The foot doc's office called today to tell me that the paperwork has been filled out for me to get a handicapped placard for the car, and to advise that I should make an appointment for a fitting of the ankle braces he will be making for me [and I will be getting] in January or sometime thereafter.
It's been five years [I still think it was four, I guess I lost a year in there somewheres] since my accident. I had wrestled with the idea of getting a parking permit but then decided that a medic alert bracelet was the way to go. After I started falling more often, the p.c. doc advised a cane rather than a placard. Things were bad then with the walking and falling but not nearly as bad as they are now. The chirodoc was willing to sign for an accessible parking permit back then but legally chirodocs aren't allowed to. So off I went with Benjamin Copernicus Galileo [the name of my cane] and some inane determination to only use it when the weather sucked.
I started falling even more-- and I am now more prone to falling to the right, since the vertigo makes my world spin to the left in the direction of the brain damage which caused the vertigo-- and have succeeded in wrecking the right ankle the last two times to the point where my slow since the accident pace became even slower and really painful. Interestingly enough, when I am walking the dog on a lead, I don't fall nearly as much. I have taken some tumbles with the cane and an almost equal number without. I don't tell the docs that the dog helps me stay upright because it sounds stupid and made up.
At any rate, I wound up being sent to the foot doctor. The foot doctor turned out to be a foot surgeon, a fellow of foot surgery, with feet x-ray machines and buzzy machines in his offices. Everyone else there was walking out with orthopedic shoes so I figured I too would wind up with the special shoes and an admonishment to lose weight. Not so.
While the vertigo and falling to the right has made the right foot "worse" [it used to be the stronger of the two], the foot surgeon informed me that my feet were fucked since day one, that they "are totally turned in," and here is the left foot brace, the right one isn't in but the office will call you, and I'm making you customized ones for January. Oh and by the way, you may need an operation on your right foot say in March or April and you may not. To tighten up the ligaments is what he told me. Whatever.
The first snow/ice storm of the season showed up. My difficulty walking around from parking lots to buildings safely prompted me to yield to the idea of a handicapped parking permit, especially since I do not care to break the right foot. And I've spent several days home being unwilling to brave the ice even with one brace and a cane. Odd how societal judgments and the judgments of those who should know better have coalesced into a brief feeling of "o.m.g., I'm taking advantage of the sys-tem" because now I really need the placard. I suspect with the fatigue issues that it might have been a good idea before. Before when I gave more of a shit about what other people thought. As I continue in the punking out of my brain and body, I am much less inclined to consider the ignorance and stupidity of others when making decisions that effect my well-being. This is my life that I am living, Briella [brilliant brain a bit sideways] and body doing a slow tap dance edging slowly toward mortality, my pain. My fucked up feet.
I don't seem to be pigeon-toed or anything and I don't know the name of this condition which he has firmly indicated I've always lived with during this lifetime. He also stated that losing weight will not help this one. I am relieved that there actually is something demonstrably "wrong" which is now worthy of treatment with these braces [the right one not being in yet and the customized ones not made yet]. And glad that I get to go to doctors even when I don't want to. Cuz lots of people in the world got stuff wrong with them and they don't get to go to a doctor.
The foot surgeon asked me what brought me here and I looked at him. "My feet." People don't usually go to a foot doc because their ambulation is just ducky. None of the fellow sufferers in the waiting room looked like they were training for the Olympics Sprinting Team. I didn't look like it either, though I certainly was the youngest specimen there. The thing is though, I never liked running. I never ran well. The kids in school used to make fun of the way I ran. My fastest run [when forced to run like during gym class] was and remains rather slow and tedious. Well, now I know why. My feet are fucked.
So the first couple of nights after learning about my fucked feet, I sat on the recliner looking at the two monstrosities which nature or genetics had gifted me with. Periodically I would mutter, "You two feet are fucked." As a sense of rationality returned to invade this really morass demonstration of self-pity, I realized that the fucked feet of today look the same as the feet I've had my whole life. So really I could just stop that. I did.
The other spot of news is that after ?two or ?three years of putting up with the stupid moronic VESID people [O.V.R. in other places] my third and current VESID overlord-- oh, I mean vocational rehabilitation counselor-- has finally relented and has agreed to refer me to the local R.C.I.L. for job handling/ job coaching rather than continually trying to force me to go to the other local agency which is merely a cover for sending people to work in the sheltered workshop after not being able to "find" them a "job" that "they can do."
This latter accomplishment was not without pain. I had to tell the VESID overlord [the more accurate term for all of them in this particular region, sorry] what "job" I wanted to do. I made up five or seven possibilities off the top of my head so she wrote the Individualized Employment Plan for the lowest paying one-- "Animal Care Worker."
