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I am abandoning my sense of cynicism.

Of course, that is wishful thinking. There's no way my brain will ever unknow the things it knows.

I know that those of us that don't drown or fry or get the business end of an oppressive government or a thousand other more detailed and dreadful scenarios will simply suffer from witnessing the fall of humanity.

And that's a real bummer.

Sure, the waters will rise, the earth will shake, and EVERYONE will be extra thirsty. We all know what happens to humans when they get THIRSTY.

But I can no longer maintain my cynicism despite these facts. Why? Because of Star Trek and Cosmos.

That does, at first seem damned silly. Especially when you figure how nobody with any power listened to a damn word Carl Sagan said, not so you'd notice anyway.

But it's not the hope of exploration and peace that frees me from the bounds of equal part fear and resignation, nor is it powerful insights into our own history in this vast universe. It's the fact that these TV shows exist at all.

We, a smattering of stardust in meat-form made TV shows! Not only that, we made TV shows about how badly we want to get back out into space, from whence we came. That is not only TOTALLY FUCKING COOL, but it shows us something essential:

Star dust can make TV shows.

Let me repeat that:
Star dust can make TV shows.

And sure, TV shows, on the cosmic scale aren't that important, that's not the point. If star dust can make TV shows once, they can probably do it again. And again, and again, and again. Why not?

Yes, it's going to be a real shit-show here on this dirt ball. People will suffer...more than they already are, which is kind of incredible in and of itself. We are going to leave this universe shrieking, no doubt about that.

But it's not exactly a universal tragedy, is it? I mean, do you want HUMANS exploring the stars? Jesus, NO!

Not that it's a moral dilemma we will have to face because we're past the point where that was a possibility, and I think we should be grateful for that. We had our chance, we had every natural resource needed to reach our bloody hands past the sky, and we blew it before we realized we blew it.

And that's a sad story and all, but I take extraordinary comfort in knowing some other intelligent life will, or has, not made the same mistakes as we. Maybe they won't even bother with TV, but I kind of doubt it. They will dream hard, just as we have, and they will do a better job. Not on this planet, of course, but somewhere in that epic vastness stories will be told and broadcasted into a future that isn't essentially doomed.

We failed the only litmus test that matters: Can you sustain yourself?

The answer is a resounded, deafening NO.

And that's ok, because there's still time, time enough for love, time enough for being honest with ourselves about who we are and what we want, time enough for us all to savor each moment of our stupid, pointless lives.

Either way, in 1000 years, if humans were to miraculously survive, nobody would remember who YOU are, so what, exactly do you have to lose?

According to some dipshit Atheist Trump voter, Germany has had a serious problem with rape after letting in too many Muslims.

Much like Birth of a Nation and similar lying propaganda pieces, this is an attempt by pathetic white men to defend their violence and hatred by creating a myth of evil to surround Muslims. Clearly this tactic works, to a degree. At the very least it spreads like the clap, like Birth of a Nation did. People all over this country, even good-hearted people who ought to know better buy into the idea that black people are inherently more violent. This has excused white America's treatment of black Americans, it has enabled the redlining and gerrymandering, it has created the industrial prison complex.

It would be easier to swallow if, at ANY POINT IN MOTHERFUCKING TIME, these same exact pigfucking pieces of human garbage would EVER speak out about rape in America. But they don't. They don't bring it up, they are in fact the same pieces of shit that defend rapists and cry out about the evils of SJWs.

There isn't room on this planet for people like this.

I mean, there is, and they would happily clear out some room for themselves by wiping out an entire religion. If they get the chance, they're going to be in for a big surprise because it won't end with Muslims. That train ride never really ends until somebody else puts a stop to it.

I don't know if we, who are not white supremacist pieces of shit, will be able to put a stop to it. I don't think there's anything to depend on in that regard at this point in history.

I DO think that if these pigfuckers get their way, they won't have it long. In an almost ideal scenario, a Triumvirate between the US, Russia, and the UK forms. White supremacy attempts to take over the world. Perhaps halfway though war with China, perhaps after, when victory seems a certainty, the carbon load in the sky kills all life on earth.

I am, of course, an optimist.

I am not do sure Shifty will do.

SUGGESTIONS/AND, OR ABSOLUTE DECREES?

Grand Wizard of the Fuckbois is taken, apparently.

My original handle was going to be Poleris, which, I can see now, is a bit silly.

Thundercat Actual
Dr Octaroon
SillyBilly
SnapturtleOfDoom
Pickles
are all fine options.

YUO DECIDE, PD.*















*LIMITED TIME OFFER, EXCLUSIONS APPLY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. SEE YOUR LOCAL SPAG FOR DETAILS.

That was after you called me a child, silly! Keep UP.

I didn't call you a child; I said that opinions were like children: those who have them are usually the ones least qualified. It's an addage that I've been saying for years. I wasn't making a comment on your particular opinions, but simply responding to the twist on the "opinions are like assholes" saying.

"I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

As for Godwin. This has been bugging me all election.

Godwin's law applies when in the midst of an argument you call your opponent a NAZI or Hitler as a means of defending your point. My point is that the right just elected a president with actual NAZI ideology, as opposed to conservative ideology.

Since Godwin's Law isn't formal, it has been long-since (unspokenly) amended to include people who accuse others of being literal Nazis as a form of hyperbole.

If you honestly, truly believe that someone is an actual Nazi, you've got a pretty big burden of proof resting on your shoulders if you're going to invoke that opinion in an argument. Most of the time, you'll just not be taken seriously and people will assume that you're being hyperbolic and vitriolic.

This is a perfect distillation of the argument I have only been able to touch upon on FB.

I can't find the source, but some years ago I read about Ken Kesey speaking at some rally. I think he was just walking by one and somebody noticed him and asked him to speak. He gets to the podium and says something to effect of: "You know what you people are doing with the marching and the banner waving and chants, it's basically the same method used by the NAZIs to take power". I think he was just talking from an aesthetic perspective, perhaps implying that taking steps to create positive societal change isn't waving banners and chanting. I don't know if he was right or wrong, but I always thought it was funny

That's no doubt a rougher version than what actually happened, but the point is clear, and hilarious. While Trump may or may not hit every check-box for Totally Legit NAZI, the people that voted for him could easily be seen as voting Hitler in. The zealousness. The same exact thing could be said for all the Bernie Bros, not all his supporters, just those who would not listen to reason, those who simply refused to see anything beyond black and white terms. Especially, when it comes to race.

I have meandered a little bit here....
Oh yeah, does Godwin apply when you call a NAZI a NAZI?

Even though you can't, you should.

I am going to tell you this over and over and over and over and over.

HELLO, MY NAME IS ALTY AND THE PLACE WHERE I LIVE DEFINES EVER SINGLE HUMAN INTERACTION I EXERIENCE.

PLEASE DO MAKE A DROP IN THE PITY PLATE ON YOUR WAY OUT.



*Posted for future use.

As a devout, empassioned Apathetic Agnostic the notion of faith comes hard to me. I feel very strongly about the fact that we just don't know. None of us, none of us knows a damned thing about GAWD. All we have is shadows. And I would gladly tell THAT on the mountain. I would gladly spend the rest of my life preaching the Good Word of Hopeless Loss and Confusion.

But I don't because, well, we don't want agnostism to be confused with anything like evangelcial ANYTHING, atheism perhaps least of all.

Still, there is so much inside me that wants to scream: YOU DON'T KNOW, MOTHERFUCKERS, YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT FUCK.

Thus the concept of faith, of acceptance of fact without proof, is detestable to me. It makes my stomach churn.  So, it is with trepidation that I admit I have begun to accept things without facts to back them up.

I have begun BELIEVING in things. This, to my mind, is always a dangerous endeavour. But, I have no choice. Well, I do, but one of those choices is unacceptable. I am left with one way to go, one path to take.

Without proof, without evidence, that beating, pulsing source of information, I must accept that it's not ALL my fault and I am not the monster others would have me be. I refuse to be a construct of other people's tepid, rotted minds.

I like to say, and say more and more often:
Pride comes before the wall, but confidence take you through THE WALL.

But where in the hell does confidence come from?

Mostly from the positive reactions your actions create in others. But that is a poor source for confidence. People are fickle fucks. You can't trust them.

What can you trust?

I don't know, I think that's where the faith part comes in.

You see, I do not attribute much weight to the opinion about my own self to any one person. That seems a dangerous route to go. People, such as they are, can think of me as EVIL or a GOOD MAN or A FAGGY PIECE OF SHIT WHO WHOULD STICK A SHOTGUN IN HIS MOUTH. People have seen me as all these things and more, and less. Who do I trust? The people that make me FEEL better?

Who or what makes their opinions matter more than those who make me feel like shit? Who is RIGHT?

I don't know and I don't care, apathetic agnositc till I die, yo.

All I do know is that a human can't live their life in such a way that does not give glory to the small and insignificant and powerful truth of that life. It is a precious thing, and each unique. This exhilerates and depresses and gratifies me. I can't tell which is stronger. I can say though, with some certainty, that I don't need a reason to believe, anymore than I need to believe.

When do you disregard an artists? Should society as a whole (whatever that means) disregard an artists for any reason? When and how?

There seems to be some relationship between the quality of the work VS the level of horror perpetrated by the person, as perceived by the public.

Micheal Jackson has some sweet pieces of music.
Da Vinci's contributions are obvous.
Woody Allen has his moments.

I was/am listening to Amanda Palmer and despite whatever is going on with her professional and personal life, her music has helped my considerably the way music does sometimes.

In more rational persuits facts are laid down very clearly and the personal acts outside of those persuits don't really have any bearing on those facts. It doesn't matter if Al Gore is an asshole or greedy or whatever as long as the facts he presents about the climate are true. The one doesn''t wash the hand of the other.

Is that true of art? More to the point, does it matter?

Art has an affect on society, our dreams lead us to very real places. Which is not to say that because Micheal Jackson's music creates incidences of sexual abuse. But does it perpetuate the culture which allows for more sexual abuse?

If so, just what does anyone do about that.

Of course, every indidivual person makes up their own mind. I don't listen to MJ's music, even though I really liked it as a kid. Hah.

