I really hate going to the VA hospital...

and have to get it off my chest.

See, it smells there.
It smells like sickness and suffering... it smells like slow death.
The VA hospital is not a place of healing- it's a place for soldiers (and sailors, Marines and airmen) to go to die.
It's a nursing home for terminal cases. Some of us just take longer than others.

Going there makes me feel sick and sad and unworthy.
The clink of the gas cylinder, the rasp of the lungs it supports; the shuffling click of the walker or cane... they are reminders of stoic suffering. Little snips of stories far more horrific than mine, riffs of ballads far more heroic.
All of these heroes, come to this dismal place to die.

Some have family there to help them, friends to prop them up. Some have nothing left but pride in comrades long dead.
I lament the multitudes that are yet to come- those yet to join our ranks. Yet to contribute to the miasma of broken hearts and minds, broken bodies and spirits. Those yet to rage and weep in frustration and pain- but never at the hospital.
There, we bear it stoically.

Because whether we acknowledge it or not, we're all there to die.

Heh. Heheheh.

My brain's sizzling. It's gonna be one of those nights.
The question is: do I dope myself into a coma, or do I just roll with it?
See, it's not necessarily a good fizz I've got going. I'm feeling a bit irritable and belligerent.
As I put it to my brother and sister earlier: 'the cosmos is lucky it doesn't wear trousers, or I'd kick it right in the fork.'

~sigh~

So. What are you doing tonight?
I'm toying with all sorts of ideas- most of them require power tools, which I can't do here, so I'm also toying with the idea of going over to the shop.

Of course, that indubitably lead to people running around, shouting, 'What's the meaning of this,' or maybe, 'WTF?!?!?' Admittedly, the second is much more likely, even from friends that are at least as well-read as myself.
Anyway.
When people get all excited like that they get annoying. And inconvenient.
I'd rather not be inconvenienced by anyone I'd regret killing later. My brain chemistry's just not right for casual annoyance.
I toyed with the notion of running down a bicyclist earlier because he was riding slow and wobbly, and that caused the red blinker on his seat post to bob and weave in a way that I found off-putting.
The prospect of the much larger annoyance of coppers dissuaded me.

See? Even with my crazy-eyes on, I can maintain a modicum of control.

The doctors with the cattle prods would be so proud of me.

MWAHAHAhahahahaha!!!!

...because more than two exclamation points are a sure sign of an unsound mind...

Right.
To date, I've jabbered about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles via mass email to my geek friends. I'll do it here this time at least, to avoid spoilers for my lazy, Tivo-ing geek friends out there.

DIVERGENT TIMELINES!
Ha! See- I advanced the possibility last season against arguments of history scrambling, retcon-ing, etc.. As more and more operatives from both sides get sent back, the future a given being came back from may not be the same as the next being's future.

Derrik theorized as much in "Complications"- Monday the 17th's episode.
Sure, about half of the episode was given over to Sarah's fever-tripping, but *shrug* whatever.
Of course, Derrik and I could be wrong, but when I'm in agreement with guy from 90210, I'm almost certainly right. It's the 2nd Law of Bassification, I think.

Right. Y'know- this is much more fun with alcohol. I'll have to do this more often.

OK- what's the effing reference from last week's title? "Mr. Ferguson in Ill Today"? WTFBBQ is that? If there is no reference, it's even better. Inspired, certainly.

"The Tower is Tall But the Fall is Short" was an obvious allusion to the temptation of suicide, regardless of the origins of the phrase. Because it's so true- no matter how many steps you've taken, you've only got to take one more...

Um... what was I talking about?
Jesse. WTF is up with her? I trust her about as far as I could toss one of the tinmen, but then again, she seems to have genuine emotional investment in Derrik. Aaaand she's fucking psycho... Still, she's a hot Austalian with Asian ancestory, so she's welcome to stay.

John finding the photo of Sarah (originally taken at the end of the first film) at Ellison's house is a nice detail, too- that's the polaroid that sends Kyle Reese to the past the first time around.

's all for now. I'm gonna wander off to bed, I think.

I've gotta move to Australia...

and I don't even like beer.
See, I've known about the rabbit problem down under for years. It's always raised Australia's esteem in my eyes that one could get a blasting permit there to deal with rabbits.

But I just learned today that they've got a feral cat problem as well. Make no mistake- I like cats. I don't much care for strays or unmanaged indoor/outdoor cats, but I like cats.
But these friggin things are like... land-based Great Whites- they just cut a swathe through anything in front of them.

