An Evening Quote

"He's one of those crazy liberal democrats that secretly is a closeted republican."

Denny Crane, Boston Legal

I laughed at first until the question echoed back...."is this me?"

Ex-Lax for Writers Block

I'm not writing much these days. Well, I'm blogging, but I really don't consider blogging as *writing*. It's more like a stream of consciousness thing where I can talk and express myself, chipping away at the boulder in front of me. There is this story that my mind to comfort me during this time...it goes something like this....

A man was told by God to push on a rock, and as an obedient servant of his Lord he got up each morning and began to push on the boulder with no success in moving it. Undeterred he did this every day for years. Years turned into decades and finally after the man had filled out, his arms and back rippled with muscles and his legs we like unmovable tree-trunks. In frustration he knelt down and prayed "Why? Why have you asked me to do this impossible task. I can't move this rock." The Lord, answered his obedient servant in loving dulcet tones. "Dear child, I told you to push on the rock, not to move it. Look at yourself. You are strong and you are determined. Now you are ready for that which I have prepared for you to do."

Only I know that this writers block isn't a huge trial before me and I'm tired of blogging in hopes to chip away at the mass to either find a vein of weakness and destroy it or chip away at it to be able to pass it. However, my favorite chisel and hammer are gone - Money. I don't *need* money to write, in fact, that's one of the things that I truly love about it, I can write with out any electricity at all. But the ability to buy research materials, to go to restaurants that provide the food that I'm writing about or just to do something that broadens the senses and quickens the mind is what money provides at a time like this.

106 Days and counting.....I think this is the stress that the block is made of. I'm worried that the fiction isn't strong enough to be believable, that the spell I wove with the words isn't strong enough to bind the reader to the page. Which stress bleeds over to the present project...what if I'm not making a cohesive tapestry and it's just a farce that I'm acting out to my own humiliation. I'm going to try and lull myself into a safe state of denial and try to believe that it takes publishers 150 days to read a manuscript and then, after that day, I can start to worry. That puts my fretting off until December 21, 2006. I think, no matter what my finances are, I should have a celebration. That is if I haven't heard back yet.

3 August 2006 & Counting......

Okay, I know it takes a long time for people to read a manuscript, and I know the longer it takes for the publishing house to review it the better it is for me....well as a writer any way. I'm frazzled....I anxiously peer over a half a block when I'm driving home hoping to not see a box on my door step, my heart races every time I see the Fed-Ex truck pull up in front of our town-house when no one is expecting anything only to have my heart sink to my colon when he is just checking his route in front of our house before he goes onto the true recipient of his delivery.

I'm not whining per se.... well, yes I am. But I've been very lucky in this process so far. The first time I sent out House of Dragons I got a six week turn around and a "Thanks but no thanks" standard letter. Well, not even a standard letter. It looked like it had been written by the high school age temp-receptionist with aspirations in engineering. But that's fine. I sent it to Desert Books thinking that out of loyalty I should sent it to the church's official book publisher before I started to farm it out to other people. So, I polished up my tarnished hopes and sent it out to Covenant. They just wanted three chapters and would call me if I tickled their fancy further. And, in this case I did. I got an e-mail request for the remainder of the manuscript. However, in about six weeks after that I got the three chapters I had originally sent them back. I think they might be a little too conservative for what I wrote. Or, they just don't have the bandwidth and or need for young adult fiction. It took a few weeks to pull my courage up to send it out again.

This time, you'd think I'd feel more hopeful. I mean, common, on my second try I got passed the first and second gates of readers. But I'm more stressed than ever. Maybe being unemployed has something to do with it, I dunno. All I know is I want to know NOW. Granted, it's only been slightly over three months since they had it. The note they sent me that said they would be reviewing it said manuscripts take considerably longer than their music and art submissions (which take up to 6 weeks), but this is twice that. Either it's going through the ranks, which is a good thing, or the initial reader is tripping over his lips as he reads.

I have been praying that they are going to take it, but if they don't, then I have another publisher all picked out to send it to. They have an established young adult line of books posted on their website, so I could only assume this is an area in which they want to expand. Unless their young adult fiction isn't as profitable as they would like it.

You know the joke/prayer "God grant me patience, RIGHT NOW!" and the axiom, I can wait for anything as long as it happens right now....that's what I feel like. My editor (God bless her!) assures me I have a marketable product. I just need to keep sending it out until someone accepts it. In the mean time I need to work on The Song of the Righteous (working title) is ready to go shortly so I can have two out there.... Hopefully increasing my odds.

Be the change you want to see in the world...

I just finished my sisters penultimate paper for her MBA degree with UofP. It is based on Stephen R. Covey's Principle-Centered Leadership and I thought I'd share it with you. The notation of the book isn't in the ABA style they require and, as she put it, there are some run-on sentences, which isn't bad for a first draft for me. I just love the metaphor I used to weave the information through to create a complete vision. My final statement feels more like a personal mission statement after reading the book. A book which I highly recommend.

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Ask any person in your organization who they truly think the center of the universe is, and they will tell you they consider themselves to be its center. They’re right! To bring into harmony all these stellar bodies into harmony, one must look to the stars to gain guidance. Copernicus said in his book Derevolutionizeu Orbium Caolestium the following; "To ascribe movement to the earth must seem absurd to those who for centuries have consented that the earth is placed immovably as the central point of the universe. But I shrink not from any man’s criticism. By long and frequent observations and by following a set of fixed principles, I have discovered not only that the earth moves but also that the orders and magnitudes of all the stars an spheres, nay, the heavens themselves, are so bound together that nothing in any part thereof could be moved from it’s place without producing confusion in all the parts of the Universe as a whole." What Copernicus sought and achieved in science Steven R. Covey seeks to achieve in his highly effective Principle-Centered Leadership for managerial leadership. Through is "true north", "inside-out" approaches he is making the leap that the problem in the organization isn’t with ‘them’ but with ‘us’ and in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice we must discard the outdated and useless maps of the past, start at the top of the organization re-aligning values to basic and true principles starting from the inside of each individual in the management team and then working outward. Then, when the big bang of a paradigm shift happens all members of the organization will dance in harmony like the celestial bodies – even down to the Pluto’s of the group – and your organization will be ready, willing and able to chart new courses and follow new and exciting horizons into the future.