I'm not sure what I think about all that.

A lot of religions are simply a series of warnings and promises.

If you avoid this and play nice, you will get X.

People like that because they are dumb and enjoy dreaming. It's better, for them apparently, to live in eternal (or as close as any one of us can manage) rapture, yearning for the day their prayers becomes answered and glory be.

Stupid.

Not because they choose to believe in something, though I have my doubts about the enduring benefits of belief. No, they are stupid because that is a RAW DEAL. Why wait? Why put up with fickle, silent gods?

Discordia offers you More Fun Than You Really Wanted RIGHT NOW! No waiting for the afterlife. No waiting for the return of the eight-horned worm of doom to return from the Jesus Juice Sunshine Factory.

No.

Eris will not let your prayers go unheeded, then she will just not let you go. You may scream and kick and, well, those two things over and over forever, but she will not release the grip up uglieness. There's no excommunication around here and ain't that just awful?

Then again, it's a whole lot better than just getting conned, isn't it? Sure, it's horrible and unpleasant and quite often forces you to turn to some small part of your brain where Her Holy Fallout hasn't yet made it impossible for you to do more than quake with fear. These little places where you can still tell yourself pleasing lies, even if they are grotesque by your own standards; the little places where Tumblr whispers to your heart.

Sure.

But it's THERE, isn't it? This Holy Light doesn't have conditions or demands or requirements, it doesn't ask for tithes or evangelism, it doesn't prohibit you from expressing your inner self or your sexuality, it just gives you more of the same. And it gives it to you with an efficiency that make something super efficient look like something totally lame at efficiency.

You can't buy spiritual gratification like that, and you can't turn it off, and you can't run fast enought.

And thank god for that.

One of the easier lies to tell yourself is that you want out of your cell.

These bars are too thick!
These walls are too narrow and unsightly!
I want out!

No. You don't. You never did. In fact, and I know this is going to hard to understand, but you need to know: you already got out. For a while. But it didn't take you long to meander past the smaller walls you put up around the outer edges of your prison. In no time at all you worked your way toward the far end, the swirling and pulsing horizon that reaches all the way up and from side to side.

From far away, sitting in the confines of your safe place it seemed this place was shifting back and forth, shifting things in and out of your line of sight. Some parts were covered completely, others were so twisted and warped that they made little sense, if any.

But right at the foot of it, as far away from your prison as you could possibly be, it's all clear. Every bit of it, there, inescapable. You can see so clearly all the dreams you gave up on, the dreams you couldn't see, the dreams you'll never see. Behind the drab grey covers and deep in the hidden nooks of this horrible and beautiful and distant part of your own self, as you reach through, trying to get as far away from your cell as possible you'll find cold, hard, immovable stones.

You chose to forget all about that though. Better to hope. Better to sit in idleness, cursing the horrible nature of your situation, while, with the same breath, pining for reaching closer to your dreams, to your distant goals, ignoring the menacing fears that mingle with them.

Better to live that way, eh? Your head may be in the sand, but at believe you must pull free, even if you know better.

A personal shit thread cuz I need one, ATM

This place I am living at now, it's good. There's a little girl my son can play with, it's in a safe neighborhood, and they're letting me stay rent free at the moment. The social aspect has been good for me, pulled me out of the doom spirals.

But it wouldn't be my life if there wasn't some sort of catch. If there wasn't I'd be terrified I was trapped in some Twilight Zone nightmare.

They are a married couple, plus there's a fellow who they've known a long time. He's nice. Quiet type.

The husband of this couple, I have talked about him before. He's the guy who freaked out however many years ago when I made a move on him and then waited however many years to have his wife tell me that he did in fact have feelings for me. He said we should have a few beers sometime, talk. And then he said nothing about anything for a year. Say lavee.

After moving in I thought, well, I thought he would say, you know, something, but he just plays video games all. day. long.

He was in this poly family...thing this last year and he's all heartbroken over this lady who bailed. He keeps comparing what I went through with what he went through. Ah ha, ah ha. Well, at least you still have a devoted, caring, loving wife, dude. Actually, you should wake up thanking whatever allows for such luck for a man who rarely does the dishes or make dinner. Hell, I've been doing more of that since I've been here than he has. Then again, none of my business. They work out their system for domestic shit, fine. I'm just saying he could be a little more grateful for what he has instead of pining after some Dawkins atheist who fucked off six months ago.

I sort of gave up on him talking about that, you know, gay sex thing, and I have this thing about people too afraid of their own self to step up and say something. I don't like banging people who lack courage, and I don't like doing the emotional heavy lifting for people I am involved with. If you start doing that shit in the beginning you end up doing it all the time. Like the dishes.

So, he finally says something. Last night. When he and I are shitfaced.

Am I the only one who really, really, really hates it when people can't open up unless they're soaked in booze?

Ah, yes, the other thing. Last night, I wasn't JUST shitfaced. I was riding high on the Holy Light of Eris.

Do any of you remember...let's see it was Cain, Phox, and Nigel...that guy who commented on my FB post about people reaching a certain age and becoming wise elders, he was being a passive aggressive dick and we descended on him like clouds of doom?

Well, that was shortly after I had been silently dumped by that dudes GF. They're a poly couple, which is ironic because my FB post was based on Nigel talking about gross "relationship queer" dudes.

Anyway, the fella that lives in this house, the non-married one, is dating THAT lady and she came over last night.

I did laugh and laugh and laugh last night.

So here we all are: Me, Too-Proud-Too-Beg Dude, his wife who is an awesome human being and a very good friend, roommate, and my ex-GF, playing dominoes. I was already applying boilermakers to my soul, so I just kept at it and got Holier Than Hell.

I love socially awkward settings. Ask Nigel. It's good fun. I slip in some slight commentary to my ex-GF, which she picks up on because she's smart as a whip. Everything is actually pretty chill and defused, partially, by the Holy Light.

My ex and the dude go upstairs and bang, loudly but not for long.

And while I am trying to keep the table I'm sitting at from flying away and crashing thought the window, Mr. Wait and Wait unloads on me.

Not in the good way.

The truth is: there is no way on earth I am banging anyone in this household. This is my last stop. If this doesn't work out it's back to the van. The god damned van that, of course, has needed a bunch of repairs and still needs completely new brakes. I can't and won't fuck this shit up with stupid genitals.

Plus, I'm in no place for that kind of thing anyway. I just got my divorce decree this week. I saw my ex-wife just an hour ago, so she could sign an amended tax return. I'm just now pulling myself out of that deep dark depression. As much as I would love to get laid, I don't want to get to know anyone, and my emotional state is stable as long as I don't think about romance.

It's all just so damned SILLY.

Anyway, I needed to unload that. Thanks PD.

Distractions are all well and good. They are, no but. Thank god for distractions.

That's why we make such an effort to identify with and proliferate stories, because the dreams we share are those that make the burden of the isolated human life tolerable.

The mistake, if it can be called a mistake, happens when we suddenly find ourselves so deeply immersed in our distractions that the petty and stupid needs and desires of real life, such as they are, distract us from those glittery dreams.

How is it that human blood can pump so hot and hard, beating against every capillary, slow-roasting the body over a lifetime, only to peter out into bland inaction? How do people keep a hold of their sanity living like that? Yeah, I am judging.

Now, in a state of stasis, just waiting for another rotation of the earth, waiting for a new season, it makes sense to bide one's time. That's another reason for stories, I think. We humans spend a lot of time waiting, and it can be tiresome.

I want to be very clear here:
I make no judgement against distractions in general. I like 'em, I use 'em. We'd all probably go crazy without them.

But when the moment for action comes, when you've spend too many winters waiting and yearning and pining, and you just FUCKING SIT THERE IN A PILE OF YOUR OWN MENTAL FILTH BECAUSE YOU CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO TAKE A CHANCE...is it my job to lull you out of your stupor? Is it my lot to kick your moldy synapses in the asshole?

I don't think so. Not in this life. Maybe another time when we both come back as dung beetles.

Annnnd he threw my apology back in my face.

Leaving now.  Be back when I get back from the East coast.

Ok, you wanna do this. Fine by me.

You have often said that an apology doesn't count when it's followed by a "but" or "however".

So I don't see why you think that one was supposed to mean anything to me.

Furthermore, you say you are sorry for misinterpreting me. I don't know what exactly makes you think that should magically make it all ok. That is the exact problem.

I am indeed sorry for the things I said in that thread. I got a big dose of stupid in my system that day. I also wasn't sure how I felt about the issue, and as is typical for me, I just blurted it all out without filters or second thought and felt whatever hostility I got, from an intellectual level, was something I could deal with, as I have always done.

What I could not deal with was the worst possible thing being assumed by someone who I respected: That I was making the sort of callous, uneducated judgement I thought I was decrying in the first place about someone's parenting. Something which I know FULL GOD DAMNED WELL isn't any of my business.

I made some mistakes in that thread, generally, though I haven't read any words in it passed: fuck you fuck you fuck and you fucking asshole. I could sense I was letting my stupid hang out.

Now. Every time my wife has done her thing during my shitty marriage she used anything she could in my mood or manner to make me feel like I was somehow shitting on her, was trying to make her feel bad, didn't care about her, or in some way was acting like an asshole.  It was at the center of the hostility I got from her, which eventually turned into the real shitty stuff. Every damned time.

Of course, combined with the shitty reputation I have in this town, my track record with exes, and my near total lack of friendship, it's hard for me to ascertain whether I am just an impossible asshole or just have a shitty way of expressing myself.

I would have thought, after the years I have spent here, I would be given some benefit of the doubt as to whether or not I am saying things that only a fucking asshole would say and truly mean. Guess not. Guess I haven't earned that. Well, you know, this place is one of the only meters I have to measure myself. I have few peers. I thought my mind was laid fairly wide open. And yet, no. No I don't get that. I obviously, deep down, in my heart of hearts hold TERRIBLE JUDGEMENT against Nigel's parenting. Couldn't be that I stuck my foot in my own asshole. Nope. Not one ounce of leeway given by someone I felt actual, real-live friendship with.

