random narrative notion.

It's all about space.
Space is insulation- we move apart from others for that buffer.
It serves to keep stars from bumping into one another.
It serves to protect our existence from bumping into others- separates this world from the next, if you will.
The problem with space is, it wants to be filled.
Admittedly, this isn't always a bad thing- the air that fills the space between your skin and your clothing is warmed by your body. The insulation protects you.
When the space between realities fills up, we've got problems.
That's when people like me have to protect you.

By popular demand, I'm back, I'm bad, you're black, I'm mad.

Alright- this one takes a bit of a run-up.
See, some of my readership are not Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans. Those who are fans have not read Season 8 (it's in comic book form) and, thus, have not been following Season 9 (currently in print).

So lemme break it down:

At the end of Season 7, Buffy and Willow broke all the rules, and using some serious mojo, 'activated', if you will, every young woman on Earth that had the potential to be a Slayer, creating an army of super-girls, some two thousand, total.
I won't go into the geopolitical ramifications that tumbled through Season 8, so we'll skip right to the end, when, in order to save the world, Buffy severs Earth from magic, essentially.
Everything fell apart.
Buffy's still Slayer Prime, but she's shunned by most of the... supernatural-aware; and a twenty-something waitress at a coffee shop-bookstore in San Francisco. There are still critters of all sorts and a couple grand Slayers, but no formal organization.

Right. Got all that?
Good- 'cause I'm moving on.

This is the story of Grace, a Slayer trying to find her way in the world post-all the crap above.
It's also an expanded look at a world that, to date, has focused on one little thing- the Slayer. It's a big world, and whether one or two thousand, there's not enough Slayer to go around.
Yes, the character Michael is drawn from me, but they say write what you know- I don't know how to be an eighteen year-old girl, so I had to create a bad-ass version of me to cope. 

So, without further ado, I give you Grace:
************************************

                 

  Grace was in trouble.

Her casual hunt had led her to not one, but five vampires. She had a stake, and she had the Power, and had gotten some of the training before everything had fallen apart, but she was far out of her league.

She desperately sought some avenue of escape, some out, but knew that if she turned to run, the vampires you be on her like a pack of wild dogs.

Apparently having run out of taunts, the vamp to her left gathered himself, muscles bunching for the lunge that would lead to her death when a sharp bark of sound froze the tableau.  The sound was like a gunshot, but quieter and less crisp.

Immediately following the sound, the tensing vampire crumbled to dust, destroyed. Another bark and the next vampire in the semicircle threatening Grace reeled, crying out in pain. For all her shock, Grace rallied instantly to take advantage of the distraction. Flowing to her right, she lashed out with a low side-kick that left a vamp’s knee bending nearly 90degrees in the wrong direction.  The sharp noise came a third time, followed by a second cloud of dust as she lunged to the left with stake extended, like a fencer with foil, dusting her first vamp of what had abruptly turned from an imminent slaughter to an actual fight. Before she could recover from her lunge the final standing vampire threw a brutal punch that laid her out, but rather than following up the strike, the vamp turned and sprinted away.

Grace rolled to her feet as the final vampire staggered to his own. A powerful kick to the chin straightened and rocked him back, leaving him open for a finishing thrust of the stake.

The ensuing quiet lasted only a moment.

  “’Slayers’”, a man’s voice grunted. “Friggin’ amateurs.”

 Grace turned to see a man standing ten meters or so away.  He appeared human, a bit broad-shouldered and bulky in the torso, but human. His loose-fitting trousers of an indeterminate color were tucked into tucked into combat boots of some flavor or another. What appeared to be a lightweight drover’s jacket enshrouded the man’s torso and arms, with a floppy-brimmed hat capping off the lovely spring ensemble.

Holstering something to his right thigh, the stranger turned and walked away.

Grace gaped for a moment before setting off after her critic –and she was chagrined to admit, savior.

 “Hey, wait up,” she called as she jogged to catch up to him. “What do you mean, ‘Amateur’? I got two of them!”

The man stopped and spun so quickly, it was all Grace could do not to bowl him over.

“What you ‘got’, toots, was baited and ambushed, and you blew my gods-damned stalk doing it!”   