Covey has proposed that instead of having a value driven organization which can range from the basic "Carrot-and-Stick" approach of managing employees and customers to out and out intimidation tactics for production and control will work for a short period of time with, at times, devastation consequences on the organization, employees and customers. By shifting our organizational centers (see fig. 1) from flawed values such as profit, supplier, employee, owner, customer, program, policy, competition, image and technology, principles that develop security, guidance power and wisdom we un-moor the potential in ourselves as well as our group and organizations.

Figure 1. (pg. 24)

Covey is fond of his "Six Days of Creation" (pg. 79) concept where just as the world was created in six days, each day needing completion before the next could be started, so are we on an emotional maturation process. Just as you canÂ’t have oceans before you have land, you canÂ’t expect to achieve emotional maturity without going through each of these steps more completely explained in his renowned book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He makes five simple suggestions to put us squarely on the path for emotional maturity, propelling us from whatever "Day" weÂ’re at into the continuum of where we need to be to start garnering the traction needed to make the shift necessary for success. "If we will do the following five things, we will have the strength to be strong in hard moments, in testing time.

* Never make a promise we will not keep

* Make meaningful promises, resolution, and commitments to do better and to be better – and share these with a loved one.

* Use self-knowledge and be very selective about the promises we make

* Consider promises as a measure of our integrity and faith in ourselves

* Remember that our personal integrity or self-mastery is the basis for our success with others." (pg. 77)

It shouldnÂ’t be surprising then that the first section of the book is dedicated to the readers and how he can change his behaviors and re-aligning ourselves to the basic principles. His statement on these principles are; "Natural laws, principles, operate regardless. So get these principles at the center of your life, at the center of your relationships, at the center of your management contracts, at the center of your entire organization" (Pg. 17) Pay close attention to the order in which he lays these out for the reader 1) life 2) relationships 3) work 4) organization. You canÂ’t create a principle centered organization without becoming and staying a principle centered person and practice principle centric values in your life. His axiom on the cover of the book "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime." Other urban philosophers have expanded on this notion to, "Â…Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime, unless he doesnÂ’t like sushi, then youÂ’ll have to teach him how to cook. (Auren Hoffman, Herald Philosopher). Even better is "Â…Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to sell fish and he eats steak." (Author unknown). But no matter how you bate the hook, you have to know how to catch fish on your own before you can hope to teach others. Some arenÂ’t going to like it and you will have to teach them how to cook it until itÂ’s palatable and some will run with the concepts and eat steak the rest of their lives, to extend the metaphor even further some will reject it all together because they are not ready for this next step in business or their lives and you will need to cut bait and run. This brings us to the first principle in CoveyÂ’s thesis. Through use of natural governing principles that we have all grown up with in life such as practice what you preach and donÂ’t preach as practice, do unto others as you would have them do unto you not do unto others before they do unto you as the hallmarks of most, if not all moderate Judeo/Christian, Islamic and Buddhist sects. Honesty, fairness, integrity and having an "abundance mentality" (pg. 40) but most importantly realizing these changes need to come from the "inside-out", are the guideposts that help us navigate the possibly lethal mistakes of the past.

With all things in life, one must start with the first things first. John Adams, our second president of the United States was fond of saying, "There are only two people of worth in the world. Those that have commitment and those that require the commitment of others." Dictionary.com defines commitment as: 1) the act of committing. 2) the state of being committed. 3) the act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself. 4) a pledge or promise obligation. 5) engagement; involvement. 6) perpetration or commission, as of a crime. 7) consignment, as to prison. 8) confinement to a mental institution or hospital. The first three definitions are commitments centered on correct principles and the last five could be the consequences of not being thusly committed. To gain a commitment from a loved one, friend, co-worker, peer or boss one must first prove themselves capable of making and keeping commitments. As you build your capacity for commitment your cache of trustworthiness will increase. Building and keeping trust among people is essential to healthy and lasting relationships in life and in business. Personal integrity is paramount to human development and positive growth. Rogue stars in history has shown us that people with great commitment centered on unnatural principles have done great things with devastating consequences. Hitler was able to unify a disjointed Germany only to have the repercussions rippled through history and the pain and agony he unleashed is still felt today. Kidder Peabody imploded after 100 years of business due to a paradigm built around employee bonuses and when a rogue broker took advantage of it through bond price manipulation. Correct principles are the endowments of empowerment, the fish, and once we have them we can teach other, if by example alone, how to launch themselves into a greater understanding and a greater fulfillment in their personal and business lives.

