CyberGalsBlog

Beyond Therapy: Trusting Your Community

2011-12-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

Although I've been done with actual therapy for years, I finally completed the process last Monday. Therapy gives you a theoretical framework upon which to re-build your life. You learn the how and why of what brought you to therapy. You eventually realize you are DONE! I may not know everything that happened to me, but I know ENOUGH. You leave counseling and begin actually living life.

I have many shame issues around my several disabilities. When our church plays the "drawing" game I have always declined to participate. You are in teams, you are given an object to draw and your team has 30 Seconds to figure out what you have drawn. This was the first year I dared to actually draw and be a part of this game.

A blind friend of mine lamented that I couldn't participate in the picture-guessing when others drew something. I decided not to be a downer on the other 30 people at the party and just accept this very small item that I couldn't participate in.

When my turn came I joked that I didn't want something really complicated like The Waldorf Astoria. I had to draw a Christmas Wreath. I quickly drew a sketch like I used to do for Physics problems and my team got it right away. What a victory! I felt so much better having made an effort, vs just sitting back wondering what it would be like to participate.

Unfortunately, my shame issues really got me in another area of my life. I use a walker and hate the idea of using the lift on the bus. I got up before the driver had fully positioned the bus. I was parallel with the seats near the door when the bus lurched forward and I fell with all my weight on the right rail of my walker. I had the wind knocked out of me and it turns out that I cracked a rib.

Needless to say, when I can get back to my normal life in about a month, I'll ALWAYS take the lift! I can hear you all saying I have nothing to be ashamed of, but that damage is something God has been healing me of for years. (Guess I'm not done huh)?

Unlike when I was laid up after being hit by a car, this time, I follow directions and am totally thankful and at peace. People call me and I have folks willing and ready to assist me with laundry and shopping anytime I request it. I am so very thankful. People don't have to deal with me and having learned to be thankful does wonders for my general attitude.

I think of this phase of my life as the "lab" that goes with the "lecture" known as therapy.

Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year to one and all.

News Addiction

2011-11-09T10:20:00.000-08:00

Today I read another sarcastic commentary about how people are wasting their lives watching television. The Internet got a short mention, but compared to television, it was only a minor offender.

I don't own a TV, and don't try to watch it via the Internet. (I experience such a smug sense of moral superiority). However, I never met a news service I didn't like.

Our Women's Bible Study has decided to do a 40-day-fast not on food, but on other time-sealers. Reality escapes like: TV, shopping or complaining. (ooh, not ready to even attempt that one)!

So, I picked broadcast news (radio, pod casts and the very tasty (visual) RSS news headline feed.

After only one full week of seriously avoiding all my beloved news programs, I realize that:

I have more energy because I get an actual night's sleep instead of being awake until 2:00 AM and having to rise at around 5 AM. I was dragging constantly.
I'm accomplishing more real work then I have for the last six months! (Around the time I changed from getting some news to trying to get ALL of the news)!

I added it all up and realized I was listening to almost 39 hours of news a week! Sunday night was the hardest, as that is my special marathon night of a glorious 8 hours of various news programs!

I am ashamed to realize how much time News Addiction was steeling from my life.

Why I Don't Go To Movie Theaters Any More

2011-09-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

The movie industry is bemoaning sagging theater attendance. They struggle to entice audience back (and it isn't working).

Funny how something so simple evades those guys in suits pulling down 6 figures. I just finished watching a rented movie via iTunes for $2.99. At a movie theater, $2.99 might cover some of the tax on my expenses for the evening.

I would get to pay $10 or more just to get in to see the movie. I'm forced to sit through at least 5 to 10 minutes of commercials, where the volume is turned WAY up. Eventually the movie I wanted to see rolls around.

Being an experienced movie goer, I've purchased my huge bucket of popcorn with extra butter. Popcorn for a price which makes me think of airport prices as being fair and balanced! But who can watch a movie without popcorn?

In the theater I'm subjected to the following "fringe benefits":

sticky floors with and without moisture
people talking to each other / their cell phones / the movie
Language used by 6-year-olds, in response to my request for quiet, which would shock a drunken sailor
people throwing things, usually popcorn, at each other, or the screen
inability to hear softer dialogue due to all of the above

Here at home I avoid all of the nonsense above, truly relax and enjoy a movie for only $2.99.

OK all you MBA's out there, which would you choose?

The "Hidden" Cost Of Abandoning Social Media

2011-06-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

Back in August I got off facebook.com. A month later I also left twitter.com. I still have to leave several other social media sites, but I rarely used them and don't believe they are as abusive to me as facebook.com was.

I am saddened today by receiving an "invitation" to join facebook.com from a local friend. It was shown in my email as a "bulk" item; meaning it could have gone out to every name on my friend's contact list. I had a sick feeling inside as I pondered my friend innocently leaping into a world where she can easily become a victim of several "bad things" which can happen on the internet.

I emailed her privately and explained my refusal to re-involve myself with social media. To date I've heard nothing from her. I miss out on all those fun pictures and snippets of life she will share with (potentially) everyone. It is a lonely place to be.

However, when I was actively involved in social media, I noticed a serious disconnect. There was a vast sense of "surface" and "fluff" communication. Twitter is only 120 characters per message and the problem became very blatant over time.

I noticed a heightened sense of frustration as I tried to more deeply connect with people. No one has time for that any more. They are off to a conference, or a second job or (God forbid) they have to leave cyberspace to go home and relate to the real human beings in their family.

I have difficulty connecting with people. This is not news to me. I realize that cyberspace is no solution to feeling isolated. As the Bible so rightly advises "If you want friends; show yourself friendly" Busy business people aren't interested in me. I occasionally blog something of interest to that group, but usually, not so much.

I am concentrating on the friends I have at church. I take small steps in trust and have been rewarded with actual shared communication and time.

But, there is that "pull" to follow the crowd and "join in." I refuse this impulse because greed wins out. To re-connect with all those wonderful things on facebook makes my entire life and identity the property of anyone with money (advertisers) or time (stalkers, spammers etc.) I find myself away from the crowd, either "one step ahead, or behind" I don't know at this point. This willlingness to not follow the pack is one trait in a leader.

I accept this position, but am a little surprised to find myself here.

June 2, 2011 addition.

Several friends have left the facebook.com madness. One woman, who made it quite clear she was married and only interested in friendship got driven off from some low-class men inquiring about dating her! (This is a woman who is openly dedicated to church life and I'm amazed she got that kind of communication.

The more I hear about violations of privacy on social media, the more thankful I am that I got out. I'm getting involved with a religious website. I'll find out in short order how trustworthy they are by the email I may or may not receive.

I Choose "Life"!

2011-04-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

I've been busy living an interesting and dynamic life. Somewhere between 2009 and now I've embraced the discipline of growing up. I'm learning self-discipline and self-control.

The rewards? A social life I used to bitterly rage about not having. I've been elected to my church's board of directors. The board then voted me as the secretary for the board and the general business meeting. Even though we are a small church, I keep minutes that could be used by my State, if they wanted to check up on something.

I am now 165 pounds, walking 4 miles each day, except Sunday. I now wear a size 16-18 instead of a 22-24. I refuse to fall into a swamp of depression when a friend I care about insists on not taking proper care of themselves. I have said my piece and there is nothing else to do, besides pray that the real cause of my friends behavior will be healed by God.

I have fought long and hard for all of the above. When I heard that my friend is (once again) back in the hospital, possibly facing more body-part amputations, I fell into a stooper of helpless rage.

After a quick call to a friend, I forced myself to stop staring at a wall and get up and take my 4 mile walk. It took over 3 miles before the downer mood lifted.

My being all bummed out will not bring change to my friend. Serious prayers, as I have been praying have a good chance of changing the underlying issue. Once that issue is cleared up, my friend will truly rise to the kind of newness of life I have discovered.

I've also returned to a favorite hobby of making a latch hook rug as a Christmas present this year. I will be writing in detail on all of this, but my life is turning into the real deal.

I have something to do, someone to meet and somewhere to go, the three basic building blocks of a fulfilling life.

Quick Update On Why Government subsidized Housing Doesn't Work.

2010-08-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Happily a small community near me has a nice web page where they advertise when SECTION 8 or CITY-BASED housing options become available..

I am 57, legally blind AND use a walker. My current room is a 30-stair walk-up, (no elevator). Yeah, its probably illegal, but Landlord is excellent. (Besides suing him out of business would not secure me a better place to live. I'd just have NO place to live).

This city has 7 (seven) units that will become available for seniors (62+ ). My 2 major disabilities don't matter at all!

God, I love The Americans With Disabilities Act. Because of this legislation, I've become invisible!

There is a lottery of 100 (one hundred) spots that is being gathered now from (ready)? 10,000 (ten thousand) applications!

I am staying put and am not bothering to throw any paper after this particular mirage!

7/10,000 = Actual units/resident need = .07%

I no longer feel insane to realize that the government attempts to 'help' the poor are non-existent for me!

I finally let all of the government options lapse.

For the Hayward list, I was 153,482 in the run for Section 8.

In Berkeley I was 57,028. Actually got a voucher, but my disabilities were clearly stated on the application NOT to qualify for the building. So, I lost my place in line for a lie. This run to a voucher took over eight years! Can you say 'shell-game' anyone?

In Oakland I was #1! Yeah, for years. Every time a new HIV/AIDS patient came through, (you guessed it)! I was shot down to #2, or sometimes even #3. After years of this I finally let it lapse.

If I want to believe in fairy tales, I don't need the government to assist me.

Open Letter To The ATU From An Angry Bus Rider

2010-07-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

I am nearly blind, use a walker and rely solely on "public" transportation. Here in the Oakland, CA area that includes AC Transit and BART. Every so often one of these unionized entities decides to play a nasty game of "chicken" with their management.

AC Transit, at the moment is having a labor/management dust-up. A court injunction favored the union and they return to court on the 30th for a continued decision. (Oh, blah, blah, blah).

So, while the union goes to court, management says that the new "unapproved" contract went into effect Saturday, 7/17/10. The union can't strike (yet), so they are having what is termed "a rolling sick-out". So double the normal absent drivers. Buses are severely delayed, or just cancelled all together. This is bad for passengers and the brave drivers alike. Passengers are late and on crammed buses with other angry customers. They end up yelling at the driver, who is attempting to continue to work under dreadful emotional conditions cited above.

I am going to have to take a cab from my home to where I can connect with BART (a rail system) that is (so far) not on strike. Oh how wonderful that prospect of paying for a cab on a fixed income.

I've heard sob stories from both sides. They are accusing one another of lying to the public. Well, frankly, I hope Alameda County just shuts the whole system down. It will be a drag to have no bus service, but I believe some fortunate folks who are currently employed (far above the minimum wage) need an attitude adjustment.

If AC Transit is shut down, those same drivers will look back with longing for the-non-existent job they just couldn't tolerate. Now facing unemployment and truly terrible minimum wage jobs they will get to discover how many of their former passengers are forced to live.

ATU, you think Alameda County won't shut the system down as a way of trumping a strike? I refer you to a group of former air traffic controllers who tried it under Reagen and gee, they're gone from that job.

Better think it through before you force Alameda County to "solve" this money problem, more dramatically then you ever dared to imagine.

Withdrawel From All Group Social Media In Response to Facebook.Com Abuse

2010-06-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

When social media started I loved it. It was the high tech equivalent to "water cooler" conversation in brick-and-mortar office. Since I virtually "live" on my computer this new form of "community" was perfect.

Companies honored their privacy agreements. What you desired to be kept private actually stayed that way.

Then facebook.com got really big and popular. They just couldn't resist the pull of all that interpersonal data not being shared with advertising firms and God-knows-who-else. Now, if a friend of mine clicks something which pulls them into being picked-up by other cites, I'm dragged along. I say "hell no!"

If I know you well enough to have your email, or phone number we can remain in touch. Otherwise, I'm beginning the somewhat difficult process of "pulling out" of social media.

I believe this slow exodus of users from social media will be the beginning of the downfall of another abuse of customer trust. Greed never learns.

When you permanently delete your facebook.com account, it isn't "real" for 2 weeks, while someone prays you change your mind. ba-bye facebook.com! ba-bye!

I'm Living The Life I've Always Dreamed Of!

2010-03-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't abandoned this blog. I have just been busy living my new kind of life. A life filled with common-sense eating, exercise, work, play and God. Here are the vital statistics from last March (2009) to today:

Last Year: 205 pounds.
This Year: 182 Pounds -23 pounds. Sometimes I'm down as low as -30 pounds.

The great news is I'm keeping the weight off, improving my physical fitness and have finally gotten totally off white sugar. God, that is a FIGHT!

For the first time in years my Dr. didn't yell at me during my physical. She looked at my lower blood pressure, pulse rate and weight and KNEW I'd finally gotten some sense about caring for my body.

I walk 2 miles a day, between 3 and 6 days a week. I don't try to power walk, or anything like that. I just walk at a quick, but comfortable pace with my ever trusty walker. My entire body is changing shape and I'm getting muscle tone where I never had it before.

More later. The true joy of the physical was flunking the "clinical Depression Checklist". I had "never" for all 4 questions! Nutrition works, but for those of you who want the "quick fix" it took about 9 months before I started noticing some of the changes listed above. To truly "heal" a damaged body takes time, discipline and that awful p-word: patience.

Bringing Every Thought Under Control. Fighting Negative Emotions.

2009-09-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

Sitting at my computer in numb disbelief I ponder what the State of California has done to me. After I get through paying Medicare, HMO (they work together), rent, Internet, cell phone, bus pass, food and Netflix I have a whole $12 left at the END of each month! Rage begins to build. Losing all perspective I march down to my landlord's office to tell him of this lousy state of affairs. I do nothing to mask my rage. My landlord's two dogs begin fighting.

I remember immediately that my emotions are out of control and feel bad that I have encouraged some kind of problem between two loving animals. The dog fight brings me back to reality. I have a situation, not a disaster. God hasn't vacated His throne, but I need to grow up emotionally.

When I go to church and play "pity me, like I'm pitying myself" games I get gently, but firmly put in my place. When I am honest and state why I'm upset, I am comforted and gently reminded that I am still blessed. (But it is alright to be sad, or angry. You just can't attempt to stay in that unhappy place).

Oh how I hate hearing similar things in church all the time. "I was mad because I had no shoes, until I saw a person who had no feet." This encourages perspective and gratitude. (From time to time I detest being told I should remember to be thankful).

I heard from a friend last night. She was very down. Thank goodness I have learned a bit of restraint. I don't like looking at someone Else's depression when I feel close to depression myself. I resisted the very real temptation to tell her to "get over it."

Like me, she loses perspective, getting mad, jealous and envious. With those things ruling her mind, she then settles down to remember what a total failure she is. (Man, I flirt with this stuff constantly).

I have made some money with my work. Being alone in a house with a cat, or a dog can be difficult. Without the weekly church meetings, it is very easy for me to get lost in ME. Before my friend called, I'd been pondering my choices about my money:

Go to hotel for a night with an expensive dinner OR

buy new walking shoes, a computer desk and new shelving.

I cannot do it all. I fought despair all day, but gave in a bit with a nap. I felt my attitude deteriorating into apathy, despair, rage. Coming up the rear - good 'ol self hatred. (You know you could have gotten off the system and gotten a real job, if you weren't such a lazy failure).

That last bit is a total load of garbage. Back to what I know works.

God I am thankful for ...?

God I trust You and I will continue to put you first in my life.

God, help me to start thinking of someone else, who isn't blessed like I am, RIGHT NOW!

My friend and I had a good long talk. She thanked me for helping her get perspective. I have to thank her for showing me how important the constant reinforcement of church has strengthened me for the times my work forces me to be alone. I clearly see that my emotional strength and stability comes from hanging around God and His people.

Yes, I need medication. Without it, I believe I'm a spider who needs to be killed. But with a stabilized mind I have some say as to how depressed I become. The consequences of letting myself fall into a total emotional collapse are harder to recover from, then the effort it takes to stop an emotional slide before it turns into a physical, chemical reaction. Said reaction would require medical intervention. Funny, I believe I'm learning to actually grow up.

I know my friend faces similar temptations. Thankfully, she has the means to secure some therapy. A process which will unlock some of those terrible prisons of her past. She claims I helped her. God helped us both. I prayed to Him as I spoke to my friend. He answered questions for both of us. I see growth and hope.

Financially, it isn't as grim as I first stated. I save some money each month which brings my play money down to $12. Maybe I can accept having to WAIT until I've saved the money before I just go out and buy something? What a concept. It seems silly, but if I save money first, I can give myself those lovely moments of having money to just "blow". Maturity requires planning, whereas letting myself just be impulsive causes me to borrow money. I'm tired of having people ask me, "But, what happened to the money..." If I never hear that question again, this self-discipline thing will have been totally worth the struggle.

Gads, My Life Has Been Totally Transformed: Different Calendars For Different Things.

2009-09-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

I am in love with Gmail and most things Google. They offer a calendar with your account and it is great. It is easy to add or delete or change an event. They also included the ability to have shared calendars with friends. I get the concept, but most of my on-line friends live thousands of miles away. They also haave a way for one person to have several different calendars.

I stopped and pondered why in the world would I want to have more then one calendar when I'm the one involved in all activities listed on said calendar? (One color calendar).

When you start really moving from surviving to thriving, you have more energy to do
things. Events started to overlap. I found myself attempting to figure out overlapping job duties. Cat job ends in the morning and dog sitting starts as soon as I leave cat gig. Now I had a reason to visually understand when different events were happening on the same day. Coloring Book 1A. (Multi-color calendar)

Make separate calendars for dog , cat and church. I hated the thought of having to re-enter events from one calendar into another. But all I have to do is go to the calendar drop-down menu within any event and select a new calendar. BAMB! New color for an already established event! Darn, what a concept!

Long ago, back when I had a paper week-at-a-glance book, I learned that if you didn't make it into my calendar, you didn't exist. I have a terrible memory for details like that. From time to time I'd double-book myself at two events at the same time! Lunch with Cathy AND cleaning a house somewhere. That book with all my events in it saved me more then once.

Now the same thing is all on-line.

In having to do this I am stunned to remember the time when I had very little to do and even less willingness to engage with events (even if I did have something to do). Now I have all sorts of things happening all the time. Just the way I like it.

Calendar reminds me of re-occurring stuff like bills (I choose not to pay on-line automatically), Dr. and social appointments, work and the mountain of church details I need to know.

Tools don't make sense until you have a need for them.

Once Again I comprehend: I've moved out of even recovery and into having a "real life."

I rarely have to stop, turn around and face some memory which I need to "process". Depression does come, but most of the time it is like being tempted to visit an old habit. When I don't want to do, or face something. I feel that pawl come over me. A feeling like I've lost everything good in the world. I have decided to fight that with a dose of reality.

Yeah, I have financial issues and problems, but: " THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE AND I WILL rejoice in it." (Psalm 118:24.) I start to find things that are good with the "right now." I hate the rain, but I'm dry and warm on a bus. I'm thankful to have somewhere to go. I'm thankful there IS a bus. AND I'm thankful I am not so disabled I can't ride said bus. I find the more I practice the above, the faster the depression leaves.

Now I am growing more of a conscience. I used to "lift" certain material off the internet with the help of friends. I discovered I can't do that anymore. When I tried it last week and went to church to pray, I couldn't pray. I knew I had to fes up to bad behavior and resolve to get rid of what I'd swiped. I had to make up my mind to steal no more. OUCH!

Close friends are more then happy to teach me all those "little things." I never learned in childhood. keeping yourself honest with others and yourself stops a whole lot of people issues, too.

To living life!

(Re)-Learning To Play The Piano Is A Lot Like Life.

2009-08-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

My Casio keyboard is standing against the wall in my room. I've made up my mind I'm going to find someone to teach me to play the piano by ear. I refuse to fight with sheet music any more. I found an audio course on the net by Bill Brown, who provides Music By Ear" lessons for very reasonable prices.

I made a CD of the first course and took off for two weeks of cat-sitting in a house with a real Grand piano! I indulged those silly images of me wow-ing some audience somewhere. But I played the piano in college and I know it can be done. I forgot about the "frustration" element.

Of course the first few lessons were a breeze. Mary Had A Little Lamb never sounded so good. Heck, this is EASY!

Then Mr. Brown brought me back to reality. I learned the C major scale. I remembered some of the cross-over, Cross-under finger movements, so I proceeded, perhaps a bit slower.

Then he taught me something totally new. In every key, there are chords built within that key. My job was to learn the chords: C, F, and G. How to move from Chord to chord with each hand separately, and then (the real challenge) playing both hands at the same time.

Years ago I injured the fourth finger on the right hand, the ring finger. It is permanently bend up at the joint closest to the fingertip. Playing notes without adding that lazy fourth finger is do-able, but playing three fingers at once and not laying down that fourth finger is darn near impossible.

I quickly found that I can tolerate a total practice time of ten minutes. Half on scales and the rest of the time on those dreaded chords. I see progress, but only at a snails pace. I believe it is this very frustrating time of drill learning which keeps many people from continuing with an instrument. How many times in life have I gotten bogged-down and just quit?

Yeah, my sorry blundering will clear up into correctly played chords and tunes. My time will increase, but I have to be patient and consistent. That "a little bit everyday" routine. I can do this like a motorist at a stoplight gunning the engine, or I can accept reality and relax. Slow is not the same thing as making NO progress. That is, unless I just walk away in disgust and let someone else learn to play, while I drift into jealousy. It is a situation entirely within my control.

I choose to hit it again tomorrow for at least ten minutes and I'll report from time to time, as my skill level increases.

Say "ba-bye" To Ethics: Thanks Microsoft

2009-08-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd see a business so blatantly abandon all ethics.

When times were good Microsoft gave away free domains for life when you signed up for Office Live. After the passing of time they had to change the terms. Existing "free" domains stayed that way, but the new people. You've now gotta pay. That's fair, as we've all watched the current economic upheaval. But now EVERYBODY pays. "Free" isn't "Free" anymore.

Microsoft's addition to this year's lexicon: "Its a change".

Microsoft back pedals on "free domain for life": Buzz Out Loud #1038:

Enjoy this pod cast. They do an excellent job with this sad tale.

Learning To Embrace Unpleasant Tasks As Part Of A Great Life

2009-07-09T02:31:00.000-07:00

This morning the temperature was mild, the sun was streaming through the curtains and the cat I'm looking after was outside at play. Thanks to my Brita water filter pitcher and portable coffee maker the house had that great scent of freshly brewed coffee. I sat at the dining room table with deep satisfaction, looking over my prepared meal. All I had to do now was enjoy it. Something stirred in my mind. Why haven't I been doing things like this all along?

Usually, when doing pet care, I'd either eat what the owner or I bought. I'd choose the easy, frozen and quick. Substantial nutrition: corn dogs, pizzas, Fudge Brownie Ice Cream and lots of instant coffee.

After six weeks of a very scary bout with the flu I changed my diet and my world. No white sugar or chemicals. I have gone organic. But I know how my employers would react if I asked them to provide water filtration and "only-organic-fresh-blah-blah-blah" food. Most people assume a fresh carrot from Safeway is the same as a fresh carrot from Trader Joe's, or Whole Foods. No, but I realized it was my problem, not my employers problem.

Now I require a medium suitcase and a backpack along with my walker when I am away from home for work, or even on vacation. I have to plan, work and plan again to keep up my new diet, even when I don't feel like it.

I didn't want to go to all that effort for a ten-day job. But drinking unfiltered water really bothers me after a few days. So, I cleared the laundry out of my medium suitcase and started packing.

Water filter and new portable coffee maker, filters, coffee, medications, vitamins, jar of nuts, produce from my refrigerator that had to come with me, or wilt while I am away. Sigh, then I had to deal with clothes and toiletries. Organic soap, shampoo and after over ten years a new Gelette Fusion razor. (Whoa, that is a great razor). I could feel my back ache under the load of the backpack.

I caught myself toying with the temptation to "forget the whole thing". But I am afraid of getting sick again, so I began this new adventure. Medium suitcase on walker seat, backpack on my back and I'm off to work. Bus drivers and fellow passengers were wonderful. I had use of the bus lift and passengers were eager to help with the suitcase.

Getting up and down stairs is now a two part process. Suitcase goes down on first trip and then I come back with the walker. Then suitcase rides the walker and I continue the journey. I was shocked at how I resented having to do all this extra work.

A few moments in prayer reminded me of how fortunate I am to a) have a job to go to b) have the ability and strength to walk and lift weight and c) the funds to buy the water filter and coffee maker. Some people can't walk, or carry, or buy anything. They are bedridden and too sick to go anywhere. Returning to being grateful for the many good things in my life stopped my "Its tragic, me having to work so hard" pity party.

I began learning a new lesson about work when I went on the mini cruise to Vancouver Canada. There were experiences aboard ship that I found jaw-dropping wonderful. Moments of religious splendor, being awed by the beauty and size of the open ocean. The food was as good or even better than what I enjoyed at Squaw Creek up in the Sierras.

There were also moments where I wanted to scream in total frustration. Due to the Swine Flu outbreak, all ships bound for Mexico were diverted. Many of them came to Vancouver. Each ship carrying between 2,000 and 7,000 passengers. We were ship four and instead of leaving the ship on schedule, we were hung up in the bay for almost an hour before we even got to the dock!

The last morning on a ship is a bit insane. Everyone has to eat and get their rooms cleared out by a certain time. Then we all gather to get off the ship and WAIT. That entire morning tried all my spiritual skills. While hating the situation I remember longing for the "easy" Courtyard Hotel vacation with a hot tub in the room... Man, I'll never do this cruise stuff again!

Then I remembered some of the great parts of the cruise. Maybe some of the good part comes with something that is hard. This was an entirely new concept for me. I'd learned it on the job, but I'd always shied away from "hard" everywhere else in my life.

I had already planned to do a longer cruise to visit the glaciers of Alaska. But I kept coming back to this having to wait issue. Waiting in line for food, during the safety drill and while Canada processed our ship to come into their port. Yeah, I'd put up with the hard, because there were other parts of a cruise which are completely worth the effort.

I now realize I've had to take this same lesson into life in general. It is a bit difficult to lug my extra things to a work location. But, it is so nice to have the water I like and fresh brewed coffee. It is also worth the effort of preparation when I sit down to a lovely omelet, or complex salad. One thing about fresh fruit and vegetables, they have work associated with their presence in a meal.

I am shocked to realize that as a child, the neglect I experienced taught me all the wrong things about caring for myself. My parents were troubled, ill people. However, I lived on jars of cold baby food until I was put into a foster home at age seven. My parents were arrested for child neglect while I was taken from them in a police car.

When this came out in therapy my Doctor got extremely upset. I was nowhere near having a clue as to why this wasn't a good way to care for a child. Most of the time mommy remembered to keep baby food in "my cabinet" and I could get it whenever I wanted. My Doctor pointed out that this scheme also made it possible for my parents both to be in alcoholic stupors without having to feed their child. (oops).

My mother hated having to deal with me. Sadly, even after years of therapy and being around loving friends, I still carried that pattern of loathing to put in effort for myself. Now, if YOU were coming over, heck, I'd bust my back to make it all nice. But for me?

Up until my diet change, I'd hate to do work for myself so much I'd sometimes not bother to go to the store when I needed food. I'd just live on rice, or noodles, or whatever was around.

SURPRISE!

Just like in my childhood!

Oh nuts!

This is very painful to write. Until I wrote of it, I'd never realized my "funk" about not shopping was just re-visiting my life of being a neglected child. Now that it is out in the open God can cure me of it, like He has freed me from so many other crazy patterns from the past.

I long to tell you all, that knowledge will set you free, but I've known about the baby food deal for 20 years, but never realized I was still acting out that self-hatred I learned from my mother. I'm glad I finally got the lesson, but God, how I hate the never-ending process of attempting to have a normal life, learning to thrive, and not just to survive child abuse.

Once You Stop Eating Chemicals & Sugar, This Diet Is Self-Correcting.

2009-06-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well, its rolling into the 3rd or 4Th week of seriously eliminating as much crud from my diet as is humanly possible. I've hit that time we all know so well. It isn't new, novel or exciting anymore.

Oh Lord, I hate having to explain to people at church why I no longer eat deserts, why I don't drink Coke, or 99% of what's popular as "comfort/party" food. I find my mind longing for, oh, chocolate cake, Doritos and sugar and milk in my coffee!

I discovered that putting milk in my coffee sets off the "this would be PERFECT with some SUGAR longings. So, (sigh), I now take coffee black.

Last Thursday the ladies at church had a real "tea party". We were exploring this as a possible fund-raiser for later in the summer. It was totally awesome. China tea pots, decaffeinated tea and HEALTHY food. Salad, Fruit medley and baked chicken. I felt free to chow down. It was all wonderful.

Suddenly I saw (out of the corner of my eye) that platter of already sliced yellow cake with chocolate icing go by. I stopped my friend and got my piece of this "no-no, oh-heck-I-can-get-away-with-this." desert.

I was surprised that it didn't taste as good as I remembered, but I cleaned up my plate.

Friday I woke up late feeling "strange". I sensed that something wasn't right. I felt like I was sick enough to have to not go to noon prayer. Nah, just lazy. I got up and -- aw-oh! I had the "trots".

It took almost 12 hours for my poor digestive system to stop having its tantrum. I had plans for this day and holding court on the throne was not on my agenda.

So, now I realize that, at least when it comes to sugary deserts, my body will force me to give them up. That is a first!

Once the sugar again cleared out of my system, I returned to my stronger state of health. I have slight lung congestion, but I suspect that is simply my immune system finally having enough room to clear out some of the damage I've done to my body via over 10 years of smoking cigarettes, pot and hash.

Well, that's it from the health front. I will be writing of my two mini-vacations (with pictures) over the next few weeks.

