Getting It Off My Chest

I may have a simplistic and naive view of the world, but it angers me to the core that in a world with so much war, disease, poverty, hunger, drug culture, to name but a few items, that the news media and so many government and religious leaders are so singularly focused on denying individuals (in this case those who wish to have their same sex relationship recognised) of what should be, a basic right of existence.

If you believe your actions are supported by your God.  Then you can have Him/Her to yourself.
Your Dogma is flawed, and your God is not worthy of me.

I respect religion, and those who find solace and strength through it, but that respect does not extend to the Zealots and self righteous.

Purge complete, time to resume my day!

HAPPY WEEKEND TO YOU PEOPLE! 🙂

The Death of Irony

Like a lot of people I use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends.

Often it’s fun, and often it’s humorous, and often it’s taken a lot more seriously than is probably appropriate. Today was such a day.

For weeks now it has been virtually daily occurrence to see status updates with instructions that the information be copied and pasted to your own status. Kind of repetitive and often annoying. Of course that could just be me being cynical…

Today, just for a laugh I put up a status of my own…

“If you consider yourself a unique, one of a kind individual, copy and paste this to your status… ;)”

Silly me. I honestly thought the joke was obvious, apparently not as a couple of people took the time to tell me that this would mean they really weren’t unique after all…

Duh! That was the point. On the upside, at least someone is reading my status… 😉

Something to think about…

I’m struggling for inspiration today, courtesy of a pretty heinous migraine so I’m going to leave you with these two thoughts.

• How deep would the oceans be if the sponges didn’t live there?

and…

• If you microwave instant coffee, do you go back in time?

Ghostly Visitation?

I’m a firm believer that there’s more to life than meets the eye.  That science doesn’t explain everything.
That there’s room for the Supernatural in our lives.  Most religions tell of supernatural happenings.

There’s just too much out there that can’t be explained.  I don’t consider myself religious, but I would call myself open minded.  I believe there’s more to life than what we see, I’m just not necessarily ready to accept conventional explanations.  There’s two copies of the bible, the First and New Testament, there are many different religions, most of which have similarities, and yet are so different.

For me, the Bible, and it’s equivalents are books.  Books are marketed, who’s to say that there wasn’t some primitive or base Marketing team out there…  But, I digress…

Now that I’ve placed the disclaimer, I had a very interesting experience this morning, and Mum was there, and experienced it also.  Strange, and yet comforting…

In the family lounge room there are two windows that open directly onto the driveway.  If these windows are open too far you can’t drive the car past.  So, they’ve rarely ever been opened, and in fact it was an unspoken rule that they stay closed.

This morning started out as a beautiful day, blue skies, sun, so I opened all the blinds, and all the windows.

Not too long after while I was in the lounge room I was hit with a strong smell.  Not unpleasant, not even remotely.  It was the smell of my father.  Mouth wash, soap, aftershave.

It was strong enough I called for Mum, she came into the room and she smelt it too.

At which point we looked at each other, and closed the windows.  The smell went away, but the morning’s events certainly weren’t over.

Mum called me to her room as here was a slight bluish glare coming from her bathroom.  I have to point out at this stage that the bathroom is totally white, and there’s nothing blue in there.  Dad wore a lot of blue though.

So while she stood in the entrance to the bedroom I walked into check, as I did the door started to swing close.  Strange…

I walked to the bathroom to find nothing there, but it was quite cool, cool enough that the hairs on my arms were raised.  But, there was a very tangible warmth coming from the bathroom.  A warmth that you could feel by stretching out your hand.  I thought I was imagining it, but when Mum joined me she felt it too.

She said it was reminiscent of when Dad used to use the bathroom and had the bar radiator on.  Incidentally, it’d not been turned on at all, so there was no logical explanation.

We got the message, close the windows, and stop breaking the rules… 😉

It was also very comforting for Mum.  In Dad’s last days, Mum had said to Dad, “If there’s another side, give me a sign”.

Now I don’t care if you don’t believe, you don’t have to.  We do, and it’s very comforting for Mum to know, that she’s not alone.

Eery, strange, but comforting.  There’s more to the world than we realise.

Drawing to a Close

It’s only just occurred to me that as of this moment, I only have 5 sleeps left in Melbourne.

A whole month has passed in the blink of an eye, and in that blink I’ve run the gauntlet of emotions.  In fact I’m still not entirely sure how I feel.  Other than numb, and a lot in denial.  It just doesn’t feel real.

I’m sure it’ll hit me like a wall once I get back to my own home back in Seattle.

Until then, it’ll be nose to the grindstone while I finalise the last of the paperwork and get everything tidied away.

There just aren’t enough hours in a day.

I am very, very fortunate though to have a supportive family and exceptionally fantastic friends.  So in case I don’t get the opportunity.  Thank you!

Now, I’m off to have a quiet drink.

So “Cheers” to you all!

The signs are there…

It’s been a strange couple of days.  I’m prepared to accept that there may be alternate theories, but I’m also a little bit “out there” in my own personal beliefs.

There’s so much happening around us that you can’t but help wonder that there’s not more to it all than perhaps we’re led to believe or conventional religion may have you believe.  Perhaps it’s even just wishful thinking.

To me, it feels like past family, friends and pets, or at the very least, their energies are drawing closer, to reassure and guide, and it’s comforting.