In our solar system all the planetary masses and their sub-masses revolve around the sun, so it is in an organization. The problem with introducing this new paradigm into the workforce and not have it treated like the other programs that have flown through the organization like bright and shiny comets. Your staff has worked hard in the past to learn the new-and-improved vocabulary, push the philosophies like intrusive salesmen, even in the extreme create a cult around nothing more then a quick-fix or band-aide for a chronically acute unnatural principles. In the end these comets leave no more effect on the gravitational entropy in the organization than a comet does. The twinkling dust in their wake settled into files and aphorisms that end up being bandied around in a cynical game of verbal hacky-sack by your ever diligent but uninspired employees. Changing an organization to principle centricity isnÂ’t a fly-by-night concept and usually requires an assiduous application of patience and understanding. However, once the management team has successfully changed their direction, the organizational entropy well stem and then stop. Start with the mission statement. Norman Vincent Peal wrote "Change your thoughts and you will change your world." Such with the mission statement, it is the agar in which the Oranizations culture is grown. Once the organization as a whole has an idea of the newly charted course, it is a well prepared field to institute the following guides to help with the cultivation of a principled centered organization. "Security" (pg. 57) for employees through a set of procedures and practices, is the foundation on which to start. Next is "guidance" (pg. 57) by both example and through a compass aligned to the "true north" (pg. 92) principles. All this taught through the auspice of an "abundance mentality" will endow each employee with confidence and empower them to act as an individuals and as an invaluable part of the team naturally quashing any rivalries that might have existed under the old paradigm. Then finally, when these principles are at the core of the driving fore will the true adventure of problem solving through the universe of commerce and the synergism of personal and professional fulfillment of everyone on board will be the fuel that moves the organization to seek out new life and new opportunities. To put it simply, a mission statement for change if you will, commit to be the change you want to see in the world.

Why does it always happen....

The democrats are finally starting to find themselves in a comfortable lead until one or more of them have to open their mouths in an attempt at humor or a statement of fact and throw everything that has been earned into the toilet and ALWAYS days before people go to the poles? Common, Sen. Kerry, did you have to share that joke on TV? I get the joke, I understand where you are going with the inference but you don't EVER pick on the military in a time of war.

If I might admonish the Democrats to remember one thing until the end of the mid-term elections is to shut up and take a page from the Republican playbook (or rather buzz word book) STAY THE COURSE.

Chess As It Applies To Life

I have come to realize in my travels on this earth that life is a lot like a game of chess. Yes, you can play it like you would a game of checkers, and your outcome would be the same as if you'd played a game of checkers. However, I don't think the person that treats life like checkers is too unhappy or to surprised when life kicks the crap out of them. But in life, as with all things, if you take the time to think even a few moves a head, trying to bate fate into doing your bidding, life takes on a whole new intensity that makes even the mundane pawns embrace a unique and tantalizing dimension all their own.

This analogy/simile/metaphor came to me when I was trying to figure out my mom and trying to see her life through her eyes without anger, without frustration, without the general feelings of being manipulated so completely by her. Yes, the old feelings that keep me from moving my pieces on the board of life in a more energetic fashion. Part of this also happened because of a game of chess my nephew challenged me to the night before I wrote the enlightening journal entry. I watched as he used his pieces and made bold, sweeping moves over the whole board. Very brave, very ambitious and very much who the man he has become. And then I looked at my side of the board. My king and queen were carefully guarded by a rook, a bishop and a host of pawns, only moving when absolutely having no other option. I lost, mostly because I have too hard of a time to disengage my brain from the now and from the mire of the past to focus on the move I'm making, let alone try and figure out the next three or four moves in advance. But I feel knowing this about myself is a piece on the board of life and I am learning to use it as a tool.

How does this impromptu game with the boy work into what I was talking about before and how does my mother play into it? Simple, we are all playing chess, only not against each other or fate, but with Life. We are each in our own game, and no one can play on someone else's board. We can combine forces at times and seek out help for our moves, but ultimately, the choice to move, to capture or to sacrifice a piece is sole our own. It is a game we are going to lose, no one gets out of this life alive. Mom, to me, is a woman that has few pieces left on the board of life. A few pawns and her king. She's within two moves of getting one of her remaining pawns to Life's side of the board to liberate her Queen or Rook, but Life keeps her in check. She keeps trying to out maneuver his pieces, but with the ability to move only one square in any direction, only to be put in check on his next move frustrates her and stymies her, but she doesn't declare defeat and lay down her king. Life on the other hand still has almost all of his pieces in play and has a sweeping vista of the board, any plan made by her is perceived and countered several moves in advance, though with the stealth of a jaguar so she doesn't know she has been thwarted until it's too late. Though she has sacrifices a lot of her men in the cause of her children, expecting to have them charge in and not only save her but rebuild her army with their own, but like I said before, we can't play another persons game. Her gambits are too easily spotted and, when offered unsolicited, go unused when offered in order to protect our game.

It is a sad, sad place to be in at her age and I feel a sence of meloncholy for her situation at times. But I, like her, are powerless to do anything about it and strangely enough, that is comforting. This new vision of Life and her role with it has helped me understand her better. Though I can't add pieces to her board to ameliorate the pain and frustration of always being put into check, I don't fee guilty because she doesn't have the pieces on the board any more, nor do I allow her to make me feel like I owe her something because of it. I never asked her to cash in her retirement any more than my sisters asked her or required her to cash in her retirement in order to support them or give them what she thought she wanted them to give her in return. Reciprocity isn't a one to one, dollar for dollar commitment on this temporal plane. (I know it would be nice if it was, but it's not.) I do what I can, the sisters do what they can, but it will never replace the men she sacrificed, it will never give her the full range of the board again. She doesn't have the pieces to plot behind so now when I see that she has finally caught on to the multi move gambit it is just behind her eyes, visible for the world to see, and frustrating for her daughters who sees it and have always been powerless to stop her maniputlations in the past. Now, I don't see them as manipulations, per se, I see them as the desperate attempts of a woman trying to regain control of a board she hasn't seen from corner to corner in several decades. And my heart cries for her.

Age Classifications

After many years of human observation, I have concluded that there are new classifications for age beyond the numbers.


Ages 10-20 (More actually 16-20) - Hip
Ages 21-30 - Cool
Ages 31-40 - Retro
Ages 41-50 - Vintage
Ages 51-60 - Antique
Ages 61+ - Relic.