I have to brag. I worked 11 hours today, taking frequent brakes, but no actual nap and I still have energy to take care of a blog post, dinner and spending some time with a vaporizer. Its a miracle I tell ya, just a plain miracle.

Since I don't use the Gabriel Method CD, what do I do to replace that part of his plan? I spend at least ten minutes a day sitting in God's presence thanking him for what I desire. A truly healthy body.

I thank Him for helping me to root out all those old memories of abuse which still make me angry. I have to "release my right to punish". 'I release them and pray that good things will happen to them. If I am grinding my teeth in rage while I do this, I know I still have to work on that person, or institution.

I thank Him for the gifts of protection and assurance, which are healing and bringing to the surface people I'd thought I was finished being angry at. When I catch myself wanting to hurt them, I know I have work to do. The more I do, the more stuff comes up. Getting rid of all that free-floating rage can't be anything but good for my body, soul and spirit.

Prayer really heals all that anger. After awhile, God shows me something about the person which causes me to see what they did in a more realistic light. Something which brings up my true compassion for them. Then after several more days, I realize I've stopped having the "rage fantasies". When those little movies of me smashing in a skull, or stabbing someone truly stop, I know I'm over one more person who is a lot more troubled then I have ever been.

Do I always want to attend to all of this? Heck NO, but I've learned through other hard lessons that the reward is in doing what is right every day, little bit, by little bit to create a tomorrow much better then I could imagine.

Finding a "sane" way to eat.

2009-06-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

Shortly after my last post in March 2009, I went on a week's vacation to Portland Oregon. Eight of us went to support our pastor when he preached at the church of one of his closest friends. I overate, drank too much coffee and had a blast. Everything from hotel vending machine banquette Ala Junk Food, to a home-cooked soul food meal. It was totally lovely. I'll share all the vacation goings on in another post.

When I returned home, within a day I was flat-on-my-back sick. After six weeks of mainly being bed ridden I called my HMO to see if they could give me a shot, or something. Our area was full of this dry cough, fever, sniffles and flu wipe-out. The frustrated advice nurse listed home remedies I'd always dismissed as goofy . A sinus clean-out with warm water, small amounts of salt and baking soda, inhaled (I thought of straws and cocaine). I was to sit under steaming water, while keeping my room humid with the steam and taking two over-the-counter medications.

To my shock, this man actually asked me if I intended to follow his instructions! I figured I had already lost six weeks of work, what's another four days? I got better quickly, just like he said I would. Being that sick scared me into rethinking how I take care of myself.

For years, I've consumed three to five pounds of white sugar a month. Sugar I mainly use in my coffee. When running around in the afternoon, I'd just buy a couple of those small bags of Doritos and coffee for lunch. Well, sometimes I'd have that for breakfast, or dinner too. Yeah, I finally got it. I would have to change my ways, or face another bought with illness, like I had just gotten through.

I heard an interview with Jon Gabriel, who went from 400 pounds down to his normal weight in a year-and-a-half. After four years, he's still keeping the weight off. He had a method I thought I could live with for dieting, AND nutrition. Improve your nutrition, straighten out your thinking and attitudes about weight and then your body will loose the weight naturally.

I've been bothered by my 80+ pounds of extra weight for months now. This idea appealed to me because like John, I'd been through diet-hell. Both the health food and weight loss varieties. I never got healthy, or thinner.

The Gabriel Method is simple. He believes our average diet is really nutrition poor. He believes that our attitudes toward weight can literally keep us fat, no matter what we try to do to get thinner. I can vouch for the attitude thing because when I have been thin, I hated the unwanted sexual attention I received. Now that I'm 80+ pounds overweight I no longer get the unwanted attention. So, I mentally and emotionally feel "safer" being fat.

Jon also believes your subconscious will obey the pictures and goals you have for yourself. All three things work together to remake your body and life in about a year-and-a-half. I ordered the book and read it while cat-sitting in early May.

I had a simple battle plan. At every meal and snack eat something nutritious as well as the other food I was craving. As my nutrition improves, many of the cravings for junk food will leave. Drink filtered water, not ordinary tap water, to cut down on the chemicals coming into my system.

This is the easiest nutrition improvement scheme I've ever seen:

Add things with omega-3's (fish, nuts, oils and or supplements)
Eat some protein (meat, eggs, etc.)
Eat some raw vegetables and or fruit.

The mental work is also manageable:

Work on finding ways to feel "safe" every day.
Work on getting used to thinking of myself as healthy and thin. This brings up what I fear, abuse, etc.
Know that it is possible to truly get healthy and have a different, energetic and satisfying life.

He claimed that as the nutrition improves, the energy level would improve to where exercise wouldn't be as difficult. I have found this to be true after only a few weeks of attempting to follow the Gabriel Method.

He provides a CD, or a free download of the CD with the book. The CD messes with your brain waves and helps you image all of the above. I've had seizures and didn't like how the weird CD music made me feel. He recommends that people with seizure conditions DO NOT use the CD. It was a bad feeling for me, so I just take the ideas of his book and add them to my daily prayer life.

When I ran out of white sugar, I just didn't buy any more. Surprise; I went through drug withdrawal! It was like a milder version of getting off alcohol. This made me angry. I didn't realize white table sugar is a DRUG! Yeah, just like caffeine in coffee.

Oh, yes, the "coffee headache". Makes sense, Caffeine is a drug and I'm addicted. But I am angry that table sugar is a drug also and I was addicted to it..

After several days of laying around sleeping, I rose from bed and noticed I was feeling better. Not leap over walls better, but something good was starting to happen.,

I next began taking omega-3 capsules along with my vitamins. I did exactly as John's book suggested. I discovered I really wanted oranges, spinach and more oranges. I'd have a cheese sandwich, or eggs, or my yogurt and protein mix for breakfast.

Lunch and dinner are huge salads with vegetables and fruit. One night I had a lovely dinner of one of the largest artichokes I'd ever seen. This thing was the size of a small pumpkin! Gads, was that good.

I stopped shopping at Safeway and began shopping at Trader Joe's. They carry organic products. Things which have less sugar, or no sugar. They feature food with no extra chemicals added. I love grabbing any vegetable I fancy. I bought a bunch of avocados, bags of dark leafy salad mixes, nut butters, oatmeal, raisins, mixed nuts, bread, butter, milk, yogurt and a bag of oranges. The ingredients lists are short and in larger print.

I only had $50 on me and got ready to put back some of that lovely food. It was only $40! I almost wept at the checkout stand. So home I went and ate three basic meals a day with several snacks, if I wanted. I began to drink 8 glasses of water a day too.

I HATE drinking water. Had to chase down a Britta filtering pitcher. Reviews and friends all recommended Britta as the best filter for a low price. So, now I have a 144 oz pitcher to filter water. I figured it was not really necessary, but I do not like the chlorine smell in the tap water.

So I tried this "filtered" water. It reminded me of that great water we used to get at the office water cooler. Within hours I was craving water. I just couldn't seem to get enough of it. Coffee with this filtered water tastes so much better. I noticed my elimination patterns were changing. I just felt better, not as shaky or off balance. I could do almost twice as much physical work before becoming sore. I felt like I was getting more out of my sleep time. I actually could stay awake for an entire day, with only a short nap, or no nap at all.

So now, I'm dog sitting, eating non-organic food and drinking unfiltered tap water. I don't like the smell of the water. Its like my throat wants to close up when I try to drink this water. But its only for 3 days. Next time, I'll have a portable 72-ounce Britta filter for when I'm not at home.

I am fully off white sugar and doing my best to stay away from any chemicals. Sweet Maria is a little amazed at the change in my food requests. Instead of ice cream and pizza, I now want fruit, vegetables, yogurt and chicken.

She was going to get me my beloved garlic bread, but made me a quiche instead. The garlic bread has a lot of junk in it. I'm glad she didn't get it for me. So, with very little sacrifice, I'm working my way to health. What keeps me running is refusing to EVER get as sick as I was for that awful six weeks of being in bed.

So, for awhile, when our church has a dinner with all the things I love, but choose not to eat anymore, I stay home. I know it will be a few months before I can be in a room with all that sugar and chocolate. I plan on visiting lovely healthier versions of chocolate, but not for a few months.

The real shock of all of this is realizing that God is teaching me that I am safe in the world. Not because the world has suddenly become "safe", but because God will protect me. When something makes me nervous inside, I ask God to protect me and give me wisdom as to what, if anything I need to do in the situation. My body then just relaxes. That is new and I consider it a miracle of Gods grace and healing. I have literally been "scared" all my life. Now that life long habit of fear is gone.

Don't Change Dosing Schedule If You Are On Psychiatric Medication.

2009-03-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, friends, I am fine. My very extensive testing through my HMO found me totally normal. What I realized after a bit of time passed is I changed the time I took my psychiatric medication while trying to fast with my church. Yeah, if I'd checked in with my psychiatrist, she would have brought me up short FAST.

But, I made sure I sought out advice from people who knew nothing about the heavy-duty medication I take. Why? I wanted to show off to my fellow church-goers that I was among the SUPER SPIRITUAL! (Yeah, I hear ya. That was REALLY dumb).

It is our old friend fear. I was afraid I wouldn't really be "loved" unless I marched with the others in my congregation who were fasting. Here's reality: they love me not for what I do, but for who I am in Christ. I don't need to DO anything. They love me because I am one of God's kids. Oh, how hard that lesson is to learn!

I also got a deserved verbal thrashing from a friend who does know something about medication, fasting and insecure, Eager Beavers such as myself.

I have to remember to ask God to help me stay away from those "old tapes" which I still carry around inside. I was really shocked at how easy it was to fall back into that old behavior of: It may kill me, but I'll do anything to get you to love me".

Even after years of work and a nice life, I still get snared by my past. I have to say, this slide backwards totally astounded me. I thought I was done with that kind of acting out. No, I guess not.

How To Survive A Heart Attack When Alone

2009-03-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

(This is very valuable, life-saving information I received by email).

Let‘s say it’s 5:50pm and you're
driving home (alone of course) after
an unusually hard day on the job.
You're really tired, and
frustrated......

YOU ARE REALLY STRESSED AND
UPSET ....

Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain
in your chest that starts to radiate out into your
arm and up into your jaw.
You are only five miles from the hospital nearest
your home.
Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to
make it that far

WHAT TO DO ???

YOU HAVE BEEN TRAINED IN
CPR, BUT THE GUY THAT
CONDUCTED THE COURSE
DID NOT
TELL YOU HOW TO
PERFORM IT ON YOURSELF !!!

HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK
WHEN ALONE?

SINCE MANY PEOPLE ARE ALONE WHEN THEY
SUFFER A HEART ATTACK, WITHOUT HELP, THE
PERSON WHOSE HEART IS BEATING
IMPROPERLY AND WHO BEGINS TO FEEL FAINT,
HAS ONLY ABOUT 10 SECONDS LEFT BEFORE
LOSING CONSCIOUS

WHAT TO DO ???
ANSWER:

DO NOT PANIC,
BUT START COUGHING
REPEATEDLY AND VERY VIGOROUSLY.
A DEEP BREATH SHOULD BE TAKEN BEFORE EACH
COUGH, THE COUGH MUST BE DEEP AND
PROLONGED, AS WHEN PRODUCING SPUTUM
FROM DEEP INSIDE THE CHEST.
A BREATH AND A COUGH MUST BE REPEATED
ABOUT EVERY TWO SECONDS WITHOUT LET-UP
UNTIL HELP ARRIVES, OR UNTIL THE HEART IS
FELT TO BE BEATING NORMALLY AGAIN.

DEEP BREATHS GET OXYGEN INTO THE
LUNGS AND COUGHING MOVEMENTS
SQUEEZE THE HEART AND KEEP THE BLOOD
CIRCULATING. THE SQUEEZING PRESSURE
ON THE HEART ALSO HELPS IT REGAIN
NORMAL RHYTHM. IN THIS WAY, HEART
ATTACK VICTIMS CAN GET TO A HOSPITAL

ARTICLE PUBLISHED ON N.o 240 OF JOURNAL OF GENERAL
HOSPITAL ROCHESTER
TELL AS MANY OTHER PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE
ABOUT THIS.
IT COULD SAVE THEIR LIVES !!!

DON'T EVER THINK THAT
YOU ARE NOT PRONE TO HEART
ATTACK AS YOUR AGE IS LESS THAN 25 OR
30. NOWADAYS DUE TO THE CHANGE IN THE
LIFE STYLE, HEARTATTACK IS FOUND AMONG
PEOPLE OF ALL AGE GROUPS.

BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS
ARTICLE TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS
POSSIBLE

Quality And Ethics Be Damned: Buyer Be A Late Adopter.

2009-01-31T16:53:00.000-08:00

Go to this link and read this outrageous story: SiliconValley.com

To some of my friends who say I'm unreasonable and expect too much from companies. Here is the proof of my frustration. "getting it out always trumps getting it right" (!! Emphasis added). If it wasn't such damned common practice I believe it would come under a legal matter about deceptive advertising.

Currently a peanut butter paste company is in hot water because it appears they knew their product was contaminated and sent it out the door anyway. Eight people have died from this corporate attempt to boost profits.

Well, sure bad software isn't a life and death issue. Yeah, well F-R-A-U-D is fraud no matter how you justify it. Sure, I know the first release of something will have Unforeseen problems. I'm not speaking of that unavoidable situation.

I railing against a company who knows damn well the software isn't "ready for prime time", but pawns it off on its customers anyway. I hope and pray the current economic meltdown will shake some rare "common sense" into some of these companies and their minions. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." If you engage in this despicable practice I hope you fail and fail big. Yeah, Apple, you too.

I'm still using Apple's next-to-newest operating system: Tiger because I don't trust Leopard to be really ready for prime time, even yet. Little problem reports squeak out here and there. I am going to wait until I'm forced to change. Then I won't waste so much of my time and productivity trying to get around problems that were known about before the software left the company.

A pox on all of your houses!

Finally! A Petition To Congress Against MLM Pyramid Schemes.

2009-01-31T14:03:00.000-08:00

It has been sadly documented that most MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) "business opportunities" only cause 99% of their members to lose money - and not petty sums either. A real business model is very different from MLM.

A real business has a product or service to actually sell to customers (not at all involved in the business). That same business may also have a sales force to do the selling. BUT this sales force's size and locations are tightly controlled by the company. No real business wants 15 salesmen in a territory where only 2 of these people can actually make a living via their selling practices. Note that a real franchise controls how many restaurants reside in an area to avoid market over saturation.

MLM's on the other hand CLAIM they have a product to sell. (Yes, it exists, but it is a "cover" for where the "real" money is made). The real money is made by getting other people to join the "business" as distributors. (sellers of the business, not the product, to other individuals). There is absolutely no control over the sizes of the distribution networks, or where they develop. The product which is used to "hook" a new prospect into the business, is actually sold to distributors, public sales are minimal, as making new distributors, not product sales is where the money lies.

Once a distributer, you are strongly encouraged "forced into" buying the so-called product. Books, videos and seminars are also hard-sold to distributers using the ploy of wanting to really make it means you buy x, or go to a seminar. The distributer is spending all their income and personal savings for the books and seminars. Their sales never can cover their actual costs, even when they manage to build a large network of distributers working under them.

This system is doomed to fail. I have seen churches and self-help groups torn apart when one of these "business opportunities" comes into the group. A church is supposed to be in the business of religion and personal salvation (Christian model), not in church members fighting over who will get the new prospect for "their network". It is ugly, immoral and should be completely illegal.

Finally, a petition we can sign to (hopefully) get Congress to stop this terrible misrepresentation of "business". Obviously, the poor, desperate and inexperienced are the most common victims of these "business opportunities". Sadly, once victimized people try again with another MLM figuring "this time will be different". It won't be.

Please sign this petition:

http://www.pyramidschemealert.org/ConsumerPetition.php

Main website:

http://www.pryamidschemealert.org/

I have left the actual address for you to see, so you can check out the site for yourself to verify that this is not a set-up, or spam. I have donated to this site and personally vouch for their reliability and trustworthiness.

What A Difference A Diagnosis Makes.

2009-01-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy living life, I've not had time to blog. I finally got to see my favorite author Scott Sigler live in San Francisco for the bookstore session and the pub crawl held after wards.

Being I am afraid of San Francisco in general and The Mission District in particular, I booked a luxury room at a Days Inn complete with a hot tub for one night. I've had lots of fun and enjoyment.

I've also had various kinds of work: for my church, house cleaning and animal care. This last weekend was a dog sitting gig in Berkeley. I planned to blog all about Scott and San Francisco, but life had some serious surprises in store.

Monday, Jan 12Th I was at sweet Maria's cleaning her house. I thought I'd better wash the cup and glass she keeps by her bed. I have been neglecting this task and felt it was time to reprogram it into my routine.

I'd gotten two pairs of new running shoes, which fit my feet better (surprise), but new soles sometimes catch and DOWN I went. Glass coffee cup in left hand, drinking glass in right hand. Oh, that sound of breaking glass and sloshing liquid.

I hate falling. It happens to me from time to time, but this one was a bit different. I didn't remember "tripping" on anything, but it could have been my new shoes. Yeah, that was it! I scrambled for an explanation while I surveyed the mess before me. Sweet Maria did not come running up the stairs (thank God). I called out that I was alright.

I'd slammed my left cheekbone into the side of the toilet and THAT hurt big time. I was partially covered in sherry with small cuts on my left hand. Amazingly, the water glass and its contents were still intact by the bath tub. I picked up the broken cup, mopped up the floor and prepared to come down to explain to Maria that I'd broken a cup.

I also headed for her bottle of Ibuprofen as my face was really hurting. Maria said I was not black and blue. I only had a small red spot on my cheek. She calmly checked to make sure I was okay and then returned to her newspaper.

I went home and doctored my cheek as my normal system of denial kicked in. Another fall, broke something, but nothing to worry about.

That Wednesday, the 14th I did my Alameda account. Funny, I just fell down twice on a hard wood floor with no stumbling, or tripping. I just seemed to topple over to the right. Hmmmm.

I was looking forward to the weekend of Martin Luther King's Birthday. A full four days with Maria's beloved Newfoundland, Hannah, blogging and a bit of work just to keep me honest. I sent John and Maria on their way around 11 AM and took a nap until about 3:30 PM.

I had junk food this weekend, as I just didn't feel like cooking for myself and I just wanted some good old "crap" as my Dr. calls most frozen, processed food. My thoughts drifted back to January of 2008. Dr. Kim is a friendly, humorous and down-to-earth internist I really trust. Any Dr. who inquires: "Have you been eating a lot of crap lately?" in reaction to my unusually high blood pressure reading, is a Dr. I can and do trust.

When I laughingly requested a definition of "crap", she shot back "Stouffers". Oh damn, that's some of my favorite stuff. Dr. Kim then explained about the high salt, sugar and chemical content of such foods. A little of such is okay, but I'd lived on frozen foods for three weeks before seeing her. I'd been cat sitting and living on an entire freezer full of crap.

Dr. Kim smiled and gently said: "No, one pizza every once in a while. Not a regular thing. I suspect when you return to more natural eating your pressure will come down." How can I argue with a Dr. who knows how good Stouffers can be? It was true, cut down on the processed food and my blood pressure quickly returned to normal.

But by God, this weekend (returning back to this year, 2009) I had two pizzas, two frozen pot pies, ice cream and several rich goodies left over from John and Maria. I hit that pizza running. Damn, it was so good.

I fell again. This new kind of falling, to the right when not tripping over something. Well, hell, probably I am just not paying attention. Later in the evening I was enjoying a small cheese sandwich and wanted to read the label on the cheese, so I could buy it for myself. I looked down and was reaching for my glasses on the dining room table when my entire world changed.

I felt myself falling again, to the right. I'd knocked my dining room chair over the last time I'd fallen. This time I was thrusting my right elbow out to try and keep from hitting the dining room bar. I felt my elbow hit and go clear through the back of the rattan dining room chair. Oh Jesus!

Even I couldn't ignore this series of events. I'd made a lovely two inch wide hole in the back of their rattan chair. They had one of the chairs restrung and I remembered it cost about $300. I had the money, but how in the hell could I explain what happened?

I was only slightly scratched up, but badly shaken. Something wasn't right and I had better get my butt into my HMO come Tuesday. I need to try and explain why I'd taken to breaking furniture!

I began to try and find out what was going on. I noticed short times of slight dizziness. Now that I was hyper alert, I always held onto something. I dreaded going outside. I felt dizzy on the brick path with the uneven stairs. I began noting and remembering. It was something which seemed to have started slowly about two months ago. But it wasn't constant either. Oh Jesus!

My HMO was their usual polite, efficient, and kind self. The general advice nurse kicked me up to the next level after only a few sentences. The guy at the 2Nd level had me booked for that day at 3:20 pm. I felt kind of foolish, because it wasn't something I could duplicate in the office. The Advice Nurse said that it happens like this some times.They were going to check it out and track it down.

My Dr. was her usual wonderful self. I laid it out and she asked questions. We established that what I had was a bit unusual, but she'd start out with full blood work and then a brain scan.

Oooh, brain scan, made me feel a little clammy inside. Then Dr. Kim started messing with my body. She had me touch my nose and then her finger. I had trouble hitting her finger using my right hand. I wasn't totally accurate on the left, but I didn't know how much my low vision played into that problem. Although the last time I did that test with another Dr. I hit his finger dead on from both sides. I could feel my fear starting to make itself at home.

"Do you have a case worker?" Dr. Kim's question hit me hard, Jesus, do I NEED one? No, okay, she'll sign me up.

She then wanted to see how unstable I was. She stood before me gently putting her hand on the top of my head and pushing back. I started to fall much too quickly. She swept me up in her arms and proceeded to scare me senseless.

"... you may need to look into assisted living. You do live alone?" My mind flashed on the nice "assisted living" situations I've seen. Ah, joining the bingo set. Where loving people in white, or pink talk loud to you and scream about "... joining us in the activity room for bingo," Holy SHIT!

I felt my eyes fill with tears. I forced control and continued with the interview. Yes, I lived alone. How do I know if I loose consciousness when I'm alone? Not a real good answer to that one. Oh Jesus, looks like I DO need to join the bingo set.

Dr Kim was very kind. I shed a few tears in her presence and she said I could stay in the cubicle for a while to get myself back together. (Oh yeah, right, I'll just walk out of here and have a Mocha down on the first floor. While I MOURN THE LOSS OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!)

I basically was in shock. I wasn't rebelling. I knew this falling business could hurt me real bad. Oh God, maybe I'll be able to get a room mate. (That would be an easy sell: "Come let us live together, so when I fall and pass out, you can call the medics.") Yeah, professionals handle that stuff better. I kept going back to "assisted living" and bingo.

Well, I've longed to stop doing housework, but hell, I can't even give these dear people the usual two weeks notice. I heard the lyrics: "The party's over, my friend." I was just in a daze. Well, at least I now had a shot of getting some assistance with housing. That, at least was some comfort. (Note to self: ignorance is NOT bliss).

Wednesday morning I did hear from a very tired social worker who brought me up short quick. "Honey, assisted living is at least $3,000 a month. If you don't have that. Well, see there are too many people chasing too few resources." I stopped her to inquire about the dangerous situation I was facing and also letting her know I was legally blind. The blindness is now a block to get into certain programs. Due to all the lawsuits, housing for disability is segregated by "insurance risk". Yeah, blindness is a bigger problem than, say only having walking of mental functioning issues.

Then this woman let me know what she didn't know with the stunning question: "Well, honey, doesn't the Blind Center have something for you blind people?". OH JESUS!

There is no one "Blind Center" and there ain't no such animal - I've searched. It was up to me to find what I needed. She only worked with "Assisted Living" people who needed no stairs weren't her job (!) (Crap, this is getting to feel like a Monty Python episode.)

She'd send me a list... At this point friends, I lost it. I started to cry and thanked her. I informed her that I had to end our conversation to go and "... play craps with my life." Man, I feared my life was going to end in me dying in the building by accident for my poor landlord to discover. Steve, my landlord has had that grim task before.

When someone doesn't pay the rent, when they are usually on time. He lets himself into their unit to discover, woopsie! They are dead. To say I entered the land of despair is putting it mildly. I had that kind of depression where it is physically tiring to move. Well, when I get stronger it is back to trying to get on Government Housing lists again.

I called the mother of our church, because I was so depressed. She could hear it in my voice and just listened as I stammered out my tale. I let her know that I wanted to come to church tonight no matter what. I was a mental mess, but I really needed to be at church with my church family.

She asked me about food in the house and I asked her if she could pick up a few things for me. I knew I just couldn't handle a run out to Safeway. She asked if she could do it the next morning. I said that was fine. I hoped I'd be better so I could do my own shopping. I could feel her kindness and love. I needed and received it gratefully.

At church I told the truth. My voice was a bit lower, as I wa still down. People were just plain gracious. People suggested Bible passages and shared some of their own struggles. People could see that, for me, this situation was a true test.

My Internet buddies were there for me also. People don't always know what to do when disaster shows up, but I have learned that when I let folks know what I need "just listen." or whatever, they are there for me. Thank God for the wonderful gift of humor.

People have begged me to go into professional comedy. Frankly, I avoid that, because I am at my funniest when my life is at its worst. Gallows humor has always been a favorite of mine The next morning, beleaguered patients lining up for tests at my HMO were full of some really funny observations.

Always wondered where all the people with gray hair, walkers, crutches and wheelchairs were. I found them. All lined up outside the blood work lab, ready for our 8 AM session. The best line of the morning, after 12 hours of fasting:

"When I was young, my body told my muscles what to do and they obeyed. Now my muscles remind my body of all the stupid shit I did when I was young,"

My humble contribution to the waiting throng was a partial rewrite to "What A Difference A Day Makes":

I used to be psychiatric
But now geriatric
What a difference a diagnosis makes.
Oh man, I'm so screwed.

After the blood work was done, I returned home to purchase a stool for the now potentially dangerous shower. I assembled the shower stool and again fell back into a funk. A friend has a real bad case of gastroenteritis. Basically, she's got real bad gas and tummy pains that keep her awake at night. She and I got into more great humor.

"A cane, a walker, a shower stool and you" Sounds like a really bad song, or novel.

I thought we could do an album and we could each have our signature tunes. Mine would be: "What A Difference A Diagnosis Makes" and she could perform: "The Put-Put Song," Yeah, it is amazing how the human spirit can rise above almost anything and make it funny.

Thursday I actually made it out of my house and back from Safeway. I feel like I've really been through something. I have to reclaim my life.

I may be getting some help on the housing situation and that is a relief. With or without outside help, I went over to craigslist.com to begin a search for a room with no stairs.Rents have dropped to where I actually HAVE several choices which look good. I've always had to find my own housing and why should this situation be any different?

I had to get humble enough to accept the idea that I need help. Somehow, the last two weeks have beaten a new trait into my being. Humble submission and cooperation. Man, some of us are so STUBBORN!

I get my very first MRI next week and hopefully they'll find some reason for my new symptom of occasionally just falling over for no reason at all.

eReader : Why it is So Good, in Spite of My Low Vision

2008-11-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

(Thanks to a polite comment request, I retrace some steps and answer questions specific to software and equipment, instead of my reading interests. My new post will be up, hopefully, by next Saturday).

I have 20/200 vision in my only good eye. Without glasses I can clearly see about three feet in front of me. With a 12x magnifying bubble mounted in a pair of glasses, I can read print sizes from the printed phone book on up. I have to guess at entries in a printed phone book, or an average printed pocket dictionary, as I can't really see the individual letters clearly.

Every low vision person I've met sees differently. What works for one, does absolutely nothing for another person with low vision. For me, 12x magnification makes 99% of print available to me. I have to hold the printed material right up near my face (about a third of an inch away from my eye). I can only read about an hour and a half, before I get slight eye pain and muscle and body aches, from holding books up so close to my face. I also have to have a 100 watt light bulb about 4 inches away from the side of my head when reading real print on paper in a book.

When I got my first computer I found out about reverse video. The print is write and the background is black. For me this was a true revelation. I got a Mac, as I'd always had serious problems "losing" the cursor on a PC.

The only way you can get the experience of seeing my screenshots as I see them is to temporarily adjust your computer so you get reverse video. Look in the accessibility control panel and you should be able to reset your machine to see my screen as I see it. For the last two screenshots, my desktop is blue, not orange, in reverse video.

On a PC the cursor is a dotted outline, which is very easy to lose track of on the screen. The Macintosh cursor is a solid black arrow. In reverse video it is a solid white arrow. I can see it well enough to find it again after clicking a link and being moved to another page.

The way my vision works, contrast is everything. Black background gives more contrast to the print, then black letters on a white background. I find it interesting that for normal vision readers, reverse video is distracting and is avoided when possible.

In order to produce the square box you see around my cursor in the 2nd and 3rd screenshots I do the following in the accessibility panel. I increase the computer's screen zoom magnification to its maximum, but only request the "preview" viewing area. This produces a nice drawn rectangle around the cursor. This is what I use all the time on my computer, to quickly find the cursor when I lose track of it. With the 12x magnification in my glasses, I can only see about one square inch of screen at a time. This is why it is so easy for me to "lose" the cursor while working on my computer.

I soon discovered electronic, or ebooks. I have a screenshot of an ebook in the ".pdf" format. Either Adobe Reader, or Preview recognize ".pdf" (portable document format). These programs are designed for editing and sharing office documents, not books.

I read by moving my head more then the material on the screen. With preview, (screenshot to the right), I have to constantly scroll down as I work my way through an ebook. It is very doable, but not my preferred reading experience.

I can use Page-Down, or Down-Arrow keys to scroll. Page-down moves too much of the screen before I've gotten to the lower part of the page. So, I have to use the Down-Arrow key.