 Having said, the stranger whirled and was stalking away again.

Grace tried to walk with him, but to her annoyance found herself almost skipping to keep up. He couldn’t have been but a couple of inches taller than she, but damn, this guy could march!

 “My name’s Grace,” she sought to engage him.

“Like I could possibly give a shit,” came the growled response.

“Look- I’m sorry I ruined your ‘stalk’, I really am. Thank you for helping me.”

Again the man stopped, instantly statue-still, this time not turning, but tipping is head back and drawing a deep breath then slowly releasing it through his nose. He turned at a normal speed to face Grace.

“It’s cool. I just... hate wasted effort. Look, where’s your gang? Don’t you girls run in packs or something?”

“I guess we do. Did. Something really bad happened, and it all sort of fell apart, so I came home.”

“’Really bad’. Might as well understate it- there’s no way to exaggerate it.” The man removed his floppy-brimmed hat, sounding tired beyond mortal reckoning now. “It hurt some people I’m close to. Part of my mood right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault, kid.”

Without the hat shadowing it, Grace got her first good look at the stranger’s face: a goatee with a few silver hairs making their way through the coarse brown, and a couple days’ stubble on the cheeks and jaw. Rectangular-lensed glasses and a high forehead that rose to meet nearly-military-short brown hair. Grace blinked, realizing she was seeing… furniture. The man’s face was incredibly… average. She was only remembering things on his face, not really the features themselves. His was a face you’d never give a second glance in a crowd. Cute enough, she supposed, but strangely normal for a man who hunted his species’ predators. Until she got a good look in his eyes. She fought not to show any reaction, even while she wondered what that reaction might be.

“H-how… How old are you?” she stammered, a little uncomfortable for the first time.

A snort of laughter that held no humor answered her. “Probably old enough to be your father, sweetheart. But it’s not the years. It’s the miles.”

“Run that by me again?”

“I spent the first ten years of my adult life in the military before I got involved in,” he paused to wave his hands in a small, vague, motion, “all this. I’ve seen people commit atrocious evil on epic scale. They just don’t eat you afterwards.” He paused thoughtfully. “Well, not often.”

Grace nodded thoughtfully. Forget eyes you could drown in- this guy’s eyes had things swimming under the surface that could pull down ships.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that- I’m not all Hannibal Lector serial-psycho-type,” another pause, this time with a smirk twisting his lips. “Well, not often.”

Grace snorted a laugh of her own, and the man offered his hand.

“Grace, you said? I’m Michael.”

Grace shook his hand, pleasantly surprised that his grip was neither the vice-like grasp of a man playing dominance games, nor the limp grip of a man who thinks women too delicate to be treated truly equally. Just a firm, sincere handshake.

“You want a ride home from the creepy old man? My truck’s just down the road,” Michael jerked his thumb in the direction he’d been walking.

Grace considered for a moment before smiling, “Only if you promise to wear your Hannibal muzzle.”

Michael turned with a grin and led the way.

The “truck” turned out to be an old-style SUV, the kind before they turned into 4WD minivans.  Watching Michael strip off his gear was like watching a military sci-fi movie in reverse.

Under the lightweight jacket was a sheathe of leather and carbon-fiber- armor derived from motorcycle racing gear, he explained. “The stuff can take a motorcycle wreck at 200mph. It’s essentially knife, claw and bite proof. It’s modded a bit to increase mobility and make it proof against most caliber of handgun.”

Catching her look, he shrugged, “Better safe…”

Michael unbuckled the upper armor from the pistol belt it supported and Grace got her first look at the source of the noise during the fight. The sci-fi armory expanded.

“From a purely mechanical standpoint, it’s Frankenstein’s paintball gun. It uses compressed gas to drive specially-made stakes at a few hundred feet per second. This pistol version is only good to about twenty meters, then it loses penetrating power. Seven round magazine, and then the stakes and the gas cartridge have to be reloaded,” Michael explained and handed the weapon over to Grace.

The first thing she noticed was the light weight.

“Because it’s not actually a gun, as such, it’s constructed from much lighter materials- aluminum and plastic. Makes it a lot easier to lug around.”

Michael’s lowest-tech piece of equipment threw Grace the most, though- perhaps because of its radical departure from something she thought familiar.

