November 4, 2003 B

"You Want It WHEN?"
9:34pm

The eager middle aged customer with a slight paunch came in with his very tailored black lined coat. With a hopeful look in his face, he asked ''I have a big favor I need . . .''

He wanted that very tailored coat let out for TOMORROW. I thought he was joking and started laughing. But his crestfallen look told me he wasn't joking. I couldn't quit laughing, and this made me laugh all the more.

''I'm sorry I'm laughing so hard, sir. I know you're desperate, but we can't help you. That is really quite an extensive job there . . .''

And I laughed some more. I felt my eyes moisten, I laughed so hard. He promised to pay extra, and still I couldn't quit laughing. Seamstress shops are no doubt booked up within a 100 mile radius around here, for it is the 'ball' season at the Marine base. That poor man won't be able to find ANYONE to do it.

And mean ol' me just laughed and laughed. I couldn't help myself. And I sure couldn't help him. Some days, thankfully only a FEW, it's just like that.

November 5, 2003

"Grumpy, With Cause"
5:42am

''Five thirty is coming earlier and earlier every morning,'' Julia observed today. Yes, I know that's not a 'logical' observation, but it sure seems that way.

I shall attempt a ramble. My horoscope (Saturn trine Sun) said 'concentration' would be good today. Hmmmm, we'll see about that. This may be just another excuse in useless entries. Well, I suppose I shall give myself a 'C' for effort, and upgrade should anything better result.

Laura

I meant to type 'laughter', but I wrote 'Laura' instead. Is this a sign? Oh how superstitious I've become. The rational Laura would not approve. However she had her non rational side, and it didn't always have to be plied with a bit of amaretto or brandy.

I so hate the thought of being one of those people who 'talk just to hear themselves talk', or 'write just to see themselves write'. Earlier this morning, I pissed in someone's oatmeal when I told a Satanist his personal hero Lestat had gone prudish Catholic, and now I'll piss in yours. Mine's been already ruined.

This news struck a very sour note when I heard it: ''Thursday's announcement that a proposed $2 billion gasoline refinery will locate in Yuma County instead of in Maricopa County took some officials here by surprise.''

So WHY are they choosing US? ''Maricopa County is more populated and is in a proposed strict ozone pollution control boundary that rural Yuma County isn't part of.'' They SAY ''benzene emissions should be manageable at the refinery.'' Exposure to benzene can cause cancer. The emissions may dissipate the farther away one gets from the source, but how far away does one have to be to be fully safe?

Also, where's the oil going to come from? Why not put this refinery in Texas or Oklahoma? No, they're planning to pipe it in from Mexico!

A poll is up at the Yuma Daily Sun Out of 331 votes so far, 77.64% are in favor of it. They don't know of all the lies the people of Casa Grande were told when an electric power plant got built in their city, with two more planned. The Casa Grandians were promised 'clean burning' fuels. Those 'clean burning' fuels left lots of particulates in the air which irritated our eyes and lungs, and really made Laura, with her lung and heart problems, sick. It's why we had to move from that town.

So the short sighted people here are only thinking of the jobs this refinery will bring. I've seen one county ruined, I don't want to see this county, with its clean air, also spoiled.

I'm one grumpy 'vamp' today . . .

November 8, 2003

"With Rejoicing"
9:02pm

A happy package arrived in the mail today. My 'amazon archer goddess' statue has arrived. She is beautiful:

A Voice, Heard Loudly At Night Voice crying in the wildnerness, who do you think I am? Mad woman quite possessed, who do you think I am? Does it matter? The night time rising of power calls to me, and I hear it. Would a woman sing sweeter at any other hour? Sing, sweet lady of blessing, Di Efchon! We will bless what we wish to thrive, laugh in the face of adversity, we are the mad women now, and 'nothing can stand in our way'. Well, it can, but we will ignore it. Sing loud, our song anyway. Di Efchon! With Blessings, we shout. We are the young ones who will not grow old. Say what we will of 'joints', all such surface, this temple. Look Who resides within! Better carpentry within. Laughing 'mad women' sing in the night. We play the records over and over and sing along. Such rejoicing, if you can follow along. JAL, 11 - 8 - 03 (while listening to Haris Alexiou's 'Blessings')

Keeping The Aim True . . .
and remembering my favorite archer!