Fine. FINE. You know, I can handle it. If that's what she think about me, let her.

That word, it's sort of a trigger for me.

When I was 11 years old my grandmother came up to me, turned off the TV and said, "I'm going to say this in english because I want to make sure you understand me. You are a little asshole and no one is ever going to like you because of it."

I told this to my stepfather who had words with her.

After that she came to me again wearing a handful of her rings. She asked me if I had told my stepfather what she told me. I said yes and she backhanded me to the ground and walked away without a word.

Now, I am not saying this to excuse my behavior or my stupid or my poor communication.

I am just saying it illustrate that it's a particular trigger when used a certain way. We all have them.

So, I took a break for four fucking days. I came here and apologized because I felt it was due, and then went to FB and told people their I was going to be away. I have felt very depressed. I had some drunken ex fling over here Saturday night who got abusive with me. I didn't want to unload on you or anyone else the self pity and loathing I was feeling. I was trying to not be all emo, I was trying to get my shit together.

AND YOU DECIDE THIS IS THE PERFECT TIME TO SHIT ALL OVER ME.

FOR SOMETHING I DIDN' FUCKING DO.

FOR REASONS YOU DIDN'T MAKE CLEAR UNTIL YOUR "APOLOGY".

It was not a good one Roger. And it is the fact that you did exactly what has pissed me off and brought me low, the thing that people I have known my entire life have done to me, because I am obviously intending the worst and mean the worst and am the worst, that makes your apology a poor one.

Saying: I am sorry, but I am dealing with this particular issue right now, doesn't cut it, man.

Saying: I am sorry for doing the thing that has made you feel deeply depressed, would have been a lot fucking better.

Saying: Hey it looks like you are really fucking upset, I didn't mean that, I am sorry, would have worked.

Hell: I am going to leave you alone for right now, would have motherfucking worked. But you didn't say any of that.

I am sort of surprised I have to explain this to you.

I am constantly misinterpreted. Every fucking day, people don't get me. I kind of count on you to be there in that way where so many others are not. I guess I depend on PD that way, but I'd be lying if I said it means as much as when you do it.

But you don't want to deal with that. An "I'm sorry but" and it's supposed to be all better.

Listen, you didn't make a small error here. You chose a bad time to do something I have been struggling with for some time now. And you did right as I was leaving the horrible tension and aching gut behind.

Right as I am feeling like I can do this, I can survive up here, HOMELESSS for all intents and purposes, right after I get a client's husband's phone call from one of VERY FEW regulars saying she got into a car accident and is in the hospital, and will be, right there and then I get:

I won't fucking be here when you get fucking back.

You set me off, and if you can't deal with the fall out from that, if you want to end our friendship because I wouldn't accept an "I'm sorry but" right when I am seeing nothing but red, then go ahead. I won't stop you. But don't you dare come here and tell these people that I threw your apology back in your face, because that's not what fucking happened.

I want to apologize for the stupid shit I said in that thread.

I am sorry.

[Fat people are told every single day that they aren't worth love, or kindness, or even life itself, because of they way their body is shaped at that exact moment.]

Where do these assumptions about fat content in the body come from?

Where do the assumptions about how well any one person can lose weight and keep it off through known, effective diet methods come from?

How many people who choose to diet to do by what some may see as the correct way VS harmful ways that most often result in not only regaining of the weight, but even more weight then they had before?

By what standard is an amount of fat, visibly noticeable, considered healthy or unhealthy?

When you say "health" just what exactly do you mean? Can you offer a concise, broadly applicable definition of health? Generally? In this specific context?

We can safely say that BMI is a very, very poor indicator of what amounts to "healthy" weight.

Do you know for certain, by looking at someone, that their fat is causing them health problems? Can you count their cholesterol levels by seeing how far their belly hangs over their belt?

What do you suppose is a more serious problem:

Accepting fat people's bodies for what they are at that precise moment as it is the only body they have at that same moment, and allowing them to believe that they will not be judged harshly for it, thus, supposedly, leading them to get fatter and fatter.

OR

The already existing massive amounts of pressure our society imposes on people, most especially women, to possess a specific body type, that MOST DEFINITELY leads to eating disorders, depression, suicidal thoughts, and an altogether vicious cycle that makes people feel the kind of shame that keeps them away from exercise because they barely want to be seen out of the house, let alone in the gym.

Faust, I am sort of surprised to see you compare the proliferation of gun use leading to more deaths by gun, to obesity.

What medical knowledge do you possess that allows you to make an informed comparison between the two? Not to mention the callousness toward people who really, really already have enough to deal without being made to feel they should DIE because of their bodies.

I ask again:

How do you know, from looking at someone and their body, that they are unhealthy? How do you know their arteries are caked on the inside out with muck that will eventually clog their hearts? Based on what data do you make these broad assumptions?

Yeah, exercise is good for you. Yeah, eating certain foods over others is good for you.

No, none of you here are qualified in any way to make judgements on people about their state of health based off external observations. No one is. Blood work, that's what tells you about what's ticking in the human body. When you can afford it. Not big bellies, not saddle-bags, not love-handles.

Nor are any of you qualified to determine whether someone is able to exercise at all. Not everyone can.

It is often said that there are only few instances when someone can associate their weight with glandular problems or the like. When is it okay apply this acceptance? When they tell you about their thyroid disorder? Just what business is it of anyone's?

Here's the deal:

YOU can deal with YOUR weight, and your own shame, however the hell you want.

You can can avoid dating people who don't fit a body type you are attracted to.

And hell, you can even make broad, sweeping generalizations about a large group of human beings whose physiology you can only make assumptions about. I am definitely not going to try to stop you.

I just have to wonder: why? Why do you even care?

Furthermore, what makes you care more about the dangerous obesity epidemic than the shame that such people must endure?

I don't have much of any kind of medical training. But I do deal with the human body, and I will say this with some great deal of certainty:

Your mind spends a great deal of time in your body, if only in a secondary manner. And when you want to permanently undo something in the body the VERY WORST thing you can do is try to force it.

When you force the body to do something it reacts in a protective and defensive manner.

When you allow the body to be as it is, without trying to change it, without telling it that it is BEING WRONG, it feels safe and secure enough to change.

I think people are like that to.

I think if there is any one thing that causes people to fluctuate wildly in their weight is the pressure they feel. Fat people are told every single day that they aren't worth love, or kindness, or even life itself, because of they way their body is shaped at that exact moment.

They are told this by their family, by every single media outlet, by their doctors.

I may be repeating myself at this point, but I am wholly convinced that the pressure and shame people experiences is way, way, way more harmful than the food you THINK they are eating or the lifestyle you THINK they are maintaining.

Some of mine:

engineeringhistory
theexercist
thisisthinprivilege
fastfoodforthemutants
weirdvintage
badsonicfanart
cashcats
honestslogans
hotel-job
willitbeard

So, I have started writing down my experiences being bisexual here in Hell, Frozen Over.

http://bibianchorage.com/community/kissing-men-goodbi/

First post is just a rant. Well, maybe not *just*.

But I plan on adding some heavy details of my awkward sexual life. All names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. I can't say it will be very artful or full of grace, but I need to get it all out and I hate just leaving those kinds of things in my files. It doesn't feel right.

[WIFE]

Started talking to a guy about 2 weeks ago from OKC.

He's smart, funny, confident, not in the least bit sleazy. We start chatting and I get kind of excited because I can't remember the last guy who held my interest for...any length of time whatsoever.

He's good looking, Tongan, I prefer MoC over all. Ex-marine, knows who Marcus Aureliis was, dominant type. Whooo-eeeee! Right? Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

Three days in he tells me lives in Barrow, about oh 600+ miles away. Of course. Naturally. Of course the only worthwhile man in the entire state lives the length of the state away. Cool beans. So, I keep talking to him because, shit, who else is there? Plus, as I said, kind of catch.

Not that I am really looking for love right now.

Anyway, I keep at it. But then, neeeeeeedy. How can an intelligent, articulate, successful man, the kind of man who recognizes Anthropology as mostly bullshit, the kind of man who came out before the repeal of DADT to his brothers in the Corps after he had proven himself to all of them as invaluable...how can such a man need so much god damned reassurance. Yes, I like you. YES, I like you. YES I MOTHERFUCKING LIKE YOU BUT NOW NOT NEARLY AS MUCH AS BEFORE YOU KEPT ASKING ME OR CHECKING IN ON THIS FACT.

I am loaded with things to do. My plate is full. Lots of shit to deal with. What I need is someone who can maybe make it seem like I am not completely isolated from everything I want, aside from my son. Someone who can make me forget for a few moments that my life, my career, my sanity, is on the precipice. Let's talk about something other than how sexy and handsome you think I am.

And this...this might seem like whining. Maybe it is, or looking in a gift horse in the mouth, or something but...you know, people tell me I am handsome. I don't give a fuck.

Does that sound terrible?

I don't care about that. It has very rarely ever worked to my advantage. Perhaps I do not leverage it enough. I do not have any desire to do so. Many people assume I am conceited. Nope. Don't care. Many people I am attracted to think they have no chance with me because of my looks. This annoys the shit out of me. How, exactly, do my looks determine the kind of people I am attracted to.

I understand my face affords me with some privilege that others do not possess. I am starting to see that. But what with the wall I put up, and my bad attitude, and the words that pour out of my mouth, it does me precious little good except to get leered at by men who refuse to talk to me, whether gross or not.

And ugh, god do I hate their leering. Stop. Fucking. Looking at me like that.

At any rate, I don't want to talk about how sexy you think I am all the god damned time. Rarely, in fact. It's flattering, yes. It's also very, very boring and not at all what drives me. I have a brain inside here, ya know? I really, really like to use it.

After first giving up on men when I was 17 I met this guy at a party two years later. We ended up making out and all that shit. It didn't get further than that because in between gasps for air he kept slurring "OMG he's so HOT. You're sooooo hot. You are so fucking out." makeout makeout "OMG you're so fucking hot. You're sooooo hot."

Blech.