His stakes… weren’t.

Instead of the –let’s face it- pointy sticks she used and had been trained with, these were essentially knives.  The blades were six inches long or so and constructed from some dense, dark wood.  They were sharpened, but not knife-sharp; more like the edges had been honed down to lower their profile and decrease resistance as much as possible.

“These… why knives?”

“I’m not as strong as you girls- I can’t slam a fence post through a human ribcage like you do, so I use something that can slip between ribs instead.”

“They’re freakin’ genius! Why has nobody thought of this before?!”

Michael gave her a long, flat look before answering slowly, “Luv, that technique has been in my family for over a thousand years, and they learned it from someone else.”

Grace blinked. “…oh. ‘Kay.”

“You didn’t think the Slayer was the only one in this fight through the ages, did you?”

Grace pondered a moment before answering, “I never really gave it any thought. I mean, before… before what happened… I was taught about the history of the Slayer line and stuff, but other than an aside about some government guys, nobody mentioned any other vampire fighters.”

Michael snorted, muttering, “Typical,” before driving in contemplative silence for a few minutes. Grace left him to his thoughts for as long as her curiosity would let her. “So you don’t know of any other girls in the area? Slayers?”

Michael looked at her from the corner of his eye for a long moment before responding.

“One other. I buried her a few weeks ago.”

Grace’s jaw sagged in mortification.

“I found her after… after what just about happened to you tonight. ‘S why I asked about your squad. You’re not ready to be flying solo- not if you want to live longer than her.”

“How…” Grace swallowed and tried again, “How do you do it then? You said you weren’t as strong as a Slayer- how do you fight them on your own?”

Michael glanced at her with a hint of a smile. “First, I stalk them- track them. I don’t fight unless I absolutely have to,” he broke off, pulling alongside a curb. “Here’s your stop, kid.”

Startled, Grace looked around to find they’d arrived at her sister’s house.

Michael was tapping something into his cell phone. “What’s your number, luv?”

“What?! Why?”

Michael sighed and rolled his eyes, “So I can call you in the middle of the night and breathe heavily into the phone, of course. I want to give you some information. You’ve already showed me where you live- it’s a little late for sensible caution, toots.”

Grace blushed and told him. A moment later she received a text message.

“That’s the address of a place where you can learn- learn to fly solo, learn if you even want to. Learn some history, maybe some macrame, whatever. The last bit is an emergency number. Call it, and you’ll get whatever help is available. Best I can do for you tonight.”

Grace suddenly felt very tired, and very afraid. The strangeness of meeting Michael had kept the terror of her encounter at bay until now. She let out a shuddering breath and thanked him so softly she wondered if he even heard her.

His face a softened a little, though, and he quietly replied, “You’re welcome.” Louder, “Now get out of my car before people think I’m a pedo.”

With a laugh that eased her fear, Grace popped the door, but stopped with one foot on the ground. “What’s the other reason?”

Looking perplexed, Michael asked, “Beg pardon?”

“When I asked how you fight them alone, you said the first was that you didn’t actually fight them. What the second?”

“Ah!” A slow grin spread across Michael’s face. “The other is: what makes you think I’m alone?”

I advocate burning down the government...

 Even the part that I mooch off of.

The VA will never cease to be surprisingly frustrating.
Even when they make things better, they're dicks about it.

Today I got a note saying I needed to schedule a visit with my VA PCP. Fair enough. I've got nothing better to do most days, and it's been a couple of years since I've seen the guy.
Traditionally, when the scheduling operator asks, "when do you want your appointment," you give them a time of day that works for you, and they say something to the effect of, "OK, your appointment is three months from today at the time of day you requested (+/- 4 hours)".

So I call today, tell the guy what I need and when works for me and he gets all fucky, wanting to know when I want the appointment.
"Dude, I just said 'mid-morning'. What's the problem?"

"I can't get into the calendar with 'mid-morning' as the date, sir," he starts to get petulant.

"Since when do you guys have a calendar? I thought you used a Magic Eight-ball or something!"

To his credit, he doesn't directly rise to the bait, instead attempting to sound high-minded and superior in a breathy, nasal whine, "I need a date to check the calendar so that we can serve your needs as best we can."

