bereft

just was chatting on-line with my sister, 750 miles away. brief conversation and now she is gone on to do what she is doing today.

and i am at my job. but i feel bereft. like a piece of me has been removed.

which to me feels odd. because as much as i love my sister, it's not like we could be chatting all day. add to the fact that i am at work right now. which may also mean that i should not be updating my blog either. but that is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

maybe it is because i haven't chatted with her lately. and i haven't seen her in months, january actually was the last time.

perhaps i am lonely for my family. or lonely in general.

sometimes i wonder if i am not an emotional black hole... perhaps that is a question for another day.

twilight zone?

have you heard about the zombie dogs?. an utterly facinating story. and folks are thinking about doing this with people. as a scientist, i think it's a potentially great idea. the layman's side of me recoils in horror. because it's a dark side of sci-fi coming to life. no pun intended.

since the scientist is trained (theoretically) to be un-biased, it must look at the layman's point of view. and the layman has a point, because who knows about the long term effects of such a procedure? was the brain built to be turned on and off like a light switch? or is there no time lapse during the off portion? does time simply stop and start with no pause?

proust

marcel proust wrote a series of books dealing with memory. a la recherche du temps perdus i think is the title. the pivotal idea is that a specific, un-premeditated action can bring back memories that were lost, or closed off to voluntary recall. it's a very cool concept: involuntary memory.

somewhere along the line, i lost 2 years of my memory. 2001 and 2002, i think. i know where i was geographically speaking, and i know i must have been doing the normal daily maintenance activities, because no one filled out a police report on me. but those two years are a blank. i can tell you what was going on in '99, '00, and some of '01, but from may onwards for 2 or so years, things don't exist for me.

somewhere along the line, i lost my way also. i had plans, i had dreams; they're gone. now i go on a day by day basis. planning trips is killer because i have to plan at least 3 weeks in advance if i'm flying and want a decent ticket price. one reason why i ended up driving to dc. i couldn't get myself together to plan.

the pane of my life has shattered and the pieces, although there, don't fit anymore. like the boy in the snow queen who was working on the puzzle and the pieces wouldn't come together.

i'm not even sure when this deterioration happened. or what the cause was. i don't think it happened suddenly... i hope i would have remembered that.

keeping a thought in my head is killer too. as well as thinking in a coherent manner. the few mornings i wake up clear and lucid are days i offer special praise to God.

sick?

i think i may be coming down with something. ...i hope it isn't lyme disease.

my neck + upper shoulders are achy & stiff. feels like if i could just crack my neck all would be well. but i don't. because i may crack other things as well.

i guess it could possibly be from aikido last night, but that i doubt. not too many falls, and no peculiar ones.

i finally broke down and bought vitamins. hopefully they will help smooth out the mood swings. this up and down, up and down, isn't good for me. and it's not like they happen over a long period of time. these height changes can happen within an hour. and most of the time, i know they have nothing to do with reality, so i try not to freak out. but they are really disturbing. really.

love

welcome to friday.

i'm so tired, it's work to type. how does this happen?

folks talk about love. in the God context, in the neighbor context, in the significant other context, and in the family context. what do they mean by love?

i ask because i have a slight problem with feeling stuff. most of the time i don't. or it's at a very muted level. the only thing i feel strongly is anger. most of the time i'm angry. and if it's not on the surface, it is right beneath, ready to rise up. if i'm not angry, chances are i'm frustrated, grumpy and/or tired, or combinations of the above.

so i wonder, how do i know when/if i love? i tell family members i love, but what does that mean? can i love and be angry at the same time?

is it about actions? can i be generous, patient, without loving?

it is a profound mystery to me. i just don't get it. a series of veils i can't get beyond.

and yet i accept it when people tell me they love. i just am not sure what that means. for me, for them. God loves, therefore the Word became flesh. <--i accept, and am thankful, because that means there is hope. but what does that first verb (or second, depending on your pov) mean?

wrong wrong wrong

this one is from yahoo. thnx to the folk over at bsda for the heads up!

Lost to the Only Life They Knew - Yahoo! News

i believe in religious freedom. but only up to a point. when your freedom injures someone else, i am no longer for your freedom.

i'm all for freedom of thought. think what you like, believe what you like. fine.

but when you start treating folk like animals, that just ain't right. it ain't right. and you shouldn't be allowed to do it. there should be laws and those laws should be enforced.

want

i am flooded by a feeling of want. i want... something.

it happens from time to time. i feel an emptiness, a hunger. but i don't know exactly what i want.

it's not a hunger for food. i don't even know if it's for anything physical. all i know is that i want.

