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Elagabalus was a teenaged Roman emperor whose reign only lasted four years. His reputation was quite a bit worse than Bill Clinton's. The things said of him were outrageous. Elagabalus wasn't his birth name nor his ruling name. It referred to the religious cult of which he was enamored of. Rumors spread of the rituals concerning it. He also was a promiscuous gender variant who wanted this monotheistic religion spread in order to unify Rome. However the Roman soldiers wanted none of it, and cruelly murdered both him and his rather ambitious mother.

It's a sad story. Perhaps if his mother hadn't have schemed to get him into power when he was only fourteen, his fate would have been longer and happier.

Anyway, his story is featured in our historical section. Julia, who collects ancient coins, was thrilled to see a coin featuring him for sale through an online coin dealer. The silver antoninianus arrived today.

This morning, I had a crisis of faith. I feared that things would not get any better, that nothing would change, except towards the worst, and that I was powerless to do anything about it. I was submerged deep in this mood.

At 7:30am, Laura and I had agreed to do some exercises together. Richard Simmons, via his Disco Exercise tape, was our leader. I started stiffly moving, aping the group he had assembled. I was still in my wretched state of mind. I noted his teammates were of a wide variety of sizes. That was encouraging. I don't like to see only thin ballerina types. But when I saw some there heavier than I am, it gave me hope that.maybe I can do this stuff. So I'm moving, lifting those legs and arms, back, forth, up, down, move, move, move, and I'm still feeling sucky, maybe even a tear or two forming occasionally, but something seems right about this movement. It seems we're going somewhere, don't know where, but movement is better than to stay still. Staying still, this mood would only grab tighter onto me. And so I move and shake along with his lively team. Laura does what she can. She's still getting over that ear infection. And in the midst of it all, an epiphany...that the most beautiful thing about us humans is that we keep trying, we never give up. It isn't necessary to have great amounts of faith...what did Jesus say, a mustard seed's worth. Maybe that's just the tiny bit it takes not to give up. So help me God (or inner resources, or whatever) I'll hang in there. I'll push through this thing.

Julia's birthday was yesterday.  We went to Ray Rd. and had a nice outing to celebrate.  We went to Barnes and Noble books, and we each bought something.  I got two calendars, one with all sorts of colorful birds (you might have gathered that I like birds, as I draw so many!)  and one with dogs.  There is a beagle in the dog calendar I want to draw.  He has such a lively look of intelligence...if I could capture that, I'd be really pleased.  Julia got a book on translating hieroglyphics, and Laura got a couple of joke books.  We ate at On The Border afterwards.  They have unusually tasty smoked chicken chili rellenos there. 

Laura's ear is still bothering her.  If she takes four or five aspirin, it's not so bad.  But without the aspirin, the pain is still intense.  She's going into Tucson again after dropping Julia off at work.  She feels they can too easily ignore her if she just calls them, so she wants to be there in person.  She figures they'll have to do tests.  It's not like any other ear ache she's ever had, and now we're wondering if that's even what it is. 

I've got customers coming today, and so had to stay home.