BLEEEEEECHHHHCHHCHCCHCHCHHODOHAESPUIAWHUFE}UAWPBIFE)(UWADPBIEDAHU


JUST SHUT UP! SHUT YOUR STUPID FACE YOU GOD DAMNED IDIOT.


AND ANOTHER THING.

THIS ASSHOLE, I HAVE MENTIONED HIM BEFORE. I MADE A MOVE BECAUSE I WAS SURE HE WAS INTO ME, AND HE FREAKED OUT ON ME REALLY BAD. I AM TERRIFIED OF HITTING ON STRAIGHT GUYS. IT MAKES ME SHAKE WITH TEH FEAR. I HATE IT. HATE IT. HHHHHHHAAAAATE.

5 YEARS LATER HE HAS HIS WIFE TELL ME HE WAS INTO ME AND HAD IDENTITY ISSUES. I REACH OUT TO HIM. I SAY WE SHOULD HANG OUT.

NOTHING FOR A YEAR. HE HAS SOME POLYFAMILY.

IT BREAKS APART. IT CRUMBLES. BEAR IN MIND HIS WIFE STILL LOVES HIM AND STAYS WITH HIM THROUGH EVERYTHING. HE IS DEPRESSED. HE FELT SUICIDAL.

HE WANTS TO HANG OUT AND HE IS SORRY HE DID NOT DO IT BEFORE.

WHEN DOES HE TELL ME THIS? THE DAY I HAVE TO TELL MY WIFE OUT MARRIAGE IS OVER. HE WILL NOT LET UP, HE WILL NOT TAKE THE HINT I AM NO LONGER INTERESTED AND DO NOT WANT TO DEAL WITH HIS ISSUES.

FUCK FUCK FUCKKKKCUJFDNJIODFSJONHI.

ok.

I feel a little better. That needed to get out. Thanks.

Anyway. I have given too much of myself to people who did not deserve it. I settle for no one now.

I do not have identity issues. I know who I am, as much as anyone can, and I absolutely know what I want. And I will not give in to some guy just because he knows who Marcus Aurelius was, or because he is handsome and can use his brain.

It's not enough. None of these fuckers are enough. None of them.

I got into the situation I am in today because I have compromised myself for anyone who was willing to put up with me.

No more.

I need more than that. I need to be fucking wow'd. I need someone who doesn't have to tell me they are sorry before they have even had a chance to break my heart, and I need someone who does not wave giant red flags while they bat their eyelashes at me, no matter how pretty they are.

I'd rather buy a god damned fleshlight and go through as many as needed until I can escape this frozen hell hole than put up with this horseshit.

OR KILL ME.

Not to get all tumblr on you spag...

But I think this is a fairly important issue.

We've all done it. All those chuckles and drawn up faces at People of Walmart. No doubt, there are some people out there that wear some pretty weird shit, exposing their strange and less-than-magazine-material bodies for the world to see.

Then again, those magazine bodies are almost all photo-shopped, so I ask you, what is freakier:

The flabby, "unshapely" bodies laid bare by halter-tops? Man boobs glistening, soaked in sweat and indifference?

Or the fact that we base what bodies are SUPPOSED to look like on complete fabrications concocted by the very same corporations we Discordians tend to mistrust and dislike for the effects they have in our culture?

Human beings, despite what you have been told, are not really fit into any one particular mold. This goes for the architecture of our brains, our personalities, our desires and cravings and pretty much every facet of our existence. And yet, even the best of us are prone to enjoying the pointing and laughing of people who, by and large, cannot exactly help what they look like.

Exercise, you may say. Take care of yourself.

Well, just what IN THE FUCK do you know about it? Can you LOOK at another human being and ascertain the state of their biological machine? Do you KNOW that someone is just saying they have a thyroid disorder? How is that any different from that horrible faux pax where you assume someone is pregnant? And just what fucking business is it of yours anyway?

Too fat, too thin. Too tall? Too short? Hair not full and thick enough? You may or may not find someone personally attractive. BREAKING NEWS: That is not an invitation to criticize them.

And here's another bit of news you may be unaware of: YOU HAVE BETTER MOTHERFUCKING THINGS TO DO.

That's right, I, ALTY, while living, am telling to your fucking face that the time you spend judging and pointing and laughing at those who dare to have some random asshole snap their picture and post it online without permission (Which, BTW, is gross and creepy and something I doubt any one individual would appreciate. I highly doubt any of YOU would appreciate it if it happened to you) is time that is wasted.

You could be making art, or contributing to the aid of people who are getting fucked over EVERY SINGLE DAY by powers we will probably never fully overcome, or just sitting around masturbating in your own feces. Any of these things would be time better spent than making sure the whole fucking world knows what you think of some random strangers body.

Additionally, much like racist or sexist humor, it is so fucking boooooooring. It's the same tired ass shit that other stupid assholes have been repeating since time out of mind. There is nothing new there, folks. It's not funny because it is offensive, it's not funny because 9 times out of ten it just isn't funny. It's hackneyed humor, low hanging fruit, the dull efforts of a lazy, lazy mind that can't think of anything better.

Finally, again, about the god damned creeper shots. EWWWWWWWW. What the fuck is wrong with the people who take those pictures? It's weird, man. You see some body that fills you with disgust and the first thing you think to do is broadcast it to the whole world? How pathetic. How utterly lame. Is your life that uninteresting? Is that all you've got?

By further spreading those images you reinforce that kind of behavior, which is weird and creepy and so terribly unkind. You endorse it.

And, you know, the real litmus test, the one that stands the test of time and ignorant tumblr screeching is this: if you had one friend in the world, one single person who actually gave a fuck about you, and such a thing well and truly hurt their feelings, would you give a fuck? That's for you to say, but I think the answer says a lot about the kind of human being you are.

By the way, I have absolutely been made to feel shitty about my body, many a time, offhand and casually, by cowards who could not say it to my face. And when you are down and out, that is the last fucking thing you need. The last god damned thing.

What would Mr. Rogers say?

OR KILL ME.

I find the sheer number of options and varience in technology of these things confusing as hell.

I am pretty happy with what I've got, and that's all that really matters. But good gravy that shit is complicated, or can be.

I found a decent explaination of things here:
hxxps://www.vapehut.com/Articles.asp?ID=255
Not trying to advertise for nobody.

http://www.reddit.com/r/electronic_cigarette/comments/1cdptq/atomizer_vs_cartomizer_vs_clearomizer_vs_tanks_i/

There's that smoking thread in AT, but I thought it might be good to have another that lays it all out a bit more clearly.

Then again, this may just slowly sink to the bottom.

Srsly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNmL6hSNKw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Ok, so, look, this thing is pretty complicated. The actual children involved, who they belong to, how and when and what exactly happened. It's a mess. No one is all that sure, except maybe the people who found facts and made sure.

You might even ask yourself: who the fuck cares? Celebrity gossip, blah blah blah.

But here's the thing:

I don't usually concern myself with the lives of the rich and affluent. I didn't really give a damn when Tiger Woods was caught cheating on his spouse. Or that asshole Sandra Bullock was married to. These things, overall, do not concern me.

But recently, it is dawning on my that it should.

We do not live in a vacuum. The actions we carry out do not live in isolation except very rarely. Much, much less so  with people who have influence over the teeming, ignorant masses.

Woody Allen has a career that spans some 50 years. 5 decades of injecting his thoughts into the hearts and minds of human beings the world over. Given that, does he carry an intrinsic responsibility to the rest of us? I am apt to say, No. I frimly assert that people's choices are their own and they have to live it with a lot longer than I do.

HOWEVER, I have responsibilities too. I have to make sure my son grows up in such a fashion that he undoes what men have been doing to women since time out of mind. I am the only one who can make sure he knows to treat women with repsect, to not violate their boundaries. If my son raped someone and I found out I would beat the living shit out of him, you can believe that. Set you clocls by it. He will be an adult at that point, and I will spare him nothing. Will this fix anything? No, probably not. But he will suffer consequences, oh yes. I will do, I HAVE to do everything in my power to prevent that from happening.

By extention of that lovely thought, I cannot endorse anything that allows him to believe he is allowed to perpetuate the fucked up rape culture we find outselves in.

He has been enjoying Arkham City, his BATMANGAME. I cannot allow him to play it anymore. Why? Because when the thugs see the Dark Knight on the rooftops they shout, "Whaddya scared? C'mon down and fight!"

When they see Catwoman, who is all legs and tits, they shout, "I'm gonna make you beg me to stop." As well as ample use of the word bitch. Every woman gets called a bitch. Recenlty, I have edited this word out of my daily lexicon, the same way I don't way something is gay, or call people cunts. Not because people police me against it, but because I well and truly do not want to treat people like that. I do not want to reduce their humanity in that way, I refuse to do so.

He will be very upset. He won't get it. But I will not allow his mind to be poisoned to think that's casually ok, that women can be treated so drastically different from men. Small seeds grow very large.

So, from a broader perspecitve, is it ok to simply not give a fuck about Woody Allen? Sure. You do your thing and I will do mine, I am not going to sit here and tell you to fortify yourself with moral indignation.

At the same time, I will loudly bark in to people's faces that Woody Allen is NOT OK. That apologizing for him is even more so NOT OK.

And I would like to take the time to point out that there are far, far too many people who simply enjoy his movies without giving pause for thought that he is a detestable human being, and that this bland acceptance furthers a culture that promotes rape. molestation, and general montrousness.

We have a serious issue here, and elsehwere in the world, and it has to do with how women are treated. It isn't going to fix itself. It isn't going to be fixed by being passive or quiet about it. It is only undone by the slow crawl of generations, but the hard work falls to each of us, especially we white males.

Believe it or not, people listen to us more than anyone else. So it is we who have to look at these things and shout loudly about how wrong they are. We have to give a fuck about Woody Allen because we can so easily ignore him.

Who cares? Find out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StxsdKbPmWo&feature=youtu.be

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/01/bikram-choudhury-yoga-sexual-harassment

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10498946/Yoga-guru-Bikram-Choudhury-raped-students-in-cult-like-training-camps.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlf9YqlbnV0&feature=youtu.be

Ladies and gentlemen, the Wall Street Journal has well and truly jumped the shark.