And I really want to move down there and kill the damned things for fun and profit.

I'm bored.

Obviously, part of the problem is the fact that I'm had limited mobility due to my back for, oh, two months now.
Another part is the fact that I'm not working.
But even then... you complete the work they pay you to do, and you've got four hours left in the workday.
This is where people always pipe in with "Show some initiative," or somesuch.
What initiative?
Shall I start doing in the janitor's work when I run out of my own? Do I get their pay for that (under the table please- I may not be an illegal, but I want their benefits, too)?
Shall I do your filing? Do I get a cut of your pay for that?
*sigh* It's immaterial, really- I'm not working- but the principle remains.

Pratchett claims that boredom, rather than intelligence, makes us human. In all the world, only a human could wake up and think, "Oh, how dull- the world's the same as yesterday. I wonder what happens if I take this rock and bash that head?"

I mean, I probably spent twenty hours, all told, on the goggles I made for the Halloween party, but my art is so often a temporary diversion- I can only work on something so long before I need to step away from it. Granted, sometimes that step away can last for months at a time a some projects, but *shrug* that's how it goes.

Anyway. I'm sure the goggles were meant to illustrate a point, but it eludes me now. Huh.
Fuggit.

I don't casually kill people these days...

...not that I ever did, really...
My point is, I don't kill people- not because it's wrong to kill people, but because of how inconvenient it is.
I mean, I don't see any reason to go through all the effort to conceal the act, which means some guys with loud cars and lots of bling (yeah, that's right- I mean the cops) would want to talk to me about it. Probably for a long time. This would inconvenience me.

Does that make me some sort of... bureaucratic sociopath? Or just a lazy one?

I lack a pithy headline. Sue me.

so... I was thinking about chemistry, electricity and politics earlier...

Anyway- gun control.
I was thinking about the whole pro-control argument that holds that the framers of the US constitution intended the 2nd Amendment to cover state militias, not the private citizen.

Er... what state militia would that be, exactly?
The National Guard, you say?
But the National Guard is, and has been, a federally controlled entity for at least the last century. The last operation of an honest-to-gods militia would probably have been the Mexican-American War, give or take a few years.

Besides- if the the National Guard were our state militia- that is to say, a body of armed men mustered at need for training or the defense of it's home state- where then, have massive quantities of these formations been for the last ten years?
Deployed (arguably offensively) overseas.
So much for the defense of the states and the rights thereof.

So. Who's your militia?
Who would be the last option, the final sanction, if the federal government went rogue.. er, any more rogue?

Yeah, Yeah- I know

Get bent. I haven't really felt the urge... for roughly a year... or so.

Last night, though, I casually generated some ideas that were rated "fucking brilliant", so I thought I'd go ahead and throw them out on the web so I could call dibs.

1) Political Singularity: a point in space/time in which idiosyncrasy causes a (usually political) idea to have infinite density, creating a black hole within a polity.
ex.: Fat-free Pork-Barreling; a sugar-coated proposal to ban sugar; free health care

2) Dogma Implosion: an event occurring when an individual's or institution's rhetoric structure becomes so dense (often due to high hypocrisy load) it collapses upon itself, resulting in a super-dense mindset that acts as the foundation for the next dogmatic structure.
ex.: organized religion; George W. Bush

So, anyway... yeah.
Those were some concepts I tossed out while on the phone with Daniel, simultaneously playing soccer with Lex in the back yard.
Somebody go copyright that for me- like the man said, "I want a quarter every time somebody says it!"
;)

Maybe we didn't hug it enough...

Y'know, when a relationship goes bad, or parents feel like their kid has gone bad, the folks involved can -and usually do- ask, 'What went wrong? Where did we go astray?'

How do you go about that for a whole nation? Is it even worth asking? I suppose so, else we're doomed to do it again.
But even in a relationship of two, there are innumerable variables.. he said/she said; what he/she never said but always thought/felt; what her mom said/thought about him that influenced her... yeah.

How do you unravel the decline of a nation-state that's not a thousand years safely dead?

I read the headlines today, I think back over the last, oh, decade and I just want to vomit. I want to cry. I want to scream and flail and throw a fit, not because life sucks, but because there's not a damned thing to be done about it. We're well past the therapy stage.

I used to sneer at the whacko survivalists and the closet-revolutionaries... and still do, for that matter. Sadly, I've come to believe they're right. For the wrong reasons, sure, but correct all the same.