Glancing at the wall calendar, I rap off the first date I focus on: 10 March 2011.

"What time," the operator asks.

"What's the first one you've got?"

He tells me 0700.

"No, that won't do. Next?"

We eventually settle on 0830, pausing to haggle over 1030 for a couple of minutes -no, I don't know how we got that far, either.

Anyway.
The point is, the Portland VA Medical Center seems to have stepped up it's game, splitting off into a handful of clinics in the metro area rather than trying to keep everything packed into the big morgue on the hill.
The price, it seems, is having to work my way through people who probably define 'repartee' as "the barbecue the day after the SuperBowl".

This one's for Sony!

erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70

A tragic end of an era

I very much fear that Sir Terry Pratchett's affliction of Alzheimer's Disease has begun it's inevitable and lamentable onslaught.

I just finished reading Unseen Academicals, and I regret to say, I don't think Pratchett wrote it.
I have no doubt the story is his, and that he was involved with the book's writing, but the book itself...

It didn't feel right. It didn't read like Pratchett's previous works. It lacked some... spark, some infusion of wit that used to lead to the smallest pune (or pun, possibly) being worthy of laughing aloud.

The satire was there; the keen observations of human nature, of the peculiarities of society, but the book as a whole lacked Terry's uncannily deep and lively touch.

I think I shall now begin a period of mourning that will last approximately the rest of my life.

The human mind is a puzzling thing

And this even a "zomgwtf is wrong with these people" post.

So, I glanced a the headline for the most recent post from my friends @ Davis House News and all I saw was a jot about the last trombone class for the year. I had to stop and purge my brain before I double checked.

Huh.

Looks like I flubbed the html on that last one.
Maybe I should have just used youtube's embed code.
Oh, well.

So... apparently, I graduated today.
I'm not entirely sure what that means.

I can tell you for damned sure it doesn't mean I'm done.
All the classic cliches about endless struggles? The others about being one's own worst enemy?
Yeah.

But it's cool. For a given value of "cool", anyway.
I haven't got much else to do most days but kick the shit out of myself. ;)

Missed out on a job opportunity today. Turns out they interviewed internally first, then hired one of their receptionists on the spot. From answering the phone to IT. The American Dream, I guess.
Oh, well.

Don't read too much into it...

it's just a song I liked enough to share.



Oh, it stings at times, but it's just a song.

hm.

…
What to do with myself?
I’ve got a strange skill set, to say the least.
There are plenty of things I’m good at, but none of the stuff I enjoy really works as a way of life.
At the moment, I’m afraid, I’m having trouble finding true enjoyment in anything; understandably, I think.
I spend much of my time these days examining the things flitting, oozing and blazing through my mind. Trying to excavate parts of me too long calcified.
Some of it, I’ve come to terms with. Other things, I’m still processing, still exploring. Some, I might never understand. I think that I’ll be able to accept the bits that elude me, once I have some idea of what these things are. I may be able to accept riddles with no answers, but first I need to find out exactly what those riddles are.
I think I understand where I’ve been these past years. I’m quite certain that I understand the better part of how current events came to be. I regret it, and it shames me, but I’m trying my best not to get sucked into it. That’s no way to live.
An (un)healthy part of my mind wants to do just that, though- just curl back up in my hole until I’m emotionally dead again. To be honest, it’s not that it hurts any less in that hole- but at least the pain in there is familiar.
Instead, I breathe. I try to relax and let the feelings move like waves- coming in, then receding. Admittedly, a lot of the waves are still crashing in, but I try. Day by day, breath by breath, I work at it. In some things, I think I’ve enjoyed some measure of success. But I know there is so much more ahead. I know the fight is far from done. Some days are so much harder than others. Sometimes it feels like too much. Sometimes it’s all I can do to hang on to what I’ve gained, to keep hold of the clarity I’ve gained, the clarity that is, frankly, my only hope as a human being. So I keep breathing. I put these thoughts down in writing, hoping to alleviate some of the pain, hoping to draw some of the venom out.
I’m not sure what I want out of life, and that anxiety is added to everything that’s going on. I’m afraid of the future. I try to keep things day-to-day, try to keep myself grounded and keep things immediate enough to focus on things without the anxiety, without the fear, but that’s hard, too. But I cannot avoid the future. It descends inexorably- a mountain grinding down on all of us moment by moment. And I don’t know how to face it alone.
Oh, I know the mechanics of how to survive out in the wide world. It’s been a while since I had to worry about that stuff, but I know how it’s done. But between having no idea what I want, without a tangible rudder and starting from pretty literally a backward-moving starting point, the future seems more than daunting.

heh. Not bad, I guess.