I was shocked to realize that I could read at my computer for three hours or more, with no pain anywhere in my body. I sit with my back straight in my chair, with the screen elevated to be right in front of my face. I have a table with a tray for the keyboard and I type with the keyboard completely recessed within the table. (I've never had such good posture).

I discovered eReader (another program for reading ebooks) while exploring this new world of books made to read on a computer, or handheld device. Adobe and Preview read ".pdf" files, while eReader deals with ".pdb" files. Most of my ebooks are in the ".pdb" format, as that is the one I have found works the best for reading books on my computer.

eReader was designed specifically for the book reading experience. You'll notice at once, its full screen looks more like the page of a book, instead of an office document, with its wide margins and page separators.

On the next two screenshots, the screen is 21 inches.

As you can see from the full page screen shot of the eReader program, I still have the problem of this long document to meander through. But with eReader, when you adjust the page size, you don't have to scroll through the document line-by-line, but it redefines a page according to your window size.

I may start out with a book of 200 pages, but when I shrink the window, the page count jumps into the thousands!. I use one Page-Down, arrow-Down or Arrow-Right per page. When I began exploring handheld devices, it is still the best reading experience. I've found. (eBookWise and Palm Handhelds will be covered in my next post).

One final note on ebooks. I live in a very small room, making a library of thousands of books impossible. With eBooks I literally own thousands of titles, all on my hard drive. This technology saves on paper, ink and the energy to print the book. Here are the links to the programs I've been discussing.

Adobe Reader

Apple's Preview

eReader (go back to their homepage for the FREE eReader version).

Free eBooks (in .pdb format)

The JOY of Easily Looking Up Words While I Read.

2008-11-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is a love story about my new Palm Tungsten E2 hand held personal data assistant. (PDA). Having low vision has always been a dreary fight when having to use more than one book at a time. I have to explain the bad old days to help you understand why I am shaking with joy at this change in my life.

I have a 12x magnifying bubble mounted in a pair of glasses, leaving my hands free. I would pick up the book, or lean way over to write on a piece of paper, as I have to be about half an inch away from what I'm looking at. I did not start reading on my own until the sixth grade, when a friend stole a 12x magnifier from her science class for me to experiment with. It opened up the world of books, libraries and dictionaries to me.

But when I was reading something and I'd run into a word I did not know, I would have a serious set of problems.

Put the book down, carefully, so as not to lose my place.
Grab a pocket dictionary and start hunting down the unknown word.
Realize I don't know how to spell the word and would have to go back to #1.
Locate word in dictionary and try and read that really tiny print. I have learned to do some very accurate guessing by the "shape" of print that is truly too small for me to read. Not always correct: "boot" and "boat" look similar, but usually I'd figure it out via context.
Return to the original book I was reading.
Realize I no longer remember the thread of what I was reading.
Go back a page or two to remind myself of what I didn't know.
Find strange word again and realize I don't remember the darn definition. Return to #1!

Note taking in the library for research projects was almost as bad. I have always had a lousy short term memory and for sure, that gave me many hours of idea chasing. I learned it was faster to "guestimate" the meaning of a word. A very fast and lose system of having the vaguest notion of the meaning of say "habeas corpus".

I knew this was Latin and having something to do with legalese. That is a pretty crummy understanding of this term. I reproduce the following from my new Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary for that goofy phrase habeas corpus:

n{ME, fr. ML, lit., you should have the body (the opening words of the writ)} (15c) 1: any of several common-law writs issued to bring a party before a court or judge ; esp : habeas corpus ad subjiciendum 2 : the right of a citizen to obtain a writ of habeas corpus as a protection against illegal imprisonment

Now, that means something. I'm reading a legal book outlining the problem of "enemy combatants" as opposed to "enemy soldiers", those who commit sabotage and spys. Legally the Iraq war is a mess. A lot of the problem has to do with this habeas corpus stuff.

We were so freaked out after 9/11 we rounded up people we suspected of being involved in the three planes-used-as-bombs and tried to detain them indefinitely with no official charges. This is a problem, legally if they are under the rules of our Constitution. I find the whole thing fascinating.

I had no clue that the law made such fine distinctions between types of behavior in war. Now I have a dictionary that is up to all the Latin they want to throw at me. But now I introduce you to the miracle of today's technology.

Well, okay, actually the Palm device I bought was new in 2005, but I love eReader as a program and I absolutely love the way Palm does things on their little hand held device.

When I'm using my hands, I shake a bit because of Cerebral Palsy, so touching the screen with my finger usually delivers something other then the command I'm trying to execute. But with the stylus - a metal pencil tipped with plastic for touching the screen more accurately - works like a charm for me. So here is the new way of my world.

I'm reading my law book, or the King James Bible (old and odd English), or some police forensics book and I run into something I can't even guess at, in terms of its meaning.
I reach for the stylus held in its slot and pull it out.
I high light the word, or in some cases, the phrase, with the stylus.
My eReader program automatically goes to my dictionary, finds the word, or the words which are closest to it and displays the definition on my screen.
When I've chased down any other words in the definition I don't know, I hit "Done" and return to my original text! It takes seconds and not minutes.

For the first time in my reading life I can actually learn something from looking up words in a dictionary. I had to check out this new dictionary to see if it had all the strange things I am running into with my wide range of reading material.

Wist, Wont and blain - all old English. This baby not only tells me where the word originated and where it traveled, but the YEAR of its origination! Oh, its like candy for my mind.

Habeas corpus and that other phrases came up as soon as I correctly guessed the spelling on habeas. So, I went to the front of the dictionary and took a look at their pronunciation key. (It is a bit strange). I'm not sure if it is because the font is foreign to my eReader program, or they just have a strange system.

I started reading the definitions of things like 24/7 and 411. While grazing through a few of these abbreviations, I discovered chemical formulas! Yeah, this thing is smart enough for me - I am absolutely clueless when it comes to Chemistry.

What is so satisfying is the fluidity of my learning. Since I no longer keep having to run around trying to remember what I was looking up, or what the word ment, or what was happening in the original book, I no longer get discouraged, or angry. This is truly a miracle in my estimation. Now, my six hours of butt time on buses each week will be filled with reading and learning. It is nice to listen to music, but after awhile, I get bored.

I have thousands of things I want to read. A huge library a friend put together for me of public domain ebooks and a hundred, or so ebooks I've purchased. I also have an eight volume set of Church History on my computer, which I can easily move over to my handheld, a bit at a time.

My real prize is the 37 volumes of the Early Church Fathers. Believe it, or not, I'm in volume four of the set. These are source documents and they are amazing. I read what people thought about the works of the Early Church Fathers in the History book, but then I check for myself what these men actually WROTE. Sometimes the differences are a little scary.

Kind of like what happened over the new puppy Barak Obama promised his daughters in his acceptance speech. A day or two later, I heard a report from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) that the dog had not only been acquired, but had tried to bite a reporter! There was a bit of ga-fawing and this quite proper Canadian ended her report with: "... we'll be sure to keep you informed of any breaking (or barking) news as it happens here on the CBC". Cute report, right?

I don't know what happened for sure. But several people I know, who have turned Obama watching into their new religion, have vigorously informed me that Barak hasn't even gotten the puppy yet. A dog did try and bite a reporter, Bush's dog snapped at a reporter who reached out to pet it. I'm still not clear on where the truth is on that one.

But more then likely, I'll end up reading about the truth as I romp through my ever growing library of electronic books. I now can read comfortably not only sitting at my computer, but lying in bed, riding a bus, or standing in line. Works great in restaurants too, when I am alone with a bowl of soup.

Lying in bed is still my favorite place to read, because it has been so long since I was able to set up lighting to where I could read printed material in bed. Who needs print? I can scan it into my computer. As long as I don't sell it, who cares? Well, that's illegal, or it will be, but you never read this and I never wrote it, right?

A Customer (Lack of) Service Rant.

2008-10-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Since this business is stumbling toward making this situation right, they shall remain anonymous. However, the stupidity involved in this Sega is breathtaking and probably good for a few laughs as I unwind this romp with incompetence.

I'm cat sitting for some folks who have been traveling for the last 5 weeks. I responsibilities include: signing for packages, picking up mail and answering expected telephone calls. Not difficult, correct? Well, no. By-the-way, these folks are in Italy, as in out of the country and are 8 hours ahead of us time wise.

On my first week of duty I get a recorded message from a store reporting that the item sent in for repair is ready. They have five days to claim it, or it will be assumed abandoned. Well, this could be a big ticket item, I didn't know, but figured a quick call to the store would update the customer file. When my employers returned in a month, they could pick up said repaired item. (ignorance can be bliss).

Upon calling this establishment I ran into a 20-something dweeb who refused to update the customer file unless he was speaking directly to the customer. (Delivered with a vibrato which could have won an Academy Award. Patiently, I explained the situation about how silly it would be for these people to call from ROME ITALY. I again requested he simply notate the file, so the item would not be disposed of.

This clown then LECTURED me on how my employers: "should have taken care of this before leaving. Don't ya think?". Frankly, this tactic stunned me into silence. I didn't think to request a supervisor. So, I had to call Rome, Italy. (Joy).

Just a brief aside. I know from many lovely experiences with The Marriott Corporation, that it is possible to have a central file on a customer. This file is filled with reservations, reward points and preferences. For example, they know that I always call down for extra coffee. Magically, when I call the front desk, they not only know who I am, but in a friendly way inquire if I'm ready for more coffee!. If a HUGE Corporation spread all over the WORLD, can manage a filing system which is able to be updated from different locations and departments, why can't a national chain store manage the same feat?

I tried to call Rome from the employer's phone, but needed an "access code" I didn't have. Great, I'll buy some Skype Credit and do it through the computer. (Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we try to succeed)! Again, this should have been a simple transaction. Oh yeah, simple, sure.

Skype was easy and my debit card went through to a security system at my bank. Good, I'd waited until 12:30 PDT to call Rome, as not to scare the life out of the travelers with a 3:30 AM long distance call.

I had been through the bank's security system just a few days earlier when I'd set up Skype for unlimited Us and Canada calling. I knew my password and everything. For once I'd written it down and shot a copy to a web document. BUT since I was using a DIFFERENT computer, the bank denied the transaction!

I finally called customer service at said bank. This bank is extremely good at making you feel cared for while doing nothing for you. (I'm sure this is again a security measure). I like my bank, even when they try to sell me things I don't need instead of solving my problem.

I noticed I had another payment option with another source. I took it and got the required service, avoiding the bank's protection option. I shudder at how easily my information could have been used fraudulently, but thank God I was able to use my information NOW.

I put in the long distance call. The lady in Rome was very nice, but I had to spell out my message! By the time I got through this ordeal, I wanted to scream! Of course my people weren't at the hotel at the moment.

The next morning PDT, I get an email explaining the following situation. This is so amazing!
Before they left for Rome, they'd sent in a camera to be repaired. Store didn't manage to repair it, but damaged it instead. So, since they were leaving for Rome in a week, they RENTED a loner camera from this same store!

Am I crazy, or should this fact not have been noted in the file for the camera they were still trying to repair? I know, I'm using logic... The repair department and the rental departments have different files, which are not the same as the call center's file. Yeah, and for security, the call center people aren't given permission to update files anyway.

As I said, this business is attempting to redeem itself. My employers left no doubt that they would "deal with them... when we get back". So now I have to wait for a UPS package that requires a signature, hopefully to arrive today. I hope they will accept MY signature.

No Virginia: stupidity knows no bounds.

The Pleasure Of Creativity.

2008-10-25T21:25:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been branching out and doing new, daring things. I feel more alive and willing to do the "hard" stuff, then I've ever been before. What is happening to me?

Being willing to work with uncomfortable feelings in a psychiatric group has helped me get used to having moments of being uncomfortable without quitting an activity altogether. I'm accepting the uncomfortable feelings as just part of the process when doing something new.

I strive to explain what I experience, so you all can follow me, or even run ahead of me on this journey of recovery. I'm passing through a new stage of human development. Maybe Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?

The chart to the right is from Wikapedia:

While I have a sense that, for the most part, I'm getting closer to the last two stages of this pyramid, it really doesn't reflect what I'm longing to express. In studying this chart, keep in mind, this is more of a general outline, not a hard and fast list of what you have to accomplish before moving to the next level. I believe we'll be working on some of these things until the day we die.

I feel like I'm almost leaving childhood. Perhaps I'm doing some kind of personality sprouting. I have continued searching for an explanation of what I've been experiencing lately.

There is an organization called TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), on the internet. I listened to a presentation by Mihaly Csilszentmihalyi. Below is the lecture discription.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow
Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, "What makes a life worth living?" Money cannot make us happy, he says -- instead, he looks to people who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of "flow." Watch this talk >>

This talk is about creativity, fulfillment and flow. The first chart was showing that income alone doesn't predict happiness. I'm sure I am not alone in learning this painful lesson.

Once basic needs are met and there is enough money to be comfortable, more money no longer contributes to being happy. I was surprised that happy people are only 30% of our population. That number is disturbingly low in my opinion. That means 70% of people are unhappy! Thus 7 out of 10 people you meet aren't finding fulfillment in life. That fact is very sad.

The part of this talk I found so energizing was a chart he showed about "skills" and their relationship to each other in terms of reaching a state of creativity and flow.

What he calls "skills" I think of as emotional states, especially anxiety, arousal and flow. I think of flow as another way of:
"following your bliss", from the work of Joseph Campbell. Flow can also be finding total enjoyment or contentment while doing something.

On the chart, notice the skills directly across from one another:

Flow -- Apathy
Arousal -- Boredom
Control -- Worry
Relaxation -- Anxiety

The left-hand list are all positive skills, while their opposites (Apathy, Boredom, worry and Anxiety) are all negative skills, or as I prefer to think of them, emotional states.

It is easier to change from being anxious then it is to pull yourself out of boredom. Boredom is not being interested in or engaged with anything in your environment. At least if I'm anxious I care about something in my life.

When people are really having a good time doing something there is a point where they forget themselves. Sometimes I forget where I am, time seems to stop and the task seems to almost complete itself. My entire being is working on something I am thoroughly enjoying.

Csikszentmihalyi theorizes that we only have so many concentration units, say 100, in our brain. Most of the time we are using around 60 concentration units. This leaves 40 concentration units to notice our bodies. In a boring meeting, it is easy to get distracted with how uncomfortable the chair is, for example. When we are in flow however, all 100 units of concentration are focused on the project. This is why being in flow gives the sense of forgetting yourself. There aren't enough concentration units left in our brain to track yourself, as there are under normal circumstances.

The people in this study were people who were accomplished in some field. Most people feel it takes about ten years to gain enough knowledge and experience with something to get into the flow mode. That place where the story writes itself, or the design pieces just seem to fall into place. This state of mind is not constant, but when one is in flow, time no longer matters and doing the task feels almost effortless. Flow is a place of intense satisfaction.

I got so excited watching this lecture. I can't count the number of times I have been carried away into a state of flow creating a church bulletin, reading a book, or learning something new. I pray we all go out and bring that happiness statistic up, one person at a time.

Recovery: The Garbage Stops HERE!

2008-10-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

I remember a day in therapy when I realized I had to turn and face the monster in the closet, who was slowly killing me. I screamed out at my therapist:

"Why the hell do I have to do therapy? THEY made the mess!" I was referring to my life, as the mess. My doctor remained quiet, as he knew I was arguing with myself. Something broke lose and I made the decision. I made the commitment to turn around, open that awful closet door and fight formy real life, against the monster. I refer to all my abuse collectively as "The Monster".

Because I knew the mental illness which turned my mother into a sub-human zombie was in me, I refused to have children. People would coo at me: "Your mothering instinct will take over. You'll not hurt your own children," I knew that was not true. My mother truly didn't want to do what she did, or be what she became when she'd lose it. Her mothering instinct went away when her raging fits came forward.

I told my therapist I was in it for the long haul. It was MY problem and I needed help to get well. This was the beginning of real recovery for me, back in 1983.

Check out this magnificent post from Dad-O-Matic. This is heroic, beautiful and miraculous.

Recovery: Working Through Uncomfortable Emotions.

2008-10-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

I'm in a group learning basic social skills. I requested help with my social skills in groups larger than three, counting myself. I get so frightened, I either withdraw completely, or force too much attention on myself by putting on a "show". Neither place is truly me. I am tired of being ruled by fear.

I don't understand why I get so scared. I suspect it was just the years of "shaming" I experienced in my crazy childhood. I know I don't understand a lot of "people" things and I'm so afraid of making a mistake. I finally had to admit that prayer by myself wasn't solving the problem.

After several weeks in this group I am learning how to accept times of having uncomfortable emotions. I realize, with proper medication, my emotions are not crippling to me anymore. I don't get swamped and overwhelmed anymore. I have never learned how to just "experience" feeling mildly uncomfortable, until being in this very special and supportive group.

Different mental struggles cause us to need help being with people successfully. Sometimes it is Schizophrenia, where the person is learning to distinguish reality from their own thoughts. Some are paranoid and have to realize that everything in the group is not directed at them, or caused by them. Some people labor with learning difficulties. I am learning how to work with uncomfortable feelings for the first time in my life.

I approach this group of between six and ten people like a "white-knuckle-flier". I grip the arms of my chair as if I will levitate to the ceiling unless securely connected to the chair. My mouth dries up and after our session I gulp water like someone returning from a desert. There is great haling in this strange process. As I force myself to participate and interact, I reprogram myself to function under emotional discomfort. What a concept.

We meet once a week. I have total respect for the other members of the group, because I comprehend how hard they are working in the group. I am thankful for my set of problems, others seem to be laboring with things so much more difficult than I. I love the supportive atmosphere. This is not a group that needs confrontation, or tear-down. This is a group which is learning how it feels to be supported and gently taught new sets of skills. It sounds simple, but for people laboring with severe forms of mental difficulties "socalizing" is a tremendous challenge.

Our group leader is a psychiatric nurse. We have to "check in" giving a quick run-down on our week, or day. She shares parts of her life with us to model how to "check in". We then are asked who said what. If we don't remember the person's name, we can gesture to them and request their name. I find this part most troubling, emotionally. I want to run and hide, but I force myself to admit I don't remember a name and then tell what I remember of what the person shared. Sometimes it is very difficult to hear people speak, as they are so scared, they have trouble speaking much over a whisper.

Then we are led in mild physical and mental exercise. These exercises are math or logic problems and some gentle physical movement. We can ask questions of the group and sometimes our leader asks a group member specific questions about an interest, or activity they've mentioned. We wrap up the group with a fun exercise of telling a story. It doesn't have to make sense, or hang together. Again, just forcing us to open up and communicate.

Why the exercises? They are to help us reduce stress and gain physical and mental balance. Exercises also assist us in concentrating on the world around us, instead of being locked into our own thoughts.

I aways feel like I've been refreshed after group is over. I'm somehow lighter inside. I pray for all the members of our group. I am glad I'm getting some perspective on my fears. I hurt for some of the struggles I see members going through as they fight to overcome their fear. I am extremely grateful for the compassion of our leader and our HMO who provides this group. This group is a chance to challenge years of self-imposed isolation and self-hatred. A way to overcome our fears and emerge into thew sunshine of life with other people.

Counterfeit Life Part two: Mistaking "insanity" for "equality".

2008-10-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

The government bail-outs haven't worked and our economic system may be in collapse. I heard the author of The Fourth Turning state that out of disaster comes new systems that work, while the old dead wood is swept away. Even though I might be one of the victims of the next "depression", I say: this fire will burn up the missteps of political correctness, THANK GOD!

This generation is beginning to wake up to our "Great Depression of 2008". Using back-of-the-envelope figures, I'd estimate the stock market has lost around 40% of its October 10, 2007 value. For every $100 you had in 2007, you now only have $60. It looks like our world as we've known it is about to become globally centralized and geographically nationalized.

How did we get so screwed up financially? Noble desires were made into ridiculous laws. Its not fair that poor people are denied the "experience" of home ownership. It is also unfair that people who are severely disabled are prevented from the "experience" of a mainstream education. So, laws were drafted to "right" these "wrongs".

Enter the law of "unintended consequences", or the "oops" factor.

Laws went through forcing institutions to lend money to under qualified applicants. Laws were also passed to force most disabled students into the main stream school system. For the world of finance we now have loan swaps, which have brought Wall Street firms to their knees. In the school system, entire classes are disrupted for the sake of the "rights" of a single student, who by common sense should be in a different educational situation.

In short order we will all have to handle problems we'd only read about in history books. All the "fluff" of our economic and spiritual lives will be squeezed out of us due to harsh financial realities. It won't be easy, or pretty. But after a natural ground fire in a forest, burning away the excess undergrowth, new life emerges from the ashes.

We tried to argue with what the 1929 survivors of The Great Depression learned. They realized that completely unregulated anything was a bad idea, as there is always someone who attempts to defraud, and or is dangerously reckless. They focused on their financial system and erected barriers and restrictions to prevent a repeat of what they'd just come through.

We also decided that, since our generation was somehow more far-seeing and noble, to throw out what used to be thought of as "common sense" business and educational practises. If you didn't have a certain amount of real money and a good credit track record, you couldn't get a loan for something huge, like a house. If your disability was so severe as to require one-on-one attention, you were placed outside the average classroom environment.

This fuzzy-thinking got all mixed up with another concept. The very real and different problem of prejudice. If a black family and a white family have the same amount of assets and the same good credit record, both should qualify for and be able to purchase a house. If not, prejudice is involved. That is immoral and has rightfully been legislated out of "official" existence.

If a person's disability can be managed in such a way that the general learning environment isn't destroyed for the rest of the class, that disabled person should be allowed to attend a regular school classroom. If that qualified disabled person is banished to some other type of learning environment, prejudice has reared its ugly head and rightfully, legislation has been passed to right this particular wrong.

But now enter fuzzy thinking. The white family has an unfair advantage over the black family due to our dreadful past history of "sort of" civil rights. Therefore, ANY family, even those with few assets and a poor credit track record should be given the chance to have a house anyway! This is business suicide. Experience taught business what an average "bad credit risk" does. They usually end up in default. That means the bank doesn't get paid back and they have to re-sell the home at a loss.

The fuzzy thinking in education now mandates that All people with disabilities, with very few exceptions, shall be mainstreamed. So a child who is emotionally unable to control his tendency to scream is put into a 30-student classroom where an overworked and totally frustrated teacher, attempts to "teach". This is insanity, not equality. Sadly this issue has been swept from public consciousness due to our current financial woes.

What were the lenders supposed to do with this "mandated" bad debt? It was now law to run their businesses in a "risky" manner. Someone figured out how to gather a groups of mortgages together in a loan package which could be resold. There were "some" bad loans in the package, but most of it was "good" debt. With deregulation, the overall package was rated AAA and everyone ignored the small amount of bad debt that came with this thing called a Loan Swap.

Because old limits and restrictions had been removed, banks who used to be prevented from playing around in speculative markets with depositor's monies, now could roam free. It used to be that there were two different kinds of banks. A depositor's bank, where you put your money in a checking or savings account and when you want to get your money back out of the institution, at any time, you got your cash returned to you.

The other type of bank was an investment bank. This bank worked in a riskier environment and people who had brokerage accounts at this type of institution realized the difference. This bank had investment accounts instead of deposits. These investment accounts purchased stocks and other "investments". Once you were in play in this arena, you generally moved your money into and out of different stocks, making and losing money as the market ebbed and flowed. It was possible to lose all of your money.

A depositor, on the other hand, was protected from the problem of going to his bank and being told that his money was gone. With the evaporation of former barriers, basically, all hell broke lose, when the bad debts started cascading through the system. Because the bad debts were mixed in with good debts, nobody could accurately estimate how much bad debt they were carrying on their books. This is what caused the banks to stop trusting each other. The interest they charged one another began to skyrocket and then the markets went into free fall.

As of today (Friday, October 10, 2008) international leaders are seriously considering shutting down markets, world wide and re-writing the rules of investing. Instead of a bank "holiday" we may be looking at a Market Holiday. All of the "fixes" tried so far have not stopped the worlds markets from crashing.

I know the next months and possibly years will be difficult. I also know that a lot of our former fuzzy-thinking will be burned away with the current financial ground fire. Once again, whether in finance, or education, our generation will come to understand what past generations painfully learned. The harsh realities: "No, this time won't be different", "wishing don't make it so" and "people have to be protected from excesses".

Business Week Gives Fluky Technology The Bird.

2008-10-01T15:14:00.000-07:00

My friend back East has chided me for being immature and over wrought when COMPLAINING about software, hardware and customer services which DO NOT WORK!

Well, nuts to you! Listen to what a business owner and CPA had to say... (God, this made my DAY!)

Again! Tech that doesn't work won't let us work - BusinessWeek

Counterfeit Life Part One: Occult, Cults, and Scams.

2008-09-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

As I watch a friend wonder ever deeper into the bizarre world of The New Age Movement, I asked myself: "Why"? Her latest money loosing adventure has to do with specially made glass "tools" for healing. The instructions for making these tools comes to us from something on "the other side", an Ascended Master. This Ascended Master speaks to and is seen by a living human being. As a Christian, I know what this something is. This is messing around with "spirits". God condemned the practice and counsels us to stay away from all of it. The occult, communicating with the dead and sorcery.

My friend knows how I feel about all of this and held down her enthusiasm while relating the details of her latest Seminar experience. I did some web searching and discovered a massive organization of interlocking companies and practitioners dealing in the utterances of this "Ascended Master". It is no coincidence that these practitioners are also "selling" his wildly expensive "tools". What a racket!

12 glass tools for $3,000! They look like poorly shaped glass bobbles. There is the tiresome, never-ending need to buy the latest gadget suggested by the Ascended Master. My favorite by far is the "Amplifier". This is a gizmo that makes the energy you get from earlier tools more potent! The wheel of "hope" is another side splitting piece of the "equipment". I was shocked to hear that these tools average $250 a piece. They are are of such poor quality as to be easily scratched, if they "bump" things. As part of the healing process, one is required to sleep with and or carry on their person several of these tools. One good nights rest causes scratching. I can buy a $25 paperweight from an office supply store which is more durable then that!

This gal is on a fixed income like I am, but has sunk thousands of dollars into this New Age garbage. Her family is eagerly "assisting" her in a desperate attempt to "help" her. This help is expensive, averaging $300 for a 50 minute "reading". (Average cost of a Psychiatrist is cheaper). She is blind, but her readings describe her soon-to-be "manifested" husband in visual terms!

After one Pump-her-up cycle and a failed relationship attempt, she went to her HMO and they upped her anti depressants! She is absolutely sure her next husband will make her life totally complete. Hardly. I feel both angry at and sad for my friend.

I refer to all of this, including my 20 years with Dr. Scott as "A Counterfeit Life". because the draw is getting all the benefits of a successful life without having to do the work to actually achieve a successful life. Dr. Scott promised me three things:

I didn't have to read the Bible, he'd do it for me.
If I gave money like he taught I'd be rich.
I was involved in the next religious reformation. Smarter then the rest of the pack! (glory).

yyyda
How do you build a successful relationship with God, a person, an animal or a skill? You have to spend time with it and put in some EFFORT. When I finally realized that Scott had sold me down the river spiritually, I made it my business to read the Bible for myself, by myself. Yeah, its a big book, but at 30 minutes a day, you can read it from cover to cover in a year.

This process of investigation is how you get to "know" and become familiar with God and His ways from The Bible's point of view. My prayer life started to change as I learned how careful God is with details. The way He keeps His people from unseen harm and danger. Little and large discoveries which I still experience when I spend time in the Bible. I invest my time and energy and gain the dividends of knowledge and expanding faith in God.

So now some folks admire and pay attention to my spiritual life and musings. There is no gloating in this situation. I have really learned that God has given me everything I have. He gets the credit. I just show up and tackle what is directly in front of me.

A rule of life. TINSTAAFL "There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". There is no such thing as easy money, easy relationships, or an easy life. Every scam I've ever studied has at its root a motivation of greed: "... after 18 months I was making $5,000 a month." Doing what, selling Cocaine? (no, Real Estate, phone services, health care or little glass tools at $3,000 a dozen.

Note how the SELLER is making money off YOU the buyer! Real life works out slowly, cumulatively and in fits and starts. (There are no freeways to success). I am achieving some serious success and public recognition at my church as a webmaster and bulletin-maker. However, I had to do put in some serious behind-the-scenes effort for these things.

What you now see is a polished, professional weekly bulletin for the church. What you don't see are the countless hours of study. I had to read about printers, inks, paper, computers and many different programs to get the job done. I had generous help from friends who knew more than I did. They shared their time and friendship with me as I struggled to "learn" how to learn and work.

You don't see the several all-nighters I put in "teaching" myself how a program "really" works. "But it says in the help menu..." Yeah, Virginia, there may be a Santa Claus, but it doesn't really work like that". Oh the joy of getting around a programs "quirks"! You also don't see my hours of praying to, pouting at and arguing with God about how "I just can't do this!" But with all of the above and a lot of help from God, I continue to deliver a needed set of services to my church.

I started really playing around with printing back in 1999. (1999 - 2008 = 9 years)! Don't have buckets of money, or fame, or even a marriage; but I do have the greatest level of contentment and life satisfaction I've ever known.

An Economic Fairytale.

2008-09-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I was very immature and believed what MasterCard said on its commercials.

(phalanx of business suit clad marchers. singing:) "100,000 banks behind you!" as they paraded over a giant MasterCard. I got one and used that image to fluff up my ego until...

One day I had a medical crisis. Big bad reality slapped me with $3,000 of un-planned-for expense. Reality can be so MEAN!

I LOST my MasterCard when the bank realized I couldn't pay them back. I cried and cried.

So some wealthier friends and I invested in Real Estate, Junk Bonds and a drug to make a penis grow. We got REALLY, REALLY, REALLY rich!