I used to believe. With all my heart. I was a patriot. I was a soldier, and I believed in my calling.
But what I served then was already becoming a self-serving, consumptive monster, rabid with power and lusting insatiably for blood/money/more power. I served a nation which has become a berserk animal, and needs to be put down.

WTFighter Pilot

I'm jonesing- craving something fierce. But what I'm craving can't be swallowed, smoked, shot-up or snorted. At least, I don't think so... see, I'm not sure what it is.
There's just this... need.
This need for something I don't seem to have.
This vague but insistent notion.. a hint, a flavour, a flash, a scent- of what, I'm really not sure.
It's driving me bursar. It's not something that I can sate by gorging on junk food, or drinking, or.. I don't know what.

This whole episode is starting to taste distinctly metallic. Mostly iron with copper undertones, shaded with chordite. I take that as a sign of great frustration. It tastes an awful lot like a pistol in the mouth.

Evidently, my brain's not cycling normally at the moment.

Thank you, Christianity!

Never thought you'd hear me say that, eh?

Anyway- I only go to movies at noon on Sunday from now on. Hence the thanks to my archnemesis, organized religion.

Maybe three dozen people at an opening-weekend screening of 300. Heaven.

Good flick. More fleshed out than the source material, with characters that are, more or less, worth giving a damn about. A bit melodramatic at times.

Sadly, nary a moment may pass that I do not wish to beat some member of the puplic to death with a breadbag of Jello.

Some complete tit was complaining about historical accuracy as well left the theatre. See... sigh. What the hell can I say? Once again, I hate my people, and I hate my species.

That'd be a damned good gun...

'Flesh wound? Flesh wound? They're all flesh wounds! No one ever says "Ooh, look! I've just been shot in the bones, but it missed my flesh completely!"'
-Ayanti Zweil, Chaplain, Tanith First-and-Only

ParaNoirmal?

So here we are again. Just me an' the world. Just me against the world.

Well, you know the world. You know how it can be- even if you try not to think about it much.

Me? Me, I'm just a guy, y'know? Any old guy you see on the street- that's me. I've saved people, but I'm not the good guy. I've killed people, but I'm not really the bad guy, either.
Just a guy. But when the world breaks down, when reality itself gets kicked in the teeth, I always seem to get left holding the bag. But that's alright. I don't mind- I've got a killer set of tools.

Just me against a broke world; like the Spartans at Thermopilae, like those cats at the Alamo. Standin' because there's nothing else they could do. Taking a stand and damn the consequences. Not because it's good, not because it's right. Because it's the only option we can see. Because some things are black and white. I know that for sure- I'm the place where they meet up.

Thirty six years ago, I was christened Francis Cole Rook. Some folks know me as Frank, some as Rook. Those who know me well sometimes call me Purgatory.. but rarely to my face. Like I said- I'm the place where dark and light bump into one another like icebergs and unsinkable ships. I've been almost killed so many times, Death now has near-me experiences. I've got more scar than skin these days and more mileage than any three Cadillacs. You might say it's part of the job.
What the hell is all that supposed to mean? Hell, I dunno. Look.. it's like this: the priests and the imams and them have got it wrong. Sort of. See, 'good' and 'evil' are Man things. They don't exist outside humanity- sort of like boredom, I guess. What does exist is more like.. like, Order and Chaos, maybe.
Chaos isn't 'evil' per se, but there are.. entities, intelligences within the whole, ones that want to directly interact with mankind for whatever reason, and let me tell ya- some of those guys are sick. Well, by human standards, anyway. Likewise, some of Order is no more good than Facsim on a cosmic scale.
It's the tension of the relationship between these two forces that makes up the fabric of reality. Sometimes one side is a bit more dominant.. or prevalent, maybe, but it's part of the normal ebb and flow. But when one side.. overcomes the other in a concentrated area, it's my job to help balance things. It's the.. localized activity, the spikes and jaggy bits in the sine wave that concern me. There's other folks like me, of course- hell, there may be folks on other worlds that are like me, I don't know.

It's not really accurate to say that it's my job. It generally don't pay a damned cent.

If I'm not careful, this could become habit...

Posting twice in a 24 hour period. Don't think I've ever bothered to do that before.

Anyway- here it is, gone midnight, and I'm hitting my stride. I just wish I had somewhere for that stride to take me.

I've been suffering from tics pretty badly today. Part of it's just shivering- I've probably mentioned it before, but my.. 'shiver reflex' has been rewired into a Tourette's-like spasming tic of the head, neck and shoulder.

