadway, I came across these lovelies growing low to the ground and looking so real that they were almost like the silk fake flowers I’ve seen in centerpieces in restaurant windows around town. A variation of the Clematis Vine, but not sure which one as this one’s clearly been domesticated and even hybridized. It’ might even be variation of the Crystal Fountain Clematis, though the center fronds are a bit too small for that variety.

Growing next to this is a small bunch of violets that were also hybridized to being deep indigo purple.

Picture of the Day 05.26.2012

One of the amusing things about ivy-like vines and factory buildings… This sort of thing happens. I had a suspicion as I would walk by this door and building that the dormant ivy would explode to life. Amusingly I just didn’t think it would try to take over the door quite like this.. Or the overhang either. Makes me wonder whether this will be cut down or completely take over. We’ll see at the end of the summer, eh?

Picture of the Day 05.25.2012

Technically this picture’s a do-over because the picture that I thought that I had taken, didn’t really save. I guess my phone’s more than a little picky when it comes to when I can shut down the camera software and the picture being saved.

Surprisingly I had only learned recently that this is a poisonous plant. Little did I know this as a child as I had always been rather fascinated with the purple flowers and colorful berries that this produces. Equally surprising is just how common this plant here is in the Tundras of New England too. Why just walking around the block since learned this is Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) I counted at least 10 separate plants growing in a one block radius (from the house). Up in my hometown, I used to see it everywhere… If only I knew back then, perhaps I would’ve been a bit more in awe.