Then one day the government told us owners of Real Estate that it wasn't fair to exclude poor people from home ownership.

So, the NINJA loan was born. "No Income, No Job or Assets". All of us MBA-types knew this was C-R-A-Z-Y! But it is not politically correct to protest being "open minded" and or "liberal". We didn't want to be called "meanies".

We had all these, well, "holy and righteous" loans. What to do, what to do...?

Then one of our business associates over at The Investment House of Sock It To 'Em

solved the problem. We repackaged all this, "New" stuff with the traditional "old" stuff and sold it as a revolutionary "New" low-risk loan swap. (Wow, now whoever came up with THAT earned their commission!)

Since the Firm of Sock It To 'Em was Huge, I mean H-u-g-E. They had to be trustworthy, right? Yeah. National and even FOREIGN banks gobbled up the new investment vehicle and the market went up and up.

But then The Big Bad Bitch of Reality forced a small bank to actually LOOK at the new loan-swaps they had purchased, to show off their latest profits. To their shock, they were insolvent!

Upon serious investigation, they realized that a 6:10 ratio of bad debt sat on their balance sheet. "I know SOME people did that, but ALL of them?

What to do... what to do...?

When the other banks, brokers and the rest of the business world got wind of this, they got VERY, VERY scared because these loan swaps were EVERYWHERE and the markets started doing swan dives losing 10% and more of their total value A DAY.

What to do... What to do...?

Then a wonderful elderly gentleman quietly held up his hand and softly stated that he would buy up all those bad-old-investments and everything would be alright.

The markets rebounded for a few days, before people had time to consider...

Uncle Sam was already in Deep Shit debt. Several Trillion, (yeah, trillion, with a T) dollars in debt and this would move him up to something like a $15 trillion deficit per YEAR!

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) and The World Bank began to check up on 'ol Sammy boy...

See children, when the IMF and The World Bank "help" a country, they make mean-old financially sound decisions. (I refer you to the history to many countries in Africa, for a review of IMF reality). The business world is beginning to balk...

But wait, Uncle Sam says that there will be no accountability as to how the pot of money will be spent... Maybe the business World will accept this. They have friends who need help too.

Stay tuned for our next exciting episode:" The Day The IMF calls US Economic Voodoo a big pile of doodoo"

Learning To Look To The Future With Hope: Not Letting My Fears Take Charge

2008-09-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

For a few years now, I have learned (usually through running into pain I refuse to face) to keep my head down and focus only on what is directly in front of me. This pattern has served me very well in stopping fruitless forays into suicidal thinking. If it makes me that crazy, I back off.

Lately, I have begun to feel a kind of boredom and aimlessness. Part of this malaise, I'm sure was due to another dreary two weeks of having a bad cold which never completely went away.

While fighting the above, I have also had wonderful news and interactions with friends. I have been told to look forward to next year, as I will be invited to participate in a project a friend is putting together. Because my friend knows I get easily rattled, no further details have been given.

I had a feeling something like this was about to happen. God has a way of continuing to build my life in new and exciting ways. I've learned to ask few questions, beyond finding out what I am supposed to be doing, for the immediate future.

Then the business world darn near ground to a halt with the stock market in the U. S. taking a 950 point dive in one week. Since I have heard that when government money gets tight, the poor are the first to receive the financial cuts, I got very frightened.

Understanding the facts and causes of something helps me calm down. There was a great quote in The Making of a psychiatrist. He summed up his boss as follows: "...you could set his office on fire - and as long as he knew Why, everything was alright." (!) I am EXACTLY like that. Information is what I need to conquer fear.

I know nothing about finance, so off to Google I went. I wanted to see a history of stock market crashes to gage what I might have to contend with, should things continue going bad.

I discovered a series of books on finance which are collectively known as "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". These books are designed to teach folks like me basic "financial literacy", from the perspective of someone who has, or is considering gaining wealth. The first book came out in the '90's and its STILL a best seller!

I found a quote about character which has helped me sort out the fight between good and bad desires and actions. For me, it is the beginning of gaining control over my own mind.

Inside each of us is a kind person, a mean person, a greedy person, a rich person, a poor person, a coward, a crook, a hero, a liar, a cheapskate, a lover, a loser, and more.

Fromm: Rich Dad's Prophecy, Chapter 1. p 18. by Robert Kiyosaki

The key here is the thought frame of reference. Am I going to think like a courageous person, or a coward? Take a situation and consider how these two perspectives color feelings and actions.

I submit my usually completely irrational and cowardly attitude toward being on Government aid:

Cowardly self:

its hopeless.
I'm completely at the mercy of the System.
I will continue to get poorer.
I'll be spending more money to achieve less.
HMO will choose to pay to let me kill myself, rather then to treat my illnesses. I heard a report of this situation already being a reality in Oregon where euthanasia is legal.
I solve the above by taking no action on my behalf.
I'll just wait for life to "have its way with me".

Courageous Self:

No external situation can dictate my thinking.
I choose to gain emotional stability by learning how to challenge the dreadful list above.
I am not a victim
What if I do get further opportunities which could lead me off the system? A wonderful female comic used to say something completely outrageous and then cry out: "well, it could HAPPEN!"
God is my source of supply, not the government, or any other external situation.
I am not alone
I am not helpless
I'm not sure he story about Euthanasia is true, but even if it is, God is in charge of the number of days in my life. PERIOD!
I will educate myself to what is out there financially, to prepare for getting off the system.
I will let God open any doors of opportunity. All I have to do is educate myself and plan.
I am capable of real courage and good character.
Until lead differently, I'm going to assume, my dream of true self-sufficiency is starting to come true.
I will study instead of stew when life starts to scare me.

This is where the battle for success really resides, not in your circumstances, but in your mind. I wish all of you a mental victory over whatever you fear will destroy you.

"Yeah?", I used to scream at this kind of thinking: "well, what if it is as bad as I fear and all that bad stuff actually does happen to me? Then what, Shirley Temple?"

I still am in God's hands and He has control of the length of my life. Joining the "Ain't It Awful" club only saps my energy, kills my hope and is a waste of my (and others') time. Nothing has control over my thought-life other then me.

I choose to think positively, if nothing else, it is good for my body not to dump all the fight/flight stress into my system.

If I end up staying on the system, I have the priceless gift of knowledge and new possibilities for personal growth because of new knowledge. I will have learned how to invest in and believe in myself. It is always easier to keep a moving object in motion instead of starting something moving from a dead stop.

When Life Styles Colide.

2008-09-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

I am absolutely in love with my first PDA, a Palm Z22. The bottom-of-the-line for this device. It is great, except the dictionary available for it just doesn't cut it. So, if I go up to the next level $199. I can get a serious dictionary program on a memory card.

A friend alerted me to the fact that for another $30 I could get an iPod Touch with everything I want with audio/video capability. A whole 8 GB. Let the drooling begin. We wrote back and forth and I realized I'd need to go to an Apple Store to make sure I could actually read the interface. As I always do, I began to lay out the pros and cons for an iPod Touch vs the Palm Tungsten E2 Handheld.

The iPod Touch wins hands down for flexibility, functionality and total hipness.

The Palm is attractive because I am now used to how they do things and am not sure I like not having a stylus to work with. Not nearly as cool, or "hip" device.

Then I remembered a problem with iPods and hipness. A few years ago a teen was killed over his iPod. Yikes! Unlike my upper middle class exec friend, I spend my life walking on the street or riding on various forms of public transit. Theft is an issue, everywhere, but I doubt my friend seriously worries about being killed so someone can steal his iPod!

I'm pretty sure I'll go with the Palm, as I feel safer using it in public. A hell of a commentary on the current state of affairs in the big city, huh?

So, when I make my decision, my friend will be buying me a better dictionary as an early Christas present. SWEET!

Building A Life Around What You Love

2008-09-08T04:43:00.000-07:00

People who are passionate about what they do excite me. Chris Brogan is one of those people. He got my attention on twitter.com due to his varied and always interesting questions. Actually, another friend on twitter.com referred to him as a "must follow". This was advice I took and am grateful for. Chris is offering a free ebook: "Personal Branding for the Business Professional"

As a baby-boomer (age 55), I came into adulthood before the Internet revolution. We were taught to go to college, find something we liked to do, major in it and get a job. The assumption was of a job which could last for decades. Once work was settled we set about building the rest of our lives

Those days are gone. Sadly, it is now a world where you have to assume there is no truth or trust, or loyalty or even morality around any more anywhere.

Everything is fragmented, situational and "me-oriented. We are all tied to a computer for most of our day. Social networking on the computer was developed as the new "water cooler" experience. You don't leave your work station to socialize, you shoot off an email, IM, or a tweet.

Brogan's book is full of good ideas on many different levels. Beautiful lists of technology and life-building tools. This book is an outline for a new kind of social and economic structure. He speaks of a new ROI (Return On Influence). I believe this concept is much more valuable than we can imagine. Just for background, ROI traditionally stands for Return On Investment. But when I invest myself in something, I have potential influence, as my input has the ability to influence someone else. It is the start of an entirely new business and social model, built on the ashes of the pre-computer worlds of life and work.

Enjoy this man and his work. Check out his blog also.

This new model lives and breathes on the Internet. Welcome to life 2.0!

An Involuntary Set Of Masks

2008-09-05T05:42:00.000-07:00

There are two parts to me I am becoming uncomfortable with. In a large group, say more than three people, I clam up and only engage with my food. Or, a switch gets flipped somewhere and I push myself to perform grabbing inappropriate amounts of attention in a group.

Both of these states feel somewhat beyond my control. I know that is not technically true, but I haven't figured out how to break through these behaviors on my own. So, when I had my yearly check-in with my Psychiatrist, I brought these issues to her attention. Are there any groups that can assist me with these issues?

To my great relief and surprise, such groups exist. Due to my strange background, some emotional exchanges between people also baffle me. I went for an intake interview for this group and will start on a three week "try out" next week. This group may not be what I need, but after three sessions, I can evaluate and go on from that point.

I can not express how good it feels to be able to tell the truth about an issue I've labored under for years. I hide my emotional in-experience with total silence, or with hyped-up performance. These behaviors have their place, but I want the freedom to choose how I behave. I no longer want to have my fears control my behavior.

Another victory of late was my successful visit to the grand opening of Barack Obama's Northern California campaign headquarters. I really wanted to go and see what it was all about. The first time I've ever desired to see a campaign headquarters for any candidate.

My less mature behavior used to be to plan to go, but not go at the last minute. Mindlessly repeating a pattern my family had of promising to include me in something, but changing their mind at the last minute. I am joyful to share that I actually got the transit information I needed and went to the campaign headquarters.

It was very crowded and set up with a bunch of tables where a large group of people could come through, sign-up for different activities and grab a snack. I'm talking a large crowd in a relatively average sized room. After looking around a bit and signing in, I decided it was more then I was ready to deal with alone. It would have been unfair to buttonhole one of the staff member and tie them up with being my "helper". So, I got some lemonade and left.

From this experience, I now have the confidence to visit the medical supply company in Berkeley to get a different, hopefully, lighter weight walker. A walker which will fit easier into small cars.

I have had to work very hard not to break promises I've made to myself. I used to let my fear keep me from attempting to go somewhere new. Now, I check things out. If I really wanted to roll along with a big crowd, I know I could ask for and receive help from friends. What a wonderful bit of knowledge THAT is. Truth be told, large crowds frighten me. I truly fear being trampled. But I'm no longer coping out on myself by not exploring things which interest me.

This Campaign Is Sounding More And More Like A Bad Day In The School Yard.

2008-09-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

One of my weaknesses is a sheer love of idealism. I fall for it every time and then get upset when the practice doesn't match the theory. Okay, this is politics and by its nature its nasty, sleezy, unfair and a weird way to select a leader. But what is happening with The Republican side of things is really beginning to bug me.

The female VP quipped that being governor is kind of like being a community organizer except one has REAL responsibilities! OH, PLEASE! And it just is twirling round and round like that. All Barack has to do is just stick to his standard speeches and not lower himself to the Republican level. Where have all the adults gone?

Professional commentators are getting so frustrated, they are alluding to going off after their show and getting good and drunk! By-the-way, whose stupid idea was it to make the election season more than a year long...?

Yeah, I hear you Republican-types telling me to collect my government check and go away. Sorry, next bit of feed back please.

I went out for dinner and was totally shocked at how prices are sky-rocketing. I may just skip my planned vacation and get a tech toy instead (while I can still afford to BUY said tech toy.

After 40 years I've Become A Democrat.

2008-08-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

My first election I paid attention to was Nixon in "68. I couldn't vote, but I was up most of the night watching returns come in as a Freshman in High School. I devoured and loved the first two books written by Rush Limbaugh. The republican philosophy galvanized my dream of overcoming my legal blindness to take my place in the American Dream.

Even after mental illness, spiritual bankrupsy and being unable to support myself broke my spirit, I hung on to the rhetoric of the Republican party. I tingled to "The Republican Revolution" and "The Contract For America". I slunk down in shame to see the shocking difference between the ideals and the reality of impotence delivered from Washington and elsewhere.

My own life got better as I came to terms with my reality. Thanks to several government programs, I am supported and cared for by God through the tax payers of this country. If the Republicans had there way, I'd have nothing, except private charity. A chill runs through me as I write.

When Bush II wove conservative religion into his inaugural, my heart again filled with hope for the Republican Ideas I still loved. 9/11 cemented me firmly as a republican. I rejoiced when Bush II got four more years. Sadly, I again fought through the bitter disillusionment of what appears to be corruption and incompetence dancing together within the Republican party.

Every time I hear McCain speak, I shudder at his age. Is this the best the GOP has? I just couldn't see myself voting at all in November. But as a U. S. citizen and a Christian, apaqthy isn't an option. I liked Obama's prepared speeches. Now this guy could give a speech!

But Obama without prepared notes is also an embarrassment. He needs to go to Toastmasters for nine months and dump the "ahs" and other problems he has when stalling for time to think of a reply. If I know about Toastmasters, don't Obama's handlers know about it?

But Obama being where he is AT ALL is historic. On the final night of the Democratic Convention I was hooked up live via the Internet to see and hear his acceptance speech. Conservative talk radio made much of the stage. Yeah, ornate, but not the regal set supposed. Nobody was carrying Obama in on a throne...

During that speech I switched parties. For the first time in my life I actually gave money to a candidate. When I hear and watch Obama, he brings back hope, optimism and a willingness to help him become president. When I hear McCain talk, I wonder how much longer he'll remain healthy enough to stand up.

So now McCain has picked a fiery woman from Alaska as his running mate.

Too little too late. I am moving on.

Since Thursday evening I've gotten four different emails from the campaign, Obama, Bidan and even Michelle Obama! Sure, they are trolling for money, but each email also has campaign news and friendliness. I like their style and will alert them to this blog, as part of my continuing contribution to the cause.

I hear my republican friends howling that I'm being taken down a river of rhetoric. Yeah, inflation is eating me alive and your people got us here.

Obama cries out: "Its time for a CHANGE"

and I join in the national reply: "YES WE CAN!"

After You're Done With Therapy, what's Next?

2008-08-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

A friend has just started down that hard road of therapy. She's wiped out all the time and can't figure out why she doesn't want to do anything besides sit around and ... I informed her that right now therapy IS her life and there isn't much energy left over beyond that for awhile. How long? I can't answer that, but berating yourself for not progressing faster just saps energy better left available for the healing process.

I, on the other hand, have been through both the talking part of recovery and still take medication to manage my screwy brain chemistry. After therapy you begin to build a life. This blog is my example of that process, as it is happening. I stumbled along for awhile and slowly my "today" took shape.

I have lots of work to do for my church. I am still working on not burning myself out doing the work-a-holic routine. It is so hard to believe that I don't have to run myself into the ground to PROVE to God that I love Him. But I am getting much better at working at my job a few hours a day. Then I can enjoy other activities at will.

If you have come from a serious abuse history, your work is never totally done. I am now investigating some emotional issues. I have arranged to get into some short term group work for the problem. I was so relieved to finally find a place I can deal with my problems about emotions. Well, I came home and wept. Thanks to being on proper medication for my bi-polar disorder, I cried for maybe ten minutes and not several hours. What working your process gives you is this kind of control and freedom.

There was a time when being sad about a problem would hang my entire life up for days, weeks, or even months. It was just plain awful.

The wonderful part of being emotionally healthy is how life is always moving, changing and expanding. My church work keeps evolving. I now produce CD's of sermons I also put up on the web. So, I had to again dive into learning about how to make labels and packaging for CD's.

When I start something new, it feels like I'm dumb as a stump. Not a true evaluation. I ignore it and push on to produce labels and packaging. When I don't hassle myself for the learning "errors", the process almost becomes fun.

I am learning to apologize when necessary. Recently, I had an exam by a Dr. She and I were both having a bad day. In my opinion she behaved badly, but for sure I behaved badly also. We basically sniped at one another.

Upon reflection, I felt bad for my part of the encounter. It was clear that my Dr. was having a bad day (before my entrance into her day). For sure I didn't make her day any better. So, I shot off a brief email of apology for my own snooty behavior. To my surprise, I got a very kind response. Probably made her feel better also.

Another thing that begins to appear in a busy life is marvelous tech toys which solve problems.

I am totally addicted to my new Palm Z22. A little device I originally bought for reading all my eBooks. I have over 1,000 titles put together by a loving friend. The Z22 has a way to set it up so I can use reverse video. I can read anywhere and am no longer tied to my computer, or a stronger-than-normal light source.

I am also discovering other uses for this nifty gadget. I can take hand written notes on it, like I used to try and do with pen and paper. Notes never get crumpled up, or lost now. Oh, how sweet it it!

Finally, I bought a portable exercise machine, a ski-stepper. Actually use it too! Again, no marathon sessions, just a little exercise every few days.

So, for my dear friend just starting on the journey of recovery, be PATIENT! Yeah, I know, I wasn't patient either, but I wish I had been able to hear that message when I was starting out in recovery.

Entitlement: I Waited Too Long To Get Subsidized Housing.

2008-05-30T01:43:00.000-07:00

It is Memorial Day and I am at the apartment of a disabled church member. He has had several strokes and can't work. He has a one bedroom apartment with a backyard for $520/Mo. I confess I got angry and jealous over his residence.

For $560/Mo. I live in a 14 foot x 14 foot room with a sink, no heat, closet, bathroom or kitchen. This is not subsidized housing. But with a bathroom down the hall, careful use of a small space heater, microwave, rice cooker, refrigerator and one of those hang-over-the-door closets I make out pretty well.

I have heard many times that with my 3 disabilities: legal blindness, Cerebral Palsy and a hearing loss, I qualify for subsidized housing. Yes, but millions of others do also, and there is a pecking order.

See we disabled folk decided to make it a law that we are to be "un-disabled" legally. So, when I apply for a job, they can't have a note in my file about my low vision, use of a walker, or anything that would make me "look" disabled. What this accomplishes is a two trip stage to not being hired.

I go for the "agency" interview. Since my file looks like everyone else's file I get a call for a job. If I don't have a little chat with the placement agent, I'd show up at the work site and would be sent home! It is much easier to tell the placing agent about my legal blindness and get hung up on, without wasting hours of my life to accomplish the same thing. Yes, its illegal and no, I'm not exaggerating.

Because people love getting something for one-third of its value, able-bodied people have legislated new ways of being "disabled". No more is it the standard, "visible" problems. Now drug/alcohol addiction, being grossly overweight, mentally ill and most diseases qualify for government housing.

Enter the lawyers, after the passing of the Americans With Disabilities Act. It used to be that a blind adult was allowed to reside with the elderly. No more, blindness is considered a high risk condition and we are now in lovely segregated "disabled only" buildings that are just the opposite of what "mainstreaming" and "liberation" were supposed to be about.

It wasn't until the passing of the ADA that any landlord ever called me a "bad insurance risk". Now my toileting habits are up for discussion. Its hard on one's sense of self worth to have to explain in painful detail that I can go potty all alone, yes, both kinds and I know if I need to vomit, to go to the potty too!

So, back in 2001, I decided it was time to go after those lovely apartments everyone was saying were mine for the taking. Oh, how shocked I became after several months of this dreary adventure. I decided to go through a Social Worker, as I thought they had an "in". They don't, but me traipsing through their office insures they have a job.

Upon entering this Social Worker's office, I met a young lady who demonstrated how one survives a drive-by shooting in one's living room. I was so totally taken aback by this, I actually lay prone on her office floor as she explained how you lay flat on the ground until the shooting stops!

Still believing I had some rights in this melodrama I sarcastically informed her: "If you think I want a studio apartment bad enough to risk being shot in my own living room - lady you are crazy!" Bad client, naughty, no! Never assert yourself. You need to understand...

This lady then lectured me on my attitude. Oh sigh! She then handed me a three-inch thick sheaf of papers with two columns of addresses on each sheet. The ones marked "open" were the ones I could contact for possible housing.

99% of the apartments were "closed" or "non-disabled", or wouldn't take MY set of disabilities!

The several that were open were in neighborhoods the police attempt to avoid. No, no, I won't go! So after an attempt with another agency, yielding even nastier neighborhoods to live in, I gave up and prayed to God for the gratitude for what I had in 2001. A ghetto room where people pulled knives on you as you attempted to go to the bathroom. (They were free-basing at the time).

Within three months that building was condemned and I moved to my current middle class location with a high rent. BUT it is safe, quiet and clean. I wish I had more space, but again, it is safe, quiet, clean and I have sunlight most of the day through a beautiful window that actually looks out to the sky and not another building wall!

People at church have been pushing me to really go for getting better housing. I endured their: "you have no faith" lectures and did not re-enter the world of subsidized housing. Oh, need I forget, I'm 153,462 on one waiting list and #1, on a second. I always lose out to an incoming AIDS patient and I've been #1 for YEARS! I finally just let them all laps. After five years, what the hell?

But viewing my friend's this lovely little apartment on Memorial Day, hypnotized me back into the fray. I was given an emergency housing hotline for my county. The person who called for me told me that this agency requested me to call them, as: "... they were sure they could help you". NOT!

I connected to what sounded like a 911 call room. I gave my story and was begrudgingly given two phone numbers. All housing recommended to me was in towns 2 hours away from where I live. Of course, some of those same great enclaves of crime and violence came up also.

I have to ask myself: Where is it written that I am entitled to something MORE that I can't afford? The Government is already paying my general support plus almost $300 a month in free insurance and medication. It isn't like I'm on the street with a tin cup. What is so bad about having a bathroom and shower down the hall, when being in the hall is so safe, that people leave their doors unlocked while in the bathroom, or shower?

Once again I relearn that to plan ahead when one is on the system is silly. The man on the hot line was not impressed that I felt I was losing my ability to walk up and down the 30 stairs in this building. They aren't set up for THAT. So, I'll walk until I have to butt-walk and when it gets to the crawling stage, I'll be screwed-up enough that my HMO will enlist that Social Worker to "put" me somewhere. But by then, my mouth might be the only fully functioning organ in my body. I'm going back to being thankful for what I have and not pursuing the holy grail of a kitchen and toilet I can call my own.

Geek File: Desparation Is The Mother Of Disaster.

2008-05-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

I had fifteen days of cat-sitting to do in the Berkeley Hills. I loaded up my portable USB drive with my four raw audio files and settled down to get the Black History Presentation edited. So when I returned home, I could burn the CD's, make their artwork and turn in our churches first CD for sale.

Now, I have been known to sit on a job like a hen, hoping inspiration will somehow hatch. It doesn't. But this time, I was on it and REALLY, REALLY worked. Two of the four files were full of those metallic clicks from defective cassette tapes. Oh, how I chased those buggers down!

Yesterday, it seemed like my drive was acting strange and the computer was just frozen in "spinning beach ball" heaven. When I ran disc Utility on the drive it failed and told me it was over.

I was briefly returning home to my newer Mac and slammed that drive back into my machine where it was seen on the desktop just fine. Then I ran disc utility again and something got fixed, according to Disc Utility, but something else got broken, as my "label records" were now invalid and Disc Utility doesn't seem to fix them.

Oh friends, here is where you can take a small water spill from a cup, turning it into an overflowing washing machine flooding your entire home. Beware! There are two demons that will drive you to make terrible judgements. a) current fatigue and b) dread of re-doing hours of work a second tine.

Current fatigue tells you that to re-do a week's worth of work will literally kill you. It won't , but the mess you make to AVOID that re-work, could...actually kill you!

Dread of the re-work. I have a friend who had offered to buy me a program that fixes sick discs and other things where your data goes bye-bye. I refused, at the time, as it appeared I didn't need the program and truthfully wasn't sure I had enough tech savvy to USE the program. But under the twin narcotics of fatigue and dread, I was ready to jump into anything!

I now share the IM's between my friend and I. Note that under normal conditions, (when I am not out of my mind) I would rather buy a new computer than face going into "Terminal" where you can turn your Mac into a doorstop, by fiddling around when you don't know what you are doing.

My Friend: "... and not a guaranteed success I hate to say it, but... You're looking at some re-work my friend."

Me: "np, can I screw around in Terminal and fix the bad records?"

My Friend: "Uh yah... the term "screw around in terminal" NEVER has a good result."

Fellow Geeks and geeks-in-training. I KNOW he already did this proposed experiment and probably had to do two weeks of back work to clean up the mess. What was I thinking?

Me: "sok, I won't die. If I wasn't paying for a vacation this week, I'd have the money (to buy special software)."

My Friend: "lol OK. So I won't even feel the least bit bad then. Vacation! Ha! Some kind of geek you are picking vacation over a tech tool!"

I realize, I must step away from this computer. No searching, logging in, or even pawingthrough the "Help" files. I now leave you to do something harmless, like read an ebook.

Humor: I Present To You The Hamster Dance

2008-05-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a friend started reviewing that Austrian incest case. No doubt she was stunned by the level of depravity human beings are capable of heaping upon one another. Is there any limit to said depravity? Short answer: no.

When I first heard about this dreary episode I comprehended I didn't want to know any more. As my friend dredged up all the sordid details I perceived my vision blurring in and out. If I didn't act quickly, I'd remember something dreadful about my own childhood.

I decided to refuse the information and made a determined effort to keep my attention off my screaming psyche. It worked, no new memories. I really don't need to waste days with more of the same "details on a theme", cogitating and weeping.

My advice is to stay far away from this particular case, as elements of it could stir up memories you may not wish to recall. If you are in that difficult part of recovery where memory retrieval is important, than this case may be your ticket to personal liberation. It is a very sad and dreary affair.

When I woke up this morning NOT having flashbacks (thank you Jesus), I began my morning email / website review. As a fan of twitter.com I read through the quick messages of friends. The word "meme" came up. I didn't know the meaning, so I did a Google search. A meme is a small piece of information, quickly understandable, and usually funny. Oh, like some of the goofy pictures people use to represent themselves.

I then ran into an example: The Hamster Dance.

This genre is about ten years old, according to some, but it is new to me. I am still laughing. I ponder: what stress and impossible task the author was avoiding, while he created this? Me, I should be editing audio for my church.

So, now that we can all have a good laugh, I leave you to return to what I should have been doing for the last 30 minutes :)

The Hidden Price of Success.

2008-04-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

Scott Sigler got his contract with Crown Books. His dream is in the process of coming true. He quipped: "I'm an overnight sensation that has taken fifteen years."

As I continue to follow his career I am reminded of the hidden price he has and is paying for the hard cover book release, five city book tour and finding out how many of the 100,000 copies of INFECTED have actually sold.

As I sit at my computer happily consuming his wonderful audio version of INFECTED, it seems so easy. How hard is it to tell a story? I've written stories and have imagined plots. But I am nowhere near being even a wannabe writer.

I produce this blog, but this is not truly professional writing. I have vague illusions about someone picking up my blog and seeing the potential for a book, but reality lets me know that it probably won't happen. Why?

Because I don't put in the time and effort to make it happen. Crown decided to back Sigler because of the quality of his work. Sigler has been working and reworking INFECTED for about twelve years. He is also involved in continuing research of scientific topics, to add to the plausibility of his fictional horror yarns.

Twelve years ago, Scott discovered a book on Parasitism. His brain latches onto the beginning of a story idea. That part is fun and exciting. The hours of rereading, rewriting and more researching can feel oppressive. Boredom lurks after the blush of "newness" wears off.

Scott is married and can't pursue career success at the expense of his family and friends. He has learned to walk that tightrope between career and personal life.

Scott has embraced the discipline of learning the rules of grammar, style and storytelling. He is willing to slash and burn his own work to make sure it is ready for the "break" when it does come. He balances opposite parts of himself. His head may be in the clouds but his feet are on the ground. He'd like to be the biggest thing in publishing history, but what will he settle for if he not the biggest thing in publishing?

This part of the journey I'm somewhat familiar with. I am coming to terms with having several disabilities, large aspirations, champagne tastes and a beer budget. I discovered I must like the "process" of what I'm doing, not just the result. Therefore the achieving of a goal isn't the only time I find enjoyment.

I killed myself to become a computer programmer, only to discovered I'd been happier as a data entry operator! Ooh, that realization was a real sad moment.

So Scott's pre-launch shin-dig with family and friends is held on the eve of his book launch. He has some candy, that turned out to be spoiled. He got a nasty case of food poisoning, a condition with which one can't argue. It is hard to do a phone interview with a radio station in New York when you are too sick to speak.

I know he never fantasized about having those radio interviews while fighting nausea! Crown, having dealt with a legion of authors, took it in stride and Sigler is still in their employ. People do become ill.

Day two (April 2nd) he's on a plane for Los Angeles and the first of a five city book tour. Success is tiring and after the first three cities, he found his bed at home and collapsed into it. I'll bet he didn't daydream of this aspect of success either.