November 9, 2003

"Amusing Muse"
7:49am

The results of this test aren't so surprising, are they? (She who just wrote last night about music!)

~Euterpe~ Your muse is Euterpe, the Giver of Pleasure. Contrary to what I'm sure your mind has just leapt to (get it out of the gutter!), she is the muse of Music. Her symbol is the flute.You like most kinds of music, and like to sing and probably compose a little bit when you're alone. Which of the Nine Muses is your muse? brought to you by Quizilla

November 10, 2003

"Happy Birthday To Me"
6:25am

''Happy Birthday to Me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me-e, happy birthday to me!''

I am the first to serenade me today. I've been quite adequately gifted, though. Julia and I went shopping this weekend. I have a new skirt and six new shirts. Yes, you read right, six new shirts. Just call me the Imelda Marcos of blouses.

Four of them are long sleeved and two are short sleeved. I'll have to shorten the long sleeved ones. It seems the manufacturers think a person with a 46 inch chest should be 6 feet tall. I'm not 'overweight', I'm 'undertall', as Garfield the fat cat says.

I have to go to work on this, my natal day. But I will get tomorrow off. A slight adjustment needs to be made there.

''That day is for honoring veterans, not YOU, silly!''

What was that faint voice? Why everyone knows it's all about ME! Well, today it is . . .

And we'll just let tomorrow take care of itself . . .

November 11, 2003

"Prince Charles' Declaration"
12:30am

"I didn't do it. I can't tell you what it is I didn't do, but I didn't do it!"

The prince of England's real words, broadcast on TV Thursday November 6th, were, ''I just want to make it entirely clear, even though I can't refer to the specifics of the allegation, that it's totally untrue and without a shred of substance . . .''

The news took until the 10th of November to reach the shores of America. I heard of Prince Charles denial on the radio yesterday morning. By yesterday evening, however, reports of just what the allegation involved have multiplied through the web chain news sites like a flu bug on a crowded bus.

In his earlier statement, Charles mentioned that the claim comes from a former royal household employee who "has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and has previously suffered from alcoholism following active service in the Falklands."

In other words, he is questioning the ability of said employee to accurately perceive things. So did this employee see ''a sexual incident involving Prince Charles and a former male royal aide'' or didn't he?

Who knows? One thing we can figure for certain, the tabloids will be kept real busy for some time to come. Will it be ''a black mark on the monarchy'' like some speculate, or is this just another in a long line of scandals to dog the royals?

The more I think about it, the more I'm glad I'm not 'famous'. The minute one becomes famous, there are a whole crew of people to criticise the way you dress, the way you sign your name, the way you tipped the waitress, the way you farted in public and certainly with whom who you did or did not have 'a sexual incident'. It's far better the small buzzing of bees, small nobodys like yourself, than the loud roaring of a crowd.

More and more, I come to the conclusion I just don't know how lucky I am. An entirely different prince, Prince Charlie, the prince of 'Joan to the Edges of her Mind', certainly feels he's lucky, and has recently made just such a declaration.

It's far better to only be the ruler of the province of one's own mind, than of any kingdom. The natives don't rebel and the responsibilities are few. If the 'natives do rebel', well there are quiet institutions for that. Or there used to be, until some ruler at large made tax cuts and eliminated them.

November 12, 2003

"Absolute Music"
5:35am

I woke to the sound of rain drops hitting the concrete patio. It has rained all night. The rarity of such an event in Yuma is a thing hard for any one who's not lived here to understand. In the nearly two years of being here, it has only rained in intermittent short bursts, quickly gone, and those brief sprinklings happen only a few times a year. 'Showers of blessings', the chorus of one song I remember as a child goes:

Showers of blessing, Showers of blessing we need: Mercy drops round us are falling, But for the showers we plead.

