LetMeBeClear

As I Grew Older

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky--
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!

Langston Hughes

“I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.”

Douglas Adams


Are you where you wanted to go, or are you where you needed to be?

Are they still the same place?

“We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.


Douglas Adams

I had commented on a friend's FB entry:

It started with:
B: Is pondering the increasing virtual exhibitionism in online fora.

B: I'm persona non grata there for life - I was rather observing a new trendy trend of people having to tell 25 facts or so about themselves ... ;-)

Me: My thought on this lately is that we are teaching ourselves not to have time for each other in person. The online gaming started all this, but was not personal enough. Then myspace shows up and now facebook and others became away to have a virtual social life. You learn more about a person face2face in 5 seconds. The 25 facts that others want to share just makes you feel closer to that person, that you might have gotten in that 5 second face2face you're chatting with. .... I think I am just rambling here.

ToMe: Not that I know anything at all about you but it sounds like you're getting old :-) Seriously, I agree with your points. Facebook, MySpace, etc., seem to be a huge outlet for narcisism . . .

Me: I am getting older with young kids :-) . But I would not put this in the category of narcissism. I don't think sharing the "25 things about me" is about promoting self love. I just think these social websites remove the face to face(F2F) contact we use to have before the social online networks. So the only way to get some of that back is to share ourselves with the "25 things about me" postings. otherwise how do i get to know more about you without the F2F. With that said, these social online networks do allow the shy to be more open....

Any thoughts here?

2 days ago I get a call from my brother that my mom has been in the hospital for 5 days. I had not heard from him for 2+ years (I think). I had visited him and his family and thought we might get a chance to get closer. Guess I was wrong or maybe it was just too much for both of us.

I have a brother and sister, they are 11 and 12 years younger than I am. When I was 14-17, I thought I hated them. They had to go everywhere I did. I was their mom and dad. I took care of them 80% of the time. You may ask where our parents were, they were there I think. These are parents that should have never had children, I think they thought we were a workforce for them to use. At 17 I stopped hating my brother and sister and stated to hate my parents. At 17 after HS, I was glad to escape them to go to college, which I never finished. I joined the USAF instead, because of other lies my parents told me and to get further away (5 years the first time).

When I went back to visit my "family" my brother and sister were pre-teens. Was the first time my father told me he was proud of me (it did take 6 pack and half before he got the courage). All I was thinking is "shut the fuck up", especially after he told my brother he should be more like me. That visit brought back so many memories of why I wanted to leave at 17. I had just got divorced and I guess I just wanted to be around family, even though it was a broken (emotionally). My mom would pick fights with my brother and dad and again I could could hear in my mind was "shut the fuck up". Then it happened, I said it out loud. Was the first time I ever spoke out to them. I could not stop. I said 'just leave him alone, quit picking on him. I came here to get away and rest, if you can't stop then I will leave." Surprisingly the rest of that visit was good. WOW.

So back to why my brother called. He called because no one else called to tell me that my mom was in the hospital. That she was being mental and cursing and yelling at everyone. Of course my thinking was... ah ok, how is that different than normal. It sounded like he just got there himself, did not know much, but that I should know. (thanks). But the sad thing is I am not sure that I really cared. Many thoughts racing through my head. "should i go or not go", "do i really want to go there". Not really.

Today I found out that she has Alzheimer's and thinks everyone one is out to get her. Funny I always thought she was out to get me or make me feel as bad or worse then she was feeling. Playing with my emotions, creating life time scars. She use to blame me, it was because of me she had to get married and move to the USA. Every time my parents would fight and my dad would leave for a few days she would go on and on about how it was my fault. I was just a child. (and again S t F U)

I am feeling SAD today because I want it to be all over. I never want to see my mother alive or see her dead. Actually I think my parents died along time ago. But then why am I feeling SAD today.

I hope that I am a better parent, in fact I know I am (now, ...thats for another time)

It is back to Walter again. I think this is kind of a hopeful poem especially from him. It is a nice one for starting the new year - in a world of wonders far away.