I was feeling.. uneasy earlier. Watched- even haunted, perhaps. The cat's sleeping peacefully. Since animals and children are thought to be much more sensitive to weird shit, I'll take his word for it. Just me and my tortured imagination. Such is my life.

Old dreams torment my waking mind, and painful memories prey on my sleep. The Dream is back in the forefront of my thoughts. I can see Her eyes if I but close my own, and it hurts.

Sheesh- get a load of me: all maudlin and morose when most of my brain is actually going 'wingwingwingwingnyarnyarnyar WOOP!' Not to be confused with 'IckyIckyIcky Pa'Tang Zwooop BOINGGG!'

I'm gonna have to commit the 'Gundog' story premise to paper -er, type anyway- one of these days. I don't feel like going into it at the moment, but it takes the idea of Military Contractors and Citizen Soldiers to a somewhat different place.

VROOOOOM!

Oh, man, am I ever in a bad way.
I've been a bit ill this week, nothing major, but I'm glad campus was closed the first half of the week. I've barely been able to stay awake during the day, and barely able to sleep at night.
When I got up at about eleven today, everything clicked. And then dropped into gear. I'm in a manic cycle that took a week to get a run up. Fuck, man.

I'm so amped, the only thing I can think to do is go to bed. I have to edit everyother word, because my brain and my fingers, while moving at about the same speed, are moving perpendicular to each other. I'm probably cursing alot, too, but my fingers aren't paying attention.

I've been in my office moshing to Nirvana, Wycleff Jean and Clint Mansell most of the day because I can't figure out what to do first.
Um. Where was I? Fuck. Anyway, my nightcap @ about 11 last night was my usual battery of meds + x2 Tylenol PM + x2 shots Cuervo Black Medallion. I finally got to sleep at about 4 in the morning. Yeah- it's like that.

I feel like... like the birth of Rock and Roll, man- I want to kick down the walls and ascend to the heavens on stairs of fire. I want to pull out all the stops, throw all the switches and plug myself into the electrical outlet of the cosmos just to see what happens next.

Maybe I oughta start drinking... lubricate the machine before it seizes. At least I don't have the shakes yet.

Optimists are tits.

See, here's where I could really do with an angel.
Once one has made a complete muggins of one's life, they get an angel, right? An angel shows up, shows me how bad off things would be without me, shows me how to find the path of righeousness, yadda-yadda. Right? It's a Wossname Life, A Xmas Thingy, all that jazz, right?

Where's my friggin angel? Where's my friggin flying car? What the hell has a fella got to do around here to get some relief?!

My spine is... in remission. Sure, I had a bad couple of days this week, but pffft. No big. Pain is my body telling me to go fuck myself.

In theory, my brain-chemistry's not bad. I mean, how the hell do I know? I have to second-guess 75+% of my emotions nowadays. 'Am I just feeling this way because my meds are off?' 'Did I just say that because I'm at a manic peak that I can't feel?' 'Why the FUCK didn't I off myself back when I had a good excuse?!' 'Why is there a stick of butter there?' You get the point.

I wanna ask if there's something wrong with me, but that'd just be silly.

Just because I'm medicated

don't think for a moment that the pain's gone.


Ahh, nevermind. There's some things I've learned better than to say.

Gods, I'm tired.

Well.
's been a while. Not that I've got any kind of regular readership, nor do I see this thing as my journal, so... who give's a shit?

I've been working on Halloween for about six months, and now Halloween's here, and you know what? There's still more work to be done!
Fuck it. I quit. This gig has never paid worth a damn anyway.

My body-chemistry is all fucked up right now.
Ah, Hell with it. I'm going to bed.

I write Creation myths when I'm bored.

Just like everybody else does, I suppose.

Um.
Anyway.

It is entirely incorrect to begin this tale, this remembrance, with "in the beginning," for it was not the beginning. A beginning, certainly- but not the beginning. There is no "the" beginning, anymore than there is a starting point of an orbit.

So, in the beginning of this tale, everywhere -and everywhen- was in one place. This one place was the Seed, the Source of all energy, matter and time to come.
And then there was the Creator. An intelligence perhaps of the Seed, perhaps external of it- perhaps both.
The Creator nourished the Seed and caused it sprout. The Creator unstopped the Source, and let the universe spill out. The Creator took the raw essence of reality and spun the threads of Space and Time, then wove the together, forming the warp and woof of all that is.