God blessings

i'm thankful and cautious. thankful because an other is allowing me to at least try, and cautious because of my suspicious & cynical nature. in my book, nothing goes right for any particular length of time. therefore i enjoy the good now, and try to store it up, because lean times are unexpectedly just around the corner.

sifting chaff

growing up, i learned certain things about seventh day adventism. and how i learned them, i'm fuzzy on now. i'm pretty sure i learned some stuff from my parents though, and probably some from my friends, and some from my sabbath school teachers. i'd like to think i learned some stuff from the Bible.

but now, i'm trying to separate what i learned from other sources, and what is actually written in the Bible. and it is hard to see the words for what they are, instead of how they are portrayed by church folk.

i'm not a scholar of exegenesis and hermeneutics, or greek or latin or hebrew or aramaic. almost every time i see/hear the words exegenesis and hermeneutics, i have to look them up otherwise i don't understand what they mean. all i have as resource is the Bible + the Holy Spirit. and shouldn't that be enough?

through the association with certain folk (who will remain nameless for the time being) i am beginning to question some basic tenets i had thus far taken as gold. i'm also beginning to question some things that i might not have agreed to, but deep down i was comfortable with.

it feels like my world is shifting, and i don't know where/how it will end up afterwards.

who expects the floor one is standing on to move?

slow recovery

i don't think i've quite recovered from the experience with the other. we were together. it was intense. it's been over for almost a year. i'm with someone else, and i like this current experience.

but i'm still having trouble relating to the other. what to say, how to say, what actions are appropriate... i have trouble with a simple conversation. the other passed through town the other day, and asked if we could meet. and i wanted to ignore the e-mail/phone call. it's not like i want to get back into a relationship. once was enough.

but i can't treat the other like a friend either. we aren't friends. we are 2 folk, separated by some metaphyical mine field.

the other is moving to a nearby city. i'd like to be helpful, help the other move and all. but at the same time, i'd much rather not be involved with the other at all.

and it so doesn't help that i get the weird i'm-still-interested vibe! just makes me uncomfortable. i kind of want to lay the other out with a punch to the face. not because i'm angry. at least i'm not angry with the other. but rather to emphasize that we aren't together anymore, that that bridge has been burnt to a crisp.

yeah, i'm not recovered yet.

a little high a little low

and today is a day of the little low. i could put it down to not enough sleep, not eating properly, the rainy weather, or hormones. but i won't. i'll accept that i am on the edge of another bout of depression, without any excuse. and actually i haven't had one in a little bit, so... i should be thankful. and i am, just underneath the depressed.

so i've been working at this job since may 2. and i guess my body is reverting to elementary school time, because for the past couple weeks, no matter what time i go to sleep, my eyes pop open at 635am. kind of weird. when i wear an eyeshade i can sleep a little bit longer, but i wake up before my alarm anyhow. don't worry, i don't actually get up at 635. i wake up, tell myself it is entirely too early, and try to go back to sleep. but the whole waking up thing disturbs my sleep. and i don't appreciate it.

airport security

take a read. yeah i know it's off msn, but take a read anyway.

Terminal Futility - Routine airport security won't thwart jihadists, but it does inconvenience and endanger the rest of us. By Christopher�Hitchens

so honestly, do we really think that terrorists are going to highjack another plane in the forseeable future? until reading this article, i figured the chances were pretty low because of airplane security efforts. i mean i know i no longer carry scissors with me when i fly, and i think seriously about leaving my crochet needles at home. not to mention that i wear shoes i can easily slip off because hey, i know they're gonna ask me to do so, so why make a big deal.
however, after having read this article... hey maybe i was wrong, maybe planes will be used again by crazies, whatever their nationality.

it does make me laugh though. we get reports about the ineffectiveness of airport security printed all over the web. what is that? isn't that what homeland security is supposed to prevent? i mean isn't this just advertising our readiness to be assaulted by domestic aircraft again?
not that i'm saying that these articles should be censored. not at all. i'm all for freedom of the press, and freedom to think & speak critically. i just sense the irony.