Dream Song

Sunlight, moonlight,
Twilight, starlight-
Gloaming at the close of day,
And an owl calling,
Cool dews falling
In a wood of oak and may.

Lantern-light, taper-light,
Torchlight, no-light:
Darkness at the shut of day,
And lions roaring,
Their wrath pouring
In wild waste places far away.

Elf-light, bat-light,
Touchwood-light and toad-light,
And the sea a shimmering gloom of grey,
And a small face smiling
In a dream's beguiling
In a world of wonders far away.

CC had her first classroom trauma. She has lived 8 years without this feeling. I am sorry that it found her. In class, her teacher was putting math problems on the board "for fun" they don't do math at her school. CC tried raising her hand for every problem and knew the answers to all the ones going up. The problems kept getting harder, and she kept raising her hand.

When she was finally called on, she got nervous. Her palms got sweaty. The problem was 55 - 36. She knew it needed borrowing, so she mentally removed one from the first digit, did that subtraction and wrote down a 1 on the tens place. Her face was flushed, she wasn't thinking. Everyone was staring at her, she added the second two digits together instead of subtracting, remembered she had already taken care of the tens place, and wrote down a 1. Her answer was 11. She looked back in time to realize her mistake, but before she could tell her teacher that it should be 19, (Here comes the worst part) the teacher said - "That's okay, You probably haven't gotten to that level yet."

Oh. The worst part is that the teacher thought she didn't know how to do it and felt sorry for her. Her tongue tied in knots, and she couldn't speak. We've all been the victim of our nerves. All I could do was hug her and tell her that she is human and it happens to us all. My poor baby. She kept raising her hand to try to redeem herself, but didn't get called on again.

Tonight I rebooted Three servers. It is funny, all of the times I have rebooted servers as part of my job, I still get a little sick nervous feeling. Its a fear that I rebooted the wrong one. I have only done that once - probably. Hundreds of servers and dozens of years, and I still get the same feeling. OOps, did I do the wrong box?

I am an insomniac. I didn't refill the prescription for the sleeping pills yet. If I take them every night for too long, then they don't work as well, and I am going to need them to work. Last week I slept without them at all - if you call that sleeping.

This week I switched to an herbal sleeping pill. It has me sleeping. Now I am dreaming. I think I know what is bothering me. Why I am curling up inside. Every night I dream about my son going to away. Twenty Three more days. He will take his one-way ticket and his student visa and get on a plane and not comeback until May. And that will just be for a visit. And that is not even definite.

I feel pressure to make this Christmas extra-special. But that goes against my nature. I have worked hard to make Christmas something that is not filled with fake happiness and real anxiety.

I feel pressure from people telling me how I should feel. I hate that.

I feel pressure from people who want to "remind me" of all the things that still need to get done before he goes. He needs to clean his room. He hasn't packed. He is going to be in for a shock when he has to start doing his own x.y.z. People who have never been anywhere or taken any BOLD steps are not allowed to criticize him and definitely not allowed to criticize him then say they are just trying to help.

I feel like the person in my life that I have known and loved for the longest is leaving me and I am happy for him and proud of him. BUT he is still leaving me and it still hurts. And yes of course, others love him. And he is just going to the other side of the world. And all of this makes rational sense to me.

Reason doesn't stop you from curling up into a little ball inside of yourself. Reason doesn't help you sleep at night. sleeping pills do.

I was Almost going to go with Bronte, but Shakespeare won this month. It probably had something to do with the 16 inches of snow and the 4o mile per hour winds I enjoyed at work today although the snowball fight with the family before work was much more fun. I do like the snow, but the wind blows.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind]
by William Shakespeare

Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior's company

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

You just can't trust what is in your food. I swear that in a couple of years I am going to have to grow my own food in order to be able to eat anything.

I carefully planned Thanksgiving so that I wouldn't get a migraine. I never eat poultry because most of it is full of some horrible unlabeled, inedible swill that sends me writhing in pain to a small dark space. I risk it with organic turkey on Thanksgiving. This year I even baked my own bread to make stuffing with so that I wouldn't get anything on the menu that I didn't know the origin of. Well, well guess what? About thirty minutes after I happily pushed my empty plate aside, my dining room became too bright. My family became too loud. My head was smashed in by the familiar pain of a migraine. My darling rushed for the Imitrex. We were done giving thanks.