I met with a job handler from R.C.I.L. this week and I was immediately comforted-- so much so in fact that after she mentioned that what I tell the R.C.I.L. folks they cannot tell VESID, I looked at her and said simply, "They suck." Because they do.
The first VESID overlord and her boss had both tried to convince me to go to the cover agency for the sheltered workshop, telling me that this is what would be best for me and claiming that the R.C.I.L. job coaches had a waiting list. The second overlord was relatively useless and aside from the meeting with the first overlord, him, and someone from the rehab hospital who was there to advocate for me, I have no memories of him other than that his hand takes on the role of a limp fish when shaking it. And he had almost non-existent eye contact.
He was also willing to go along with whatever overlord #1 had recommended, including the idea of where I should go to get job services. I know that working in a sheltered workshop, making slave wages because by law they are allowed to pay much less than the minimum wage for their lousy piecework "opportunities," is decidedly not in my best interest. And the job handler told me there is not or has there ever been a waiting list for job-related services at R.C.I.L. What I am conveying in this post is that from my sitting down point, the VESID folks have been rather reckless with reality.
We went over many forms and I had the opportunity to correct some of the written nonsense that the VESID office had sent over. One of those things is the notation that I might possibly have balance problems with a question mark. The first overseer had thought this because I walked into a column outside of her stupid little cubicle several years ago now when I really wasn't thinking very clearly and my t.bi.-related vision and perceptual problems were worser. I do not have an inner ear problem and thus no balance problem. I have an unsteadiness in my fucked up feet. I did remember to ask the job handler nicely to please attempt to have the VESID idiots fix that little gem to reflect the medical truth. Rather pedantic on my part I know. It is what it is and I am what I am.
Another thing was the claim that VESID wants me to follow along on several jobs-- follow alongs are job trials to see what I might like doing-- when in fact that was my idea, not theirs. The job handler told me that the purpose of the job trials is to see what I might like to do and be able to do. Now I suspect that having to come up with a definitive list of "what I want to do" was just another stall tactic. The third overlord had told me if I didn't know what I wanted to do, there would be a round of vocational testing [but alas, no vocational counseling connected to the testing] and quite frankly, I've had enough bloody testing. Since telling her what companies I want to work for wasn't sufficient, I had had to make up some occupations. Another exercise in futility.
I informed the job handler that I've been accepted into the state 55 b/c program and that if the Thruway would hire me as a toll collector, that is my first choice. That sort of job would actually be sufficient to pay the bills. Also, since "old learning is better than new learning" per the neuropsych doc I think I could do well there. I was a part-time per diem toll collector before the accident and I suspect I might have some success there if I can get in under the 55 b/c thingy and work within the accommodations that I will need.
Second choice is doing anything at the O.M.R.D.D. offices. There are some truly dedicated human beings working there. I'd done serious incidents investigations at the last fuckhole and that was the part of the job that I was best at and enjoyed the most. It was job handler's turn to be surprised I guess. The VESID overlords hadn't bothered to note any of my skills or any of my specific work-related accomplishments before the accident.
There were some other choices in there and other ideas being kicked around. One of the things that I now have courtesy of the traumatic brain injury is that in conversation I can be somewhat of a motor mouth, hopping around topics with no perceived organizational schemata. It's called random chaotic style. It doesn't bother me nearly as much as it seems to bother others. I think of it as part of my innate brain-damaged charm. If I can't have grace and flowing words, then by golly I can have random chaotic style. It is much worse in unstructured settings. At least I've managed to get the cursing under fairly tight control. The meeting with the job handler I think was supposed to be a bit more structured but I just wasn't able to respond well to her attempts at structure. The meeting took an hour and a half as a result. The next meeting [topic: resume] is scheduled for earlier in the afternoon.
sapphoq on life
Friday, December 07, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Finding Common Ground
The things you learn in maturity aren't simple things such acquiring information & skills. You learn not to engage in self destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self pity & resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character. You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you: they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how much you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you - a lesson that is at first troubling & then really quite relaxing.
-- John W. Gardner
excerpts from my own posts at http://pagannation.com :
Well, okay.
There are a bunch of things here that I don't know or can only guess at and perhaps we agree on some of those?
I don't know how person X is as a mother.
Person B has seen person X with her kids.
My fellow wingnut friend C for whom I feel some affection has not observed Person X with her kids.
I will rely on the observations made by Person B-- that Person X is a good mother to her kids.
And yes, I have to agree it is a low blow to any mother to be accused of poor parenting or things similar or worse.