On a horse, no less.

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/BL-CJB-20594?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Still, a look back at previous turns of the zodiac cycle shows how far China has come. The last year of the horse, roughly coinciding with 2002, was a good one for China's economy.

This is what I got back from that dumbass.

"I'm. Not like your of people I could be a blessing to your business:-)  But I'm not going to kiss your ass so good luck"

Bullet, dodged.

Bear in mind, my rent is still well below market value. Once I can afford to go without another tenant I will raise it to the market standard. But shit, for $175 a month you damn well ought to kiss my ass.

Maybe you won't.

But man, I gotta get this off my chest and I can't send it into the void of emails you won't respond to.

I suspect you are doing so to hurt me, whether you realize it or not. I suspect much of your behavior toward me since the day I broke this cycle has been in an effort to hurt me.

That's OK. And I will tell you why.

I have never been much of an ex to anyone. The only person I have not been a complete horror show toward post breakup was my first serious love. We parted under such amicable terms, really. We talked it out to the very end and beyond. I sort of assumed that everyone would be like that. When they aren't, when people just walk away in spite and anger and refuse to give me the time of day, well, it hurts more than anyting. It's like slamming the door to my heart. Even after all the pain, that even and unilateral DONENESS gets to me.

And I began to feel the same way, I started to spiral, to justify, to bargain, to hate and seethe and spit and curse and generally send mmyself into a time wasting doomsday.

It isn't like that this time.

It came suddenly, as I was using the mantra of "what does not kill me makes me stonger", repeating it over and over every time I thought over your face, above me, nothing but love pouring out of both of us, or the way that every time I touched you, from the first day to the last, and probably forever, I felt electricity and awe in equal measure. When I thought of your voice and the way you're the only person who makes me laugh, the only person who suprises me...

Back to the mantra. It was helping. But then, suddenly, I realized I was just trying to shove you OUT. I wanted my mind to be free of you so I could have peace. Sweet peace. It was in that struggle to shove you away and forget that the intensity of my pain increased.

So I stopped. I sat and purposefully carved a spot in my head for you, a place where every ounce of your person can reside. If you resent me, if you have abandoned me for your own self for reasons I cannot comprehend, if you broke every single promsie you ever made me, if you hold me in contempt...

I contain multidtudes, I am vast, I can contain you in your entirety. I can hold onto the sheer beauty you are capable of, which I have no doubt you will find again, and your fire. I can hold every piece of you here. And as I do I am filled with calm, peace washes over me because I know I haven't wasted my time.

Despite it all, you have enriched my life, even with the tremendous amounts of pain you have and continue to cause me, I am enriched. And for that I am grateful.

I won't curse your memory, I won't curse your name, I won't turn away from that love. And I won't ever do anyting like that ever agian, to anyone.

And for that I am nothing if not filled with gratitude. You have my thanks, and my love.

Ah, finally, there it is.

I do apologize for bleeding emo whining onto the board. You freaks are my most solid social connection, so you will have to suffer the occasional outburts when I am low. I feel I contribute enough otherwise to warrant and bit of leeway.

It is worth it. For me anyway.

It all comes down to this precise moment. Right here and now, I can finally feel freedom again.

You see, it's easy to see life as a game in which YOU, the player, must acquire as many HAPPY points as you can. Surely, your primate brain desires those love combinations of chemicals that the rat's nest of your mind recognizes as HAPPY and, likey, GOODSOCIAL STANDING. When your mate bails, well, your primate brain feels quite a bit lowered in social standing.

There must be some reason, yeah?

Or perhaps some other awful thing happens to you. Granted, life is more than capable of throwing more awful your way than you are capable of dealing with. It is imprtant to remember that no matter how much bad, good, or HAPPY you have, this is always a distinct possibility.

Some THING could happen today, or tomorrow that wrecks you beyond repair. Or, at least, puts a deep dent in your self

It's best not to be arrogant about such things. You don't have to count yourself lucky, but it does not hurt to be grateful for the days in which you are merely miserable and not in a state of abject torture, humiliation, or similar.

And yet....I am often trapped in conversation with resolute optimists. They will often say something along the lines of:

"Well, you have to enjoy the HAPPY you get."

Yes. This is true. And why not?

HOWEVER, that is missing half of the very important equation. You will NOT be HAPPY all the time. In fact, even if you don't expexperience deep, abiding horror that rips your mind to tatters, there will be moment of such equisite, delicate, nuances PAIN. Internal, external, bloody, meaty. It will fill your whole being the same way the HAPPY comes flooding in.

Now, I am not saying anyone should actively persue such pain.

But, it will find you anyway. What to do about it?

I say, from the seat of My Discordia, relish it. Savor the power of that exquisite, profound pain. It is a part of being human. And intregal and core component that drives people to murder, art, conquest, suicide, insight, love, war, ingenuity, and so much more.

More to the point, it is a beautiful thing. The same way a gaping, magma-filled chasm is a beautiful thing. It will destroy your weakand frail body, mind, and soul....given the chance.

But if you can, for a moment, step back and just behold it without assigning meaning or purpose...you can witness something that no one else can understand. Or maybe they can, but they cannot see it the way that you do in that moment in time. That tiny speck of reality that you inhabit...would you forsake it? Would you forsake your one and only true birthright, the brutal truth of being a highly self aware mammal?

No matter how much I have hurt, do hurt, will hurt...

ever since I found Discordia, I can watch that hurt, in all its delicacy, and be amazed at the miracle that is my small and mostly useslless, and certainly soon to be forgotten existence.

Your pain, mine, all of ours, is something to behold, to hold, to cherish. Because it is a fascet of your life that cannot be undone, and should not be.

So, this night, as I come so close to the, and I am sorry if I oversuse the word but it is perfect, exquisiteness of my own pain, I can only smile, then laugh, safe and secure in the knowledge that I, while living, truly live. And there will never be another time quite like this.

Like art, cast forever into impermanence, beautiful for a moment. I feel, perhaps correctly, perhaps not, the winding gears of thing cosmos reflected in a relatively small batch of chemicals assaulting my brain.

And I cannot live with regret.

Soooo, thinking about getting a dog. I have had one dog before, found her randomly on Halloween and found a home for her on Thanksgiving. She was too much. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb.

I have been reading about how to live with them/deal with them. It has always come off as a mystery to me. Some things are starting to make sense; there are so many little ways (movement, posture, attitude) that dogs pick up on and use to fit in their place in the world. Very, very different from primate brains. Which is cool to have at least a partial understanding of.

I have three goals:
-To give care, shelter, and love to someone who will actually appreciate it.
-Companionship, which I think has seperate intent than the above.
-Protection

I walk everywhere, and getting a dog would require walking or biking exclusively. No bus, no cab. So it would need to be a breed that can handle cold and exertion. I will probably be allowed (and I would make sure first) to bring a dog to work as others in the building do so. And allow them to wander in my office. I would have to have the dog chill out, quietly, for an hour at a time while clients are in. But I have long breaks in between, so she would not be cooped up too long.

What I am looking for are why this is NOT a good idea, or why it is, any advice or book recommendations, or any other thoughts on this.

I am thinking about a German Shepard. They shed a lot, but they meet all the requirements I have, and they are super smart, given the chance, which is important. There is a breeder that has long haired ones up here, so...

I am waiting until I  have enough cash saved for the purchase as well as some vet/other need money first.

Nothing complicated, just:

Thinking for yourself, at least attempting to come up wih your own ideas, is super rad, right?
We Discordians tend to value that, much the same way I tend to admire people who make their own shit.

Make your own food, brew your own beer, grow your own, uh, medicine...awesome! That is totally cool, good for you.

But Jesus, don't go thinking EVERYBODY is going to want a taste. Maybe it needs more work, maybe the taste of it gratifies YOU but leaves others wanting. Is this a reflection of the quality of your product? Yes. Whose sense of quality is most important?

Maybe you just fucked up and have no perspective?

How will you know if you don't put yourself out there and try and share?

I love the human body. Most of the stink that comes off them is from the rotting, malnourished minds inside. But it is a powerful, versatile, robust, and fascinating precision biological machine. That HUMANS thread is pretty badass, and biology in general is badass.

I am going to, hopefully, dump thoughts I have about the body, massage, and other shit like that that interests me here so I can come up with some kind of cohesive thingy for which to use for later writing.

Or something.

Anyway:

KIND OF MASSAGE

You could look it up, you may have. You may be familiar. But I think I have some layman perspective that may prove useful to other people.


PLEASE TO NOTE: I am not an expert. I am working my way there, but that will take me, oh, probably about 15-20 more years and a lot more education. If you see anything here that seems, or is WRONG please do tell me. I will say most of this is speculation and me just spinning my wheels to see what, if anything, will stick.

And yeah, ima mix my motherfucking metaphors.

There are 2 kinds of massage:

1. The kind that works the brain.
2. The kind that works the muscles/other similar tissue LOCALLY.

1. The kind that works the brain.

This is the kind you are probably most familiar with. It is the most common, whether the practitioner is doing it intentionally.

Swedish massage, some deep tissue (it's a broad term), relaxation massage, backrubs.

When using these techniques, humans are able to use their hands to send messages through the body to the brain.

Calm down.
Everything is okay.
No one is going to eat you.

When done with precision and skill this kind of massage can make people becomes pools of melted butter. Music helps, as does a dark room. After a perfect swedish massage the receiver should feel somewhere between asleep and awake and fully rested, ready to seize the carp. The giver should also feel pretty damned good.

Muscles are not very much of anything. Water, some fiber, electricity, rigging, hookups. Mostly water.

If you read Job's Body, which you should, you might think that it is sea water. You could even go as far to say you propel your body by throwing sea water wherever you want to go, out a head of you, in geometric patterns, under highly pressurized conditions, so you can go to the mall.

All under the careful control of your brain.

If you give anesthesia to a yogi or a mean old drunk or a soccer mom or a professional wrestler the same damned thing happens to all of them: they go limp. Because the brain can't say any differently. They wake up, and each of them resumes carrying weight around in weird, freaky, unique ways as per instructions from their brains.