Someone who is hip is on the bleeding edge of now. Not only do they converse in their own improvised language, their sense of style is uniquely theirs. Even if they copy their style from someone else, it will be another cool hipster in their age group.

Cool is just that. You've claimed a stake in a transitory world. You sit back and enjoy the Retro's eyeing you with envy and the Hipsters consider you traders to the ethos you once clung to.

Retro is more of a reactionary age. You have the pressure of being an "adult" (whatever your definition is for that term), you are stifled in your job and you are continually looking back to your Hip and/or Cool days longing for those expansive moments in the sun where they one monthly payments you really had to worry about were your car, rent and your CD club membership.

By the time you reach your Vintage years, you are more secure with yourself. You have a handle on where you are and more importantly, where you want to be in the coming years. You have fully blossomed into a rich bodied soul that you could never have fathomed in your Hipster or Cooler years.

Antique doesn't mean broken down or unusable. At least not in the general sense. You might get pushed out of younger crowds because of your penchant for imparting your wisdom on unwilling ears, hearts and minds. Like most antiques, you aren't really used for that much any more, at least not until you are found by the right collector and then you find yourself truly being appreciated

Relic is a time where people seek you out to hear your wisdom because you have proven to them that you can still be cooly hip with the retro lingo and the vintage glow. You have come full circle and you can see from your vantage point that what effects the hipsters, the cool ones, the retros, vintage and antiques is the same, just the names have changed.

Yosemite Memories I

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took when I had a break and went to Yosemite...ALL BY MYSELF. It was glorious. I got to watch TV when I wanted to, I ate what I wanted to, and surprisingly enough, it was actually good-for-you food. Mostly just meat and frozen veggies. (The fresh ones freak me, it's like I can hear them cry out in pain when I cook them.....Not really)...But I digress.

I took a tour with one of those bus tours and this is one of the places we went. I'm sure it's one of those pictures that every tourist has in their album, but I think mines special. It was at the beginning of April, a time when I thought it would be rather clear, and according to the weather, it was supposed to be, but instead it snowed. For those of you who don't know me, I have been in the snow maybe three times before this picture, and never when it was actually snowing. That is the freakiest thing I had ever seen. I bought a special hat to wear so I wouldn't get sunburned on this trip, instead the brim worked as a snow catcher and the cute festive cherries on the ribbon ended up with their own little hillocks of snow on their cheery red sheen. I think this picture really shows that. It shows the water running, the green of the trees with the snow heavily sprinkled with confectioners sugar. The bare tree, it's fingers stretching in the spring is starting to show it's green finery for the coming Spring. In the background, if you look closely you'll see the stone masonry work of the footbridge, adding just a touch more of texture to the picture. At first blush you might miss it because it's obviously made from local and natural materials, but it just sort of sets off the picture. Well, in my humble opinion.

A Moment of Perfect Silence

In the midst of all the hate, destruction and profound confusion a community mourns. Ever weary of the public eye on their private life they strive to keep to their standards, which includes inviting the family of the man that killed their five young girls to be with the families as they all mourn their collective loss. What an example to the people of the world about healing, about hating and about true Christlike love. Though their bucolic lifestyle might never be the same after this tragedy, they've done everything they can to show that even in the maelstrom of bullets and TV cameras, love truly can be the best weapon of choice.

Hope in Hell

Our purer essence then will overcome

Thir noxious vapour, or enur'd not feel,

Or chang'd at length, and to the place conformd

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain;

This horror will grow milde, this darkness light,

Besides what hope the never-ending flight

Of future days may bring, what chance, what change

Worth waiting, since our present lot appeers

For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,

If we procure not to our selves more woe.

John Milton

Paradise Lost

Gentle Mental Musings

Thoughts for the day

..........if at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you

......"deja moo" is the feeling that you have heard this bull before

......the trouble with doing something right the first time is no one appreciates how difficult it was

......money can't buy happiness but it makes misery easier to live with

......they say one out of four people is mentally ill. Take a look at three friends and if they're ok, you're it

......the two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

I just love this picture. Little Fairy penguins are dressed in hand knitted sweaters to wait while their body's start to produce the oil necessary to keep them warm. This only happens after a large oil spill and they are cleaned, truly, within an inch of their life. Since the rescuers have to use an oil stripping detergent to get the oil off them they loose the natural ability to keep themselves warm. Some concerned citizen got a bunch of other knitters together and they knitted over 20,000 of these little sweaters for the waddlers to keep warm with until they were ready to be released into the wild again. In the mean time, there is this contingent of wild penguins wandering around South African zoo campus dressed in their hand-made finery. Though they do inspire the general "aww" from passers by, and the desire to just pick them up and cuddle them, we need to stop and think as to why they are in this situation to begin with....The stupidity of MAN. Man meaning both men and women here. Why are we still so addicted to fossil fuel that we are willing to not only put these precious creatures at risk of dying from an oil leakage, but all the other noble and innocent creatures in the ocean? The animals that don't find their way to the shore for help and recovery? They normally just sink to the bottom and join the never-ending circle of life. But poisoned links in the chain only leads to poisoned links in the chain until the food chain breaks down and we have none of these creatures left. The woman who started this didn't do this for one incident, it was needed because this is an almost annual event for these little guys, and slowly they are going to be cuted right into extinction.