I don't know how many screws loose any of us have.
Is having one big screw loose worse than having two or three little ones loose? What proportion of big screws to little screws determine the severity of the rattling around of a brain?
Even if any or some or two or all of us do have screws loose, is that germane to the original argument?
Is my not being entirely sure of the original argument an indication of too much caffeine [actually caffeine calms me down] or too little caffeine or
an indication of my own brain injury gone awry from fatigue or
perhaps that I've just stumbled into this forum haphazardly?
I don't remember getting born.
A bunch of other people assure me that I was born.
On earth.
So if they are lying, is there a chance that I am a martian viking transplant?
How do I know?
What are my sources?
How valid are they?
Can they overcome my innate strangeness and sense of otherness?
Or, maybe you think I am a whack shack and in that respect as bad as Alan Webster or should be committed or a funny farm escapee or
any number of things.
Here I have to admit that vingnut, whack shack, mental derangement, screws loose, schizo, hallucinating... are just words to me and rather devoid of meaning or threat.
And if you were to tell me that I need "mental help" of some sort, since you aren't my medical doctor I am free to discount that conclusion while admitting that my posting is off the wall.
Yet if you began calling me a Untied [spelling on purpose] Statsian version of Alan Webster [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article787073.ece], I am free to examine the evidence and conclude that there really isn't any evidence for me being an Alan Webster [http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1793469,00.html] in the making.
As Nathaniel Branden would say [badly paraphrased here] what other people think about me today can never be as important to me as what I know to be true about me.
What I am trying to convey here is that as long as PersonX knows he is not as sick as despised scumbag, not as bad as despised scumbag, not like despised scumbag; and there is no legal evidence that he has ever done things similar to the things despised scumbag has done [shudder],
isn't it more important that PersonY and crew know that he is not despised scumbag, as bad as despised scumbag, or like despised scumbag in respect to that sort of stuff?
This is a forum. It is a lively forum and there are some exciting people here yet it is a forum. Whatever mix of people on this forum may like me, hate me, think ill of me, wish me well, don't have many thoughts about me at all, it is still just a forum.
The sun will more than likely rise and set somewhere in the world at some time tomorrow, my dog will still wish for me to take her for a walk and spend time with her, there will still be laundry to do and bills to pay and frogs for me to feed, and so on.
Marian Zimmer Bradley said, "The world will go on as it will, and not as you or I would have it."
Bowing out now,
spike q. whack shack
***
To practice self-assertiveness is to live authentically, to speak and act from your innermost thoughts and feelings, as a way of life-allowing for the obvious fact that there may be circumstances in which you wisely choose not to do so-for example, when confronted by a hold-up man.
— Nathaniel Branden
My self-respect is not based on how well I defend myself in a public forum
*or on whether or not I choose to defend myself at any given time in a public forum or in real f2f life
*or on people choosing to think less of me because of my choices in this matter.
I don't operate under the same rules or shoulds as you do.
Different strokes for different folks.
Of course it is always acceptable for someone to choose to defend themselves, their reputation, their character, their abilities, their family members...
The operative word here for me is "choice."
There are times when I may deliberately choose not to defend myself. When I choose thusly, it is an active conscious choice. In my own case, my level of self-respect does not dictate my actions or my choices when it comes to arguments and disagreements.
For example, lets' say you or someone here accuses me of being as bad as despised scumbag or a pedohead or another Alan Webster [http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article752141.ece] or really sick in the head, demented, needing medication, or any other thing. My choice to defend myself or not will be based on several factors.
When I choose to defend myself, my self-respect is not one of the determinants in making that conscious deliberate choice.
When I choose not to defend myself, it is not a sign that my own self-respect is sinking or not existing at a good enough level.
I appreciate that self-respect may be one of the factors for others when they decide to defend their character. It just doesn't weigh when I have to pick which battles I will fight, that's all...
spike
I am a viking vingnut or is that a wiking wingnut
or maybe a ...
***
Of course it is always acceptable for someone to choose to defend themselves, their reputation, their character, their abilities, their family members...
The operative word here for me is "choice."
There are times when I may deliberately choose not to defend myself. When I choose thusly, it is an active conscious choice. In my own case, my level of self-respect does not dictate my actions or my choices when it comes to arguments and disagreements.
For example, lets' say you or someone here accuses me of being as bad as despised scumbag or a pedohead or another Alan Webster [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Webster] or really sick in the head, demented, needing medication, or any other thing. My choice to defend myself or not will be based on several factors.
When I choose to defend myself, my self-respect is not one of the determinants in making that conscious deliberate choice.