So, though it may feel an awful lot like someone is poking your body, they are most often trying to poke your brain.

I prefer getting this kind of massage because it is easy for the other person to not fuck up, and because skilled people in with this technique are only skilled because they well and truly care about people. It is this kind of touch, employed in a mass scale, that humanity could do with. I am a firm believer that if ever single person got massage like that every week we would all be a lot kind to one another.

If I was a dictator/emperor/Juggernaut Supreme I would impose this as world law.

It makes you feel less afraid of people, it's is touch that often undoes the Gordian knots of people brains.

2.The kind that works the muscles/other similar tissue LOCALLY.

This is the kind of work that I do.

I do not wait for the brain. I do not tussle with people so they can simply go back to thinking idiot thoughts that cause them pain and they have to come back.

Oh sure, I could train these people. I could pry their minds open, not all of them but most, and fill it with something that will give them some sense of peace and unity and blah blah blah.

But fuck that. That is THEIR business. I do brain work for some people, who are cool, or I care about. And I like to receive it. But it's is just too much work, plus people can't handle the horrible truth, and boy, if I am going to blow sunshine up your ass I am going to blow horrible smoke as well.

I work fascia, which surrounds muscle, gives muscle its shape, gives YOU your shape.

Fascia is tough and fiberous, it is made of the same stuff your bones are made of, minus any heavy duty minerals.

Fascia is the wrapping of your sweet candy, the rope that hoists your sails.

When you move awkwardly and feel like you are stuck in that position and if you move out of it you will feel pain...

...9 times out of 10, IME, that is fascia, not muscle.

Muscles and your brain talk with electricity.

Fascia and your brain talk with chemicals, cortisol to be specific.

When you experience stress your body produces or releases or makes adrenaline and cortisol, you can outrun the bear. Or try your damndest anyway.

Cortisol turns on MICROFIBRILS which create chains of collagen which is your fascia.

This collagen bunches up in certain areas in certain people, the neck, the low back, glutes, hamstrings. Wherever. It does this probably for the same reason fat goes to certain areas on certain people. Genes, habits, QUANTUMZ.

You brain sends signals for production of fascia, but it does not send signals to undo or counter that production. There is no anti-cortisol as far as your fascia is concerned.

Why? Because it is DEAD. You can't relax your fascia any more that you can wave your hair, more or less for the same reason.

So, how do you undo the damage cause by poor postural habits and stress without end?

1. Cease cortisol production.

Stop adding to it. Relax, chill out, get a massage, do yoga. Take 20 minutes out of every single day for yourself. Do not watch tv, do not read a book. 20 minutes for your body. Listen to it. Let it know it is in a safe place and you can relax. There is no bear.

2. Work the tissue.

Fascia, once in place, requires HEAT and MOVEMENT to engage in a metabolic process which will make it quit it with the god damned tension. You need to burn that shit UP and move it around.

So....exercise that focuses on problem areas. Hard to do, especially in the neck and the shoulders and the upper back.

Or comes see ME! I spend up to an hour slowly pulling fascia apart, painting the whole muscle's fascia, along the muscle's natural form given by the fascia, using friction to create localized heat and movement.

This does a couple things. It reminds everything in the area that it has a god damned job to do! (I think) it eats up the collagen, makes it less. It gives your muscle a bigger, roomier place to live. It releases old chemicals that were stored in the Ground Substance and makes you a bit dizzy.

What is Ground Substance?

It is an awful lot like the sea. But it is a lot more like a work table upon which your body can mix various hormones and other chemicals with your blood.

OK, that's all I got for today.

That is, I shit you not, the only friend I had left.

Everyone sees me that way up here.

It does not bother me, but I think maybe I should look for a better place to live.

SHIT ON YOUR FACES.

MAKE YOUR DREAMS COMES TRUE.

STAY TRUE THRU YOUR PHASES.

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT.

Just didn't really want this in AT.

This is gonna be verbose, so hold onto your asses.

I do actually hate getting advice, any kind. I am full of pride and arrogance, and I trust my own intuition more than any single person I know 99% of the time.

Most of the time advice I am given is something I have thought about millions and millions of times already. I do almost everything in life by myself, as I have done.

This has only recently changed and there is no greater catalyst for my ability do be around other people, to act without fear, than my son. You people have done a great deal, but would I give a damn at all without him?

I started posting on this forum the year he was born. That's the year I changed my name.

Some of you know my name, and it is a funny one. It is also not the one on my birth certificate.

Ooh, it's gonna get personal now.

0-2

Born in a German hospital I lose any claim to Presidency, which is a damn shame. My dad was a helicopter mechanic for the Army. My mother attended a Catholic-Hungarian boarding school I have no idea how my single grandmother could afford.

My grandmother on my mother's side is an evil old alcoholic from Serbia who cleaned upper class German houses for 25 years. She has severe mental illness that has been untreated (excepting congac) for her entire life.

She saw my father and mother making googely eyes on a boat near the Vilhelma Zoo, walked over to him and told him to talk to my mother.

New Years Eve - 1984

"Don't worry, you don't get pregnant the first time," -Dad.

My mom dropped out of school, as she had no choice, in her final year. They stayed with my grandmother and then...

ZOOOOM

2-4

Kentucky.

ZOOOOM

5

Alaska

My dad always wanted to see it. That's why we came here. He always had ze wanderlust, he's a rambler, that one. Or was. I got it real bad too. I hate staying in one place. Hate it. I could live in a brand new place every three months and you would see a very happy Alty.

ZOOOOM

7

I used to be a JR. My current name, which a bunch of you know, is not the one on my birth certificate.

Shortly before my parents split, shortly after my father threw me into a wall because he was casually disgusted with me, something my mother never knew, I wondered: why? Why didn't I get my own name?

Then, the split. The military elementary school had a counselor, and after my mom had told me she was divorcing my father and that my sister and I would be living with her and only her, they pulled me out of class and into this group called Banana Splits

On the first day we made a construction paper banana split. Dad and mom are choclolate and strawberry on the outside, and in the middle was vanilla me. It only took them about a week to realize I didn't need any counseling. When my mom told me what was happening relief such as I have never again experienced washed over me. I knew, at 7, that my life was going to be an altogether sweeter thing. I knew with absolute certainty that if things had continued on I would have been truly miserable, probably abused more.

My mother had already gotten a job at Burger King, and used it to aqcuire a brand new Honda Civic (loleconomy) in anticipation for leaving my dad. Which is funny because HE offered divorce as an ultimatum: You either stay home with me instead of going out on the town with your brother who you haven't seen in 5 years or DIVORCE!

LOL.

So moving into a shitty apartment wasn't all the difficult. And beautiful.

Through my whole childhood I never once resented having things. I had TV, I had enough food not to starve to death, and I was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

8

This is the year I learned my father was an idiot and a coward and that I had to make every attempt to not be anything like him.

9-13

Thing happened. Many things. I grew up here, in the cold and the dark, watching TV and eating junk food and being afraid of boy and men, but also just people. Men come in and out of my mother's life. They are all losers. Even the lesbian. All of them, except my stepdad, who treats me right, keeps my grandmother from verbally, emotionally, and physically abusing me. He worked hard a shit job right next to my mom to build something together. She divorced him for no reason/my grandmother's influence.

I called that guy dad. Oh well.

Nothing with my father. He sent occasional letters and stopped once he realized I was never going to write back. To this day I still don't send people letters, other than Discordians. Letters can be full of meaning, but when I know you just don't give a shit and are still capable of sending me words, well, words are plenty fickle then, aren't they?

But then I went to stay with my paternal grandmother. I was 12, it was summer in Arkansas. My father found out and decided he needed to get his shit together, make some money, and save some by staying with his mom as well. That his children were going to be there was at first incidental, then obnoxious. Two weeks in he called my mother to ask her to have us come back.

42 at this point, he has no teeth. He wears full dentures because his teeth rotted from the inside out and vice versa. That happens when you chew, smoke two cartons a week, and drink Folgers like it's going out of production. He watches Walker Texas Ranger and claps his hands like a child, a stupid child, when Walker roundhouse kicks the bad guy. The man nearly leaps out of his chair with excitement. A big Chuck Norris fan, my dad.

He also thinks the wrestler Chyna is just the hottest piece of ass in the known universe.



It's then when I realize just how different this man is from, foreign. Foreign. I LOOK a lot more like my uncle Bill. Which is probably why dad wanted nothing from me.

Bill was the baby and he was the favorite. Of EVERYONE HE EVER MET. Charismatic, funny, blunt, loud, successful, and as ignorant and racist as most white people below the mason-dixon. My uncle Bill was a lawyer for Walmart (hopefully battling millions of impovrished employees) who died in a car crash after going into a diabetic coma on the way home. My grandfather wrote a book called: My Son, a Gift From God. It was not about my father.

Yet whatever genetics passed my father's way seemed to gloss over the looks sort of laterally. Or something. You get what I mean. That must have been a kick in the dick.


13-18


I talked to the man after I graduated. He called and said he was going to Russia to get heli-mechanic work, make a bunch of money, and then come to AK to "spend some time with you kids".

*cricket song*

2009

The year my son was born. The year my whole life changed and my brain got all weird, but better. Also the year I started posting on this forum.

Before I changed my legal name I called him. Right when I had the money and the paperwork ready to go, I gave the stupid bastard a last chance.

I tracked him down by (somehow) finding HIS father, also discovering his parents came from Germany in 1923(?) so I come from bona fide immigrant stock on both ends.

"You're going to be a grandfather," I said.
"Yeah I know, my mom told me," he said.
"You're free to come up here any time and meet him," I said, quite graciously.
"Well, I think it'll probably be easier for you to just fly here," he said.

To Florida. It is easier for me to drag my infant son, his toddler (1/2) brother, and their mother to Florida from AK than it is to get his dumb ass into a single seat.

Ok. Thanks Dad for making that easy for me.

That's him, and that's it. He got on FB and I applied my maximum self, much the same way I handled my cousin. More crickets. This time I really DID kick him in the dick.

Now, I now that getting out of AK is best for me. And I know that if I leave my son alone, in the dark and the cold, with NOBODY who has a brain like his (like mine) because I FEEL bad I am not going to be like my father.