I know I'm a hypocrite in that I drive a car. I'm very fond of my car too. I'm just for abolishing transporting the oil across heavily populated channels of water. Which, in essence, means no water at all. Drill on the land that has oil as long as it's not in a nature preserve, and slowly wean people off the whole oil addiction. This isn't going to be easy for the Hummer and Denali set out there. True, the Governator has a bio-diesel Hummer, but how many have the additional income after the initial purchase to afford that kind of conversion to their already $75k SUV. (I guess I assume buying a $75k SUV would tap out people...I know it would me, but if they have that kind of discretionary income, maybe they can). I'm rather opinionated on this subject as well, no one needs a car that big for everyday use. There are some needs for it, but for running to the grocery store or taking the kids to the park, no. Absolutely no need. Especially when these little guys are the ones that are suffering for our addiction.

Midnight Musings

I love late at night when the world has gone to sleep and all I hear are the bleating of the bats as they scour the sky for the every present insects. They are among the freakiest of God's creatures, but you gotta love 'em. They eat the bugs.

This is the time of night when lightning strikes, when ideas that have slumbered in their hulls break forth and start to germinate in the imagination. Some burst forth with vibrant colors and luscious textures, some take their time to wrap it's tendrils around all the elements until a more elegant, sophisticated product emerges. Either way, the element of both are the late night musings when I'm all alone with either my pen to paper or finger tips on keys. Lightning strikes most dramatically when all is dark, when all is well, when all else is asleep.

Quotes

I have been having fun collecting quotes from different places, things and people. I thought I'd share some with you for a smile or for enlightenment.

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A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.

Marshall McLuhan

*****

Be about the work, be happy or go to hell.

Brigham Young

*****

As long as there is a lack of inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality of calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack the various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

*****

Barbara Termaat Quotes:

Wrapped around the axel.

You look slicker than deer guts on a door knob.

*****

When you have children the days are long but the years are short.

Lonny Smith

*****

About raising daughters by Brett England:

When you have a boy you worry about a boy. When you have a daughter, you worry about ALL the boys.

*****

It's all very simple.
Or, it's all very complex.
Perhaps it's neither.
Or both.
(forget the author)

*****

She was not quite what you would call refined.
She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

Mark Twain

*****

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.

Albert Einstein

*****

I have a whole list more but they're at home. I'll do another post soon when I have them all in one place.

Of Two Minds

This mornings dream was a doozie. Okay, a doozie by my standards. I say that because I said something in my dream that confounded me a bit. (Confound, in this case means, confused and yet still profound...I don't know what it really means). I was trying to explain why I was having problems doing something. My reply was "The minds can do that to the body." I've been a big believer that the mind is in control of the body, that if the mind is sick the body is sick too. But mindS? We're talking plural here. There's the statement of being of two minds on one matter, but to have two minds ruling the body seems rather extreme.

But could it be a temporal and eternal mind? Could it be a physical and spiritual mind? Both the yin and yang working in tandem to rule the body. Our body doesn't choose to succumb to temptation, but our body normally does the deed. In that case you have to have a consensus of the physical and spiritual minds to allow the body to step into a temptation. A physical temptation that is. Mental temptations are few and far between, but they do happen. So, are our minds always at work, the ephemeral working on the physical, to establish dominance over the other? It's not like the body really has a chance over the brain. I know a lot of people feel that the body has a will and a mind of it's own because sometimes you just can't "help" yourself, and this is a conversation that is brought up between me and other friends about the baser temptations in life. They argue that once you've engaged the body you can't stop it, you have to give in. My argument is Bull S**t! It's not easy but you don't have to completely succumb to temptation EVER just because it feels too good to stop. That's like saying you can't quit smoking because you're just too addicted to it and it feels like you're going to die if you don't have a smoke. The truth of the matter is, you're going to die if you don't stop smoking. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying it's painless, I am saying that it can be done and the mind can overrule the body's urges.

I guess you can say we are a walking evolutionary paradox. The body, left on it's own will hunt, will mate and will function without meaning. No better or worse for ware than the wolves of the wild that stay in intimate family groups both for protection and for companionship. Our physical mind is what pushes the body to find something higher, to establish and assign meaning to the every day mundane tasks of hunting, eating and building a home. The spiritual mind is the epitome of the three as it provides and eternal compass to the physical mind. We do what we do because of what we want to do in eternity.

GOOOOOAAAAAAL!!! Revisited

Okay, after a nice long night of not really sleeping but not really being awake either, I realize this is bothering more than I am willing to admit. I spent the night in dreams about people living in acronyms and houses the size of monopoly hotels on steroids (and just as red). I knew it was my fault and I had to fix it, but like anything, it has to be done piece by piece. So, the first piece of rebuilding this subdivision of goals is to break things up into different pieces Needs (N) verses Want (W), and Time (T) verses Money (M), and then provide a 1 - 3 priority, 1 being the highest. Maybe then I can get some sleep once I have an idea of what I should be doing now as opposed to trying to do everything now.

Needs should always take priority over wants 99.9% of the time, so here are the highest priority wants that have no monetary requirement or time:

Needs
Read Scriptures Daily
Pray Constantly
Increase vocabulary
Be in bed every night by 10:00pm

Needs with Time (I can do these because I'm not restrained by budget and can be done now)
Priority 1:
Read BOM in Spanish
Get SS02 Finished
Do my callings
Write/Keep up in my journal
Get finances straightened out
Transcribe notes out of Lost Christianities and into the computer
Get notes, dreams, ideas out of the small journals into the computer
Get my Young Woman Personal Progress Requirements met
Get mission Statement written and printed

Priority 2:
Exercise regularly
Create my own religion
Write up process for mission statement for the Ensign

Needs with Money (Will have to budgeted and then put on hold until I can afford it)
Priority 1:
Buy a house

Needs with Money & Time
Priority 1
Get healthy

Wants with Time
Priority 1:
Get up at 5:00-5:30 to work every morning
Become better read
Read lost scriptures

Priority 2:
Write Journal Article for New Era
Create origami Christmas Tree Ornaments
Stay on top of Sunday School Lesson
Learn and regularly practice Yoga
Continue research into Spare Parts
Read every night before bed
Keep up with Psyche Stew
Make a good showing on Tolavta
Write my opinion letter to Feinstein
Be active in a community organization

Priority 3:
clicker train Sammy
Get dream about amnesia chick written into a screenplay
Read more! Stop watching so much TV

Wants with Money
Priority 2:
Go back to School
Go to Italy

Wants with Time and Money requirements
Priority 1:
Start my own company

I'm looking at this an it appears that a lot of what I have slated under these are more of a to-do list than an actual goal list. Goals to me, are life changing efforts, not tasks on a list that when it's marked off you don't have to deal with it any more. The needs with a priority of 1 though, who didn't see that coming? Read and Pray always..Isn't' that something taught from the pulpit on any given Sunday?