When I choose not to defend myself, it is not a sign that my own self-respect is sinking or not existing at a good enough level.
I appreciate that self-respect may be one of the factors for others when they decide to defend their character. It just doesn't weigh [in] when I have to pick which battles I will fight, that's all.
spike
***
My intention was not to call into question Person X's ability to parent and nurture her children.
Nor was my intention to smear or besmirch anyone's character in any way.
Actually, my intention was to find a tiny bit of common ground with you rather than to concentrate on our differences.
Perhaps you or anyone may wish to ask Friend C why she said the things she said. Or not as you choose.
It is not for me to speculate upon the actions of another. For me to guess would be mental masturbation. My brain is battered enough from thinking my way through everyday life.
I endeavor not to engage in sorting people into categories such as [opposing camps]. Usually, I will take people at their word unless there is a preponderance of credible evidence to the contrary.
...The rest of my post did have something to do with all of the name-calling, character assassination, labeling on the parts of many of us here regardless of "sides" and alliances-- and other thoughts and observations that flitted through my head at the time that I was typing it.
As always, you or anyone is free to disregard or to place my name on the iggy collection.
If it don't apply, let it fly.
Kyrra,
spike
***
Your balls don't itch?
I was just about to suggest athlete's foot cream...I don't see why that wouldn't help itching in damp places.
I will duck now.
spike
***
No. I'm saying [that if] you stick your feet on your balls often enough they can suffer from fungus.
Okay now I am really ducking.
spike
***
Warm coffee salve applied to the balls will relieve the itch temporarily.
I read that in a book somewhere.
spike
***
Regarding Person Z's chocolate balls.
No actual balls were harmed in the creation of this treat.
Had they been harmed, we would have told you so...
Actually, his balls are like fluffy bunnies.
They reproduce, however not on this plane.
The chocolate balls have reproduced themselves on an astral parallel plane of existence, thus we are free to offer you Person Z's chocolate balls for loving and gushing without impinging upon the immoral scrutinies of anyone observing us for fear of us becoming a mob of thinkers and doers--
On the second day of solstice, my lover gave to me
two chocolate balls and a...
spike q. chocolate freak
***
Oh goody an assassination.
Two tickets for front row seats please and some popcorn heavily buttered.
Two-four-six-eight!
Who do we assassinate?
Oh what's that? Yuck, no thanks. I don't eat hot dogs and I don't allow my dog to either.
spike
***
Quote: Spike, you have been assassinated!
I have resurrected myself with the help of a holy pot of coffee poured onto my smoldering remains.
*Ta-da*
Never better.
Wow. More muscles even.
And I'm thinner and blonder.
Walking along in the woods by the coliseum, my dog brings back a limb-- looks like a right forearm-- of--
oh no it couldn't be!-- Person R!
Crap! Hey everyone, Person R has been assassinated!
Oh what to do, what to do.
Doggie, put down that limb!
spike
I don't believe that our government has proven itself to be adept at keeping very many secrets secret.
Nope, I don't believe that Bush "ordered" 9/11, plotted it, caused it, was in cahoots on it, or any other thing.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
http://www.debunking911.com/
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/05/loose-marbles-i.html
***
I do not believe that President Bush is a puppet of the Religious Right. There are many assumptions about his specific religious beliefs floating around
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24634-2004Sep15.html
however, I am personally appalled at some of his policies. There is some evidence for the idea that the agendas of the Religious Right are being pushed through the Senate and Congress in the form of various laws.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
The folks at Theocracy Watch are based from Cornell U.
Call me reactionary or a crackpot or any other name if you will, I care not.
Bottom line for me is I don't particularly care for what is happening to this country in terms of religiosity and how that effects policy-making.
We disagree on this last I am sure and I for one agree to disagree peaceably.
spike
***
Yep, well-versed on that aspect.
And opinionated too.
I don't happen to believe that Bush is anyone's pawn.
I do believe that the preponderance of evidence points toward the founding fathers [signers of the declaration of independence] were deists rather than christians
and that furthermore, even if the United States was founded as a christian nation, it does not naturally follow that it should remain so today.
spike
***
I like fluffy bunnies coated with shake-n-bake and barbequed.
spike
a wiking wingnut
I hear that coffee is a great anti-fungal...
spike q. fungus
Fungi rule. Pictures of fungi altered make great backgrounds for e-stationary.
***
Okay, I am not a fungus then.
A mold?
I must be a mold.
That's it! I'm a mold.
[spike goes wandering off in the direction of coffee and happy pills]
***
sapphoq on life
-- John W. Gardner
excerpts from my own posts at http://pagannation.com :
Well, okay.