I remember they'd usually sing this in church after about two weeks of solid rain, and I'd think, Enough now! We are 'blessed' enough!'' Apparently it comes from a Bible verse Ezekiel 34:26, ''There shall be showers of blessings.'' Out here in the desert, rain is really quite the rare and wonderful blessing. It is absolute music to me, those little plincky ploppy sounds it makes as it hits the ground.

November 14, 2003

"Twenty Minutes"
6:25am

<ramble>

Twenty minutes max to collect my morning thoughts, before I must hurry into work readyness. What can I do in twenty minutes? (This will be a ramble.)

Forward, ho, all tahe great preparations and for what? There is always a task to be done. Lighten your heart with light thoughts. Else we be ever in a state of perpetual labor. Half the labor is the mind-set.

You can spend hours at a mandala, determined just so, concentrating just so. Why not apply that mindset to work? Granted, the tasks have not much variety, the outcome predictable, and no joy of discovery to see the finished product.

Still, a quiet place within you can harbor hope, let this be nurtured.

Okay, ramble is over, maybe, and I look forward to the weekend. No attempt to correct spellings in the haste to know my mind. 'Just for today', I will see what great thoughts I harbor in my soul. Often the ruminations of the work day have evolved into something lasting and worthwhile when at last given a chance to objectify them.

I can't leave off the philosophy. I can't just deal in mundanes. To some, the rain is mundane, but not to those who live where it is a minor meterological miracle. Can there be anything 'miraculous' in the logical? Can the mind be open to both? Each has its beauty, the mind which looks for patterns in all sorts of ways.

Some speak of the beauty of math, and even mystical schools have been built on numbers. I have learned the number '9' represents 'Will' and the number '3' represents 'Love'. Who decided these things? Did someone back in the Egyptian desert have a relevation and start scratching into her stone tablet as quickly as she could scratch?

Who knows? Is this the same system in which '666' gets to be the beast? I don't know. I saw a quote which made me laugh:

It is no good casting out devils. They belong to us, we must accept them and be at peace with them.

-- D.H. Lawrence

We might as well make friends with them, name them and maybe then we can tame them. If they need taming. Maybe some don't need 'taming'. Okay, if they're pissing on your metaphysical carpet and tearing up the metaphysical furniture, then tame those rascals. But if they're only mildly wild, then feed them the big dish of yum yums they prefer and give 'em a petting once in a while.

6:40am. The rush is on. Enlightment in five minutes? Hah. I will send this up 'as is', and correct typos later. I don't think anything spellbindingly brilliant will hit in the next few minutes. Four minutes. Wow, time flies. Now, can I make it fly when I'm at work? That's the question. How can such a thing so logically measured by the tick of a clock seem so elastic in its actual experience?

That's the big mystery for today. 6:43 and time to upload. Have a good 'NOW', my friends. Think 'happy thoughts' and all that. Cherish the 'NOW'. Cherish yourselves.

</ramble>

November 15, 2003

"Julia's Mother Worsens"
1:00am

It is well I said yesterday, ''Cherish the 'NOW' ''. Julia looked at the caller ID and noticed two attempts by her brother to communicate. Maybe in his distress, he didn't realize that Julia would be at work at that time. She called back last night, and learned her mother's cancer has gone into the liver. The 70 dollar apiece pills aren't doing any good. I had a bad feeling earlier when Julia talked to her mother and found her quite incoherent each time.

Julia thought it was just the effects of some medicine. It was back in July when we first learned her mother has cancer. She rallied, and Julia had been thinking things had stabilized. She's really incoherent this time. How much of it is due to medicine, the illness itself and her emotional reaction to the illness and her eventual death is hard to determine. Certainly, she is frightened. The doctors are recommending hospice care. But it remains to be seen if that's the route they will go.

So we watch and we wait. All good that could have been done has been already done. Hopefully her mother can be kept as painfree as possible.

November 16, 2003

"Lots Of Photos"
9:37pm

I've been past my eyeballs in photos. First, I made some lovely finds yesterday while shopping in Old Town, and I made two entries at Markings Of My Path about them. Why in that journal? They were all items for my altar, so that is the fitting location.