Something occurred to me today on my way… home… from my emo-moshing at Kaiser’s East Interstate facility:
I’ve been driving through downtown every day for the last week or so!
That may seem like a really odd thing to be excited about or proud of, but not so long ago it was a huge trial for me to even ride in a car downtown, let alone drive.
This realization led to another- other drivers don’t bother me so much anymore; at least, not like they used to.
Oh, I admit that other drivers still frustrate the hell out of me sometimes, even piss me off. But there have been times over the last few years when they would absolutely enrage me.

This all came to me as I was sitting on the raised Burnside Bridge, waiting for a ship to pass beneath. It suddenly struck me that I had never done that before. I’d never been on any of the bridges here, waiting for a boat. Not that this is actually a banner accomplishment or anything- it was just a thing, but a novel thing. Something I had not experienced.
As small as it may seem, it was sort of cool.

Journalism without Sensationalism

Huh.
I didn't realize anyone did that anymore.

NPR

I got bored at about 2 this morning.

So I rented a movie from On Demand.
I watched a scifi/horror flick by the name of Pandorum.
It starred this one guy, one of the Quaids and a German chick. And a couple of other people, but whatever.

It was ok.

The ship (LOVED the exterior design- very unconventional), was more believable than, say, the Event Horizon (inside-out porcupine was just too Hellraiser-ene), offering the dark, tight tension of the colony on LV426 (Aliens) on a much grander scale (again- ref. Event Horizon).

So, it's got a running thread about Hibernation Psychosis, Hibernation Instability, whatever. Cool- psycho-thriller aspects, but it doesn't hijack the scifi/action/horror core of the story. I can appreciate that- I didn't rent this hoping for The Usual Suspects- I don't need a mystery-thriller trying to take over my spaceship-in-danger movie.

It's also a race-against-time-to-save-the-ship movie.
That works, too. All things considered, the ship probably could have used some maintenance, anyway.

It's also an origin story of super-Reavers. Or something.
The monsters are kind of explained- just not satisfactorily. For me, anyway.
I mean, I understood the explanation, and I can even accept it within the realm of suspended disbelief- I'd have liked to have seen a little more crunch, though. Just my thing.


Now- the HUGEST thing the movie has going for it is the guy that plays the protagonist- you know: that one guy.

He can act pretty well, I suppose. I've got no real complaints.
But what he does brilliantly is this... well, it's like the sudden-pain "o-face".
He doesn't grunt, or scowl or grimace like a traditional action hero when dropped on his spine, oh no- his whole face widens with shock, his eyes bugging, mouth gaping like a fish as the air is knocked out of him.
It's perfect.

oh- completely forgot!

I'm an internet hooligan!

I got banned from CNN's comments section on Thursday!
It all started with an article about suicide.

It was a pretty good article overall, if a bit narrow-minded for my tastes in certain areas.

Some cat commented that the nature of the individual must be considered, the situation, and above all, the individual's rights.
He didn't write well, and his opinion was fairly ill-received, but I felt his position had merit, so I stepped in to support his ideas.

Keeping things civil, I participated sparingly in the ensuing... conversation.
I was surprised how few religious-right "abomination against God" replies; but overall, no one seemed to be willing to consider the notion of a consenting adult's right to order their own life- or death.

No one was willing to accept the notion of choice.

So I tried one last tactic (as it turned out, one last post before everything I said was deleted and I was banned)-
I asked (more or less), "If you can support a woman's right to choose to abort a pregnancy, whether the choice is based on convenience or anything else short of medical necessity; how can you not support the choice of a 40 year-old severe chronic pain victim when he decides to abort a life of continued and increasing pain?"