There are a bunch of things here that I don't know or can only guess at and perhaps we agree on some of those?
I don't know how person X is as a mother.
Person B has seen person X with her kids.
My fellow wingnut friend C for whom I feel some affection has not observed Person X with her kids.
I will rely on the observations made by Person B-- that Person X is a good mother to her kids.
And yes, I have to agree it is a low blow to any mother to be accused of poor parenting or things similar or worse.
I don't know how many screws loose any of us have.
Is having one big screw loose worse than having two or three little ones loose? What proportion of big screws to little screws determine the severity of the rattling around of a brain?
Even if any or some or two or all of us do have screws loose, is that germane to the original argument?
Is my not being entirely sure of the original argument an indication of too much caffeine [actually caffeine calms me down] or too little caffeine or
an indication of my own brain injury gone awry from fatigue or
perhaps that I've just stumbled into this forum haphazardly?
I don't remember getting born.
A bunch of other people assure me that I was born.
On earth.
So if they are lying, is there a chance that I am a martian viking transplant?
How do I know?
What are my sources?
How valid are they?
Can they overcome my innate strangeness and sense of otherness?
Or, maybe you think I am a whack shack and in that respect as bad as Alan Webster or should be committed or a funny farm escapee or
any number of things.
Here I have to admit that vingnut, whack shack, mental derangement, screws loose, schizo, hallucinating... are just words to me and rather devoid of meaning or threat.
And if you were to tell me that I need "mental help" of some sort, since you aren't my medical doctor I am free to discount that conclusion while admitting that my posting is off the wall.
Yet if you began calling me a Untied [spelling on purpose] Statsian version of Alan Webster [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article787073.ece], I am free to examine the evidence and conclude that there really isn't any evidence for me being an Alan Webster [http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1793469,00.html] in the making.
As Nathaniel Branden would say [badly paraphrased here] what other people think about me today can never be as important to me as what I know to be true about me.
What I am trying to convey here is that as long as PersonX knows he is not as sick as despised scumbag, not as bad as despised scumbag, not like despised scumbag; and there is no legal evidence that he has ever done things similar to the things despised scumbag has done [shudder],
isn't it more important that PersonY and crew know that he is not despised scumbag, as bad as despised scumbag, or like despised scumbag in respect to that sort of stuff?
This is a forum. It is a lively forum and there are some exciting people here yet it is a forum. Whatever mix of people on this forum may like me, hate me, think ill of me, wish me well, don't have many thoughts about me at all, it is still just a forum.
The sun will more than likely rise and set somewhere in the world at some time tomorrow, my dog will still wish for me to take her for a walk and spend time with her, there will still be laundry to do and bills to pay and frogs for me to feed, and so on.
Marian Zimmer Bradley said, "The world will go on as it will, and not as you or I would have it."
Bowing out now,
spike q. whack shack
***
To practice self-assertiveness is to live authentically, to speak and act from your innermost thoughts and feelings, as a way of life-allowing for the obvious fact that there may be circumstances in which you wisely choose not to do so-for example, when confronted by a hold-up man.
— Nathaniel Branden
*or on whether or not I choose to defend myself at any given time in a public forum or in real f2f life
*or on people choosing to think less of me because of my choices in this matter.
I don't operate under the same rules or shoulds as you do.
Different strokes for different folks.
Of course it is always acceptable for someone to choose to defend themselves, their reputation, their character, their abilities, their family members...
The operative word here for me is "choice."
There are times when I may deliberately choose not to defend myself. When I choose thusly, it is an active conscious choice. In my own case, my level of self-respect does not dictate my actions or my choices when it comes to arguments and disagreements.
For example, lets' say you or someone here accuses me of being as bad as despised scumbag or a pedohead or another Alan Webster [http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article752141.ece] or really sick in the head, demented, needing medication, or any other thing. My choice to defend myself or not will be based on several factors.
When I choose to defend myself, my self-respect is not one of the determinants in making that conscious deliberate choice.
When I choose not to defend myself, it is not a sign that my own self-respect is sinking or not existing at a good enough level.
I appreciate that self-respect may be one of the factors for others when they decide to defend their character. It just doesn't weigh when I have to pick which battles I will fight, that's all...
spike
I am a viking vingnut or is that a wiking wingnut
or maybe a ...
***
Of course it is always acceptable for someone to choose to defend themselves, their reputation, their character, their abilities, their family members...
The operative word here for me is "choice."
There are times when I may deliberately choose not to defend myself. When I choose thusly, it is an active conscious choice. In my own case, my level of self-respect does not dictate my actions or my choices when it comes to arguments and disagreements.