One of the reasons I know I wouldn't make it as a writer is my tolerance for depression. The level of depression at the "let down" phase of success would be more than I could handle. After several days back home Scott is off to New York and sees that he has strong sales, but not as strong as he'd hoped. How does he handle what must be a terrible personal disappointment?

All of these emotions are thrashed out alone, or at best with a few trusted friends. When you get noticed, people come out of nowhere and want to be your "friend". Usually not with your best interest at heart.

I know I'm a fan, more then a friend. Yes, I care about Scott and his work deeply. I want the absolute best success for him. But I'm also having my own money fantasies about owning what will become the equivalent of a first run copy of a signed book by Tom Clancy! My daydream is something like this. I bought it for $30 and now people are willing to pay $30,000. Wow, that would be SWEET! This kind of thinking makes me a fan, not a friend.

I study Scott's career and continue to mine personal inspiration from his honest and shoot-from-the-hip interviews. The hidden price of any successful endeavor is hours of just plain hard work.

I reflect on my current success with my church and the computer. I looked for that "hidden" work pattern and realized it was indeed present. I got a computer, programs and manuals. I had a real difficult time figuring out Adobe Acrobat 5. It took me days of reading and rereading their documentation to actually successfully use it. But from that adventure I found I could read much easier on a computer and bought serious Bible software. I love history and began the ridiculous task of reading the works of the Church Fathers, all 37 volumes. I'm in Volume four now.

Continuing with self education, my next difficult task was comprehending how to use Nisus Writer. There as still things that program could do I don't understand. But I learned more of how to learn and how word processing on a computer works.

When I made the leap to my first Internet capable computer the world exploded open to me. I read a lot of almost everything that came my way. Sometimes I long for those days with nothing to do but what I wanted to do, with no external responsibilities. My days are not like that anymore.

I have projects, deadlines and the challenge of learning when something is too difficult for me to tackle alone. I just turned over the project to create church stationery to someone more experienced with business stationery. It feels good to admit I need help.

Today after a little over three weeks out there in bookstores. INFECTED is doing well, nearly in the top 35 of the New York Times Best Sellers List. He'd published before with a much smaller company and when he sold 3,000 copies of a book, the company could barely fulfill the orders!

Crown sees potential in Sigler, because of his proven success in the podcast arena. So they gave him an unusual 100,000 book roll-out. Most first-time print runs are around 3,000 copies. Scott mentioned how that pressure weighed on him, in the beginning. I break out in a cold sweat just thinking about it, and it isn't even my life.

Sadly, Scott and his family now have to concern themselves with personal security issues. There are dangerous people out there who seem to glom onto folks in the public eye. Scott rarely talks of his wife or his marriage. I'm sure partly to shield his mate from some of the insanity of being in the public eye.

So when you find yourself angry because somebody else got the promotion, praise or recognition, remember all that went into that "moment in the sun". I am content with my life and am not angry or jealous of someone else's "five minutes of fame". I have learned to remember those lonely, hard times of grinding effort, that "hidden" price of success.

Taking Responsibility In Our Crumbling Society.

2008-04-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have been shaken up badly to realize I am now treating others the way some professionals treated me. They treated me harshly when I was strong enough to start accepting responsibility for my life. At church I got tricked by a homeless person, who spun a tale of family suicide. She conveniently neglected the details of her resent hospital release, destitution and homelessness.

I assumed I was dealing with a middle class person being rocked by the suicide of her 11-year-old grand daughter. I now question whether that actually happened to this lady.

I started receiving calls from her in various states of hysterics. "I have no place to go. No one cares." Being I've lived among the very poor I recognized this ploy. I refused to buy into the idea that I was now totally responsible for her well being.

She managed to secure a temporary hotel extension from the hospital she was released from. Her check comes in next week. I then get the call this morning that she has no food. I heard that Lilt of victory in her voice as if to proclaim: "Now you HAVE to do something!" Again, I had to decline to assist her. I gave her information I had about various feeding programs in Oakland, but beyond that, I will do no more.

I have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I have food, money and a place to stay. If-I-were-really-a-good-Christian... Common sense redirects my flight into unrealistic guilt.

Neither I, or my church are equipped to handle a person in such desperate straights. We can refer her to The Red Cross, The Salvation Army or The Lighthouse Mission. These groups are set up to render emergency assistance. True to the nature of the mentally ill and or very immature, this woman refused all three options. She ran down everything that was wrong with each group. At that point, I hung up the phone.

Oh how I remember my own battles with agencies and doctors. Here I was a seriously messed-up mental patient ((self-committed, but now only able to leave when someone else judged me sane). I had all the answers for everything except my life and current circumstances.

Yes, I was suicidal. I'd been that way for years and knew that played right, someone would do something to make it stop. So, I dragged myself into yet another doctor and showed him my drawings depicting my desire to die.

I whipped the drawings out as a kind of victory. I thrust them into his hands with the triumphant feeling of: "Now, even a dumb-ass like you will see how badly I need YOU TO DO SOMETHING!"

The doctor's response shocked me into stunned reevaluation.

He rudely threw the papers on the floor at my feet and angrily growled: "So? What do you want me to do with these? Its your problem, not mine." He then walked out of the conference room. As cruel as this may sound, at first, it was a continuation of my real recovery. This man was the beginning of my understanding that I was responsible for my own life and problems. Oh, what a series of painful lessons I had to endure before embracing the idea of carrying my own butt through life.

I truly hurt for this homeless and obviously troubled woman. But part of what Christianity is preparing us to become is leaders. We will rule and reign with Christ. What are the qualities of leadership? One big one is knowing that you can't be everything, everywhere to everyone.

If I have information the Director of the FBI needs, I'd go through the phone-channels and eventually I'd be put in touch with the Director, or one of his close associates. You have to go through channels. The Director of the FBI can't field every request for his attention, he no doubt receives.

Our 50-member church has limits as to what we can have and do. We can and do give occasional emergency food and or hotel stays. One night with the related referrals given to the people the next day. If they refuse to act on our information, we don't continue to give them aid. It can get ugly, but sanity dictates that our church isn't taken for a ride by people who refuse to seek out appropriate forms of assistance.

Leadership demands that one knows their skills, weaknesses and very real limits. I have a friend back east. It would be totally unreasonable and unrealistic for me to request him to fly across the country because I'm lonely. While he would be happy to speak to me on the phone, he would no doubt refer me to my local sources of assistance. This isn't being cruel, or irresponsible. He has a family of five to support and precious little time which isn't accounted for. When you are friends with busy people and they give of their time and resources, it is a truly loving act of friendship.

As a writer I know always acknowledges to his readers. He tries to make his work worthy of our TIME. Once time is given to something, you can't get it back. Before my life got busy I used to laugh at such a statement. Now I thank God for the loving friends I have who are always there when I'm going through a rough spot. Thankfully, those times are becoming fewer and farther apart.

I also must manage my time. I have several types of part-time work, needs for rest and study as well as needs for some "down" time. I get overtired and ill, when I ignore these limits.

I no longer will give my phone number to strangers. I don't have the time, or resources to adequately help them. When I give out my number, I'm implying that I have the time and resources to help.

It is painful to see my old self for what it truly was: mentally ill and desperately immature. I thank God, He didn't give up on me. I knew I'd changed, but it was a shock to realize that I've come full circle. I am now acting like some of the professionals who used to work with me. I repent for some of the nasty things I thought about them at the time they were introducing me to that nasty concept of taking responsibility for my own life.

Another Example of Healing I Didn't Notice.

2008-03-27T01:04:00.000-07:00

I listen to my iPod on the long commute to work. A song from the '80's came up. I listened in shock to what my life used to be:

Too Much Time On My Hands
Written by tommy shaw
Lead vocals by tommy shaw

Sitting on this bar stool talking like a damn fool
Got the twelve o'clock news blues
And Ive given up hope on the afternoon soaps
And a bottle of cold brew
Is it any wonder I'm not crazy? is it any wonder I'm sane at all
Well I'm so tired of losing- I got nothing to do and all day to do it
I go out cruis'in but I've no place to go and all night to get there
Is it any wonder I'm not a criminal?
Is it any wonder I'm not in jail?
Is it any wonder Ive got

Too much time on my hands, its ticking away with my sanity
I've got too much time on my hands, its hard to believe such a calamity
I've got too much time on my hands and its ticking away from me
Too much time on my hands, too much time on my hands
Too much time on my hands

Well, I'm a jet fuel genius - I can solve the world's problems
Without even trying
I have dozens of friends and the fun never ends
That is, as long as I'm buying
Is it any wonder I'm not the president
(hes not the president)
Is it any wonder I'm null and void?
Is it any wonder I've got

Too much time on my hands, its ticking away at my sanity
Ive got too much time on my hands, its hard to believe such a calamity
Ive got too much time on my hands and its ticking away from me
Too much time on my hands, too much time on my hands
Too much time on my hands
----------------------------

This is the best description of having no purpose or direction I've ever read: "I'm so tired of losing I got nothing to do and all day to do it. I go out crus'in, I got nowhere to go and all night to get there"

I lived that nightmare for most of my life!

Also notice a totally out-of-control ego: "I'm a jet fuel genius - I can solve the world's problems without even trying." Another example of "If you so smart, why ain't you rich?"

Back in the '70's, before becoming a Christian, and sadly, for many years AFTER, life just happened to me. I sat around, not changing me, and expecting things to "get" different.

I am stunned to realize that everything has been changed and turned up-side-down. I now have the "normal" problems of living. I have in a quick outline. from recovery, a "life".

"Something to do, somewhere to go and someone to meet".

I have real friends, interests, hobbies and several kinds of work. Amazingly, I'm now getting compensated for my "volunteer" church work. Every time I go to the grocery store I literally thank God for his bounty as I use a gift card for purchases.

I'm learning how to have love, joy and peace. I'm learning to develop: patience, gentleness and kindness. I am also working on learning to practice having faith (trust in the future), humility and self-control.

By no means am I any way near DONE on any of those things. They are the nine "fruits of the Holy Spirit". I'll get to work on all of this for the rest of my life.

The first three (love, joy and peace) are things I experience directly as flat out gifts from God. As I make more reasonable choices and avoid obvious chaos from people and situations.

I remember wallowing in self-pity: "I'll always be alone. I'll never have a husband and I have to be grateful for always being alone..." Yuck-o,, yes?

I decided that while going to The Marriott for dinner by myself, I could talk to God about how wonderful dinner at the Marriott is. I just thought at God all through my dinner alone. I told him everything, just as though He was sitting there with me.

The beauty of the dining room. The brilliant sun splotches on the carpet and the kindness of the Marriott staff. What happened inside surprised me. I didn't feel alone any more. I was REALLY grateful for ACTUAL people, places and things. I spent a glorious afternoon feeling at peace and content, instead of tasting my own tears of sadness as I'd choke down a dinner my emotions wouldn't allow me to even enjoy.

I no longer get into a fight between two other people. I stay away from violent, or raging people. I also have learned that negative people do not have my best interest at heart.

Long suffering, or patience, gentleness and kindness are things I CAN already accomplish, if I want to badly enough.

I have a little experience with even patience. When I'm at the Social Security office waiting to talk to a worker, I see someone get angry, scream, yell and leap over the gate between the waiting area and the Worker's desks. ARMED security guards quickly take the out-of-control client away. From these observations, I have learned to be quiet instead of loud and threatening.

Gentleness is having the strength to shove you off your feet when I push you as a joke. Sanity is not applying all my strength towards you while giving you a friendly "push".

Kindness came to me via a crying bus driver. It was raining and she almost drove by me. I got on the bus screaming at her incompetence. She cried, through real tears that "I'm not Jesus Christ!" Man, did I learn a lesson. Talk about feeling small and stupid!
Now when a driver messes up I make it clear that there is a problem, but I also make it clear that I'm not going to go hysterical on them. I can have a reasonable and fair conversation even when angry enough to tell you off.

The last three are last because they are extensions and usually completely new behaviors. I had a PhD in being negative. I could find something wrong with winning the lottery. I had all the answers and never bothered to question my responsibility in any situation.

Having experienced a tinsy bit of the first six traits of the Holy Spirit, I have a new ability to think about something positive. Yeah, I'm on the system and unable to support myself. BUT there is a possibility (maybe remote, but real) that I will be able to be self supporting. I have learned to be thankful for what I DO have, instead or cursing the darkness about what I DON'T have.

It is amazing how much stress and tension leaves me when I plan a vacation NOT letting lack of money prevent me from even THINKING about taking a vacation. A good way to get unstuck to where you can at least figure out what you would LIKE to do is to let your imagination lose. What would you like to do if money was available?

Once you get a list of what you'd like to do, then you can come back and cross off the truly ridiculous. "I'd like to stay at the Marriott for five days". I settled for two really great days and a night - and actually did it! Thinking positively is the germ of faith.

Humility came to me the hard way. When you are arrogant and outrageous people roughly rebuke you. "Attitude Adjustment" is a great example of "oops" and learning to eat crow.

Attitude Adjustment
By Hank Williams Jr.

Now I met an old friend
In the bar the other night
And he got a little drunk
And he wanted to fight
And he jumped up
And challenged every man in the room
And just about the time he got the words out
An 'ol boy jumped up and closed his mouth
And used his head for a mop
And his butt for a broom

It was an attitude adjustment
I guess it was his first time
An attitude adjustment
Now he understands just fine
He got bent out of shape
And he opened his mouth
And just one appointment
Straightened him right out
It was an attitude adjustment
Oh It'll work every time

Well I've got this big 'ol brother-in-law
And me and him just never did get along
Because he wants to make sure
I'm treating his sister right
He got drunk one night
And started beating me up
And I went and got a tire tool
Out of my truck
And laid him out as cold as a block of ice

It was an attitude adjustment
And it will work every time
An attitude adjustment
I made him see the light
And he says I'm his kind of man
And he comes around with his hat in his hand
It was an attitude adjustment
I cured all his family pride

Now my girlfriend slapped me in the face
I said darl'in that was you're first mistake
Then she went wild and her eyes turned red
She started breaking everything
And screaming loud
And kick'in me and cussin me out
And I gave her a little adjustment
On the top of the head

It was an attitude adjustment
Now she loves on me all the time
Just an attitude adjustment
She got a whole new frame of mind
She don't nag
And I don't beg
And we get along and like I said
Just an attitude adjustment
Oh everythings just fine
Well almost

She called the cops to take me in
And I said you're never gonna do it friend
And they just smiled
And said "Oh Yes We Will"
Now a stick to the head
And some kicks in the chin
And a several bites from Rin Tin Tin
And I couldn't wait to get into that jail

It was an attitude adjustment
Oh I went along peacefully
Attitude adjustment
Oh they made me clearly see
Cause my head is black
And my legs are blue=
And both knee caps are bit clean through
It was an attitude adjustment
It made my whole outlook brand new
Just a attitude adjustment
It made my whole outlook brand new
-----------------------------------------------

I really believe I've eaten enough crow to never seriously entertain the idea that: "I'm all of that and a bag of chips". Man, humiliation is hard and a very painful way to learn that you aren't God.

I misunderstood humility. It is not to deny what you can do. I have some natural talent in several areas. However, God has permitted me to really shine by teaching me things and taking my natural abilities and adding to them. God is "the wind beneath my wings". But as long as I stay under God's control, I have the joy of flight.

I just don't get to put other people down who don't perform as I do. I also don't get to take the credit for what I do. It even works on things like this blog. I pray for ideas. Now that I'm not in and out of crisis on a regular basis, I find it harder to figure out what to write. This blog is an answer to one of my prayers. God gave me the thought and the ideas. I basically just copy what he gives me. That is very different from claiming I have great personal talent and ability.

The last gift from the Holy Spirit is self-control. Like humility, I didn't easily embrace this trait either. Having untreated Bi Polar Depression shows up in being impulsive and headstrong. You don't have to be Bi Polar to have those faults, but Bi Polar Depression puts you on a whole other level of immaturity.

Delayed gratification is another term used for self-control. I still struggle with the idea of saving the money FIRST and then PURCHASING my desired item. The difference now, is I am aware of what I'm doing and am willing to take responsibility for my behavior. (What a concept)!

My time is now valuable to me. I have more to do, then hours in the day. I am not saying I have unfair pressure put upon me. I struggle not to over-work, because I am so happy to have meaningful work to do for my church. I have to set a timer to keep myself from the brain numbing three hour marathons! I am not a loser. As a friend says: "I'm one of God's kids". I am grateful to be alive. This is why I had to laugh when I listened to the song: "Too Much time on My Hands". Wow, God, like the song says: "Look where You brought me from!"

Recovery: When It Isn't Black or White.

2008-03-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted lately from being either busy, sick, or both. Tomorrow I officially get help with whatever has taken up residence in my lungs. But now back to recovery!

I was the one with the courage to turn my dad into my mother when he was trying to have sex with me, but thought I was my mother. Black and white. I did what needed to be done.

I left my abusive lover and almost everything I owned, as I knew my own weaknesses. Not letting him "talk me back home" was my only protection against going back for more physical and mental abuse. Again, black and white.

I thought I had enough emotional strength and maturity to walk with a friend while she had an anxiety attack. She started talking really crazy, violent crazy. She then became unintelligible. Then it was over. She thanked me for hanging with her and assured me she was fine.

Unfortunately, I was no longer fine. Her crazy talk scared me back to thinking about my mother and her "attacks". My mom would be fine, truly fine. I'd ask to be fed, as a small child and she'd give me food. She would talk to me and even engage in mild play. It was real, fun and safe.

When my mother would have one of her "attacks" I'd ask for food and she'd lose it completely. Screaming at me and savagely punishing me for something... I never knew what I'd done wrong. As an adult I'd black out, grab a large stuffed animal and beat it with a closed fist screaming: "I'll teach you a lesson!"

My mom knew she went crazy. She cried and prayed to God a lot, after she'd recover. But I learned to know that my mother was never truly "alright".

Now I had a box to place my friend in. She thinks she's okay, but I am afraid she may kill someone. Do I sit by and wait for something to happen? Do I call the police? What exactly do I report? My adrenaline has shot up like it did after my 2nd mugging. I'm totally on hyper "red alert"

I decide it is time to lay the hammer down. Time to "exit" another person from my life. Oh God, how I hate this part of myself. I leave a message on my friends machine letting her know that I think she's psychotic and not to call me like that any more. I also dumped on her for doing "Psycho-drama". A pastime played in every psych ward.

But, my friend, being my friend, saw things more clearly and had a different idea. She wanted to continue being friends. She was clear that I was not a good pick to talk to when she was having any strong emotional outburst. She was willing to try and continue being friends with some new insight on how what she does can scare some people.

Wow. I am stunned. Yeah, her anxiety attack sure did scare me. I really didn't want her to totally go away, but those episodes of hers can for sure "go away". Just like when I get really upset and start spouting off about suicide, I have also learned that my friends can't deal with it. It is time to go to the hospital, or at least get some "tune-up" counseling. All are available to me and my friends are spared unnecessary upset.

This is one of the first attempts to keep a friendship in my world, instead of just cutting and running. I'm sure some of you have a past strewn with those who you don't associate with any more. Sometimes that is survival, as we sure know how to find illness in a crowd! But as real healing begins, I am overjoyed at NOT trying to make friends with the most troubled soul in a group. I've learned some of the "signs" of trouble, before befriending and man, my friends are so HEALTHY!

I now have to attend to this lung, weakness thing that has been around for almost a month. Time to call for medical help. I have no doubt I'll be taken seriously. My HMO loves it when you try to get well on your own before running to them. I've never been refused treatment. I may have some kind of low grade infection going on, but something sure is going on and I've had it. Yes, I waited so long because I have issues around being sick and actually making it official. My family had issues with illness and as much as I thought I was done with their garbage - well, maybe not.

This is more of getting "really well". Sure not as cut and dry as I once thought it was going to be. Keep waiting for the angels to sing and a bright light to shine on me while a voice booms out of heaven: "Yes, thou art finished!" THAT probably won't happen until the rapture, or my physical death. So recovery continues with very little "drama". Have to remember that "dramatic" is rare, like "traumatic". Health is so sweet!

Wow! What A Great Valentine Message!

2008-02-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Today is Thursday, Valentines Day. If I permit myself I can slide into sadness because I don't have a romance in my life. I don't go there, as I have trouble living with me, so do I really think my eccentric ways would be good for a husband? NOT!

Yesterday was my first day with no tears after returning my check to my church to prevent the loss of my medical benefits. Did I over react? (shrug), more than likely . But it is over in three days instead of several months. (from a song), "Look where God has brought me from". Actually updated church's website last night. A real sign that my brain is once again working.

So this morning I got on my beloved twitter and greeted my flock of about 20 followers. Check out this lovely gift that arrived on my desktop from twitter.com:

"Sending you much love, a (hug), and a single rose @ for your sweet friendship. "

This lady is the wife of one of my favorite and most fascinating net friends. I have written much about him, claiming he is to creativity what a Jack Russell Terrier is to dogs. He said that was a first for him - being compared to a Jack Russell Terrier. I have gotten brain fatigue attempting to keep up with his text messages. I have often pondered how it must be to actually LIVE with this super energetic dynamo!

When his wife was pregnant with their last child he took loving pictures of her napping. I bet she was napping! Because I listened to some classes with this man I know a bit about his wife. He is impulsive, she is not. He says whatever pops into his mind. She plans it all out before sharing. Yeah, they've had to work together to keep from driving each other crazy.

But until twitter, I'd never met my friend's wife. Something got her into using twitter and to hubby's amazement, she took off like a rocket. Now they chat with each other via twitter - even when both are seated on the same couch! The kids now lament the disappearance of both of their parents in "real time". Oh, and their kids are also amazingly creative and energetic. Not a surprise there (smile).

So you lovely human being (you know who you are), how's about a run down on what got you into twitter? I'm so glad you ventured out into cyberspace. You win the prize for the best valentine I've ever gotten. Actually got me to tear up. I will mine wonderful encouragement from that message for days.

Now I leave you all to clean a house. I hope every one of my readers gets blessed with something that makes this day special. What an awesome gift from my friend's totally cool wife!

Priorities, What's Really Important?

2008-02-12T07:52:00.000-08:00

This World Is Not My Home

This world is not my home I'm just passing through
my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore

They're all expecting me and that's one thing I know
my savior pardoned me and now I onward go
I know He'll take me through though I am weak and poor
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Just up in Glory Land we'll live eternally
the Saints on every hand are shouting victory
their song of sweetest praise drifts back from Heaven's shore
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore

I was so shellshocked from the events of yesterday. I actually removed the church check from my wallet and "voided" it. I felt very, very disconnected from reality. The last time I experienced such a disconnect was the first night I left (was tossed out of) my x-lover's house. I was at a friend's home on an emergency basis. I had been working in her home for almost 10 years and yet the house, my belongings and the world in general felt "strange". I felt like I didn't belong.

I couldn't sleep last night. I found myself stairing at the ceiling and pondering if it mattered what I did any more. I could just walk away from everything and wait to die... Better figure out what is important, or this kind of thinking could lead me into the hosspital.

What does the Bible have to say about this situation? Am I mad at God? Am I mad at myself? What has me so riled up?

I felt God very close to me and realized that whatever was happening I wasn't mad at God because He didn't do anything in this situation. I had misunderstood the rules of the system which is paying my medical costs. They rightly assume I am unable to work. While this is TECHNICALLY untrue, the reality is I need more money than Social Security provides and my ability to make up the difference has been amply demonstrated to not exist. Oh man! my pride is having a howling problem with THAT bit of reality!

According to Jesus, finding Him is the most important assignment of my life on earth. I may not have the trappings of the "World", but I am saved and have a deep and rich relationship with God and His people.

According to my Pastor's wife, this is just the devil attempting to derail the blessings I'm accruing from this month of fasting and intense prayer. That almost makes sense to me, as I've been tempted to drink, use drugs and just act crazy in response to realizing I traded in my ability to get off the system for the money I need for medicine and treatment. Without my psychiatrtic drugs I truly have no life.

Using the old idea of looking for the good in a difficult set of circumstances, I realize that I am also being tempted to abandon my church's website out of anger. A test of my promise to God that I'd stay with that work regardless of pay. I have a chance to prove how much commitment I have to God's work when I literally have to walk away from compensation.

I realize that in spite of feeling somewhat "lost", I know God will show me a new way of thinking and reacting to my circumstances. He is so close to me as I write. I really have learned to trust Him. I have enough mental strength to tolerate feeling "lost" for awhile.

I now consider someone like Susan Reynolds. Before cancer she had a life and carear with all the ups and downs. Now her life has been turned insid out and upside down due to cancer. I totally appreciate her willingness to share her "hard" times, as well as those days when she is full of energy and hope. I can handle a hard day, just like she can. It gives me strength to face the "strange" and "sad" stuff just watching her whip out her new video cam and have the sheer guts to look us in the face and say: "I'm not doing so well today...". Girl, you give me a gift, every time you do that!

What to do with my friends, and they are friends, who ignore my upsets? It is hard for me not to think of that kind of behavior as cowardice. I have lost some respect for a couple of people, but maybe my mic was on mute and they didn't "hear" me. I know that wasn't true, as I checked my mic, as I tried to re-connect with them on our conference call via Skype. Somebody muted me remotely and they bailed out on me. I have to "forgive" them for that and I'm not ready to deal with that ball of pain just yet.

I hate people with no courage. Apparently to ignore someone having a hard time is how its done, as an individual I thought would be there for me joined the silence on twitter in reaction to my angry tweets. Lesson learned, "you pussies"! Oh, Scott Sigler, how I love you!

I know that kind of "silence" well. Yeah, it is the world's way of "socializing" people. Torture them with absolute abandonment so they will only put out "nice", "tame" and "appropriate" noises. Yeah, I've been through this fire before. I may be down, but I'm not out. I have the balls to "take" whatever comes down. I can't play the "pretend" game about life, as it is a short trip from "happy talk" to Lock-Down" hospital admission for me. So, I will be chided for calling a behavior I hate being a pussy, but that's how it appears to me. If you don't like that, google search on Shirly Temple movies and you'll find something more to your liking.

Returning 1st work check of $50 or loose $460!

2008-02-11T19:31:00.000-08:00

Ah how reality has a way of gumming up a good day. I qualify for two parts of Medi-Cal, California's version of medi-cade (the federal program for the poor, old and disabled). 1st part assumes I only have a right $802. /mo. instead of what I really get from Social Security. They assess a $460 Share of Cost. Being that my rent is $560./mo. I qualify for the program for the REALLY poor and TOTALLY unabled. It pays for 99% of that $460./Mo. share of Cost.

If I take the $50 check from my church for my "work" I will be assessed the $460 + the $50 earned because I'm am only entitled to have $802. They divine that this amount is all I need to live on. So, after some angry tears and a large milkshake I have steeled myself to do the unthinkable. I'm returning the uncashed check to my church and will refuse any "gifts" as they also have the potential of getting me into trouble with our state insurance.

For those of you hankering to hire me. In order to totally leave the "system" I would require about $3,000./Mo. NET. After paying for my insurance and drugs, I'd have about $1,000/Mo. to llive on. Yeah, tried to put together "gainful and substantial" employment for myself for the last 27 years and I now surrender to reality. I can't support myself, even with social security. I get special indigent aid. I do nothing, I have nothing and I am nothing.

Oh! some of you may scream. Rave on, oh dear ones. If you ever join the land of the disabled you will soon meet the worlds of poverty, fixed-incomes and regulations. I fought until I broke and this is just the final piece of glass leaving the shattered frame.

Thanks to my anti-depressants I'm not hysterical. Eventually I'll be able to construct a happier face for all of this. I know I have to be thankful, grateful and compliant. I have to be humble too. I cried in front of two acquaintances and they reacted by pretending I wasn't in their presence. God, such courage my mates! All to make me strong. According to some, people like me have the best blessing from God because since we are poor, we have nothing else to practice but faith. Well, give me a few days and I'll talk myself back into believing that. Right now I feel dangerously cold inside. Its just anger which I'll bleed off through excess work and a bit of overeating.

In a few days I'll be able to listen to my Pastor try and ramp up my "hoper" again, hopefully without crying. This moment is not a lot of fun. I refuse to lie. I get it that when you are sad and mad no one wants to talk to you They wait until you have rejoined them on the river Denial.

So, next post will be "fun" and "uplifting". Yeah, something talks and BS walks. "On the good ship lolly pop"!

What's With The Peas? The Susan Reynolds Story

2008-02-01T12:14:00.000-08:00

Since I virtually live on my computer, I am used to seeing my buddies playing with their "avatars". Those little pictures, or representations of themselves that go with their messages on sites like twitter.com, facebook.com, etc. I use a beautiful Samoyed dog on this site and everywhere else. But a few weeks ago on twitter.com a few people started going crazy with pictures of peas somewhere in their avatars. What's this all about?

This is an example of "social media" in action. A lady named Susan Reynolds, an artist and author got the dreadful word that she not only had breast cancer, but a rare and particularly nasty variety of same. Being a lover of life and people, as well as a lover of herself, she took her personal "challenge" and put it into a blog for the benefit of other patients and their families. In the same spirit which motivated and motivates this blog, she let it all hang out about the ups, down, ins and outs of being a cancer patient. You guys are gonna love this. She calls her blog "Boobs On Ice".

When I first read her story on The Frozen Peas Fund page I thought the name was a brilliant joke of some kind. No, this brave lady had surgery and was in bad pain. She tried ice packs and all the rest, but for her two bags of frozen peas tucked into her bra gave the best and longest lasting relief.

The movements beginning and giving $5 or more to The American Cancer Society specifically for Breast Cancer research are all documented. $5 is about the cost of two small bags of frozen peas. I love small donations, because I'm on a fixed income and I can't drop the large donations. But even I, with my impulsive shopper ways can give $5! So now I too have joined the ranks of the PEAple who have a PEAvatars.