But that's not all there is so let's keep going.

I chose something I found, and the last name of my maternal grandfather because he is the sweetest, kindest, smartest man in my family and in my life. That old man, his story goes something like this:

Meet a Serbian woman who was probably abused by her father, who is an alcoholic, who will eventually beat your first and only grandson. Marry her, have two girls with her. She goes fully evil at a tender age and chops him off like a bad wound. Court battles, such as they are in that part of the world do not go well. Who knows exactly what happened.

But this woman leaves with your girls, marries another man, has a son, and then moves to another country. THEN she tells your children you want nothing to do with them, that you abandoned them. You know nothing of this.

I didn't meet this man until 2006. He didn't see his daughter from 196?-2006.

Basically, the same thing happened to me.

I don't know where the other kid who is supposed to be mine is at. This OTHER MOTHER halted my efforts to set up child support. I got swabbed any everything. I am not sure if this other kid is even mine. I am so fortunate, BLESSED even, to be allowed the opportunity to be around my son, to get to help shape his view of the world, to help keep his perspective clear, to give his mind and brain the best possible start they can hope to have.

And I am working hard to not just supply the needs of the son I do get to spend time with, but to also have enough resources and time to take the other to court because that's the only way.

So, maybe you can see now. I don't get mad when people tell me to move out of Alaska. You just don't know. You don't know that if I left the climate would change, my mood would be elevated, I would have rich and rewarding relationships that are not online.

And I would be a miserable husk of the person that you know. I would feel shame, self-loathing, and contempt for my entire person. I would drink, a lot. I would, suddenly, have no structure since I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. And something would take the place of that structure, and it would be ugly.

And maybe it would not happen that way. Maybe I would just be happier.

But no. It's not going to happen.

You say that this place is bad for me. That's true, in some ways. Many way. But what's bad for me is worse for the kid.

Somebody has to break this cycle, the buck stops here.




As for my happiness/unhappiness, recently. Some of you seemed concerned. I have some bad times. The number one reason for my misery in the last year has been my wife. And that issue is getting better all the time. My business causes me a LOT of stress and I do everything myself. This month I am short one tenant. My last groupon has killed my regular business, and my new pricing makes growth SLLLLLOOOOOOOOOWWWW. My work has socially isolated me more than usual.

Once student loans come back in, and I can focus on slow growth after my groupon, and once I start my new project (this month) things will be better for me.

As for the place itself? I love Alaska. I love the rivers and the trees and the mountains and the fresh air and the peace. But Anchorage offers none of these things.

Anchorage AK is all of the midwest plastic nightmare wrapped into one place. Sure, there are mountains, but they are covered in human filth.

Were I in Talkeetna things might be different. But that's not going to happen either because a four hour car ride is too far from my son. You see a theme here?

Does living here make all that shit worse? Yes. Many of my problems probably would not exist in another place. And I am making a concerted effort to get out alongside my kid's mom. She and I are lining up all of our shit so we can leave. I even told her TWO years would be better than four.

Now, to add moar FUN:

He other son has a father who is a liar, cheater, and a thief, who I know personally, and dispose at levels you people know nothing about. HIS mother is the same. She bought a lawyer, told him to move in, so she could sue for more custody right. So the dad sits around getting high while his son is tended to by the grandmother. It is a cozy arrangement for them. Which is bad. Since they got more legal customer MY kid's mom can't just up and leave.

Now this dad doesn't give a shit. As a pathological liar he will say otherwise, but I know better. I saw him feed his two year old toddler by throwing cheerios on the floor and telling him to shut up.

So, yeah.

I find happiness where I can, and I am succeeding.

Making enough money to leave this place on a regular basis, that's doable.
Anything else...eh....

TO CHANNEL ALL THIS HOLY.


WHAT DO, PD?

TELL ME GOD DAMMIT.

I want you to imagine the worlds wettest, longest, hardest......

















....raspberry you can.

Do it. Do it now.

Ok, look, quit yer whining. It's the same old song and dance. Most of you who quit for good flounce every 5 seconds anyway. That you can make it stick at all is some minor miracle.

Please, please understand:
You not getting on here as less to do with Roger/Nigel than it has to do with YOU being a big whiny, poop filled baby.

Keep your god damned toys in your god damned pram. I am tired of picking them up.

It was my own damned fault for not thinking.

I wanted beer and couldn't take a bike because my lazy ass didn't break in the studded tires before the snow dump...that was about a month late.

Anyhow, the trip to the booze shop is fine. On the way back, I turn on my street and there are four dudes walking right in the middle of the road, being lpid and laughing.

Such scense have rarely been pleasant for me, but I'll wager I'm not alone there.

I do another stupid thing (the first one was being alone), and haunch my shoulders, put on my tired face, and try to pass the storm. One of them starts barking like a dog at me, which makes me grin and look over. Some dude smiles back.

But one of them stops me.

"Hey, hey stop man. Hey look I know you're probably tired and everything."

Uh oh.

"But can I get five dollars from you?"

I begin my stock line, don't carry cash.

"Oh I know you got something, don't be like that."

UH OH.

I slap a huge grin on my face, "Well, I don't have any cash." I sling my backpack down. "I just spent it on beer, you want one." I hand out two, and the dude whose enjoying the show next to his large pal runs and gets the other two who've gone ahead.

"Hey can I have another one?" Big dude number one asks.

"No." I say.

The others come up, "Hey can we have a beer?"

Backpack comes off, beers go away. I accidentally pull.out a 22oz I got for the wife. They all.make a big noise.

"Ah no, that's for my woman. If i don't bring it home I'll really be in trouble." This, as hoped gets a good laugh out of the new two.

Big dude though, he's pissed.

"Now I'm pissed off" he slurs. "I asked you for another and you said no, and then you gave them beers. Now i want another one and I want the big one."

My jaw hangs open and, as you do, I look around for support.

And to my eternal gratitude the two new guys are staring at the big asshole like he's, well, an asshole.

One of them says, "Man he just gave us FOUR BEERS."
The other says, "Yeah man, you didn't have to give us those, we're not trying to gank you."

And it is a credit to my recent personal development that I didn't immediately shout, "YEAH WELL TELL THAT TO THIS PIG FUCKER."

But they talk him down in the manner suited to those who may just possibly be on.parole and don't need this kind of bullshit.

So all in all, it was all good. I.lost four beers. But i kept: most.of my dignity, the rest of my beers, and the $50, HTC One X, and big bag of weed.

I really do know better, I swear.

After my recent Lite Mugging I've been considering a gun.

Actually, I've thought about it before, but talked myself out of it because I just couldn't justify the need. Now though, it seems.like a good idea.

1. No car
2. Can't get a dog for a few reasons
3. I walk constantly

What I'd like ITT:
Suggestions as to why this may be a good idea or a bad idea.
Suggestions as to potential guns. (I'm thinking a compact Glock. Reliable, durable, can fit in my coat pocket. Or a revolver of some kind)

What I dont want ITT:
2nd Amendment Debate, plz.

Eh?

Ever since reading The Jungle* I've taken to being affronted whenever some person complains about "The Grind". This may be due to these people not being physically ground into the earth for profit. We in the west have been striving to send as much of that type of work as far away as possible, presumably to achieve even higher quality goods and services. Surely, it's not a concerted effort to reduce all those pesky regulations and pay demands that develop over a century of industrial living.

Surely, it's all for a brighter tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here in 1st/2nd World paradise, people either schlep double or triple shifts OR claw away 5-15 hours at some shit retail job OR the company "goes out of business" and "comes back" and hires new people at pathetic rates. Not all of them, but way, way too many people do this.

Whatever happened to that sweet 40 an hour workweek, weekends free? Wait. What?

Is that what me or any of us want? Is that what any of us need?

I mean, while we're talking about Utopia here...what in the hell is up with that 40 hour, workweek? Unions fought hard for that shit just to get a reasonable bare minimum.** I'm starting to think that bare minimum is monstrous, archaic, and just plain stupid.

Do you feel any guilt at the idea of working any less? I do. It feels like there's a whole world out there, just waiting for me to PRODUCE as much as possible, and that 40 hours being the grudgingly set ideal, and I can't shake that shit.

At some point it's like having a car (for most people) you kinda have to because that's how it is.

At some other point you have to leave the past behind.

Do you suppose all the other human revolutions (Agricultural, etc) were as bloody as this last one?








*Until the last fifth or so turned into a tract on utopian socialism. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for that, but not in my horror story plz.
**Ooh, sore subject.

Listen up meatsacks:

I have never had many friends in my life. Still dont.

At this point, I prefer it that way. There's too many damned people, and because of the serious lack of local community, i, like many others, find solace in the friendships found speckled all over the globe.

I have more in common with people who post here once in a blue moon than any single person I went to school with.

I don't say any of this to complain, I don't reallly need a whole passal of people to think about constantly, my small family and social circle (online and IRL) are really more than adequate for someone such as myself. Nearly a social.

This is, largely, by choice. But maybe I just tell myself that to feel better. It's not because i am hopelessly weird or aloof or a crank, and NOBODY wants to be around me, it's my own decision to be distant from people.

Anyway, the friends I do have, I cherish greatly. And I count them as such because they jabe extraordinary qualities. I can't say exactly what those qualities are, however honesty, loyalty, genuine concern for not-self, and being hilariously funny help a great deal in my decision making process, which is slow, vague, and mauve.

So, all that said, in my personal opinion, if you don't get along with Roger there's something wrong with your argument, your position, or your BRAIN.

If nothing else, that man values loyalty like no one else I've ever met.

Ive been here four years now, and I've never gotten into a shitfest with him. Not once, in four fucking years.

So, while none of this is important in the grand scheme of things, these personal words rght here, they are important to me, and bear shouting, I believe.

I don't go to bat for Roger every five seconds, I don't defend him, I don't fight his battles, I speak with my own voice almost always. His MIND LAZORS have no sway over me (or do they?).

Roger is my friend, and if you don't get along with him, that's cool. I won't hate all over you. It's a free Oligarchy.