GOOOOOAAAAAAL!!

I'm one of those people that continually kick myself when I don't reach my goals. I'm very goal oriented in a lot of ways, yet I'm very procrastinating when I'm not trying to push myself further and harder and longer than before. And what's worse about goals with me is once I achieve them, I forget that I've achieved ANYTHING and feel horrible about myself. I normally have to sit down with myself and go over a list of accomplishments that I've achieved as opposed to the list of the things that I haven't. Of late, I've just feel horribly overwhelmed because I'm not getting anything done. So, I decided to make a list of the things that I want to accomplish in a reasonable amount of time, which I know means to most people reasonable, but it gets twisted in my head as RIGHT NOW! Here is the list I came up with in no particular order....

- Read the Book of Mormon in Spanish
- Get Soul Searching 2 Finished (a novel I'm working on)
- Go back to school
- Write Journal Article for New Era
- Go to Italy
- Buy a house
- Clicker train Sammy
- Read scriptures daily
- Create origami Christmas Tree ornaments
- Start my own company
- Do my callings (Canning specialist & Visiting Teaching)
- Stay on top of Sunday School Lesson
- Write/Keep up in my journal
- Exercise regularly
- Take the trolley to work more
- Learn and regularly practice Yoga. (By learn I mean teach myself)
- Get finances straightened out
- Get SANE!! or stop referring to myself as crazy
- Start/Continue research into Spare Parts (another novel)
- Get the dream about the amnesia chick written into a screen play
- Get up at 5:00-5:30 to work every morning
- In bed every night by 10:00pm
- Read every night before bed
- Read more! Stop watching so much TV
- Become less of a B**** when it comes to certain people
- Get healthy
- Be perfect in all things
- Keep up with Psyche Stew
- Make a good showing on Tolavta
- Increase vocabulary
- Become better read
- Transcribe notes out of Lost Christianities and into the computer
- Read Lost Scriptures
- Create my own religion (for writing purposes only)
- Get notes, dreams, ideas out of the small journals into the computer.
- Be a better person
- Pray all the time
- Get my Young Women's Personal Progress requirements met.
- Write my opinion letter to Feinstein
- Be active in a community organization (ASPCA is the current choice)
- Get mission statement written and then printed
- Write up the process for creating a mission statement for the Ensign

Is it any wonder I'm not getting anything done. I spend my time when I should be working on making money on things that require money to accomplish. I need to think this through a little more and stop requiring so much of myself. But mostly I need to realize that I'm not a bad person for not getting everything on my list done.

Questioning

If your mother says your beautiful, is that the same as having a "good personality"?

If the program you're working with refuses to load your head shot because it's too large, is it saying you're fat?

In the game of life, how many "just friends" does one have to go through before they realize that a full brain beats a pair, no matter how big they are?

Is it better to be a ministering angel in the eternities then in a temporal marriage here on earth?

The Other Side of Service

Doing good is it's own reward. Do unto others. Charity is the pure love of Christ. Idle hands are the devils playground. These pithy sayings are jack-hammered into our heads from birth. And if you have a mother that was a believer in them, you were indoctrinated while still enfolded in the womb. What we aren't told about is the other side of service. Being served. How often I have restrained myself from asking for help because I would appear "weak". How I would go without food, or PG&E because I was too "proud" to ask. This isn't about asking the church for help, this is asking for help with ANYTHING. I wouldn't even ask for help from my family for fear of getting harassed, teased or having some perjorative title hanging over my head at all the family functions. I'm not making this up. For example, one time I borrowed $200 for whatever reason and I was invited to stay for dinner. My brother-in-law remarked "Man, that's one expensive dinner." Implying that not only were they giving me money but in essence, they were paying me to eat it and it was SO EXPENSIVE. I try not to even ask any more, and even when I do, they can't afford it. I never ask why. I was raised to not ask for help, not to rely on anyone, yet also raised to believe that family will always be there for you. Just one of the many paradoxes that sculpt my mindscape.

I had no other choice but to go to the Bishop and get help for the family. I was unemployed, my sister was barely employed and my Mom had, once again, dropped her basket (to coin a phrase). I was sitting with the bishop, trying to explain what we were going through, that I wasn't weak, that I'm not stupid and that things just happened and though I didn't prepare like I was supposed to, I was in a bad place. He just smiled and told me it was okay, and that it was even more okay to ask. See, everyone has the giving side of service down to be on the other side of service and allow others to serve you is something we all have to learn as well. Unless we are humble enough to accept help from those offered, provide the service opportunity for friends and family we will never learn to be humble enough to accept the loving service from our Lord and Savior. He has provided us with the greatest of gifts and unless we accept it through taking covenants, through prayer and fasting and through both sides of service we will never truly have the fullness of that gift in our lives. To put it simply, Christ has purchased our eternal abode and by humble acceptance of this will we have our home in eternities future. Service is how we will decorate it.