But Susan realized that a permanent avatar change would soon disappear in peoples minds. They'd see it daily and it would loose its impact. So "Frozen Pea Friday" was born. I believe this is #7 or #8. We all change our pictures for only one day a week, on Fridays. The change is striking, as more and more little pictures are surrounded by or embedded with peas. Here's mine:

This rendition will only appear once a week. I love grass-roots, or in this case icy boobs movements. I know next to nothing about The American Cancer Society, but according to Susan they are the only 24/7 phone number cancer patients can call and talk to someone. That in itself is enough for me.

Here are the links I've referred to in this blog with their actual addresses:

The Frozen Peas Fund Page; http://frozenpeafund.com/

Susan Reynolds Cancer-related blog "Boobs on Ice": http://susanreynolds.blogs.com/boobsonice/

Free pictures of peas can be found on Flickr.com: (I did the "peas" search for you: http://flickr.com/search/?q=peas

google search results for "susan reynolds": http://www.google.com/search?q=susan+reynolds+md&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Be sure to check out the google search page for "susan reynolds". She is far more than just a cancer patient. I have no doubt, this illness will fade to a "blip" on her active and creative life radar.

You GO girlfriend!

Handling Success: My Church Work Is Rewarded.

2008-01-31T16:13:00.000-08:00

I sat in church and the announcement was made that there was a vacancy on the board. If interested, please apply. I have scant notion of what the Board does, or what they would need, but I was interested. I figured a "no" on this would just be God letting me know that He had something else for me to do.

I got the polite rejection letter, and after a few minutes of feeling sad, I prayed for whoever had been nominated and went on with my life. It isn't like I don't have enough to do. I am still struggling with time management and not surfing my day away on the Internet. I am amazed how EASY it is to get lost on the computer and get nothing doner on my to-do list.

One of the things I love about my current church is their utter transparency about the business and money side of their operation. In the traumatic world of Dr. Scott everything was hidden and one learned quickly the safety of NOT asking questions about anything on the business side of the church.

My current church hands out a complete balance sheet for the year. You are free to ask about anything during the business meeting. Basically the Board gets recommendations from Pastor and after they pass on something, they bring it to the business meeting for a vote. I LOVE that!

The new board member seems like the perfect fit and I am truly happy for her. We than moved on to "salaries". I am now to get some money every month in appreciation of the work I do on the website and in creating out bulletins and most other printed material. Not everyone doing work for the church is getting paid. They combined all the salaries into one yes, or no vote and the room went crazy.

I was stunned. Unlike receiving money from a secular business, this money would be coming out of tithes and offerings given to the church. This is the first promotion of this type I've ever received. I have a bit of trouble actually accepting what has happened.

It is like my church family is giving me a vote of confidence. I'm going to keep on doing what I've been doing all along. I am deeply grateful to a friend who has been my mentor from the beginning of my website mastering. I am now a mentor for another less experienced Christian. Mentoring is its own reward, but with my friend's help and encouragement, I'm doing things that amaze me.

I have been asked to tell the story of how someone who is darn near blind is deeply involved with computer graphics and website tinkering. Some of you will see God's fingerprints all over the following. Only God could have put it together.

Back in 1999 I purchased my first computer. A 1993 G3,Power PC Macintosh with 1 GB of disc space running on System 7.5. (Had no idea what a GB was, but it seemed like I had an amazingly huge disc drive to play in).

I soon discovered that I could draw a box around the cursor and reverse the video on my monitor. Print white, background black). I turned the screen magnification up to the max, but did not actually use it. I just requested the "preview rectangle" option. Since the magnification was so high, the result was a lovely 1 inch square box neatly drawn around the cursor. Now I could really see where the cursor was and I could read for hours with no pain. I still refused to get on the internet because of having so many "getting lost" (and confused) issues, whenever I tried it.

I started playing around with all the software they gave me at the store. Calendars, children's games, accounting software and word processing software. I really liked how much easier it was for me to "draw" on a computer as compared to drawing on real paper with writing tools.

Since I have mild Cerebral Palsy my writing quavers. Even with a ruler a truly straight line is difficult for me to create on real paper. On this computer I could draw a line and hold down the shift key (forcing the line to remain straight, or at a 45 degree angle). My work didn't look like I had Cerebral Palsy any more!

I then discovered a magazine from England called Mac Format. This issue had a CD taped to it and featured that year's world wide winners for excellence in software. Oh man, this was HEAVEN. My system was too old for some of the latest and greatest, but there were some awesome applications I discovered and fell in love with immediately.

Nisus Writer was a Word Processing/drawing/slide show presenter and some other stuff I had no clue about. It also had a spell checker that didn't block the text you were trying to proof. But what made me swoon was in their drawing area, they provided a lovely grid that looked exactly like a sheet of graph paper. You could control the size of the squares and now I could draw objects to a size I KNEW was correct! Only problem, this gem cost $100. Oh, well... How many of you would like to drive a Rolls...?

I had begun to copy printed material and clean it up for my pastor's wife. She knew nothing about computers and considered me some kind of genius because I could work a computer at all. I invited her to my room and showed her all my new discoveries. Earlier that year she'd given me the money to purchase a printer, so I could get her work back to her. Now I prepared her for the fact that I was just "window shopping" when showing off Nisus Writer. I knew I'd never be able to justify the price. But I showed it off anyway, because I loved it so.

She asked me about the cost and when I told her it was $100, she cut the check right then and there! She wasn't buying it for the church, but for me. I owned both my printer and now this amazing software.

I laid out fliers, meeting agendas and attendance lists for various departments. I also transcribed some notes I'd occasionally take as a fill-in secretary. Nisus Writer was just so beautiful. It made me look ever so good with an amazingly small amount of effort on my part.

I also bought some very serious Bible Research software. Accordance. The kind of program Masters Program students in Seminary would need to use. Hey, at that time I actually thought God might want me to be a Pastor! NOT!

My old church had about 400 members, lots of little committees and a sophisticated counseling program. It was the counseling department which gave me the core of my graphics experience. Last minute is my specialty. I don't like it, but what can I do? I receive 100 xeroxed, marked-up and chewed-up pages. I'm sitting in pastor's Wifes'
car and ask the stupid question: "when do you need this?" It is Friday afternoon.

Haltingly she responds: "Sunday?" I resist the temptation to reply: "Are you out of your flipp'in mind?" and foolishly agree to it! But I know that God, Nisus Writer and I will get it done.

Nisus Writer was made for college professors who are writing things like Calculus or History texts. I had very easy ways of adding check boxes, arrows or blank lines to forms and having everything line up like a dream. I know the team at Nisus didn't really understand why I'd gush to them from time to time my gratitude for their program. But that program made me look totally professional.

So after several years I changed churches and landed at my current location. I had graduated to an eMac, system 10.3 with 40 GB of disc space and the ability to connect to the internet. Since I no longer had the visual hassle of "loosing the cursor" the internet was like a candy store for my mind. I just went nuts for news, music, ebooks and podcasts. Podcasting is where I met my wonderful padre back east. A rich friendship which continues to flourish.

I sent off my first email to a musician begging for information on where I could buy a song that was demoed on another Mac Format CD. To my shock, his answer appeared in my inbox almost immediately. And within minutes I had his great music on my machine.

Nisus was trying to move their creation over to the new system architecture. Oh, how I miss their lovely graphics! But I have been forced to mostly abandon them for Apple's Pages. I get calls from my old church from time to time:

"I know you can get this out. We need it tomorrow at 7:30 AM." (it is now 8:30 PM the night before the morning deadline) ,"Can you make us 6 place cards?"

"sure" I reply. "But what's a 'place card'?" If I know what it is to look like and how big it is, assuming my printer can handle the size, I'll come up with pretty much anything.

"Pastor's mother-in-law just died. We need place holders for the pews for the family and close relatives..." I got the layout, but color scheme was mine to choose. (sigh, I don't always do color "guessing" too well).

I went to my clip art collection and found a tasteful cross with flowers for the artwork, done with light blue/gray accents. I put it together and my work was picked up at 7 AM.

Watch God on this one. I just happened to pick the exact color scheme used by the people decorating the church! Hello Holy Spirit, how cool is this?

My current church is a teaching church using the OLD King James Bible. Church Of God In Christ is conservative, but we are at the far end of conservative, even for them. I fell in love with their strong emphasis of teaching the Bible and teaching you to dig things out for yourself. I wanted to make them a website. I Had no idea what that involved, but I know I'm smart and ought to be able to knock it out...

Another member was assigned to do the website and they came to me looking for educational websites. I was sad that I wasn't going to get to do the site, but I did what I was asked to do and (amazingly) kept quiet about my personal dreams.

Next thing I know Pastor has assigned the website to me! I took off running. I scoured the web for education and BROTHER did I find it! HTML is the basic language of websites, but there's more. Oh so much more... I was referencing websites written by professional web DESIGNERS for professional web DESIGNERS. Like teaching yourself to cook starting at the Ph.D. level in France! I whined and cried to my friend back east, who gently informed me that if I wanted to create the site in the next decade, I could continue as I was. If I wanted to get it up and running, use a program like "iWeb".

iWeb lets you lay out the page in English, just like any document and then the program does all that HTML/CSS voodoo... Yeah, I came to myself and still use iWeb to this day.
My friend mocked up our basic layout and I went from there.

Compared to the other church, their printing requirements were a breeze. Not 100 pages of fill-in-the-blank exercises, but one flat page in black and white. Woa! I could get that out in under an hour! But I wanted to show pastor what else I knew how to do. Soon I began producing color, fold-out bulletins. They are hard to set up, but once set up as a "template", are easy to reproduce.

I found a professional website for very good looking clip art. Save yourself some time. If it's free it looks like you made it, but when you were on drugs! I find great satisfaction in coming up with the ideas God puts in my mind. I just see it in my head and attempt to reproduce it on paper. I love making quality things for God's work.

One of my pet peeves is some of the substandard work that is produced for God. It would never pass in the most easy-going secular situation! I didn't ask for pay because we are a tiny church and another pet peeve I have is how some people who do work for the church almost blackmail the pastor: "oh, you like what I did? That'll be ...". I figured I could use any church work I did to get work elsewhere.

But now I'm getting paid. It is a small amount, but it is still pay. This is the first non-animal-care work I've gotten in over 10 years. It feels very, very good.

So this is how God took someone who is nearly blind and turned me into a graphics and website person. Only God, only God.

Quick Life Update: Great Holidays But Minor Eye Problem.

2008-01-08T22:14:00.000-08:00

I am declaring myself officially "well". My life has gone from totally dysfunctional to normal as you have been following this blog. I have been made Program Director in addition to my webmaster duties for my church. By Program I mean the printed bulletins that are produced for church meetings.

This is the first "promotion" I've ever earned in my life. While I'm still in a volunteer mode, my church is struggling to make arrangements to pay me for my work. For me, what I do is part of my "giving" to God. I put Him in charge of what I do and what I receive. Takes my emotions out of it and I stay calm and focused.

Christmas was amazing. I received 22 pairs of earrings from an amazingly creative friend. She did such a beautiful wrapping job. I will show pictures of the wrapped boxes. I am trying to find the time to clean up my pictures of all my earrings. They are beautiful and I want to do the best I can with their photos.

In the last week I have been having some eye trouble. It scared me, as it felt like I could have had an eye infection, or a Glaucoma Pressure problem. My HMO got me seen within 24 hours of my call. I have bleeding from the Retina. So I see a retina doc next week. But my regular doc just wants to get a 2nd opinion. He doesn't feel I'm in serious trouble.

I feel my life has moved into the normal mode because my issues are the mundane things everyone deals with. How do I get everything I want to do done on time? What about life balance? (Not good to work all the time). I have a rough time making time to do this blog. I also have difficulty figuring out what to share with you all. Things are calm and interesting, but how many times can I tell you all that I'm making a new bulletin? BORING!

Here are the pictures of the beautiful wrapped earrings from my friend. Wait till you see all my new and older earrings - 42 pairs. Yeah, its a lot and I love them all.

As far as the current political scene goes, I am underwhelmed. I truly don't like or trust ANY of the people running in either party. I also distrust 99% of news sources to learn about what is REALLY going on. I am heartsick about the continuing slide of the dollar. I'm sure as we get closer to the actual 2008 election that I'll have more definite opinions. I am finding it hard to resist the temptation to just walk away.

Doing that, however, is very wrong. At least in this country I can decry anything and not fear being taken away in the dead of night, never to be seen again. So, I will read The Voters' Handbook and do the best with what we've been offered as citizens.

Grandstanding On the Backs Of the Disabled.

2007-12-14T00:25:00.001-08:00

What I share today will make some of you spitting mad. It will comfort and amuse others. I am one of those folks with a "visible" disability. I use a walking cane, or a walker and without too much observation it is obvious that I don't see that well either.

Religion of all kinds proclaim healing for the sick (handicapped/disabled) and "liberation" for the "captive". When I first got Glaucoma a well meaning health food fanatic sent me home with a xeroxed health magazine that informed me that I possessed the "cure" for Glaucoma. Mind you, no research was ever sited, or experts quoted. No books were referenced.

A bunch of Russian sailors were shipwrecked at sea and all they had to drink was, well their urine. They got cured of arthritis, diabetes and high blood pressure! For me, the "cure" is worse than the presenting condition!

Being curious, I finished the article. They even had a Bible verse to support the idea of drinking your own urine. (hot, or cold, by-the-way). "Let every man drink from his own cistern"!

I run into this kind of foolishness all the time. People are under the impression that to have a physical disability is a worse fate then anything. I have learned that being out of one's mind emotionally to where you can watch trees "sneak" around a parking lot renders you totally unable to serve others, or even yourself successfully.

Also, I have a serious trust issue with a lot of the "alternative" health movement. If you take their advice and die, their books keep right on being sold and they cry all the way to the bank. I also loathe most faith healers. I haven't let myself trust enough to be involved with these fools for a very long time.. But tonight I wandered back into a very painful and I believe demonically-inspired swamp of "being healed".

My guard was down, as I tend to assume that most of what our church participates in with other churches is close to the real deal. I do rejoice that I have been delivered from a blanket mistrust of all "moves" of the spirit. I forgot to pray for my own mental protection. I got stung and hurt badly.

The speaker started off by proclaiming that he was a "prophet" and that some people don't "receive" his word. He only teaches the Word of God! My BS detector was turned off, along with my cell phone, or I probably would have giggled inside, at this ploy. If you is one, you don't have to do the classic child abuse move of: "I'm a Prophet. I'm going to beat you up emotionally (in the name of JESUS) You know this is GOOD for you". Anybody recognize this one?

I was impressed with this guy because he did the puff-it-up-I-am-so-powerful routine. I always get snarred by that, when I leave my mind at home. It is just like Dr. Scott, who was just like...
Anybody recognize that one?

I know my pastor is going through a rough patch right now and I wanted to pray for him with the help of this "Prophet". My thinking is like this: God let me accept whatever you desire for me to have, but I'm going to concentrate on others and not my physical, emotional, mental or spiritual limitations. So, I swung into prayer.

I had my walking cane with me, as I knew my ride would be leaving as soon as I finished speaking with this man. The next thing I know this guy is praying for me. No problem, I'm swaying back as he's pushing me and others have come to pray. Fine. This happens sometimes at my home church.

to your faith". Now I'm truly trapped. If I don't jolly well get healed - eyes were also What NEVER happens at my home church is the physical removal of my eyeglasses and walking cane. I was than forced to "prance" around to show that my legs and feet were healed. They weren't, but I hesitated to get into this guys face and argue with him while he's still "praying". I did finally tell him it still hurt. He then quoted that "be it unto you in proportionnow on his radar, it meant my faith has a problem. I've been down that dreary road before and it has lead to suicidal thinking in the past.

The truth was, I felt refreshed and happy, but my physical vision and walking hadn't changed at all. He of course told me to throw away my glasses and my cane 'cause I wouldn't need them any more.

Thankfully, in the car going home my wonderful pastor and his wife helped me sort out what happened. I have to tell the truth, as I may be healed as I go on my way, like the lepers in the Bible. I can live with that. What I can't live with is being used like that. Everyone was swooning and carrying on while I walked around without my glasses and walking cane, waiting for the miracle.

Can I get real here. That ARROGANT man! I will NOT let someone remove anything from my person while they are praying or otherwise! What a lovely piece of showmanship for him and a catch-22 for me! I saw someone do this routine with another disabled person who has great difficulty walking because of surgury and pain. She was made to high step and prance. I remember wanting to feel good about what I saw, but something inside made me wonder what was really happening to her. What if she wasn't healed and was being forced to do painful things to make the "prayer warrior" look good?

Faith healing for show is a load of crap. I thank God I now know what NOT to do when lead to pray for someone laboring under any obvious painful or restrictive condition.

Recovery: Resurrecting Old Interests

2007-11-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post, as I am down with the flu. I have to share with you my rediscovery of some old interests. I love books. I was unable to read regular sized print until the sixth grade when a friend stole a magnifying glass out of her science class for me to try.

I went to the dictionary first and broke all library rules by screaming with joy. No way was I not going to go back to her science teacher and officially have the miracle of a 10x hand held magnifier. My friend and I interrupted a class in session as I breathlessly told my story. My girlfriend, the teacher and class cried in joy for me. Needless to say nobody got into trouble and I was provided with the reading glass.

I quickly fell in love with our local public library. I'd go to the card catelogue and find a subject of interest and browse the titles. When computers came in I was shut out of the library i loved. I still can't freely browse the online card catelogue, as it is a PC with no provisions for the legally blind.

So, I'd forgotten all about this part of myself. Oh, sure, I have about 4,000 ebooks and about 20 print books in my possession. But I found out years ago that when I share my excitement over something the odds were 10 to 1 that my friends would roll their eyes and plead with me to stop with that... So, I just kind of gave it up.

Much as I love my boston friend, we are radically different as people. He's the most visually oriented person I've ever met. He can't fathom how I'd rather listen to a football game instead of "watching" one. The visual experience of football for me looks like a pile of laundry wearing helmits and sneakers running up and down the field!

I love math, he LOATHES it! Even our taste in humor is radically different. But I enjoy his faithfulness and optimism as a friend. He has introduced me to whole new worlds on the Internet. Social networks being the most intriguing.

Facebook, myspace and a few places I just didn't pick up on. Facebook is a busy site. Lots of quizzes and the like. I felt totally retarded when I compared my taste in movies with this man and didn't have a clue on 95% of the films he likes! He reads books, but I believe is more into pod casts and magazines. Things that take less time to absorb. Me, I like the 1,000 page tomb that becomes woven into your life to where, when its over, you are almost sad.

Twitter is a lovely compromise. I can follow the amazing thinking of a vast group of people and still have time for a life. Blogs take too long and I just don't have time to do all the exploring my brain longs to do.

Then, somewhere I read about a social site for book lovers. Shelfari.com. Oh, my GOD! I have a happy brain! I spent several days attempting to remember the titles of every book I've ever read and have around 200 plus books on my shelf. My wish list shelf is probably bigger. No overlapping, except on a few books I want personal copies of. I am finding animal lovers, disaster novel lovers and several "love that author" groups. Oh man, I feel like I rediscovered an entire piece of my personality that had gotten lost in the shuffle.

I bet my Boston buddy will breathe a sigh of relief, as I will now stop trying to "teach" him how to love math!

Recognizing Old Patterns Preparing For New Behavior.

2007-10-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

Just about the time I fancy myself truly delivered from the insanity of my past, I discover my old patterns are still alive and well. I turn around to gaze on a huge thing still planted in my heart which is actively growing, alive and DYSFUNCTIONAL! Darn, I think of my heart like a garden. How have I managed to "not see" an attitude tree so lush and large?

My family was into hysterics as a way of manipulating others to obtain "their way". We had dramatic scenes worthy of the Academy Awards. Since I was on the receiving end of a lot of this stuff I really learned how to "roll over and lie real good". I also learned how to play the part of my victor. (oops!)

I had a problem on a bus. I got dropped off at the wrong stop and really scared myself good wondering on mountain roads with cars a bit too close to me and my walker for my comfort. I raged and wrote an "official complaint". I then sank into a dark kind of depression I know only too well as my "tantrum state". I got good and stuck. Friends have been wonderful. The really good part of my funk is finding out that my friends are really willing to lavish their time and attention on me when I'm not happy. It really does comfort my troubled soul. I just couldn't seem to recover.

After some sleep and letting myself read a few stories of serial killers, I have come back to center. I was following my cousin's way of dealing with "surprise". Get emotionally over wrought and "make them deal with it". Oh, that doesn't work! It wears me out, messes up my self image and tends to really tick other people off. (Sounds like a way to make friends and influence people huh)?

I am a tense mess when riding the bus up here in the Berkeley Hills. I really need visual help. If the driver forgets, or makes an error, I feel like I have a right to emotionally come unglued. No, I need to rationally plan out the "what if's". If I'm dropped off at the wrong stop I need to do what I did the last time it happened. Stop a passing car, get information and walk back to where I should have been in the first place. However, now that I am aware of how the traffic flows, I need to be careful and aware of approaching cars and venture out between approaching cars. This takes more time, but is totally doable and safe.

If the driver misses my stop and I have to ride back to where I started, I need to call my boss and CALMLY explain that I will be a half hour late, as there was a mix up on the bus. No rage, no tears or theatrics. I got depressed because I have been laboring under the illusion that my "disabilities" give me a right to "expect" perfect performance from those around me. It is their job to watch out for me! (humm, sounds a bit like a three-year-old)?

My parents believed that my "condition of blindness" gave me a "get out of jail free" card. I felt the world owed me everything for years. One day it dawned on me that, perhaps the world was simply "unaware" of their job. When I began to inform my fellow beings of their "duty" My bellow beings abandoned me in droves. (oops)!

I have a right to request assistance and most of the time, happily, that assistance is graciously given. But, when a bus driver is worried about his dying child, or wife and "forgets", I do not have the right to use my power to "punish" the driver. I forget things also. I need to prepare for life's surprises and handle them with a bit of grace and maturity. I rejoice in realizing I have the ability, stability and self-control to actually change my old ways. I have made other changes, this is one more step towards acting like I'm fifty-four and not three years old.

Pastor's Appreciation Month: Uplifting One Another

2007-10-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

I turned away from aspiring to be a pastor of a church when I saw that ninety-nine per cent of that job is counseling people. I am a good teacher, but I am sorely lacking in the traits of a good counselor. Not being raised in a church the concept of "Pastor appreciation Month" struck me as odd.

Wait a minute, the guy is the chief honcho, the big kahuna. He's the leader! What gives? Isn't leadership its own reward? (A question only an non-manager, naive person could ask). I found out that most Christian pastors carry a full or part-time job outside of their church duties to make ends meet. Most churches are too small to support a full-time pastor. People assume a Pastor is made of harder stuff then the rest of us. A sixty to eighty hour week would kill us, mere mortals, but "he's a Pastor"

Entire ministries have sprung up attempting to help the children of these beleaguered souls. Many Pasors used to believe that "if they took care of God's business, God would take care of their families." I was shocked to hear a grief stricken child of a pastor weep as an adult, for the "father I never had". Many of these kids drift into hardcore drug and alcohol abuse. There's a problem here.

I can only speak for what I've seen within The Church of God in Christ denomination. The people really attempt to give the Pastor and his wife (or (vise versa) a week of rest and relaxation or recreation. At my church people are nervous and want everything run just so. Money is given, visitors from other churches come and speeches are made. I find this time of year to be better then Christmas, as what is done is done from the heart. We may not always agree with the man, but we are all united on our love for our Pastor.

I saw the blog of a good friend. He was weary of fighting the good fight of being a Christian in a decidedly non-Christian culture. I really relate to just getting tired of the small foxes which never stop gnawing at your vine. Bad language, declining, or absent moral values and trying to bring peace into places where everyone (except you) wants to fight!

I suggest we try to find something encouraging to share with everyone we meet. As Pastor always says: "You never know what someone may be going through".

PhillyMac: You inspire me to keep on keeping on. You have a very full plate and rarely complain about the long hours of work and family responsibilities. All done on a precious few hours of sleep. You really care about Jesus and His people. Makes me want to stir up some goodness around my neighborhood of believers. What really amazes me, however, is when I've asked for help, or even just whined into your email box - you always make time for me. I am a better person for having you floating around in my Cyber Space.

Recovery: Having To Overcome Transit Fears

2007-10-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

I have a month long cat-sitting job way up in the Berkeley hills. Beautiful area and awful old style mountain roads. Two weeks ago my bus dropped me a full block away from my stop - not bothering to tell me of this, I had to chase down a motorist and attempt to locate myself. Once I knew where I was I began a long walk to my job. This road stinks.

Why all rich areas seem to be like this, I'll never know. They didn't waste money on their roads or sidewalks, that's for darn sure! There are two narrow lanes for two-way traffic. Actually, cars coming at one another have to negotiate. One must pull over so the other car can creep into the other car's lane to get by. There are very few sidewalks. The road shoulder has been converted into neighborhood paring. I hate the roads here.

Now you have a feel for what my stroll through twenty to thirty mile-an-hour traffic was like. I attempted to dart in and out between the parked cars, but they are bumper to bumper. So, when a car is coming at me, I flatten myself against a parked car and pray I don't get picked off like other road kill. One car passed so close to me, I could perceive where the door handle was on the door of the car. It didn't hit me, but it was pretty close to contacting my body.

I finally got to my temporary home and felt very strange. I fought wanting to cry. I soon went to bed and slept the sleep of the depressed. I woke up wondering if my life was really worth the money I'm getting paid to tend to Maggie the cat. It would be difficult to bail out on this job, even if I seriously wanted to do so. My employer is over in Turkey. I can reach them, but you can't get a live-in person at reasonable rates quickly. So, I returned to just being depressed.

On Monday I had to take the bus down to Sweet Maria and John's to clean their home. No problem. I know my way around that sidewalk lined area. But I see out the window of the bus that I'm all the way to the little shops near downtown. Way past where I need to be. I just lost it.

I got on my cell phone and when Maria answered the phone I more-or-less yelled at her that I was on the bus, they'd missed my stop and I didn't know where the #$% I was, or when I'd actually arrive at work. Needless to say, poor Maria was a bit taken aback. I hung up and planned how to talk to the bus driver in a way that would not tempt him to call the police.

I was so angry and scared, I was actually shaking. The driver got off the bus and readied himself for my tirade. I acknowledged my anger, but kept my language clean and respectful. I explained about what had happened the day before and how I obviously was still a bit freaked out by the whole thing. Since I was being respectful and reasonable, the driver responded in kind. He apologized and explained the problem from his vantage point.

There are two bus runs, the #65 and the #67. They go more or less the same places, but on different main streets. The street I wanted had a twin on the other line. Did I want the Street, or the Lane? (Oh #$%%&*()*&!), I messed up too. We parted as mature adults and I headed for the #67 that turns into a #65. The two runs hop-scotch each other, it is an amusing way to confuse riders and drivers alike.

When I finally got to sweet Maria, she had left me a message that she had been willing to pick me up from downtown. Now, that is like offering to drop down to Manhattan during rush hour. I was very moved. That was a very kind gesture. Maria did drive me back up the hill. I feel badly when she does this, as any travel causes her additional foot pain. But I gratefully accepted. I could avoid the bus scare one more day.

I'd totally bailed out on a job the week before. I called the lady of the house and told her that I had almost been run over on Sunday and I literally was afraid to leave my location. She gave me the time off and I prayed I'd recover. I knew I was really scared, as just opening the front door caused me a wave of nausea.

I also decided to call my Pastor and request prayer. When I am afraid to leave a house to avoid something, I'm not handling things very well. We prayed on the phone, and my church prayed when they got together Friday evening.

I had to return to Maria on Tuesday and she again drove me back up the hill. I knew that this coming Thursday (today) I'd have to face the music and get back to my normal transiting life.

I went to my mailbox, my cell service office, my house cleaning gig and to get groceries. I did not feel good at all, but I forced myself to proceed anyway. I actually didn't eat or drink much this morning. Thankfully, the ride up the hill was uneventful. I now take more time to tell the drivers in more detail why I am making my "call this stop request," I force them to talk with me. I will not just speak at a driver who doesn't respond and assume I've been heard.

Once back on the hill, I put groceries away and had a lovely, if less then healthy dinner. Strong coffee, smoked oysters and Godiva capachino ice cream with chocolate hearts. I was amazed that the Grocery Outlet store would carry Godiva ice cream. It is expensive and wonderful. So, I've faced the monster. It still feels tense, but I'm no longer feeling like I can't wonder outside, even to get the mail.

Social Commentary: Community Rights Verses Individual Rights.

2007-10-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

Walking down a street in downtown Oakland I am suddenly assaulted with the unmistakable odor of sun baked urine wafting my way. I am offended at the brutality of homelessness, panhandlers and litter on the streets. "Homelessness is not a law enforcement issue, but a mental health issue," No, according to a New York City court you have a RIGHT to live on the street draped in rags conditioned with your vomit, urine and feces! Let's hear it for Human Rights!

"I can't help being gay, its in my genes". Okay, but does that mean I have to watch you have sex on the street when I'm forced to be in the area for some other reason?

"We need money". True, but I resent as a person with multiple disabilities, having to run a gauntlet in public places. Is it fair that while I'm trying to carry a walker down a flight of stairs, packs of smelly, rude and tactless people try to shake me down for the change I won't willingly share?

I've heard that there are two sides to our RIGHTS. Along with each individual's RIGHT, comes an equal RESPONSIBILITY to the group surrounding us.

Technically, there is nothing wrong with my free speech proclamation of "Fire, run for your lives!" shouted in a crowded theater. Thankfully, our courts have come down on the side of common sense. That act is illegal.

