Say what you will about the church

(I'll almost certainly agree with you, after all)
I will grant, however, that Francis of Assisi was a pretty damned good poet.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Leaving out the 'lord' and the 'divine master' bits, I think it's a pretty damned nifty phrasing of the golden rule- just taken to a wider scale.
Sort of a step beyond doing unto others and so forth.
Help- because you can. It doesn't have to be because you're trying to do God's work, as it were, but because... well, because you can.

My brain chemistry is pretty screwed up right now. Everybody who needs to know, knows. The really short version is, I tried something to make a thing better, and it only made other things worse.

Anyway.
I stumbled across this little ditty as performed lyrically by Sarah McLachlan, and it really struck a chord with me.
I'm not entirely sure why. It probably hearkens back to a time when I believed I could make the world a better place.

/end quasi-emo gush of the night.

You'd think they could have found a trainer...

How is it, that in 7 years as Buffy Summers (the Slayer), Sarah Michelle Gellar never learned how to throw a punch?
I mean, I've never had much use for punches myself; I'm more of a knees, elbows and boots kinda guy, but at least I know how it's done.
I mean, sheesh- just because your character is superhuman, it's ok to punch like a girl?

As a side gripe- why bother fighting all those bad guys? Hunt them down and slaughter them, then go have lunch at a nice bistro.
Don't fight on the enemy's terms, when and where the enemy is strong; have a wholesome breakfast and then napalm the Big Bad while he's in bed.

You're the slayer, not the scrapper.
'Buffy the Vampire Boxer' is closer to the truth.
I'll grant, it doesn't have the same ring...

I am not an individual.

And neither are you.
Think about it- if you wanted to get really simplistic, you could classify 'self' as the voice in the darkness behind your eyes.
But that 'voice' isn't a voice, is it? It's a chorus of voices, even if most of us give no thought to subtle refrains and variegated threads of that chorus.
What about the parts of your brain that track the demands of your body? Your body which is always too hot or too cold, too hungry or too full, too uncomfortable...
Sometimes you listen, not even realizing you are- you think it's your idea to eat... and it is- but it's not just 'your' idea.

I am a committee, and so are you.
Freud, Jung and all of those prats would natter on about the ego and the id, the conscious and the subconscious.
But there is only the committee. It is all one thing, yet the components wrestle for dominance constantly.

The parts that communicate with the body have the ability to override logic, compassion, everything.
Why? Because those are the members that are most closely related to the oldest members of the mind- the dark, red, entirely uncivilized parts that coil in the hindbrain, waiting. The parts that joined up before civilization, the parts that were there before we were properly human.
And with the occasional exception, the parts of the mind that end up running the show when the world crumbles under your feet.

Amazing species, humanity. Until it all goes pear shaped, we never know if we're predator, prey or other. Those primal voices from our brain stem are all the same- we all come from the same origins- so why is it that he is predator, she is prey and I am other?

What part of the committee... taints, dilutes, those old voices?

Why did he wet his pants under fire, even thought he continued to fight? Because he is prey, but training allowed him to function, to some degree, regardless. Why did that one go nuts- nearly berserk- fighting back? Maybe he's predator, or maybe he's just particularly dangerous prey... I don't know.

And why did the world slow down for me? Crystal clear and perfect, I'd swear I could see the disturbances in the air from passing bullets, I had nearly been killed, might still be, and the world... was... perfect.
I felt the broken ceramic back-plate grind against me as I shifted target to target, the blood running from my nose and split lips, soaking the cravat tied around my face against the road dust...
Shit.
This wasn't supposed to be a war story.

The point is, people often talk about your mind playing tricks when it thinks it's gonna die, and maybe it does. But I don't think that's what was going on.

I was calm because the the deep, feral things and the rest of the committee were in perfect accord. The mind cannot be allowed to anticipate death if it's going to destroy it's threats most effectively. Does that make me other?
And it never failed me. Heh. It's probably the last time in my life that my mind wasn't messily fragmented. Maybe that much... integration isn't good for your brain.
That was probably the best time of my life, for all the horrifying shit I saw... Me and my Beast, all of mind, focused...
The Beast sniffed them out, and the rational mind dealt with them- the Beast's aim is, frankly, shit.

It's not paranoia...

How can you know if you can trust someone with your death?

It's remarkably easy to trust someone with your life- you do it pretty much every time you step onto a crosswalk.
Most folks won't bother with your life, especially the strangers waiting on you at the stoplight.
But your family... your family's statistically more likely to kill you, yet, perhaps perversely, they're also the ones who will fight to the bitter end to keep you alive.
Even if you don't want them to.
Who can you trust with your death?

See, some of the cases are silly- lady's got the mind of a gourd but you're keeping her alive through artificial means? Absurd, but it's your money, mate.

But what about the coma patient that shows brain activity? How long do you wait? How long do you leave your loved one trapped in their own mind? IF they wake up, will they be the same person? Will they even be sane?

How about Cancer Dude? The guy with the slow but excruciating and untreatable cancer eating him alive? Who can he trust to understand his desire to punch out a little early?

I'm sure you can see where this is going.
This is not an e-suicide note. My readership isn't wide enough for it to be effective. ;)
This is just something that has nagged at me now and then, as the years pass and the pain grows worse and more frequent, as my mind frays just a little more.
No, not a suicide note.
Just pontificating a bit.

Would my family understand?
If not, what would it take to convince them?
Dare I risk them not understanding? Do I dare risk their betrayal of my trust to their misplaced faith- whatever that may be?

Who can you trust with your death?

Like tap-dancing on a landslide

"This is the hand you were dealt..."?
So, can I fold?
I mean, it may not be a losing hand, per se, but it's no damned fun to play this one...

Stubbornly persisting on playing out a questionable hand is gambling addiction.
Holding because you expect the hand to get better- that's insanity.

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.