For example, lets' say you or someone here accuses me of being as bad as despised scumbag or a pedohead or another Alan Webster [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Webster] or really sick in the head, demented, needing medication, or any other thing. My choice to defend myself or not will be based on several factors.
When I choose to defend myself, my self-respect is not one of the determinants in making that conscious deliberate choice.
When I choose not to defend myself, it is not a sign that my own self-respect is sinking or not existing at a good enough level.
I appreciate that self-respect may be one of the factors for others when they decide to defend their character. It just doesn't weigh [in] when I have to pick which battles I will fight, that's all.
spike
***
My intention was not to call into question Person X's ability to parent and nurture her children.
Nor was my intention to smear or besmirch anyone's character in any way.
Actually, my intention was to find a tiny bit of common ground with you rather than to concentrate on our differences.
Perhaps you or anyone may wish to ask Friend C why she said the things she said. Or not as you choose.
It is not for me to speculate upon the actions of another. For me to guess would be mental masturbation. My brain is battered enough from thinking my way through everyday life.
I endeavor not to engage in sorting people into categories such as [opposing camps]. Usually, I will take people at their word unless there is a preponderance of credible evidence to the contrary.
...The rest of my post did have something to do with all of the name-calling, character assassination, labeling on the parts of many of us here regardless of "sides" and alliances-- and other thoughts and observations that flitted through my head at the time that I was typing it.
As always, you or anyone is free to disregard or to place my name on the iggy collection.
If it don't apply, let it fly.
Kyrra,
spike
***
Your balls don't itch?
I was just about to suggest athlete's foot cream...I don't see why that wouldn't help itching in damp places.
I will duck now.
spike
***
No. I'm saying [that if] you stick your feet on your balls often enough they can suffer from fungus.
Okay now I am really ducking.
spike
***
Warm coffee salve applied to the balls will relieve the itch temporarily.
I read that in a book somewhere.
spike
***
Regarding Person Z's chocolate balls.
No actual balls were harmed in the creation of this treat.
Had they been harmed, we would have told you so...
Actually, his balls are like fluffy bunnies.
They reproduce, however not on this plane.
The chocolate balls have reproduced themselves on an astral parallel plane of existence, thus we are free to offer you Person Z's chocolate balls for loving and gushing without impinging upon the immoral scrutinies of anyone observing us for fear of us becoming a mob of thinkers and doers--
On the second day of solstice, my lover gave to me
two chocolate balls and a...
spike q. chocolate freak
***
Oh goody an assassination.
Two tickets for front row seats please and some popcorn heavily buttered.
Two-four-six-eight!
Who do we assassinate?
Oh what's that? Yuck, no thanks. I don't eat hot dogs and I don't allow my dog to either.
spike
***
Quote: Spike, you have been assassinated!
I have resurrected myself with the help of a holy pot of coffee poured onto my smoldering remains.
*Ta-da*
Never better.
Wow. More muscles even.
And I'm thinner and blonder.
Walking along in the woods by the coliseum, my dog brings back a limb-- looks like a right forearm-- of--
oh no it couldn't be!-- Person R!
Crap! Hey everyone, Person R has been assassinated!
Oh what to do, what to do.
Doggie, put down that limb!
spike
Quote:
Here's how it works:
I just assassinated you! You are now dead. Or you can resurrect yourself and assassinate someone else. All you have to do is just post in the assassination forum this entire post...
Okay, I can't tell you who assassinated me, or I'll lose! So, I have chosen to resurrect myself and assassinate you!
GAME ON!!!
***
I just assassinated you! You are now dead. Or you can resurrect yourself and assassinate someone else. All you have to do is just post in the assassination forum this entire post...
Okay, I can't tell you who assassinated me, or I'll lose! So, I have chosen to resurrect myself and assassinate you!
GAME ON!!!
***
I don't believe that our government has proven itself to be adept at keeping very many secrets secret.
Nope, I don't believe that Bush "ordered" 9/11, plotted it, caused it, was in cahoots on it, or any other thing.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
http://www.debunking911.com/
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/05/loose-marbles-i.html
***
I do not believe that President Bush is a puppet of the Religious Right. There are many assumptions about his specific religious beliefs floating around
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24634-2004Sep15.html
however, I am personally appalled at some of his policies. There is some evidence for the idea that the agendas of the Religious Right are being pushed through the Senate and Congress in the form of various laws.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
The folks at Theocracy Watch are based from Cornell U.
Call me reactionary or a crackpot or any other name if you will, I care not.
Bottom line for me is I don't particularly care for what is happening to this country in terms of religiosity and how that effects policy-making.