As a Christian, I have the right to leap up on a bus bench and start screaming out a sermon in downtown Oakland. I've seen many different religious and other proponents of all sorts of things engage in this behavior, unhindered. As I pass by, on my way somewhere, I get to "drop in" on their presentation. There is no real problem with this. I find it irritating, but as long as I'm not detained from continuing down the street, who cares?

However, while waiting for a bus, I don't appreciate being man-handled by over-eager proponents of anything. I can't leave and this is to their "selling" advantage. Man, I hate it! Since I am religious, I've found a good way to confuse my religious attackers. Ask them to tell you how they found their faith. I enjoy watching the confusion. It makes my "no thank you" delivered later less confrontational. But, am I not an adult capable of seeking out whatever you think my soul needs?

Churches by the hundreds are listed in the phone book. I've found more then one organization using this less obnoxious method. Oh, I forgot, sellers of whatever assume I'm too stupid to know what is good for me. Geez, now it makes more sense.

Not only do I have Rights, as an individual, I have responsibilities to the community in which I live. In my apartment building I may have a right to play a radio, or my electronic keyboard. But I don't have the right to play these things loud enough for my neighbors to hear my radio through my closed door and theirs. My responsibility to my fellow apartment dwellers is to live in such a way as to not disturb their peace with my noise. I play instruments and several entertainment devices without causing any problems. My secret: headphones!

I post this rant because of an issue brought up on another blog. The Folsom Street Fair in SF. A small gathering of some 400,000 folks coming together to practice public sex and various forms of debauchery in a South of Market (Street) neighborhood. Because our popular media is pro-gay-rights, this curious exhibition was ignored. The gay press and some religious organizations were the only evidence of this event. Yeah, you have a right to be whatever you want to be, but do I have to be forced to "watch"?

Worst thing that ever happened to our community was when the gays decided it was time to leave their closets. Popping onto our radar by proclaiming the right to copulate in the street. Yes, I know most gays (supposedly) don't do that, but ever attend the Gay Freedom Day Parade. My goodness! (I was on my way to an Opera one year and got a real education).

Yeah, I'm old-fashioned and some would even claim fascist, but I'm so tired of being forced into being more "open minded", or "tolerant". Toleration is like what we did with Russia during the Cold War. They had a right to exist and if they left us alone, we left them alone. Our tolerance by no means implied our consent to, or agreement with their morality. This is how I feel about adultery, homosexuality, bestiality and other "sins". I know it goes on, but don't ask me to bless you for it when you force me to take a stand. I care for the person and hate to see the hell they will stir up in their lives via sin, but I refuse to bless the behavior.

This has been a rant I've held inside for years. I'm sure comments will flood in telling me, six ways from Sunday, why I'm wrong. Have at it.

I want to scream: Bring back common standards of public decency!

Social Trends: Being Polite When Complaining.

2007-10-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

I'm an impassioned consumer. I love or hate hard. When something which used to works gets broken through an update, I go nuts. I have had a love and hate relationship with Adobe Corporation ever since 2003 when I got my first Internet-capable computer. I discovered ebooks. With my fluky vision print on a computer screen is so much easier to read then print on a real piece of paper. On the computer I reverse the appearance of the screen. Letters are white on a black background. It is pure heaven.

I then discovered I could buy ebooks. Heaven help me! I discovered several estores and I began to build a respectable elibrary. Adobe was my virgin experience. Adobe Reader 5. It was flawless. I then had to update to the next version. I'm on a Macintosh, it didn't go so well. I kept the older version and limped along. So it goes. I raged and more seasoned computer friends told me I was over reacting. (growl, snarl, moan).

This last update from Adobe Reader 7 to Adobe Reader 8 and the NEW Digital Editions was particularly traumatic. Adobe now deals with all my beloved ebooks on the Internet via a whole new system: Digital Editions. When I first looked into this I discovered there was no Macintosh version, but Adobe Reader 7 still worked. So, it goes.

I then had to buy a new computer as my eMac's logic board bit the dust. I had several kinks to work out with the iMac. One of the programs which got deleted accidentally was Adobe Reader 7. But there were Macintosh versions, so I updated. I knew it was probably a mistake, but I did it anyway.

Digital Editions saw all my encrypted ebooks, but had a note next to them: "missing" or "can't be read on this machine". I stared in shock at around $100 of "gone" ebooks.

I dutifully went through the websites and customer forums, which all decried the new program as being a total loss. One customer was so angry he threatened to delete his $3,000 worth of ebooks and take legal action. Oooh, sign me up!

I then saw a lonely humble post from an Adobe employee with an EMAIL address requesting more detailed information, as he was part of the team trying to solve the problems! I was so angry and sad, I hardly knew how to begin my Adobe rant.

I settled on being factual (no exaggerating or threatening), mature (no course language) and polite (no assuming the recipient was incompetent). I really attempted to rise to the above standards. I did my ranting to a friend, who, once again (gently) told me I was over reacting.

To my utter amazement, several days later, I got an email back from the Adobe employee. After asking a few more questions, he proceeded to launch into a new paragraph thanking me for being polite! Wow! That's a grim commentary about how we must be treating people we don't know via email!

I had solved my Digital Editions problem by running that program while my internet browser was open. I then imported all my "missing" ebooks via re-downloading them from the stores where I'd purchased them and all was well. I replied to the Adobe Developer, letting him know that I was now back in business. Another shock, I took the time to let him know something was working as it was supposed to.

Recently our local bus company messed up badly by not letting me know they'd overshot my street. I had several personal safety issues over this situation. The road I had to walk on has a shoulder (used by locals for parking) and at least a half of a lane of room in each direction for 35 MPH traffic. I got to play bumper car with real cars. I also had to flag down a stranger to discover where in the world I was in relation to where I wanted to be.

I tried my new mature tact. I have a feeling I will not only be heard, but responded to by a stranger stupefied by politeness. I bet this is just another example of catching more flies with honey, verses vinegar! Amazing.

Recovery: Being Reminded of Past Trauma.

2007-10-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

I have been fighting very bad depression and anxiety issues for the past few weeks. I had to pack some cooking items for my month-long cat-sitting job. I prefer to use my rice cooker and my already purchased brown rice. I have been fighting buying the special suitcase for this specialized job. I waited until the last moment to actually buy a suitcase.

I finally actually bought a very nice suitcase on rollers. It worked fine, though I have to get a longer portable handle for the suitcase so I can attach it to a belt around my waist. I need to have my hands free to deal with my walker.

I literally had problems sleeping last night. I couldn't figure out what was bothering me. I just knew something was not right. I didn't experience any relief from finishing my work on the website. This morning I stumbled upon what has been making me unhappy for the past few weeks.

After packing my suitcase this morning, I remembered the last time I had to pack kitchen items. Our building had been condemned. I came home on a Wednesday night to the grim news that I had three full days to get out before the tenants would be "forcibly removed".

I remember the frantic call to one of my employers, hurridly arranging emergency money for temporary housing. I physically moved all my stuff alone, six blocks to a hotel I couldn't afford. Then I had to move all over again to my current residence. It was an awful two weeks.

I looked around at my house and realized that this packing did not mean I had to "move". A wave of joy and relief flooded my body. I wanted to cry out thanks to God. All the tension I've been carrying started to leave. I finally found the memories that were disturbing my peace.

I guess I still have trouble dealing with some of the "crisis" moves I've made in my life. I have felt terrible ever since I made the decision to use my own cooking items on the cat-ssitting job. I finally got some restful sleep and all is well with the world.

Hopefully this may help someone else wondering through a swamp of feelings with no "reason". Sorry this isn't entertaining, but I want to continue documenting my recovery, confusion and all.

Sound Editing and How I Learn.

2007-10-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have just finished editing the last ten minute segment of a forty minute sermon. I love to observe how we learn and the strange things "jobs" cause us to think and do. I have listened to this entire bit of material at least three times. But after being buried in the problems of editing sound, I can tell you nothing about what I've edited. I can, however, show you where I took out excess clapping, coughing, pausing and other useless noises from this sermon.

How can I listen to something and not get the content? Simple, when I'm taking notes about the sermon, I dutifully notate everything I hear the speaker say. I will be posting a cleaned-up version of these notes on the website later. Once that is done it is time to clean up the sound. Oh, my, every sermon speaker is different. I have to remember, I'm learning this job as I complete parts of it. In a year, I'll probably be able to go back to these early sermons and REALLY edit them correctly. But I can't wait a year before posting to the church's website. So, when I've done all I know how to do, up she goes!

I now understand how someone can work on something and not remember what the content was about. This problem used to baffle me. I couldn't figure out how someone could post something to their OWN blog and within hours, not remember that they'd even made a post. Now, I see. A busy brain having to clear out recent short term memory. I stand corrected.,

One bit of info. I do recall from this sermon is how God appears in being more interested in purging us of our run away pride, then getting a job perfectly done. I know this because my run away pride screams that I need to do more to the sermon before posting! What if I've made a mistake? Yikes! Hello never-willing-to-die pride. I thought I'd gotten control over you.

Pride absolutely messes up anything you attempt to do for God, or anyone else. When you are too sure of yourself, you can't be taught anymore and that is the beginning of the destruction that pride causes in a life.

I can't believe how tired a bit of editing makes me feel. My little brain has been busy, experimenting (I LOVE "undo"), re-doing and deleting. Thankfully, the actual posting will go rather quickly and I can start on another sermon tomorrow - instead of waiting a month! Maybe some of that "pause" was pride too? Yeah, I bet it was.

Recovery: Fear Revisited.

2007-10-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

I am now well into what I always thought of as a "normal life". I have part-time work of several kinds, an interesting social life and an active mental and educational environment. I was shocked to see how quickly, overwhelmingly and stubbornly an old habit totally stopped me in my tracks.

I am my church's webmaster. I basically handle it all. We have recently added audio broadcasting for our sermons. I haven't set it up as something one can subscribe to, as I'm not sure we are professional enough for that move, yet. I ran into a technical snag and just completely shut down mentally.

I have made arrangements to do some of my audio editing work in Berkeley, while cat-sitting. Their computer is slower then mine, but after chopping sermons into ten-minute chunks, it works fine. I felt scared inside, but tried to continue. It occurred to me that there may be a difference in sound quality between the two computers. At this possibility, I just shut down and went away mentally.

It took me over a month to thaw out enough to realize what had happened to me. I tried all the normal tricks to get around my fear. Absolutely nothing worked. I then attempted to see if my pastor was interested in another member who appeared to know more about web mastering then I. He turned me down flat. He believed in ME. Man, I just was in hiding and was refusing to come out.

About a week ago, I decided that even if there was a difference in sound quality between the two machines, I could do the work anyway and correct any errors I may find when I get home. Poof! I felt myself return to normal. I at least was willing to TRY to continue as a webmaster.

Due to my family's way of using any information I'd give them against me, I learned a sure-fire defense. Literally know nothing. My cousin would scream at me about something I did, or didn't do. I truly had no memory, no thought. I just was stupid. I could survive her accusations of my stupidity a lot better, then having her savagely tear up another part of my person hood.

As an example. I was a huge fan of the program The FBI, as well as of the real organization as a young teen. I dutifully went to the library to read up on the real FBI. I was shocked and saddened to discover that the real governmental agency was riddled with controversy, conflicts and down right incompetence. It really made me sad.

When my cousin found out about this by talking with me, she never failed to laugh at how nieve I was. From this painful incident, I learned to keep the real me far away from any one's knowledge. I couldn't afford to know things even for me, as I didn't have the ability to deny my cousin information when she demanded it from me.

I know in my life now, that I have several friends who would and have given of themselves to help me with my dilemma. It is a blessing to have so many smart, friendly and amusing people in my world. But, I had run into an emotional freeze producing a mental blank wall.

As I force myself to continue to edit sermons, I realize that I'm still teaching myself the ins and outs of sound editing. Sometimes, I don't like the way part of a sermon sounds, but am unable, or unaware of how to fix it. I'm learning to put it on the web anyway. It is better to do something instead of nothing. Something can be fixed. Nothing is a cop out.

I don't have a final answer on this one. I hope I am willing to not freeze up again. When I feel the fear starting, I need to talk to God AND keep working! This freezing behavior did not serve me well as a student in college either. It is hard to learn something totally new, when one feels they must be perfect at the task, the FIRST time they attempt it. Ah, I guess all this immature stuff doesn't just magically change into maturity, huh? DRAT!

Depression: Self-care and Back to Basics

2007-09-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

In the last month I have experienced more positive change then I have had in the last three years. My work prospects increased and improved drastically. My social life is expanding. I have been given an entire new wardrobe of clothes. I also know that for Christmas I'm going to be receiving many pairs of earrings. I'm in the middle of major life change and emotional growth.

In my head, I planned what to do. Work needed to be done, old stuff needed to be given away to make room for the new stuff. I did all the things in front of me. After two weeks of cat-sitting. I came to this easy three day dog-sitting job experiencing a terrible depression. I figured maybe I needed sleep. No, woke up feeling just as bad, or worse, then before the nap. I then found myself experiencing that nagging boredom. Escaping into a book helped a bit, but I still felt terrible. Might be physical, or I might need medical adjustment when I return home. But what to do right now?

I did have the dreaded plight of the blind. A bus driver forgot to call out my stop. I got totally scared. I hate having to depend on people for help when I never know if they will "hear" me and do what I request. If I remind the driver, they get insulted, if I only say it once, I get left. Its a crap-shoot. I have to accept the reality that I can't handle buses without help. That is just the way it is. So, I talk to God and try to calm down inside.

One of the perks of this dog-sitting job is a bathtub and all kinds of scented oils, creams and soaps I can use to my heart's content. I gave myself an oil and water bath. Basically take a cap full of oil, olive, almond or whatever oil you like on your skin and add it to a really hot bath. Then you give yourself a massage. Sure you can't easily reach all of you, but most of you can be given the slippery attentiveness of gentle massage. You are not kneading bread here. GENTLE! Let yourself enjoy taking care of yourself and doing something special.

Wow! I was a tense, uptight mess! I do a lot of deep breathing, which can bring emotions to the surface. I forgot to just stop and be kind to me. My emotional tank was empty and doing this kind of thing is one of my ways of refilling my tank. I have been totally directed outward for the last two weeks. It is good to attend my work and love the animals I care for. But I forgot to take some time for myself.

An oil bath is a bit messy. You will feel wonderfully relaxed, pampered and soft afterwards. You can always clean the bathtub. If you are afraid of slipping, put down a 2nd wash cloth for when you are moving around in the tub after the massage and you are bathing. Yes. Finish up by bathing as usual. You will still feel slightly oily. It won't kill you. Your towel will also remove some of the extra oil. Indulge."But what about messing up a towel?" Aren't you at least as valuable as that bath towel? You don't want to use grandma's embroidered towel for this project. But you also don't want to settle for something used to wax the car either. Believe it, or not, these small details will build you up, or tear you down inside.

I still struggle with co-dependency. When I blog about religion and people write comments to share a different viewpoint, I get afraid. (No, still not all done in this area yet). When I see friends making decisions which appear not to be in their best interest, I feel badly when their life gets complicated. I have to remember to shed all of that tension. Concern should lead me to prayer, not tension. Duh!

Long and short. I went back to the first lesson we depressed patients learned in our "Handling Depression" class. Yeah, you feel yucky. Be gentle, do something nice for yourself and accept that for some reason you feel out of sorts. Its not the end of the world. Sitting and thinking about acting won't do it. Do something nice for yourself.

I don't feel like going out and dancing down the street with bliss, but I feel better then I did. I'll be able to do my deep breathing and really relax. This is what happens when you take positive action in the midst of feeling less then good. You are being the friend to yourself you needed and may not have gotten during your early years and that in itself builds the bridge out of feeling hopeless and helpless.

In Memory of 9/11/2001

2007-09-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

I live near near San Francisco, California. I woke up about 10 AM Pacific Daylight time, (1 PM EDT). I took my morning medications, brewed coffee and sat down to listen to KSFO Radio. I remember the normal morning banter being hastily interrupted with a live feed from New York. (It was a repeat of an earlier broadcast, but I wasn't sure it wasn't live at the time.)

A passenger plane (first plane) had crashed into the World Trade Center. I sat in total shock, as live, choppy reports flowed in. In the middle of a discussion of the hit on the first tower, the second plane hit the other tower. I remember feeling a little sick to my stomach. Maybe this is the beginning of all out war on the US?

It made sense that one plane could have gone off course and crashed into the towers, but two planes, where was our Air Force and NORAD? (North American Air Defense Command)

I wandered aimlessly in downtown Oakland. I picked up junk food at the Walgreens on 14th Street at Broadway. I remember buying things I usually didn't get, mixed nuts, loads of them. I came out of the store and realized that Broadway was completely deserted. I'd NEVER seen the street completely empty of people and traffic. It was about 2 PM PDT, (5 PM EDT). I returned to my building and heard the replay on the TV of the towers collapsing. Somehow, I had missed that. I watched dumbly with everyone else, as they played and replayed the terrible footage of these two huge buildings coming down like a child's set of building blocks.

I also remember wandering back downtown, to try and secure a copy of that day's New York Times. It was $6. I would have paid $20. I came home with the paper. I sat slowly reading the articles, looking at the pictures and cried.

I have never been patriotic. I don't dislike the US, but I never got all emotional about the flag. I now had to have one somewhere in my apartment I could look at. The New York Times had a full page photo of a flat American flag. I read the articles on the reverse side of this large color photo of a flag. I then taped the flag to my door and cried.

To this day I have trouble understanding why Berny Ward chose to highlight the plight of those in the Middle East. It was 10 PM PDT. He was the first live talk show (KGO, San Francisco). He blamed the United States for the attack on the Twin Towers. It was our foreign policy which caused the attacks across our country. I felt a curious combination of rage and sorrow wash over me, as I listened in stunned disbelief at his show. Even if his assertions were true, this was NOT the time!

Callers protested his actions, but he stuck to his position. I couldn't listen to his program any more. I returned to some other station rehashing the days awful events.

After six years, I am finally able to stomach watching some of the "Conspiracy" footage on the Net about 9/11. Sadly, the people refuting the conspiracy charges lapse into name-calling, just like the conspiracy people. I've lost respect for both sides of that debate at this point.

I stand in mourning remembrance of the tragedy of 9/11/2001

Becoming My Own Person: Owning Up To Mistakes.

2007-09-10T00:27:00.000-07:00

I document recovery by sharing my half-developed ideas and sometimes my mistakes. I forget that in print, my attempt at satire doesn't always appear as satire. I am traveling some new philosophical ground lately. I ponder what are the parts of me which are "fixed", as compared to those parts of me which are still "flexible", open for change, and or new information.

I lean toward a very mousy type of co-dependant behavior. I'll become anything you like, so you'll like me. I'm getting secure enough within myself where I've stopped doing that. I'm a committed Christian and I'm no longer willing to get wishy-washy about it. I also come from a totally messed-up background where I haven't a clue as how to negotiate with people. Is is okay for me to stay different from you, after you show me who you are?

I love having all sorts of people in my life, many of whom don't believe at all as I do. It is like looking over beautiful jewels from different angles. People and who they are endlessly fascinate me.

I want to be who I really am, without alienating people who see the world differently then I do. Once I establish my religious feelings, I'm willing to drop it and move on to exploring work, hobbies, school, or whatever someone else finds exciting. I don't assume my sharing is going to "change" a person.

This "healthy" sharing comes into direct conflict with my experience of "Witnessing". You know where someone browbeats you in the name of (usually Jesus) until you come around to their way of thinking? In other subjects I don't get confused like this. In other areas, we are just showing each other points of interest. This is one of the most satisfying aspects of meeting people on the Internet. But when I speak of religion and another religious person engages in "showing" me things, I assume its time to "man the barricades, defend and hunker down ...!"

Yes, hello co-dependency, will I ever get healthy enough to be rid of you? Oh, I hope so!

A lovely person, not of my faith and I began emailing back and forth about religion, theirs and mine. I didn't realize I was feeling like I had to "defend" my ground. My friend was not intending this any more then my atheist friends are. I wrote about "Religion: A Commitment We Are Willing To Die For", as a way of haltingly exploring being my own person, along with examples of some of the abuse which I've seen and experienced under the category of "witnessing".

I learned something very crucial. People are gentle, sensitive and can be unsettled by my aggressive stance. Humor mis-understood can appear to be overbearing and aggressive. I am sorry. I realize now that healthy adults can share aspects of themselves without the "ulterior motive" of trying to manipulate change in each other.

I got that concept everywhere else, except when discussing religion. I am now free of fear. I am free to explore your spiritual garden without fearing I will be required to kill my garden to replace it with yours. If I like something in your garden, I can add it to mine. We both gain and nobody loses. This is wonderful.

I have some very cool atheist friends to thank for teaching me how to share without manipulation. They aren't afraid to say who they are, but have absolutely no desire to uproot my religious leanings. That is a cherished lesson. Waves of peace wash over me because I no longer have to "make" anything happen. True "witnessing" is simply sharing without a hidden agenda. Damn, after so many years of misunderstanding the process. I'm free!

A Part of Me Resists Growing Up: Wishful Thinking.

2007-09-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those days where you are saddened by how callous the world seems? I truly don't understand the part of myself I'm going to share. There is a part of me that gets really sad when my "magical", "child-like" thinking gets confronted and corrected by reality. I'd really like to grow out of this.

The first shock rolled through my emotions when I checked out an assertion about net security. Its gone. Your name and many other things about you are a few keystrokes and a mouse click away for anyone willing to do a search. After investigating this with a few searches I was consumed with numb terror. I have been stalked and I thought it would be a bit harder to find information.

My friend, who is a public figure, acknowledged the issue, but is not worried. He doesn't fear being stalked. I have to grow up and realize I'm probably not that interesting a catch anyway. My stalker was a former lover who resented the exiting of my support money from his life. His kind has moved through many victims by now. He's long gone.

The real crusher came with a very long pod cast where the female (my favorite) was OUTRAGED at Apple's behavior towards their customers. I have had a few issues with Apple relating to my sense of "fairness" lately, so I totally related to her position. the male on the show was non-plussed. Shoulder shrug: you pays your money, you take your chances. Apple doesn't owe anybody anything.

I reproduce the email between me and a friend, who shocked me with his reaction to my assertions. (Maybe I'm just PMS-ing).
(My assertions):

I've read and listened to the hysteria today over the iPhone price drop / hoopla / $100 rebate / treat 'em like the suckers they are firestorm.

I like their products, but don't trust them anymore. They are out to make as much money off me as possible.

• 4-week rebate on iLife /iWeb 8 only
• no break on price for Leopard release only 90 days away from my
computer purchase.

I used to trust Apple, now I just shrug and say: "they are like everyone else, but their quality is still better. But it feels like
the quality is sliding also. What can I do? Get out my Debit Card and shut up". Of course I can always buy a $300 PC and REALLY be mistreated with poor quality and money-grubbing.

'Tis life. But I do feel a bit sad. I really thought Apple was different. Maybe once upon a time, they were. But it was probably just a well-orchestrated illusion. Feels like the end of an era. Sad.

(Friend's reaction:)

I'm fine with it. I think that they're being quite generous offering a $100 credit. I just bought a Mac 9 days before iLife came out - 2 days longer than they included as a back period. Oh well. 90 days from when a major OS release comes out and you want them to just give it to you? You're high.

Apple is a company. They're actually pretty good at taking care of their customers according to all research. They're out to make money off you? NO - REALLY? I thought they were just altruistic and giving all this stuff away. You're kidding right?

Apple is different. They're a wanna-be Microsoft. Steve Jobs is a tyrant - but he's a brilliant tyrant. They make great technology. They're a company. I love their products. The hardware is beautiful, the OS is the best. If MS tried to pull off all the interconnectivity of Apple with iTunes and the iPod they'd be getting their butts sued off.

Enjoy your Mac. Enjoy the experience. It's a UI, not a religion.

(Friend's email, my reactions in [] brackets):

I'm fine with it. [WHAT?!] I think that they're being quite generous offering a $100 credit. [true, legally they don't have to rebate at all.] I just bought a Mac 9 days before iLife came out - 2 days longer than they included as a back period. [Oh man. See, that's what I'm talking about!]. Oh well. [what a curious non-reaction].
90 days from when a major OS release comes out and you want them to just give it to you? You're high. [Ouch! Yeah, tactless, but you've never claimed to be otherwise :p, Ouch!]

Apple is a company. [Oh darn, here comes the "reality lecture", sigh]. They're actually pretty good at taking care of their customers according to all research. They're out to make money off you? NO - REALLY? I thought they were just altruistic and giving all this stuff away. You're kidding right? [I wish my feelings or whatever would give up and grow up. Oh, how I wish I was kidding, then it wouldn't hurt inside so much. I have no clue as to what is gnawing at me, but God will show me].

Apple is different. They're a wanna-be Microsoft. Steve Jobs is a tyrant - but he's a brilliant tyrant. They make great technology. They're a company. I love their products. The hardware is beautiful, the OS is the best. If MS tried to pull off all the interconnectivity of Apple with iTunes and the iPod they'd be getting their butts sued off. [Yeah, sigh]

Enjoy your Mac. Enjoy the experience. It's a UI [User Interface, right?], not a religion. [Sarcastic, you're right, blah, blah, blah. Now I feel sad, shamed, STUPID and angry. Oh, how I want to grow out of this part of me!].

So, there it is. But I am baffled as to why I can't seem to shake this love of over idealistic thinking. My friend is right. He is blunt and I wouldn't want him any other way. That razor sharp awareness is part of his exquisite humor.

Religion: A Commitment We're Willing To Die For.

2007-09-06T22:21:00.000-07:00

I enjoy the comments I receive on this blog. I am thankful for very little spam-attempts (I delete them ALWAYS) and little negative feedback. Thank goodness I've not been "flamed". I am thankful that you all seem to understand what this blog is about. Now that I'm getting truly healthy, I sometimes wonder if I'm not just narcissistic.

The feedback I receive keeps me plowing the field. I rejoice at the news that someone has found benefit from roaming my musings. Now that I'm out of what seems like the "up and down" of recovery, I'm sometimes at a loss as to what to share with you all.

The idea of a "blurblet" was proposed. I think that is shorter than a real blog post, but longer then a 132-character tweet. I miss twitter.com when its down for maintenance. Yeah, I'm a geek.

But I have spoken of religion, God and all of that. I got some very intriguing feedback from a reader. I reproduce it here as an introduction to my response.

Question: If you know that you're praying to the same God, why take a step backward in the Divine Plan? Are you aware of who Baha'u'llah even is? I'm not going to go into too much - my blog should help a bit. I'll check to see if there is a comment from you, before we start a dialog.

Oops, this person believes I'm WRONG! Wow, I thought it was just us Christians who threw those stones. I have spent hours pondering doing a blog about the issue of religion. I've tried to answer this person's questions about why I left a faith which is the foundation of his life. I tried several approaches. I am not sure if I'm being unclear, or my answers are too upsetting for him.

Basically, at the time I was a member of the Baha'i faith, it was all in my head, it didn't get to my emotions. I didn't change that much. I loved knowing that I had everyone else over an intellectual barrel. They were still in "religious" grade school, while I was in "religious" college! (try believing that without growing an amazing ego behind it.) I didn't feel inspired by my fellow Bahai's, we were all at the same level. I hated Christianity because that was my family's religion. I doubt I need to say more.

When I got sick enough and scared enough to take a second look at the Bible, I felt a power from what Jesus said, who He was and what He claimed He was doing. Eventually, I became Christian because I was sick enough and desperate enough to really make a change. I would have run down a street naked, if someone had told me doing that would heal me. (Thankfully, I walked, fully dressed to an altar, instead.)

But how to deal with people who don't think, or believe as I do? I've known really aggressive Buddists - whose evangelism makes the Moonies look week! I've also been mentally tackled by Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. What lies behind these efforts is a commitment someone has made to a belief system they sense has "changed their life".

I never challenge some one's testimony. How can I argue with a person who KNOWS that a belief system got them off narcotics? When you are approached on the street by someone with "the word", I find a polite way to deflect the encounter is to inquire as to how they found their faith. It takes the tension out of the meeting. I can praise health and self improvement whether or not I agree with the doctrine. With that initial tension gone it is easier to decline their invitations.

But here is what troubles this conservative Christian. What if my way IS the only road to heaven, while everything else is a sham and a lie? If what I believe is bunk and the New Age folks are right, I get to try it again until I get my karma straightened out, or whatever else I need to learn in the evolving, reincarnating school of the Spirit. At worst, I'm slowing my progress.

But, if Jesus is right and its Him or hell, is it cool for me to side step the issue and not discuss the possibility that you have been deluded by a lie? A lie which could cause you to spend eternity in hell?

Granted, some Christians have the sensitivity of rocks, around these issues. If we are right, we should be the most healthy, centered and tactful folks running loose. It's okay, go ahead and let yourself groan now. As a group we appear, on TV at least, to be completely out of our minds.

I have been in social situations where someone has engaged in what I think of as Kamikaze Witnessing. Witnessing tactless and brutal enough to spawn lifelong atheism in its victims. I apologize for all of that. People can believe correctly and still be the idiots they were before becoming Christian. It took me almost twenty years in the faith before I really got around to growing up. Or as it is known among us as getting "sanctified".

Sanctification is where you stop fighting God and He turns you into a balanced, healthy and more Christ-like human being. The real Jesus is a cool dude. I've never had a problem with Jesus, but occasionally, some of his followers make me want to commit murder. "Oh God, can I send this one to Glory, NOW?" Actually, I've learned to talk less and pray more. But I still have a mouth which gets me into trouble from time to time: "Excuse me, do you know you are acting like an idiot?" Funny how that gets under people's skin... Yeah, I'm not all done yet either.