Just know, in my heart of hearts, I think you're a bloody idiot for missing out on a truly unique and amazing friendship with a really great human being.

OR KILL ME.

Cultural appropriation abounds here in Murrica.

It's what we do. It seems the internet is binding people together to become aware of this and combat it. I certainly wasn't aware of the term cultural appropriation until this board started talking about it recently.

One of those worst offenders in our culture, IMO and perspective, is yoga.

Oms get plasted anywhere handy, a multifaceted, secular path to self knowledge and self development is turned into soccer mom vacation and social battle ground, and whole yards of yoga is lost and forgotten in another attempt to be as skinny and fit as Murrica wants you to be.

Want to see just how bad it is?

Become a yoga teacher. Go ahead, what's stopping you?

Oh that's right, nothing. Nothing is stopping you from teaching yoga.

There are plenty of them, and mostly affordable. Just make sure it's approved by the Yoga Alliance.

You can check to see if a yoga instructor is Yoga Alliance approved pretty easily. Then you know what you've got. Except, what have you got? What does the Yoga Alliance do?

They do nothing, well, except approve Yoga teachers. What about afterward? Is there some kind of follow up? Continuing education? Inspections? Investigations into alleged misconduct?

Ha ha ha.

No such luck. No, just like the National Board for Certified Massage Blah blah blah, there IS not actual oversight. The latter has continuing education credits, a quick search for "massage continuing education credits" shows up shit like

Canine Massage and Energy Work
10 CE
$120

And what about that follow up? Nope.

So basically, these organizations are bullshit. Will they eventually attain some measure of power over the people they'd probably enjoy having power over?

Right at this moment you can sign up for CorePower Yoga's Online courses and, for $500, become certified to teach CorePower Yoga. This is seen, often as the Starbucks of Yoga. OR you can just make up a fancy plaque, get some liability insurance and a waiver and GET TO WORK.

I'm weighing my options.

I don't pretend to be an expert of particularly well-versed on the subject, I just have a question for you people:

Have you ever, in your life, noticed that people with fibromyalgia often, not always, but often are sensitive and passive aggressive day to day? Do you have it and have a thought on that question?

I hesitiate to even ask, but it's either something like a symptom or I'm Lo5ing over here.

I do stuff with bikes, I'd like to do more.

So this will be my thread for such.

Plans:
-Ride through as many days this winter as possible.
-Turn my geared mountain bike into a single speed because
   A)It's a piece of shit and the gears are individually pieces of shit
   B)I prefer single speed for a number of reasons that other bike jerks have gone lengths to describe.
-Learn to weld to create a cargo bike from spare bikes.
-Attach a ski to a bike somehow.

This is my baby, just bought it at REI for half off clearance. Always buy bikes in the fall, yo.


I've got some studded winter tires on there, and some polar handlbar glove bag thingies. Gift from the wife.

I am ready for winter ya'll.

Please indulge me as I engage in something I don't usually do.

I am going to share something that lies close to my permafrosted heart over here: Cars, trucks; large, petroleum powered conveyance vehicles.

Whether economical or luxury rated, whether running on fossil fuels alone or graciously coupled with elecrticity, whether steadfastly maintaining your independence or sharing with others in a pool, CARS SUCK.

They suck.

They suck:
-At your bank account (Last year, with insurance, payments, gas, etc. I paid $900 per month for s 2001 Subaru)
-Your back health (studies show)
-Your heart health (STUDIES SHOW)
-Our economic health (as it depends on the WHOLLY, DEEPLY, MULTIFASCETED UNSUSTAINABLE sale of brand new ones every quarter)
-Our political health

In my opinion the ability to accelerate is the basic premise of the benefit of a car. Or, at least, in regular jerkoffs driving them. Getting to work in 15 min instead of 45 min.

That is stupid.

The amount of time saved in a car is not magically used to the benefit of an individual person 99% of the time. We humans, and not to go all peleo on you here buuuuut, we humans MOVE. Our bodies are designed to move. our bodies demand and excel when forced to move over long distances.

When we walk our energy/distance covered ratio is stupidly efficient. When we ride a bike it makes that efficiency SUPER RETARDEDLY EFFICIENT.

The time that it takes to bike (or walk) to a place is best spent doing that. Why in the fuck would you go to a gym? Why? Why? Tell me why when walking enough is enough exercise to acquire the health benefits of exercise?

So, on an individual level, you do your brain and the rest of your body a disservice by using a car.
You also contribute to the overall poor health of you locale (those cars realllly stink when you're not around them a lot. Horrible so. Just about as bad as Marlboros.), and the shitshow that is our socio-economic-political system. You hand feed cash into the part of The Machine that will spit you back out as pure waste.

When you're talking about personal responsibility...what is it that you do with your day? What do you touch? What touches you?

Now, in the above, I have left out some counter points. I'm sure you can think of many. But IN MY OPINION the above is more important.

Just think about what would happen to our economic process if instead of the government "shutting down" every single person in America stopped driving their cars. Just stopped.

Don't talk to me about "too cold" or "too hot". Obviously we have the technology. There is an affordable, sustainable workaround that does not include the waste just one automobile produces from it's production (and the associated outlying effects) to the day it's sitting in a big rusty heap in someone's yard. It's a lot. A lot of material and time and effort that can be spent protecting yourself from the elements in a smarter fashion.

Cars are stupid. They're stupid.

There. There, PD.com. There's my HORRIBLE OPINION about cars.

Proceed to shit hate on me for the rest of my life for daring to show an alternate view that may be unfavorable.

Proceed.

*long sigh*

I don't share every single detail about my shit, anymore.

But I don't have anywhere else to vent about this that matters. I have started this thread many times, but stop short every time because I know what it is I should do. I know what you will say, PD.

I should absolutely divorce my wife. Some of you may have seen my FB post.

My wife is emotionally and verbally abusive toward me. Any time she feels overwhelmingly insecure or is very drunk. She hurts me intentionally. She eventually apologizes, promises to never do it again.

You know me a lot better than most people in my life. It must seem strange that I would put up with this. I have begged her to go find a therapist. She just gives me excuses.

When she's not like that toward me she is the best, I love this woman real hard. But that's not good enough. I posted these facts on FB and tagged her.

I figure public shaming would do what my pleading could not. I don't have much hope.

There was something else....I can't remember.

How did this happen?

This is hands down the worst birthday of my.life. Not only does she have nothing for me, no plans, no gifts (which I could give a fuck about), but she did it last night. I went to bed at 5am and have been wandering around town all day.

Yeah.

And a whole lot of WTF.

http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/i-pedophile/278921/

I may be having a knee jerk reaction, but that seems like a whole lot of apologia and stupid shit I would have preferred not to read. There was nothing there that offered me a profound insight that could be used to understand that person.

If he "can't help his sexual orientation" than I cakfbskdlsjdjJdjsjsjsjfnJDJDNDJAKQFIFNAOF.

What? What is that?

Is that like a broken down human being, robbed of their potential? Robbed of the few preciois years their meat will carry them into their dreams before it crumbles beneath them by time?

Is it a human deprived of all the things "lower" mammals give each other without question, but we somehow manage to wrangle out of our day to day lifestyles?

Is it the weakest shoved further into the filth?

Is it broken families? Lost homes? Violence?

Those are good things to protect against. A human being, IMO, ought to be very, very careful about how they spend their time. A human being might think very hard about how much they feed into that, and what they can do to mitigate it.

I jist don't see how soft brained, self important, egotistical, unselfaware beaurocrats could do a damned thing about any of it. In fact, it would almost seem as though they make it worse.

But that couldn't be. Because they way to apple pie, ice cream in the sky magical fun time with Jesus and the super friends is paved with good intentions.

OR CHILL OUT, MAN.

YOU
Give me an ailment.

I
Give you a Proven™ and Effective™ method for curing and soothing your troubled body/mind/soul.

Get 'em now, while we still have the slop to make 'em.

There was once a wall here, cracked, worn from the sun and the massive swell of endless, brutal tidal forces. Those would, one would assume, at some point, stop their tireless erosion. One would assume those waves would have somewhere else to be, pulled elsewhere by a token of cosmic accountability.

One would be wrong.

From the top of that wall, perched along a creaking and groaning that comes from and stays in the gut, you can see all kinds of things in that water. Provided you can see anything beyond the horror of its relentless pursuit of breaking through the supports of your vantage point. If you look broadly enough you can see the gears that make those waves go. Suddenly, you can understand why there's nowhere for the waves to go. There's no greater force in control of this tireless enemy, it moves by its own machinations, with its own purpose.

In this knowledge, despite the cracks widening with each passing moment, there is a sense of comfort. Each one of these blows is a part of a larger set of controllable reactions. Change even one component and you change the whole of the machine. Possibly. This line of thinking, if nothing else, offers a reprieve from your self absorbed dispair.

Hope.

Then the wall comes crashing down. The mask slips. Pick your own damned metaphor,

After you pick yourself up from the ground, and clear debris from your person, you come into contact with your own meaty body as much as the ground.

The waves rise higher and higher, as though they were waiting for the perfect moment to swallow you whole.

Then a surprising thing happens. They stay there, they do not come crashing down at all. They hover, menacingly. To the foolish it would appear that they have stopped for good.

To anyone who listens to that small, still, sometimes stupid voice, it would be very apparent that the wall was never needed in the first place. To anyone with mental clarity in times of crisis it is obvious that you cannot keep it at bay forever.

And so, if you're lucky, you stand. And stand, and stand.

The pain of it will twist you up inside. The effort to keep that water from crushing you and choking the life out of you will cause your internal pressure systems to flip right into the red.

If you don't run, you will give out.

Then the water comes. The thing you built a wall to protect yourself from finally meet you.

And you don't die. You don't drown. You don't suffer.

The coolness and the sweetness of this water will cover you, surround you, and hold you fast. But it will not break you. It will caress your very soul with a tenderness unknown by the masses who do their best to build walls and cities within them for posterity.

You were once born in that water, and one day you'll die and go back to it. There could be nothing sweeter you could do with your life than make peace with that, tear down your walls, and laugh at those who think you mad.

OR KILL ME.