We disagree on this last I am sure and I for one agree to disagree peaceably.
spike
***
Yep, well-versed on that aspect.
And opinionated too.
I don't happen to believe that Bush is anyone's pawn.
I do believe that the preponderance of evidence points toward the founding fathers [signers of the declaration of independence] were deists rather than christians
and that furthermore, even if the United States was founded as a christian nation, it does not naturally follow that it should remain so today.
spike
***
I like fluffy bunnies coated with shake-n-bake and barbequed.
spike
a wiking wingnut
_________________________
I am a viking vingnut or is that a wiking wingnut
or maybe a ...
***
...am I growing on you like a fungus?I am a viking vingnut or is that a wiking wingnut
or maybe a ...
***
I hear that coffee is a great anti-fungal...
spike q. fungus
Fungi rule. Pictures of fungi altered make great backgrounds for e-stationary.
***
Okay, I am not a fungus then.
A mold?
I must be a mold.
That's it! I'm a mold.
[spike goes wandering off in the direction of coffee and happy pills]
***
sapphoq on life
Thursday, November 15, 2007
On Poetry, Writing, and stuff like that
I started writing poetry in fourth grade.
It wasn't until high school that I began experimenting with prose poems
without rhyming words at the end.
Although I like to play with words using internal rhyming,
alliteration, and other stuff like that, I am lousy when it comes to traditional rhyme and meter schemes. Consequently, almost all of my poetry is written in the style of prose poetry.
Even with a rhyming dictionary such as the one that can be found at:
http://www.rhymezone.com/, my attempts at rhyming are un-good!
Here is my latest endeavor-- the beginning of a prose poem:
The kitten ran out into the street, then stopped halfway.
He strutted up to me, staring at 60 pounds of blond
fur trying to hide behind my legs.
"Oh, what a cute kitten!" I said to the woman on the curb
as I dragged the scared dog out from her hiding place.
"You want him?" she asked.
"He's going to the pound in an hour along with his
two brothers and one sister."
Rhyming used to be much more popular and in my opinion, people used to be better at it. Some rhymed poetry has become classic.
Roses are red,
violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
and so are you.
There are other variations out there.
Roger Miller wrote this one:
They say roses are red
And violets are purple,
Sugar is sweet
And so is maple surple.
Here are a couple more that I've heard:
Roses are blue,
violets are red.
If you believe this,
you're sick in the head.
Roses are red.
Violets are bluish.
My audience has all fled
cuz at rhyming I'm newish.
Violets are blue
and roses are red.
I'm 'llergic to them it's true,
so I'll have the fake ones instead.
My dad is a big fan of Shel Silverman, thus as a kid I got to hear dad's renditions of many of his songs and verses.
Dad would recite random ditties such as
"I never saw a purple cow. I never hope to see one. But I can tell you this right now-- I'd rather see than be one."
And the ultra-risque "Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your britches and slide on the ice."
He would sing out, "There's a dead skunk in the middle of the road" whenever there was one and he knew all the words to fun songs like "I don't want a pickle, I just want to ride my motor-sickle. And I don't want to die. I just want to ride my motorcy------cle."
He too liked the sound of words.
I never read anything he wrote though and I wonder now if he himself has written anything.
I shall have to ask him about that.
I remember when I got older that dad had a subscription to Omni right along with his subscription to Playboy.
I counted myself lucky because I was able to read both.
I never did tell my mother about the Playboy articles. She wouldn't have appreciated it.
Dad also was interested in psychology, an interest which I share. He allowed me free reign to his own book collection, much as my maternal grandmother did. I read what I wanted there and there was no judgement about material being "too old" for me.
Things I didn't understand he explained in ways that I understood.
My mother sold me on Robert Lewis Stevenson and I spent lots of time reading his stuff.
My mother didn't break out into spontaneous song or verses but she did encourage me to write my own poems.
And she knew that Saturday was Library Day as far as I was concerned.
Many Saturdays I walked the couple miles to the library where I would search the aisles for books to check out. I always walked to and from the library, although the buses were available and I knew how to use them. On one such walk, my younger friend Richard and I threw ice cream cones off a bridge and one landed inside a police cruiser. On others, Richard or Grace and I stopped at the local greasy pizza spot for slices or bought cherries off the vendor on the corner. If no friends were around to go with me, I went alone. I loved the library. I can still see the outside of our neighborhood branch, the blue aluminum-looking framed windows, the take out desk, the houses and stores and streets along the way.