I hurt for all the people who believe everything under the sun, except Jesus. You'll notice that all other movements are tolerant of everything EXCEPT Christianity. I actually know a person who is waiting to be "picked up" by the Mother Ship. She believes when they come for her (!) they will take her to her real home on another planet, in another galaxy. And I get laughed at because I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ?

People gag on the Christian message because it implies Absolute Truth, accountability and a time limit for making your decision. Why worry about change if I am just going to reincarnate anyway and I can work harder in the next life? But, if there is a real God, with real feelings and spiritual laws have eternal consequences. Ew, that is creeps ville. So explains the continuing push to get "God" out of all public life.

I heard a former Nazi Party member explain that it wasn't until religion was suppressed from social discourse that the Third Reich really took off. He wept as he apologized for what his country did in WWII. He felt guilty for "just going along, to get along". He was a teenager, but knew he should have resisted being a Nazi.

I truthfully can't explain "original sin". But look around this world, is it getting better or worse? It seems to me that mankind keeps coming up with gruesome and grosser forms of evil every day. Ever have to teach a child to lie? If we are basically good, where does that "lie" come from?

Some Christians get all exercised about what heaven will be like, or what kind of resurrected body they will have. I really don't care. I do care that since finding Christ, or rather, letting Him "Save" me, I'm really finding healing, peace and joy. I can't fix this world, but I can work on not being as big an idiot today as I was yesterday. No other movement ever gave me the courage to truly face myself, warts and all.

Ode To Life: Why I'm Sorry I Tried To Kill Myself.

2007-09-06T14:54:00.000-07:00

Actually composed this post a few months back, but it is still relevant. The expanding duties of the church website have put my language project on hold. My friend Nancy is also extremely busy, but we still chat when she has the time.

I am beginning to learn Chinese. Why, you ask. Because I've made friends with a gal in Beijing China and she has invited me to blog on her site. Google has this terrific translating tool, but when I begin to interact with the Chinese website, the translating stops. So, I'm learning basic things like "Post", "save" and "publish", in Chinese! I feel like an idiot, on one level, but its fun to make a effort anyway.

I truly believe that this kind of friendship making that unites different cultures, age groups, races and countries will eventually stop mankind's love of war. I share the words to a great song from the 1960':

Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream
words and music by Ed McCurdy

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

I dreamed I saw a mighty room
Filled with women and men
And the paper they were signing said
They'd never fight again

And when the paper was all signed
And a million copies made
They all joined hands and bowed their heads
And grateful pray'rs were prayed

And the people in the streets below
Were dancing 'round and 'round
While swords and guns and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd never dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war.

TRO-©1950,1951 & 1955 Almanac Music, Inc.
New York, N.Y. Copyrights renewed
Used by permission.

There is one beautiful idea. I am so blessed to meet Nancy and the students she works with. I feel like I've been invited into their home. I have begun to research really learning Chinese and it looks rather daunting. But, I take it one step at a time.

I almost succeeded in ending my life in 1979. I tried to end my life with alcohol poisoning. I was stunned to realize that all the real healing began after getting "saved" in 1981. Today I am caring for Maggie the cat in a lovely home in the Berkeley Hills. I drink in the beauty of my surroundings. I'm sitting on a soft white rug, observing Maggie and her cat ballet. Sunlight is streaming through the trees outside the window. There are various shades of green as the wind moves the leaves around. I feel a deep sense of repentance for wanting to die. I would have missed all the current goodies of health and life.

I then remembered the marvelous people I've encountered since 1979. In the early '90's, I tried my hand at learning Engineering. Even though I flunked out, I had the joy of seeing professors in love with their subjects. As a psychology major I never had the thrilling experience of seeing an excited professor share their joy. I believe my love of three dimensional drawings is part of what interests me about web design and graphic arts.

Thanks to proper medication, I have the miracle of emotional stability. Oh, I can still go totally off the beam and panic over a small matter. But today, it is short lived and doesn't result in a hospital admission. With this freedom I've made wonderful friends. All kinds of friends.

Although I dog sit and house clean for Maria and John, I think of Maria as the mother I never had. She is in her early seventies and is gently teaching me how to save money. I will permit her to correct me in ways I won't let others even attempt. We have grown very close. I never would have met her at all, if I'd died in 1979.

I was twenty-seven, really living like I was still a small child. I am now fifty-four making friends with concepts like responsibility, delayed gratification and accountability. I have found a church home I adore. A small group of Christians who think very much as I do. This small group of very conservative black folks have adopted me as one of their own. I have the joy of experiencing their love and friendship as we all learn more and more about God and Jesus Christ, together.

I have a flock of Internet buddies. People I communicate with over the Internet, but haven't met face to face. I enjoy the intellectual tennis matches I play with some of my pals. We email, or chat about God, philosophy, science, movies and music. I know physicists, Electronic Technicians, reporters, IT professionals and Engineers. I am also an avid fan of a couple of up and coming science fiction writers. There is never a shortage of interesting things to explore in person or on the Internet.

There re very difficult times during the years I struggled to "desire" to live. I had a lot of counseling and therapy to attend to. There were major problems with my past. I had a large amount of grief work to face. Before I could put my past into perspective, I had to admit that my past was an infection which had to be lanced, cleaned out and healed. Facing my past was very hard and painful work. It is like mental surgery. An infected finger can kill you, if you let it go totally untreated.

The major battle for me was accepting the responsibility of fighting for my own recovery. Yes, adults messed me over very badly, when I was a child, but now I was an adult. I had to stop blaming "them", start looking at my own behavior and WHY I continued to act in ways that weren't working in my life.

My gratitude is endless for the men and women who fought to help me get better. Looking back, I can now see that many people tried to "reach" me. I remember many times in my life, where people tried to help ,me, I just couldn't understand. I assumed it was some kind of trick, or trap. I wasn't ready to face the pain of my childhood. But, when this student was finally ready, I had wonderful professionals who donated hours of free counseling to give me a chance to have a real life. In a way, I write this blog as a thank you for all of their work on my behalf.

Ultimately, I thank God I found Jesus Christ. All the improvement and growth began AFTER I became a Christian. Being a Baha'i' was only an interesting intellectual exercise. Jesus had the real power to replace my heart of stone with a heart of compassion. The false superiority of having all the "right" answers had to be smashed.

I had to first learn to stop trying to kill myself. Once I'd made a commitment to actually try to live, I've begun to learn not to fear other people. My life is smoothing out and becoming more and more 'normal'. I am now working on the issues we all have to deal with. Being responsible, truthful and accountable.

It is not gripping reading. Do I put in a true effort at my work, or do I just "get by"? Do I keep commitments I've made to God, or blow Him off? Am I really willing to be honest when I desire a day off, or do I just "not show up"? (real on-the-edge-of-your-seat-stuff, right?)

I end this post with a wonderful way to put things into perspective.
God's gift to me is life. My gift to Him is what I do with my life.

My New Clothes from My Church.

2007-09-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

Even though I genuinely enjoy doing the weekly bulletins for church, the last week in August, was not a fun session. Pastor called it in late on Saturday evening after I'd gone to bed.

I dragged my mind back to work mode and began the (usually simple) process of producing Sunday's Bulletin. "Friends & Family Day". He wanted a group scene of people. I use a website chalk-full of such pen and ink drawings and figured I'd be finished rather quickly.

Oh man! I just couldn't find the correct drawing. I came so very close to dumping the drawing all together and just putting out a text based bulletin. But I forced myself to do it right and eventually came up with what I hoped would please my Pastor.

Then it was time for me to do something really stupid with my computer. Fixing my mess-up took several hours, leaving little time for more sleep. I loathe doing anything when I'm that tired. Being tired just saps my ability to be an adult. I always have to fight the temptation to act like a cranky three-year-old.

Once church was over, I decided not to stay for the meal provided for this "friends and Family Day". I couldn't think of a good excuse to leave, but I sat in the back fanning my overheated, "having a hot flash" self, longing to go home.

Into every life an idiot doeth come. A gentleman came in and sat directly in front of me. I tried to talk to him. He rebuffed me with a very curt and clear: "I don't want to talk to you!" and then proceeded to respond politely to other people.

I have had this kind of thing happen to me far too often and frankly I handle it badly. When I'm rested I can control my desire to sob and carry myself like an adult. When I'm exhausted the desire to: a) seek revenge and or b) cry is just too tempting.

I used the excuse that I was just too tired and quickly left for home. I knew this is what I needed to do for self care. Maybe the guy didn't like white people, women or strangers, but I'd fight that battle another day. I have found it is important to know when you are not equipped for a situation. Social situations, at the best of times, are difficult for me. When I have any kind of rejection issue, they become an emotional endurance test.

I came home and made a nice lunch for myself and settled down to do some work on the website before letting myself go to bed. I got a call from a friend at church. They had two bags of clothes and a plate of food coming for me! My friend understood where I was at emotionally and was just happy to deliver these items.

I have blogged about my beautiful velour, silk and cotton jacket dresses before. But this batch of clothes were all for summer! A really good way to get heat stroke is to wear a velour jacket dress in the summer. These were all light chiffon or stretch nit outfits. Even two pairs of shorts. with many mix and match tops.

I was totally stunned. These are the kind of expensive, pretty clothes I'd never buy for myself. Oh, I'd have maybe two nice "vacation" outfits, but the rest would be from the thrift store. The thrift store for those of us who are overweight is a depressing adventure.

I am comfortable now in 2x to 3x clothes and those sizes are few and far between at your average thrift store. My usual attack plan is: if it fits, I don't care what it looks like. Take it and get on with it.

I now have a real wardrobe of wonderful "vacation" and "fancy" clothes. I had the joy of throwing out clothes that had seen better days, several years ago! I do not show my picture of me because I've been stalked in the past and don't want the problem cropping up again. So, enjoy checking out the nicest set of clothes I've ever owned. I'm taking as many pictures as this blog will handle. I'm showing off my summer and winter clothes. These clothes are so beautiful. I like how I feel when I wear them.

I now log off to go and enjoy that "soul food" brought to me yesterday. These folks not only know how to dress, but they sure know how to eat. BBQ chicken, Terreiki chicken, greens, mac and cheese, yams and some really wonderful velvet cake. God is showing me more of His love and I am so glad I did my best work for Him even when I was tired. He sure has inspired folks to share some beautiful things with me.

Recovery: Well Enough To Choose Maturity.

2007-08-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

We all have faults and weaknesses which follow us for years. The lament of those around me was: "Cybe. Why can't you grow up?". I learned to hate that type of question. No matter what strategy I tried, I still ended up in tears and basically throwing a three-year-olds tantrum.

The other seemingly intractable part of my make up was the total emotional meltdown I began experiencing every seven to ten years of my life. I remember being hysterical with a casual friend one summer at camp. I was moving into seventh grade. My cousin was just pounding on me for all the usual things. No matter what I did, it wasn't enough.

If I dutifully washed down all the counters in the kitchen, my cousin's husband would shame me with the statement that his wife POLISHED all the counters! It was hard not calling him the bold faced liar he was. But, my internal emptiness kept growing because there was no praise for anything I did anywhere. I was dying inside.

My camp friend was shocked and since she knew nothing about my home life, pushed me away with the tired retort that I was just pitying myself and to grow up. I stopped sharing and by my senior year in High School was a clinically depressed and disassociating mess. I went through hours of not properly relating to reality with the thought: "You haven't happened yet." I was too scared to really tell anyone what was going on in my mind, but I came close to being put in a mental hospital.

Jumping from the frying pan into a fire, I left home at 19 and married a man twelve years older then I. He had levels of child abuse in his history which I still have trouble relating to. We were two messed up people, who thought we could "fix" each other. FORGET IT! You can only "Fix" yourself. I shudder to remember what my poor x-husband must have thought and felt when he saw me have one of my almost monthly "fits".

I'd just start screaming and crying. I'd lose the ability to feel, see and hear. I'd come out of thse things after maybe twenty to forty-five minutes. My x-husband believed once he got me well, than I could help him get well. Over and over professionals, friends and my x-husband questioned me: "Cybe, why can't you grow up?" I didn't know, but was building a huge "shame" file around the general issue.

Next major break was when, after ten years of marriage, I found my husband was having sex with boys as young as ten. I was so clueless as how to take care of myself I thought the only way to get out of the marriage was suicide. I tried it and failed. But I came mighty close to making it out of this life, long before salvation and healing.

Once on my own I collected sexual partners of either sex and tried to rebuild my life. After another few years I was unable to complete sentences. It seemed that each time I fell apart I was just a little more broken, then the last time. I was forty and in my Md's office as an emergency psychiatric case. My regular doctor wasn't there and a stranger opened the door.
My body literally arced up in the air on the gurney. I made a crucial decision. I was going to seriously look into being committed because it was clear to me, that I was unable to manage my own life.

I told this story elsewhere in this blog, but I will never, ever forget what this kind man told me.

"You don't change (not being able to grow up and stop crying), because you CAN'T change. You have a problem with your brain. This is physical, not phycological,"

Well, here I am now fifty four and something so wonderful happened to me this week. A friend at church and I were at a District Meeting together. When I saw her, I waved at her. She misunderstood my hand gesture. I was just saying "Hi". She thought I wanted her to stop and talk to me. The choir was singing and the sound system was very loud. She was trying to get the person playing the organ to turn it down, as it was drowning out the choir. Because this lovely lady likes me and realizes I can't see the more subtle gestures people make, when they like you, but can't take the time to chat, she tried to talk to me.

She was angry, pressured and busy. She tried to explain about the problem with the organ music being too loud. Due to the noise level, I didn't hear part of what she said. I was standing, swaying and twisting to the beautiful song. I heard: "...choir can't be heard above all of THAT!" Since I didn't hear the beginning of her statement, I thought I was being told to sit down and not upset the choir performance!

Friends, even a year ago, this would have driven me to tears. But, Wednesday August 15, 2007 I experiences the following. At first I was insulted that I was being talked to like that. What tempered my anger was the very real felt experience of the love of the people of my church for me. I've been corrected by several people at church for various infractions. They are always gentle and kind. I felt a little wave of niceness wash over me, remembering these totally new experiences.

Not totally spiritual, I then noticed an entire flock of clapping, singing and NOISY people around me. I wanted to turn around and jump on them for singing! I got jumped on and I know I wasn't singing! I began to ask God to help me keep things in perspective. If I kept my thoughts to myself, and was wrong about the situation - I wouldn't have to apologize later. Oh, what a lovely lesson THAT has been for me. I decided to check with my friend after service, because I was clueless as to what I had done to get such a strong rebuke.

When I got a chance to talk to her, the full story came to light. We had totally misunderstood one another! She was spitting mad at someone else! It wasn't about me at all! (Man, am I thankful I quietly prayed instead of getting snooty with the people around me who were singing)

The real miracle of this exchange then hit me hard. I hadn't cried, hadn't been anywhere near wanting, or needing to cry! I wanted to grab my friend and say: "Oh, please rebuke me, now that I can handle it, I want to practice!" Thanks to another bit of divinely inspired wisdom, I didn't say that either.

At church they talk about having to give your mind and heart new experiences in the present to argue with your dysfunctional past. The love I receive from my fellow church members is real and I've learned I can trust them to be kind and gentle. It is perfectly acceptable to question what I'm told. I don't have to lie and smile when I'm angry and upset. As long as I'm gentle and respectful, questions and even disagreement, are fine.

I still can't believe I am leaving the world of constant tears behind. I'm beginning to take responsibility in areas of my life I've stubornly refused to deal with before. Like physical health and taking better care of my room and belongings. God is teaching me different kinds of patience as I work with the church website. I rarely think about my past these days. I'm too busy living a REAL life. A life where a therapy appointment isn't the most interesting part of the day.

Recovery: Self-discipline Revisited.

2007-08-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

More than anything, my goal for this blog is to document recovery from mental illness and child abuse. I am so far into new territory (in my recovery), I am almost lost for words to describe where my life is going.

My early role models and personal habits were warped and dysfunctional at best. I learned to fear being an adult, taking responsibility and most of all self-discipline. I equated all of the above with a torture rack of unending misery and pain.

I mis-learned all these things. I had what has been described by M. Scott Peck PhD. and others as "undisciplined discipline" My odyssey with God is teaching me something tender, sweet and new.

For those of you who don't believe in God, I apologize. I have no substitute. I only have my experience. For my money, Jesus Christ is the best thing going. I owe all my healing to Him and Him alone.

Last Monday night, just before climbing into bed, I brushed my tummy roll and felt a twinge of awareness. Man, I've gained weight. I'd been given some beautiful clothes by a member of my church that were 3x in size. They were a little big on me, but not THAT much too big! I began to question how I could deal with losing weight God's way and not just plunge willy-nilly into another crash diet which would only lead to failure, more weight gain and a sense of futility.

I prayed to God. If You want me to lose weight, I am willing to really make an effort. But I want to do something simple, sane and slow. A life style adjustment instead of a "diet". I can't bear to never eat anything I love. I go into binge eating when I restrict myself like that.

I didn't expect, or receive an immediate answer. No booming voice out of the air, or even a small voice. I just felt like it was possible to do something different. That I would be shown a new way which would fit my requirements.

I did a Google search on weight lose and found a free website that I could use to track my calories, weight and body measurements. If I wanted to pay $5 a month, my calories and other nutritional information would be summed up and compared with he FDA recommended intake for protein, fiber and all that other stuff they track.

I've always liked tracking what I actually do, verses just having a goal which is so far into the future, I can't even relate to it. I learned that I am working my way up to the worst level of obesity, but I'm not quite there yet. I learned that I can set up a diet plan where I can lose a pound a week. I can learn to change things gradually without denying myself an occasional piece of cake, dish of ice cream, or anything else I love.

The bad news? Well, II was 205.5 pounds. I should be around 130 pounds. That is a difference of 75.5 pounds. I can handle losing the weight in 75.5 weeks, which is 1 year and 23.5 weeks. That is a bit less then a year and a half. Having an easy weekly target and a long term goal like this has taken all the tension out of wanting to lose weight. Right there I can see God gently teaching me the beginning of self-care which is actually self-discipline.

The other part of this website is tracking your activities every day. You tell them how much exercise you are doing now and work up to adding something to your daily routine. I love to walk, and when I don't walk, I get stiff to where I have trouble supporting any weight at all on the right foot. I try to walk an hour a day, but before having this lovely website to account to, I never managed to actually walk more then one or two days a week. That was not enough.

There is something very satisfying about seeing what I'm actually doing daily. Carrying my 25 pound walker up and down our 30+ stairs every day wipes out almost 50 calories, all by itself. A one hour walk tallies up to almost 400 calories. Adding in other things I never thought of as exercise brings my activity calorie reduction to nearly 500 calories a day!

This is not a signal for me to buy cake and cookies every day! I only need to cut down my food intake by 500 calories a day to make my goal of 1 pound a week of weight loss. I eat what I want, but HONESTLY admit what it was and how much I ate. I quickly saw that my amazing love of mayonnaise was accounting for almost 1600 calories a day, alone! Maybe I can cut that back, just a touch...?

The amazing thing I discovered is that I'm losing weight, exercising and not acting all crazy. No protein powder, Atkins or any other goofy food plan. I'm down to 198 pounds with no feeling of being cheated out of anything.

The only substitution I've made is to buy oranges and dried apricots for my "sweet" tooth, instead of cake, doughnuts or ice cream. I can have the other stuff, but not on a daily basis. Had a blow-out burger meal with a friend with that lovely chocolate pie. I used Equal in my coffee, but other then that I let myself enjoy a "treat" meal. I gained a pound, which swiftly disappeared when I returned to my regular, less caloric eating.

I can't remember ever having real "diet" success in my life. I can live with the changes. I feel better when I exercise. I am making friends with a whole bunch of new concepts. At church, several days after I began my new food arrangement, the preacher spoke of how important physical health was. The sermon confirmed everything I was doing. Slow, sane and lasting REAL change.

For those of you interested in this (I think) cool dieting website: (http://www.my-calorie-counter.com/calorie_counter.asp). I want to show you the link, as well as give you a link to these folks. They offer various newsletters, but won't clutter your inbox without your opting in.

For those of you who have turned purple with rage about the very notion of dieting. Just realize that this information may not be for you at this time. Not everything is a "have to", "right now". I've spoken of my dieting history when a friend began a diet and I was in a totally different frame of mind. Its okay to say "no". Saying "no" is also a very important part of recovery. You can always come back later and change your mind.

Saying Good-Bye To "Wanderlust", My Dying eMac.

2007-07-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

I'm a Macintosh person. I took it as a personal affront from Steve Jobs when she began to fail. Apple's DON'T FAIL! I resisted the temptation to yell at my Macintosh representative. How dare she not be able to perform "remote" magic and fix my 40 Gigs of external storage disc partition that had disappeared!

"Darling, when your USB ports fail intermittently its your logic board. You better get the new computer sooner rather than later," Janice Kempf has proven herself to be an exceptional Apple Rep. I trust her. She does exquisite customer service and I love the chance to buy something from her. We'd explored what I wanted for a new machine earlier in the year.

However, I had a plan. I wouldn't buy a new Mac until Leopard, the next operating system came out in October. Now, with only 4 months until this release I'LL HAVE TO PAY FOR A NEW OPERATING SYSTEM TO GET LEOPARD! Oh rage, scream, damn! Steve Jobs has me, and I know it.

Since Janice already knew what I was looking for in the next machine, she went to the refurbished things first. I had two great choices, three if I would take a 17 inch screen. I made my decision and Janice put it all together for the amount I had in the bank.

I thought that dropping over $1,500 would be fun. I was in tears. I had data to save, pleading letters to write, begging for geeks to "save" me and just some general sulking to do. This is NOT at all like my daydreams.

I am really getting to move up in the Mac. world, as my computer duties have expanded from small-time home consumer to part-time business person. As webmaster and whatever-they-need-I'll-try-it (for my church) business person, my poor eMac is just not powerful enough, or large enough to handle my new duties. I love my eMac. I feel sad to lose her. She is more then a machine. I grew up pounding on her keyboard, mousing myself into carpal tunnel syndrome on games and exploring Instant Messaging and Social networks.

Before Wanderlust I swore I'd never, ever, ever get on the Internet because my vision just couldn't handle it. I'd always leave a session of attempts in tears. But Wanderlust with reverse video, square box around-the-cursor and font changing capabilities brought the Internet to me. Now that I can see it, I LOVE it!

How did she get the name "Wanderlusts"? She started life in Southern California, a nice Republican area. For mysterious reasons I never figured out she got shipped to Sacramento, where she disappeared from the shipper's system. Having a box with no information, what did they do?

THEY SHIPPED IT BACK TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA! It only took three weeks to straighten out the mess, but I bet she was running away from my area which is totally Democratic. The Socialist Republic of The San Francisco Bay Area! She tried really hard NOT to come here! Our politics here are so scary. I had to call her Wanderlust.

For those of you not from this area in the United States, here's a sample of our local insanity. Feng Shui in San Francisco building codes! Gay marriages pushed through by the SF mayor, which were subsequently overturned in the courts. But that building code stuff just kills me!

Feng Shui, for those of you who don't know has to do with the spiritual benefit of locating objects in a room in specific places. It isn't enough to put a desk by the window for good lighting, but will its placement in the room contribute to good vibrations for the occupant! Our tax dollars at work.

When Wanderlust arrived I had the joy of setting her up and getting my very first Internet connection. Due to some @#$ with our local phone company, I have no land line. I had to go with cable. Comcast was more reliable then the "free" government service. For $71.20 a month I have flawless performance, excellent 24/7 customer service and basically I rarely think about them.

Jeez, I loved all the news, recipes, books, magazines, newspaper feeds and pod casts. I loved playing games with my mouse. Super Collapse killed my wrist because I did it for several hours straight! (Yeah, stupid, but I made it to level 4). I found jig saw puzzles, international long distance telephony (everywhere for free!) and digital photography. In short order I was living on my computer.

Via pod casting I ran into a geek back east who has become a valued and trusted friend. He can be crazy and shallow, but occasionally he gets deep and serious! He has taught me many things. We follow each others work and I look forward to invading his area in October of 2008 for the Ignoble Prizes. THAT is going to be one hell of a vacation!

But I digress. As I type this I feel sad because I can't give Wanderlust to someone who needs a computer, as a bad logic board is not a nice thing to share. Apple won't recycle my computer either. BUT had the balls to charge me an $8.00 "recycling fee" (!) on my iMac. GROWL, GROWL, GROWL!

I've given my old eMac to a tech friend to use for spare parts. I also gave him the 80 GB external disc drive which had the 40 GB "disappeared" partition. It turns out that I just got my data transferred in time. The eMac logic board rendered the machine unusable for my friend and he said that 95% of the external disc was bad. I bet there was a very busy angel protecting that data as I transferred it to my new machine!

Here is the dirt on both machines:

eMac 1.25 Ghz, 40 GB Hard Disc, low-end graphics card, 17" CRT screen.
imac 2.16 Ghz, 250 GB Hard Disc, 512-something graphics card, 20" LCD screen.

As you can see from the photos above the new screen is huge. I can have a whole mess of windows opened at once and switch between them with a mouse click, rather then having to use expose. I named my new machine "Linda the iMac" as this dear soul gave me $50 towards the purchase when she didn't have squat for money. I thought her gesture was truly wonderful.

Training a Cat: Why I Know Parents Are Saints!

2007-07-11T02:53:00.000-07:00

Please note, this is an attempt at humor, with some truth thrown in here and there. See CyberGal doesn't do "children". I don't babysit, or do Youth Sunday School. When I go on vacation I attempt to stay far, far away from God's little gifts. I like kids in small doses. I drop in for an evening. So I am blissfully unaware of the character building friends of mine speak of when they discuss parenting. No more!

No, I didn't take care of a child, but I was instructed to "discipline" the owner's cat. Knowing absolutely NOTHING about how cats react to being thwarted, I assured the owner that the cat would not be permitted out of the house before 7 AM and would be back inside the house at 9 PM. How hard can this be...?

God works in very mysterious ways. How hard was it? It depends on whether I get points for never actually acting on my thoughts towards a yowling animal who has the endurance of an Olympic athlete!

I have bizarre sleep patterns no matter what's going on. I tend to sleep for three to four hours, get up at around 2 AM, work for a few hours and return to sleep for a good six hours. Taking medication to straighten this out leaves me too doped-up to function. So, since I have a very lose schedule, I work around my sleeping patterns.

The cat and I got on very well. She'd cry to get out between 3:30 AM and 5 Am and whether awake, or asleep, I can open a door and return to blissful slumber. But, now, I had a real challenge. The owner told me just to lock her out of my bedroom when: "...she becomes a pest." I thought this was a bit extreme. After all, Maggie likes me, there won't be a problem. NOT!

I woke up at 3:30 to her usual morning serenade. I tried talking to her. Her mewing got louder. She jumped on counters. She virtually screamed at me in a non-stop stream of feline invectives. She was mad and let me hear about it. There is nothing quite as frustrating as trying to ignore an angry animal with a will, determination and an ATTITUDE.

After the first hour of this heavenly bliss, I started thinking about teaching the cat like my mom taught me. Pick her up and toss her against the nearest wall! I confess my emotions were now all stirred up. I couldn't believe how angry I was becoming.

"yowl, yowl, yowl, YOWOWOWL!" Maggie is following me around the house. It never stops. Its only 4:45 AM and I gotta wait until 7:00 AM? Since she actually startled me with her leaping on a counter where I was pouring hot water for coffee, I cured THAT problem. I moved away from her so she'd know I wasn't going to strike her. I then hit the marble counter as hard as I could with a flat hand.

"SLAP!"

Ooooh, look at the flying kitty!

Blessed silence. Being startled by the unexpected noise, Maggie shot off the counter into the air. By now I was actively babbling incoherently at my Lord. "How do they do this without killing their children?" As I heard the soft ticking of a clock, waiting for my answer, the Yowler re-doubled her efforts.

When my cell phone alarm went off at 7 AM, I leaped into the air to let the suffering feline lose upon the world. By now, she'd given up and was nowhere to be seen! My rage returned as I realized she was going to take hr own sweet time exiting the house! Well, eventually, she sauntered into the kitchen and hung half in and half out of the doorway.

Once she did actually exit, I returned to bed and collapsed into unconsciousness. It didn't really feel like sleep, but I was all keyed up inside and couldn't figure out what was happening to me. I never remember having to apologize to God for so much so fast over anything before. I was being torn apart by a four pound fur ball with a will of iron!

I did get a lot of church work done while the Yowler was out at play. But, she wouldn't come in at all to eat. At night, she wouldn't eat even her beloved "treats". Now I had a torrent of guilt to keep my anger company. Why am I being so cruel... No, I've got to do what the owner requested. "Dear God, please tell the cat what's happening and tomorrow will be better, right? Thanks Lord."

By day three I discovered I could confuse the cat into momentary silence. I decided to imitate her in pitch, attitude and volume. Maggie actually turned full around to face me. In shocked silence she sat looking up at me like I'd just floated in from Mars. Long story short, she cried, I suffered. She refused to eat, I worried as she was beginning to lose weight. It just went on like this day after day, after day.

I then noticed that awful feeling one has when they have to do something they loathe. I was afraid to go to sleep at night because I knew that at 3:30 AM, we'd start all over again. Now I had depression to go with my guilt, worry and impotent anger. Hmmm, when I get off this gig, I might have to get my medications changed. Great. I could just see telling my Doctor this story! Probably commit my butt into the hospital for sure!

So, its finally over. Eight days of discovering several worrisome traits I didn't know I had. Realizing that my mother, in spite of her troubles and illness didn't actually kill me. Now I know enough about my personality to realize it wasn't because I didn't try to drive her to distraction! Yeah, you parents out there. You are all saints!