Stained

Moon Stained, He Glowed
His spirit alight
In the garden, He paid what was owed
On that still spring night.

Tear stained, He wept
Alone and unafraid
Sacred were the promises to be kept
A sinless sacrifice to be made.

Blood stained, He endured
Straining under the weight of our sins
Drinking of the bitter cup, un-demured
Uniting all men as kin.

Glory stained, He stood
Against the accusing hoard
Crucified, tormented, lots drawn in blood
To provide us a seat around the board.

Water stained, at baptism
We take upon His name
His sacrifice unites the schism
So once stained, one will never be the same.

Wrote 6/11/06

When I die....

I want people to leave with flowers instead of bringing them.

I want tears of joy for my life.

I want stories to be as plentiful as tissue.

I want a Dixie Land Band to play the happiest funeral dirges.

A pillow made of marshmallow and
A silken blanket made of spun sugar.

But mostly I want a coffin made of solid dark chocolate.

Life it is truly too short not to have all the perks one wants in death.

Long time no see...

It's been a while, I know. I've been in something of a rut, and not that writing here is going to help me with that. It's not like I have a bevy of readers out there hanging on every blog that flows from the tips of my fingers....and if I actually do, it's not like any of them have made themselves known to me....so in essence, I am alone in cyber space. I wish I could say the same IRL.


Since I last wrote I have committed to my mother that she can stay with me until she dies. (which is a whole quagmire of emotions I'm not going to get into right now. I'll save that for another blog when I have a few hours to dedicate to my feelings and lack of feelings on that subject). But I made it clear to her that the minute I can afford to move to Oregon, I'm going.
She's welcome to come with me or she can stay here but I'm not going to put off my life because she doesn't want to move away from the roses she lets the gardeners tend to.


What is really irritating to me is the total and complete desertion I've gotten from my 'family'. My sister, who originally made the promise to my mom that she would stay with her until she died (granted, no one has expected my mother to live this long) has made it clear that under no circumstances will she ever live with our mom again. Our Mom is so tied into her that she is keeping the small room available to her so when she breaks up with her current boyfriend and her son manages to irritate her out of the apartment she shares with him that she'll have a place to stay. If I move out, I'm sure my room would be turned into her hobby and crafts room almost instantly....or she'd move into my room and turn her room into something less accommodating for my unintentional flight back to the nest. But because my sister has no intention of moving back in, and I'm sure she's still smarting (like we all are) from my mother false allegations of elder abuse, she really doesn't spend any time with her. She used to come and do her laundry at our apartment once a week, but now they have their machines back we don't see her for that any more either. She will arrange to spend a block of time here or there with her, as if in doing that it excuses her in having to do anything thing else. In the meantime, I'm trapped. She knows what's going on with me, because she was there (with me as entertainment) and she's too *busy* with her education and antique-ing that she doesn't realize that sometimes I need someone to just say "hey, let's do something." We did have that arrangement for a while, well, if you count the one month at the beginning of the year when we actually did something, but beyond that, nothing. I can't even keep a consistent family meal with her and her son once every three weeks on the books with them.


I realize I am being selfish and I am only demonstrating perfectly that the world revolves around me, but in reality this is my blog, so it does revolve around me.


I've started a new process of how to think and treat people. It's been helping with being angry at people when they don't live up to a basic modicum of treatment of me. I can't write people out of my life because they hurt me, well, not family any way. At least not family that I have to deal with on a regular basis. I change to designate them as "pets". I have a pet, as most of you know, who I consider to be more than a pet. She will come and sit on my shoulder, give me kisses and hugs, eat food out of my plate and rip the ice cold water glass out of my mouth so she can have a drink too. I can play with her, but if I go too far she lets me know, and when she goes too far I let her know. We have a good grown-up relationship. I don't have this kind of relationship with a lot of the members of my family, and when I don't, you get knocked down to "pet" status. It's not a cruel place to be, by any means. Pets are supposed to be pampered, they're supposed to be fed and cuddled and treated like special highlights in a humans life. Then when they bite you or when they pee on your leg, you aren't shocked, hurt or surprised. And, when it reaches either an ephemeral point in time, you can crate them and cover them and go about doing what you need to do without worrying about what they are doing, caring about what cars or other puppies their chasing in their dreams, it just doesn't have to be anything more than a curiosity to me....and my stress/anger/hurt feelings have really lightened up since then.


Well, I need to get back to work now. I feel a little lighter now that I've got that off my chest. If there actually is someone out there that reads my blogs, let me know so I don't have to labor under the delusion that I'm alone. Thanks!

Eternity Past

I've been reading "Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman. Great book. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know why we have the bible that we have today and the fights and compromises that created the Christian Creed that most doctrine in all Christian churches is built on. One guy even got the pre-existence down almost perfectly. This is like 2 BCE so we aren't talking during the restoration or even the reformation that this knowledge was had.

It makes me think about what it would be like in the post resurrection of Christ. I know after the apostles were killed the priesthood had been taken from the earth so the authority to act in the name of God was taken from the earth but the Holy Ghost remained. The constant comforter guided and directed the people that truly wanted to know and wanted to live a life that would bring them closer to their Heavenly Father and Christ. When you could see that someone was actually looking for the truth, because it had only been a few hundred years since the Truth was on earth, they would come so close. But then you read about the ones that were just working to further their own agendas, to subjugate the early Christians to believe in a way contrary to the word of God, but no so much so that they were sinning. Books were owned by the rich and the poor had to believe in who they thought were best to teach them. Then they'd leave and leave these ignorant presbytery on their own to figure things out. And, if you have ever played the telephone game, you know how messed up things can get when you have to teach things by oral traditions. Dr. Ehrman used the term "eternity past", and it got me thinking about eternity in general. We have been taught to think of our life before the flesh as the "pre-mortal existence", but that denotes a start in our spiritual evolution. Like *poof* one day we appeared from the miasma of the universe and became a sentient being with the desire to grow and learn and progress through the mortal coil and forward. But we have always been, we always are, and we always will be. That's hard to wrap my brain around at time, but it sure does take the pressure off of my perceived failures and inabilities of this life.