My turkey wasn't a Tyson, but it was crappy-ass practices like this antibiotic scam where agri-businesses lie and do anything to protect their bottom line instead of the integrity of our food that leave me not able to even safely read labels.

I'm going to have to grow my own food to know what is in it.

We all get terrible customer support these days. Especially phone support. I think we have been slowly conditioned to accept it.

Since I was surprised today by excellent support, I had to say something.

I made plane reservations for my brother, his lovely wife and my cutie nephew. I was on the phone with my brother while making the reservations and holding the phone in my left hand. It is my only excuse.

When I received the confirmation, I realized that I had left the R out of Christi - so she became CHISTI. That could have been a terrible problem with the travel restrictions these days.

I reluctantly called the airline and just pressed "0" to get a person. Almost immediately a cheerful person came on the line. I explained the problem, she looked up the reservation, stifled a quick chuckle and said it was not problem but she would have to get someone else to change it. She put me on hold. Less than a minute later, she was back and confirmed that the change had been made and asked if there was anything else she could help with.

Cheers! to Excellent Customer support. It matters.
And if you are wondering, it was SOUTHWEST.

According to the Urban dictionary :


Hippie

A Hippie is a person who was raised under the ideological system that came out of the tumultuous 1960's in North America and western Europe. They are either of the flower-child/baby boomer generation or that generations' subsequent offspring. They possess a core belief set revolving around the values of peace and love as being essential in an increasingly globalized society, and they are oftentimes associated with non-violent anti-governmental groups.

I have wanted to be a Pirate when I grow up ever since I first went to Disney world when I was little. Or was it when I read Treasure Island? I am somewhere between Pirate and Hippie, but maybe I will join the Peace Corp and work toward ending hunger. Clean water is a fixable problem. I either want to help fix the world or hide from it on a boat in a secluded sea and listen to the ocean breeze and smell the salt spray. Right after I finish raising my last couple of young 'ums or maybe I can't wait that long.

My son has always said he can picture me as an old hippie lady on a beach in a long flowy dress with long wild hair walking barefoot when I am old. Sounds just about perfect to me.

Alright - your turn. What does the dreamer in you want to be when you grow up? Why? What picture of yourself in old-age do you have?

There is wind where the rose was,
Cold rain where sweet grass was,
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

Nought warm where your hand was,
Nought gold where your hair was,
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.

Cold wind where your voice was,
Tears, tears where my heart was,
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.

Walter de la Mar - November

Happy Halloween and Happy New Year and Happy Samhain

Happy Halloween.
I switched the template for the holiday.

I'll find something different afterwards. The dark background and light text hurts my eyes - ever since I had Lasik. Same thing with diving at night - can't do it.

ANyway - I Love Halloween. I always have.

That is how you drug test your kid.  You just cowboy up, give him the cup and tell him that it is time.  Put on the determined face, don't apologize, and then test it.  Its okay to cry when you get the results - whatever they maybe.

Would you drug test your kid?

You hope you never have struggle with that question.

It is a hard process.

You have to decide there is a problem. Decide it really is a problem. Decide you know what the problem is. Acknowledge that drugs are probably the problem. Question how it happened. Decide you really want to know the answer to the question.

Google "home drug test kit". Learn about the half-life of common drugs and the symptoms of each type of drug use. Figure out what drugs are most probable. Find a kit that tests for those drugs. Drive to the store. Take the drug kit to the counter, look the clerk in the eyes and pay for it.

Now you have a drug kit for your kid. What on earth are you going to do with? What are you going to do if it is positive? What are you going to do if it is negative?

You must now resolve to confront your child. You make sure you remember that drug users lie. You don't want to think your kid lies, but drug users lie. Your kid denies the accusation, of course. You show the kit and the kid acknowledges that yes, he just recently tried it and will never do it again. Remember that drug users lie. He has acknowledged the drug use. Do you still need to test? Should you wait? Now what?

Now what?