I enjoyed the school library also. We had a one-legged librarian-- she had bone cancer and used crutches rather than a fake leg, I don't know why-- who taught me how to find books in the library, was willing to allow some classmates and I access to the Life magazine issue with the pictures of embryos and fetuses, and always listened to what we had to say. I remember going through reading binges-- one month I read all of the biographies of scientists in the library. I also went through binges of fiction from other countries, mysteries, and series. I was a serious child. Words were everything to me. I was a word nerd.
Those trips to the library, along with helping the one-legged elementary school librarian shelve books, parents who fostered my love of words all contributed to my desire to have my stuff published. I've had lots of stuff published now and yet I can still remember the first acceptance letter, and getting a copy of the first zine with my words in it.
sapphoq the word nerd on life
It wasn't until high school that I began experimenting with prose poems
without rhyming words at the end.
Although I like to play with words using internal rhyming,
alliteration, and other stuff like that, I am lousy when it comes to traditional rhyme and meter schemes. Consequently, almost all of my poetry is written in the style of prose poetry.
Even with a rhyming dictionary such as the one that can be found at:
http://www.rhymezone.com/, my attempts at rhyming are un-good!
Here is my latest endeavor-- the beginning of a prose poem:
The kitten ran out into the street, then stopped halfway.
He strutted up to me, staring at 60 pounds of blond
fur trying to hide behind my legs.
"Oh, what a cute kitten!" I said to the woman on the curb
as I dragged the scared dog out from her hiding place.
"You want him?" she asked.
"He's going to the pound in an hour along with his
two brothers and one sister."
Rhyming used to be much more popular and in my opinion, people used to be better at it. Some rhymed poetry has become classic.
Roses are red,
violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
and so are you.
There are other variations out there.
Roger Miller wrote this one:
They say roses are red
And violets are purple,
Sugar is sweet
And so is maple surple.
Here are a couple more that I've heard:
Roses are blue,
violets are red.
If you believe this,
you're sick in the head.
Roses are red.
Violets are bluish.
My audience has all fled
cuz at rhyming I'm newish.
Violets are blue
and roses are red.
I'm 'llergic to them it's true,
so I'll have the fake ones instead.
My dad is a big fan of Shel Silverman, thus as a kid I got to hear dad's renditions of many of his songs and verses.
Dad would recite random ditties such as
"I never saw a purple cow. I never hope to see one. But I can tell you this right now-- I'd rather see than be one."
And the ultra-risque "Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your britches and slide on the ice."
He would sing out, "There's a dead skunk in the middle of the road" whenever there was one and he knew all the words to fun songs like "I don't want a pickle, I just want to ride my motor-sickle. And I don't want to die. I just want to ride my motorcy------cle."
He too liked the sound of words.
I never read anything he wrote though and I wonder now if he himself has written anything.
I shall have to ask him about that.
I remember when I got older that dad had a subscription to Omni right along with his subscription to Playboy.
I counted myself lucky because I was able to read both.
I never did tell my mother about the Playboy articles. She wouldn't have appreciated it.
Dad also was interested in psychology, an interest which I share. He allowed me free reign to his own book collection, much as my maternal grandmother did. I read what I wanted there and there was no judgement about material being "too old" for me.
Things I didn't understand he explained in ways that I understood.
My mother sold me on Robert Lewis Stevenson and I spent lots of time reading his stuff.
My mother didn't break out into spontaneous song or verses but she did encourage me to write my own poems.
And she knew that Saturday was Library Day as far as I was concerned.
Many Saturdays I walked the couple miles to the library where I would search the aisles for books to check out. I always walked to and from the library, although the buses were available and I knew how to use them. On one such walk, my younger friend Richard and I threw ice cream cones off a bridge and one landed inside a police cruiser. On others, Richard or Grace and I stopped at the local greasy pizza spot for slices or bought cherries off the vendor on the corner. If no friends were around to go with me, I went alone. I loved the library. I can still see the outside of our neighborhood branch, the blue aluminum-looking framed windows, the take out desk, the houses and stores and streets along the way.
I enjoyed the school library also. We had a one-legged librarian-- she had bone cancer and used crutches rather than a fake leg, I don't know why-- who taught me how to find books in the library, was willing to allow some classmates and I access to the Life magazine issue with the pictures of embryos and fetuses, and always listened to what we had to say. I remember going through reading binges-- one month I read all of the biographies of scientists in the library. I also went through binges of fiction from other countries, mysteries, and series. I was a serious child. Words were everything to me. I was a word nerd.
Those trips to the library, along with helping the one-legged elementary school librarian shelve books, parents who fostered my love of words all contributed to my desire to have my stuff published. I've had lots of stuff published now and yet I can still remember the first acceptance letter, and getting a copy of the first zine with my words in it.
sapphoq the word nerd on life
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