With the foundation laid, the Creator fragmented.
Score upon score of new, if lesser, intellects formed from the fragments, and these spread into the vastness to continue the Work. These entities were the Starfounders, the Worldsmiths. And once the heavenly bodies were wrought, and set in their endless dance through the great night, the Worldsmiths fragmented, just as their Creator had.

The next generation becomes more complicated.
This generation gave rise to the Lifebringers. The Lifebringers tinkered with chemistry and energy and conspired with circumstance to make something more from base components.
And where possible, Life blossomed. Where ideal, it flourished.

At the same time, the Custodians formed. These beings gave themselves back to the cosmos, reinforcing the careful chaos laid out by their predecessors. The Custodians ensure the growth rate of the great endeavor, monitor the onset of entropy, and generally keep rocks on their curved paths through space.

This third generation also allowed for the realization of the Elementals. Earth, Air, Water; 'Energy' would be more correct than 'Fire', but nevertheless. Also Slood, where appropriate. Things to be shaped, warded and embodied.

And because all things were set in motion, this generation did not splinter and spawn- did not need to give of itself to propel the rise of successors.
Time passed, and worlds turned and stars burned. The Lifebringers spent untold ages coaxing their charges through evolutionary process, the Custodians shepherded their rocks along the solar winds and the Elementals settled into their primal niches.
More time passed, and the universe found it's stride. Functions once meticulously watched over became automatic, became natural, and the grandchildren of the Creator... dwindled.
They merged with the purposes they once warded, and their energies bled away, unspent.

Some- Elemental, Custodian and Lifebringer alike, devolved- became degenerate. What had once been pure and primal intelligence became personality, and the Titans arose.
Their memory of brotherhood and purpose eroded and the Titans did what personalities do, soon or late- they clashed.
At first, these contests were almost animal, with tooth and claw and power the Titans struggled, rending the earth, boiling the seas and burning the sky.
In time, they for more entertainment in pitting proxies against one and other. Man, newly risen from the ape, and other races on other worlds.
So much more fun, so much more cost effective to make mortals slaughter each other in the name of their Titan masters.
Unknown to the Titans that ruled them, these mortal minds would be their undoing.

The mythology of the Greeks of Earth -among others- held that the Gods were the children of the Titans and that they rose against their parents and took man under their sometimes dubious protection.
The Greek belief, like all myths -even this one- was not entirely correct.

As Man emerged from the dark of the cave, and laid the foundations of civilization, he dreamed. He imagined, longed to create something bigger than himself, to belong to something larger than his tribe. In the perpetual nightmare of the Titan wars, Man needed something to look forward to, something better beyond the horizon.
The raw energy that had bled and trickled away from the third generation began to coalesce, to accrete around these longings. Through hope and.. wishful thinking, Man unwittingly created the Gods to carry him to this new era.

And so began the last Titan War.
The gods were ephemeral things at first- vague and unformed.
As time passed and they proved themselves to their creators, belief firmed and so did the gods.
Pantheons formed as Man's belief defined and shaped roles for the gods. New duties and responsibilities were assigned as Man grew and changed.

It has often been pointed out by theologians and laymen alike that the gods seem inconsistent, contrary, capricious and sometimes downright crazy. Countless theories have offered, countless arguments started and innumerable hands smacked with rulers over these observations.
The truth is simple- the gods were creatures designed by unwitting committee.
They are the spawn of a racial hope, a sort of collective subconscious dream of something bigger, something better.
Following their ancestry and the nature they were given, the gods, in their own way, turned on their creators. They demanded worship, and sacrifice and fealty. They developed grudges and rivalries amongst themselves only slightly less vicious than those of the Titans.

Eventually, Man's counterstroke was beyond effective.
Man developed religion in accordance with the gods' demands, but then shackled the gods with Dogma.
Dogma allowed the belief and faith of the masses to be channeled in such a way as to rob the gods of their power, their very nourishment, and thus, their influence over the world.
And in the fullness of time, the gods became figureheads; no more than the idols that they railed against in earlier days.

So the gods have dwindled to whispers on the desert wind, or remain barred in their heavens, just as they helped Man chain the Titans beneath the earth and the wave.
Prophets have come and gone, sometimes changing the nature of 'their' god's imprisonment, but never breaking it.

...

Moo.

Bitches.

Christ, I hate moving. I need enough money to just burn everything in place and buy new stuff.
Or, I could just hire movers, I suppose. Kind of gives you an idea of how my brain works.