Apparently CNN's got an allergy to my version of liberal ideology.
Not as severe as Fox News, perhaps, but still...

...just what the FUCK was that?!

Look- I don't usually blog about video games... hell , I don't usually blog at all, but shit, man!

Right, so here's the deal- last fall, a pretty sweet FPS (First-Person Shooter) by the name of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" (henceforth, "MW2") was released. It was the sequel to the equally sweet CoD: MW released a couple of years ago.
The opening of MW2 was pretty intense, from this vet's perspective- 'urban' Afghanistan looks a lot like urban Eritrea or Somalia, or Iraq, for that matter. I've got an Iraq vet's testament for the... striking verisimilitude of the setting, as well.

After the opening of the game, though, with the Russian invasion of the US and all that stuff, the story becomes... fantastic enough that the stressors of simulated combat aren't really an issue.

Great game- graphically and technically astounding, great gameplay, far-fetched but entertaining story. However far-fetched the invasion might be, it was at least justified by the ongoing tread of the story.

More recently released is what is thought of as the prime competitor to MW2, "Battlefield: Bad Company 2" (BC2 from now on). It's gotten the same rave reviews from the same media sources as MW2.
And frankly: it sucks.

Graphically, it's far inferior; making out-of-date uniforms on 'near-future' US soldiers look like they're woven from coarse wool and poorly dyed, weird geometries slashing across characters' flesh instead of fluid movement, et cetera.
The mechanics of gameplay are old and outmoded, and the voice acting and characterizations are pathetic.
The player's team throughout the whole game consists of a crusty black sergeant on the cusp of retirement, a hillbilly Texan, and a techy machinegunner with acne scars from Jersey. Oh- and the civilian hippy chopper pilot that ferries the team around. WTF is that all about?

The story... hooooo boy... it started well enough, I suppose- a fictional Japanese superweapon towards the end of WW2- then sort of fell apart and oozed along. The superweapon is lost and forgotten as we drop the Bomb(s), and history moves on.
I'm still not entirely sure why my four-man team has anything to do with any of this- it's stressed over and over that we're not 'special ops'- so what in the wide, wide world of sports are the four of us doing in foreign countries waging small wars? Conventional units aren't that small and don't do that sort of shit.
But here's the real kicker: the thing that made the whole story a weak, derivative piece of coprolite: after all the shit you go through in the campaign, the game ends with you being informed (by a lieutenant general [the same asshole that got you into all this shit to begin with]who conveniently happens to be nearby when you crash a plane near Nacadoches, Texas) that the Russians are invading the US! Nowhere in the story are US/Russian tensions or hostilities mentioned- we save the day, get back to the US and then: "lol u n00bs- all ur base r belong to Ivan lolomgwtfhax!" Like I said- fucking pathetic.

A single huge credit to BC2- as you unearth certain parts of the Japanese superweapon history through the game, various cut scenes give you a little insight as to wtf is supposed to be going on.
What makes these cinematic intermissions frigging awesome is the musical score- it's straight out of the Indiana Jones movies. The softer, slower orchestral pieces as Indy examines a prize? Yep. That's the stuff.

I've got to try out the respective games' multiplayer functionality next- I can only assume that's what the comparative reviews are based on.
If they are, though, why are devs wasting their time making singleplayer campaigns? If good multiplayer excuses all faults in singleplayer, why waste the extra development time and effort?
If the BC2's multiplayer is so good as to rate the same overall ratings as MW2, then they should have just made a mp-only game with an sp tutorial.

well, bugger...

Chris linked me.
I suppose that means I'm obligated to do one of my notorious biannual posts. :p

Right... So.
Um.
I really don't have much to say.

I've been put on and gotten off Methadone now; no, not detox- chronic pain therapy.
That was some nasty shit; sorta like a two-month blackout. I was a complete dick the whole time and entirely unaware of it. Long story on how I figured out what was up.

Working on re-sculpting skulls for casting/production right now- always best to avoid trademarks and all that shit. Only eastern Asia manages to throw all international copyright laws out the window and get away with it.
Once I finish in the next few weeks, it may very well turn up on the frogblog.


Like I said: I've not got much to say. Everyone else that blogs seems to have most of my topics pretty well covered.

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?