With the new term, Eternity Past, that means we are in Eternity Present and we are heading into Eternity Future. Eternity....What a way to live!

The Eternal Circle

By His blood I am sanctified

By His works I am edified

By His love I am justified

By my blood He is justified

By my works He is edified

By my love He is sanctified

The wonder of words....

I've started posting my words for the week on my cube wall at work. Nothing really flamboyant, I don't want people to know just how many words I don't know. I'm never not amazed at how misleading words can be. For example, today's word is sartorial. I try to pull some meaning out of the word before I look it up to see how close I am to the implied meaning.

Sartorial, to me, sounds like a blended word or sarcasm and editorial. So, a sarcastic editorial.

In reality it is thus:

Sartorial: of or relating to a tailor or tailored clothes; broadly of or relating to clothes.

I can use sartorial as a sarcastic editorial, that works for me, but how do you use this word to enhance another word....

Another word for the week for me is Ascetic

Ascetic: 1) Practicing strict self denial as a measure of a personal and especially Spiritual discipline. 2) Austere in appearance, manner or attitude.

So I guess I could make someone a sartorial ascetic, but no one would know what I was trying to say any more than I know what I'm trying to say. Less known words are fun to pull out of your hat when you're in a discussion with someone but when you write for the general public, you have to stay with the more comon words. I guess that's the true anathema of being a writer.

It's not the rejection, it's the waiting for the rejection...

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, maybe I'm a dooms-dayer of sorts, but I am eagerly checking my e-mail every day for Covenant Publishers e-mail of rejection. Not that my work is all that bad, it does need some TLC in the copy editing department, but then what first draft to the publisher doesn't need that? Maybe a manual on copy editing, but this is fiction.

My mind often trips on the daydream about what it would be like to have to go on a book tour, even if it is to different LDS bookstores around the US. I've been trying to figure out how I would do it because me traveling a lot isn't good for Sammy, the feathered beast. I know that's silly, but I take my responsibility to her seriously and when you join a flock or become apart of this animals wild kingdom, you need to take that into consideration. She isn't going to understand me being gone for more than a day or two. Sure, people will still be interacting with her, she will get fed but she is mine and I am hers and she misses me. For example, she starts to have a fit (fit means screaming at the top of her lungs) at 5:30pm, about when I should be home from work Monday - Friday. Then, she has to be on my shoulder the rest of the night until bedtime (hers not mine). It's just what birds do when they find their flock. So, this is my idea..... http://www.fleetwoodrv.com/americaneagle/

Not that I can really expect to earn $300,00-400,000 from my first book, but one can dream. This way I can take Sammy with me. Figure out some place to put a cage. She wouldn't really need a big one because she'd just have to sleep in it and eat in it. I'd try to construct a perch for the front seat for her so she can ride up front with me. But I could live in this, and then go to places where I can visit nice places, make the book tour and not have to go to hotel to motel to pension but have a feather bed to sleep in each night, a place to work, a place where I can close the door and know that I am the only one that has slept in the bed, the only one that has padded around the floor in my bare feet. I wouldn't have to worry about eating out because I can cook in.....but I don't really cook but I can learn.

I know, most of you are rotflyao at me right now. But I take my pet stewardship seriously, as all animal owners should. Parrots can live over 50 years, we're not talking a gold fish here. Sammy has an expected life span of 40-75 years. Depending on how well I take care of her. I think she'll live to be 100 considering how I take care of her. But mostly, I think, I don't want to leave her behind if I have to go on any extended tour. If I could get me one of these I could live in it and work remotely from anywhere in the US, Canada or even Mexico (I don't think I'm that adventurous though).

So, this is how I occupy my time while I'm waiting for the rejection. Not that I'm going to get rejected, I know, but I could and then I have to start this process all over again. So, I'd rather dream bout 1/2 million dollar RV's to travel the US in doing book tours than thinking about what I'm going to do if/when they come back with "thank you but no" or worse, send me a form rejection letter....which would truly hurt. That's how Deseret Books done me. And to add insult to injury, the form letter reads like a Jr. High Schooler wrote it.

I'll save the general fear of going to book signings and giving talks about my book and concepts for another blog. Which is another reason why I would need a place like this of my own to go back to and 'recover' if you will.

I really should be working....

Well, I really should. I mean, that is what they pay me for.....but there are times when money just doesn't satiate the souls wages. The worth of a soul is great in the eyes of God, but that doesn't feed the endless hunger of this life as the physical drains the spiritual of the intangibles to decorate the temporal psyche. Right now, my soul feels like the fog as it lumbers over the Golden Gate Bridge and wrapping the mental structures in an opaque mist making me feel alone and forgotten on the earth. I know I'm not. The conference calls of the other toilers in my cube farm confirm to my mind that I'm not alone, but my soul, my soul cries for recognition and fulfillment. I've always thought chocolate was the answer, and I still manage to kid myself that it is, but true soul wealth has to come from the outside in, stemming the hemorrhaging of the body draining the soul of ectoplasm until it can no long support the body and it slumps in defeat and exhaustion in the ergonomic, pneumontically adjustable chair.

I think work is the culprit. Yes, I should be working to pay the bills, but not at the cost of robbing my soul of it's wealth. Robin Hood had it right, steal from the rich of the world and give to the poor of soul, it's the only way to live. Except, no tights, which is even better.