And then today, I got started on the 26 Things: The Photographic Scavenger Hunt, and found I already had a great many photos just perfect for some of the categories. Seven years of online journaling is worth something! Anyway, I'm sending up the incomplete project. I will ferret out as many of the other topics as I can, and make new pages to hold all the pics, so they are all housed in gray. Right now, the links lead to their original wildly varying backgrounds and some have no backgrounds at all.

And now I shall go to bed. Will I sleep the whole night through, or will I wake up mid way with a sore back? I've been developing a pattern here.

November 18, 2003

"Error: 666"
6:35am

The modem on the flaky computer, but the only one with a good floppy disk, has 'uninstalled' itself. Error: 666 it's called, and we may be beaten by this 'beast' if we can't locate the disk with the modem's program.

The programmers who label these things do have a sense of humor, though.

I managed to find all 26 items for the scavenger hunt by cheating, only a little bit. 'Cold' is being represented by a cold glass of porter beer with a frothy reindeer on its side.

Now I must get ready for work. I'll make pages for the individual pics later.

November 18, 2003 A

"Error: 629"
3:02am

"You have been disconnected from the computer you dialed. Double click the connection to try again."

That is the message I get from the 'good computer'. It is the Middle Class Version Of Hell. I am so frustrated. All my good work I cannot send up. My photography project exists online in an extremely imperfect state. I cannot communicate with the 'hive mind'. I don't know what fascinating things are being discussed in my groups.

A very important message may be waiting for me in my mailbox. Is this 'error' on my end, or is it on the internet service provider's end? It's a pain in the 'end'. I itch, can't sleep, but I'll try again for sleep. I'll try the connection again later this morning.

3:33am
Error: 718

"The computer you're dialing in to cannot establish a Dial-Up Networking connection. Check your password, and then try again."

I'm going back to bed.

November 18, 2003 B

"Error: 678"
6:08am

The modem really tries hard. I can hear it, but the ISP just isn't answering. This is so frustrating. All my recent brilliant words are going unread. It's like I'm just talking to myself. Now, I entertain myself quite well, but I don't just want to talk to myself, I want to talk to YOU. Oh, this is so frustrating.

I've read of another ISP, who is much cheaper. Two of their accounts can be had for cheaper than one of our current accounts. If this is not fixed soon, I am getting tempted. Meanwhile, mes chéres, I will try to be patient.

Note of November 21: The ISP is installing 'changes' and did not warn us. Pfft!

November 21, 2003 A

"Expectant"
12:53 am

It is the sleepy draw, just minutes before I go to bed. Testing the waters, testing. Ah, a good rigorous discussion always enlivens me, and thus it is that one of my groups has gotten active. Stuff that stretches the gray matter, yes, that energizes me.

Will there come out of these postings something new worthy of an article? I save bits and pieces, hoping that something will gel. Meanwhile, midnight visits with the self, and I smile, illuminated by the monitor glow.

I am a mouse here on a big piece of cheese, and I love to chew. I gobble away, digesting facts for later use, knowing all will be sifted by 'larger mind', the subterranean intuition, who files all and can access all with lightning speed.

All of this means a poem may 'arrive' soon. I await its happy arrival, confident that something is 'growing' within. I feel it, it gives a contentment. A few days ago, a co-worker showed off the tiny picture of her baby while in the womb, only 2 inches long. Marvelous, that to have hands and cheeks at such an age. So maybe my poem is the equivalent of '2 inches long' now. I feel it fluttering within me.

I do have some minor efforts at 'Markings'. I'm not greatly impressed, though.
(note from the future, you can see how impressed I was. They didn't survive a recent edit! Consider yourself lucky!)

November 21, 2003 B

"26 Things Done!"
10:54 pm

Yes, I got the scavenger hunt pages ALL DONE! I have to say, I am impressed. I especially like the way I got one theme to connect to another. Somehow, I could just find the connections. Was it merely serendipity in the 26 pics I chose, or is that the 'pattern making', 'pattern causing' Mystery at it again?

Whatever, I am PLEASED!