Now it’s time to head back to the hospital to change shift…

I have a theory…

Over the last few months I’ve been getting back in contact with numerous people that I used to go to school with.  People I’ve not seen in at least 20 years.

So it’s been a bit of a blast from the past, and an ego trip all at the same time.

Some of them look exactly as I remember them, taking into account we’re all adults now, while others…  Well perhaps not so much, they’re recognisable, but seeing them makes me feel a whole lot better about myself.

Now I know I’ve battled with my weight my entire life, often losing the battle, but I have a theory about that, and that is that while I’ve been overweight for most of my life (I’m working on rectifying that even now) I believe that the excess weight I’ve had has plumped my skin out nicely over the years so that as it’s finally melted away, I’ve been left with a lot less lines than some other people my age.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t very happy about that! 😉

I look my age, I rarely get asked for I.D. when purchasing alcohol or entering a venue that has an age limit, but all that taken into account I really don’t think I’m doing so badly.

The big school reunion, the 20 year one is next year, I’m even more determined to work my ass off now (literally)!

Waking up early tomorrow morning for the gym doesn’t feel quite so bad now… 😉

You are!

Childish antics are such a blast.  Not so long ago I blogged about being let down by someone, despite making numerous plans.

Taking into account that I’d also flown pretty much right around the world, had limited time available, and all social activity had been severely curbed due to my family being my top priority, a catch up was organised in advance.
On the actual evening, not two hours before the designated time I got a message online…  “I really don’t feel like socialising”.

Being the eternal optimist, I rescheduled, twice, again much the same response.

Admittedly, I could have let it go, could have just cut the cord, but figured I would say something.  So I did.  I thought about what I had to say, phrased it constructively, but got my point across.  In essence, I stated that I was disappointed.  Not an unfair or untrue statement.

Imagine a spoilt child lying on the ground, flailing their arms around, screaming out the tantrum of all tantrums.
That’s pretty much the response I got.  Apparently I was disrespectful and made them feel guilty.

Hello?!  You cancelled last minute, not me.  I don’t live around the corner.  You chose the date and time to catch up…

If you feel guilty, that’s because you should.  It’s deserved.  Get over it.

I have, now.  I’m the first to admit I’m not perfect, but it’s really nice once in a while to air a grievance, lay fault where it belongs and clear the air.
Unfortunately though, not everyone agrees.

The side note…  The person in question also managed to try a session of psycho analysis, character attack, and blame shift.   Such fun, all it did was make me feel better about my decision, and prove I was correct in my actions.

One less Christmas card I’m guessing, and one more vacancy for socialising on my next trip home.

I calling this one a win, and retrospectively aside from being educational, kind of funny.

Oh well! 😉

Veils of BS

Masses of it, layers and layers, acres and acres, and it just keeps weaving in on itself.  It never ceases to amaze me that when given the opportunity to be honest, or frank, that some people just open their mouth and spew forth untruths.

What’s more annoying is that they imagine that I’m stupid enough to not see through it, or to not catch them out.

Now I mightn’t have the world’s best memory, it’s certainly not photographic, but I can spot a discrepancy a mile off, and I’ll call you on it.  So don’t be surprised, and please, do yourself a favour, and don’t insult me by acting affronted, and horrified that your word would be called into question.

If I hear one more time “But I’m telling the truth this time…”, or “I mean it”, I really think I’ll just gag.

Really, a history of fiction, and previous (numerous) utterances of the above phrases, have rendered any possibility of them being believable in the future null and void.

It’s a shame that such childishness ruined what up until that point had been a good day.  Fortunately, I’m so adept at dealing with it (which is sad in itself), I still managed to enjoy my evening later on, it took some resolve on my part.

But, I’ve come to the realisation, the only person losing out in all of this, isn’t me.

I do believe I’m growing up, and in doing so, outgrowing some of those around me.

What is it they say…?

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

Well shame on me, but I’m fixing that.

Tomorrow’s a new day.  Hooroo!

Recollections

It’s strange, it’s only now, 15 days since surgery, that some of the memories of what happened afterwards are starting to come back to me, now that the drug haze has lifted.

It’s quite an unusual feeling to have memories flood back.  Until recently I had no recollection at all that I’d done certain things, or that some people had visited.  Until last night and today that is.

I now recall being rather manic post surgery about Apple juice.  The nurse in the recovery ward offered me some, but it wasn’t forthcoming until I’d been moved to another area, by which stage I was kind of manic about it.  I want apple juice, she said I could have apple juice, where’s the apple juice.  Very funny in hindsight.  Especially given there’s still apple juice in the fridge at home because Mark stocked it for me.  The craving has obviously passed.  😉

But, you have to remember I’d not eaten or drunk anything for over 16 hours, so was kind of thirsty…

Also, a friend and ex coworker Linda was in town.  She arrived in Seattle the day of my surgery, so I was a little stressed that I wasn’t going to get to see her, but committed to seeing her on the Saturday (two days later) as long as she didn’t mind my being drugged out of my mind and potentially swollen.  I wasn’t swollen, or bruised, drugged I most definitely was.  Although I do remember making her and her husband a latte so apparently I still had some dexterity.  No recollection until recently, but dexterity I had.

Weird…  very weird.

Oh well, there you go.  Something to think about, and fill up a blog posting. 😉

G’night, and have a brilliant weekend.