%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  Radio Steve, broadcasting the latest news and gossip from the asylum |
|
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** What you read here may seem shocking, and it might even be true, so please make a comment... and then the next headline will be YOU! Mwahahahaha! |
| I had to think about infinity yesterday (don't ask why) and so I'll share my thoughts with you in case you are sometimes confused by infinity like I am. If you have an infinite number of bags and you put three marbles in each bag then how many marbles do you have? Noooo, you don't have 3 times infinity of marbles. When you add, subtract, divide, or multiply any number (except zero) with infinity then the answer is still infinity. Why? Because infinity is NOT a number. It's a concept. The concept has 3 parts. 1) You have an unlimited supply of something that can be counted. 2) There is no upper limit to the count. 3) Therefore there is no final count, just the everlasting process of counting. Thus we can see that if we have an infinite number of bags it doesn't matter how many marbles we put in each bag because there is no final quantity of bags, there is just this conveyor belt of bags endlessly bringing new bags in front of us until finally we scream: "Dammit! I'm sick and tired of putting marbles in bags! I don't care how many marbles I have! I'm going to the beach!" |
The "update your blog" notice happened to come today.  Yesterday, my brother and sister and I took my mother "down to the river" which is how we say we are going to the cabin my sister has on the river. Her husband just added a screen porch to it, so that was nice. And we got to kill a snake! Excitement. We ate ham, macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, green beans, pears in jello, and for dessert chocolate cake with white icing.Driving back we came through a small storm and the hailstones were cracking against my vehicle. This has been one of the most diary-like blog entries I ever did. I don't like to give you such glimpses into my real life because my real life is so much duller than my vibrant, exciting, devil-may-care, swashbuckling internet life of the dashing writing adventurer, boldly slinging his words down in a challenge to all humanity: Read this and weep! Okay, not weep. I don't do drama. Read this and shake your head sadly at how many people there are typing away furiously at their keyboards writing long paragraphs that no one will ever read.  |
As you are reading this, what was the last thing you had in your hand -- before the mouse and keyboard? |
| I've been wondering about dreams for years. Totally products of the imagination? Actual glimpses into other realities, alternate futures, parallel universes? This morning I had a dream close enough to waking that I could remember it well and it contained some very specific detail. At last! Something I can check on the internet! The detail was clothing, garments made of smooth tightly woven material. They were similar to jumpsuits for leisure wear or a company uniform perhaps. The colors were rust, brown mustard, federal blue, not bright colors, but not dull either. But the checkable detail was the closures. They weren't buttons, zippers, or velcro. They were metal snaps but not the snap-together type. These closures slid together. They were small and round and a bit dome-shaped so that they would lock when fastened. They were unlike anything I've ever seen on a garment. And one of the garments had "Made in the Philippines" printed inside of it. Naturally I've been on the internet. I haven't found anything yet.I'm just not sure that my imagination can come up with all the things I see in dreams. The simple stuff, sure. The bizarre, illogical stuff, sure. The stuff involving people I know and places I've been, sure. But that still leaves many dream scenes unexplained. I'm not ruling out the imagination yet, because I know about hallucinations. The mind can certainly whip up an alternate reality that looks completely real and yet is not at all the reality we are walking through. Or is reality itself just a group hallucination? Something we are all having a synchronized waking dream about? I don't know. Reality seems very solid, doesn't it? Until those moments when it doesn't. That line from Zhuangzi comes to mind: Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. |
| I'm one of those democrats that would be happy if either Clinton or Obama won. I'll vote for Clinton because she has more ability to make something happen. But if Obama gets the nomination I'll vote for him because he's inspiring. Among the Republicans, Romney is too phoney and Huckabee is too religious. I like John McClaine as a person, but not some of his ideas, and he's way too old to be president. . Remember Reagan's naps? Heehee. I really prefer a young (not too young) president. 45-65 is ideal. Anybody want to make a political statement? |
| Happy New Year! I always look forward to the new year. I'm not one of those people who treasure the past. Change is the essential quality of life. Embrace it and enjoy it. Not that I actually do change much. This year will be very similar to last year. But I'm pretty sure I will move to a new location. And that's a good-sized change. Any big changes coming up this year for you? |
| What happened to Portland? Aria? Are you still there? Put up the periscope. There's just a wet spot on the map now where Portland used to be. Did it affect your house at all? Are you sliding down a mudslope frantically typing out your last internet message? |
| You know we're all 97 per cent water, right? When you cremate someone the solid remains will fit in a small jar. Is water the basic stuff of life? Is the ocean a gigantic primitive organism? Is every planet where liquid water exists really alive in some way? Water. Weird stuff. What a struggle it was for the first land-dwelling organisms to crawl out of the ocean. They had to get used to gravity and the sun and dryness. I like the "shallow seas" theory. It makes sense that the early earth didn't have mountains and valleys. They only came later as the crust cooled and wrinkled. Instead, the earth's surface was relatively flat with shallow seas, incredibly wide beaches, and millions of tidal pools. There was time for creatures to gradually get used to being out of water for a few minutes, or hours... and then eventually... days... months... years. But every creature still carries the ocean inside him. We are a big bag of salty water divided up into millions of tiny bags called cells. And each cell is a small creature itself with it's own DNA molecule to tell it what to do when it's not listening to messages from the brain. The brain. That's the place where the mind lives. And the mind looks out at the big ocean and wonders... |
| Speed and Caution, the two kinds of intelligence. Generally, younger minds are considered faster and more agile. Older minds are slower and more careful. Younger minds are better at video games. Older minds are better at making long-range decisions. Younger minds are willing to explore a wide range of options to get what they want. Older minds have already eliminated the options they found to be unproductive or harmful. Older minds are what's left of younger minds after Time has knocked them around a bit. Younger minds are fresh, wet, and bouncy. Older minds are mature, dry, and heavy. That we all retain both types of intelligence is evident in the fact that our culture has two contradictory proverbs: Look before you leap. and He who hesitates is lost. Obviously the old mind will hesitate while trying to decide which proverb applies to the current situation, while the young mind will leap into the chasm, yelling as he falls: "Proverbs? What proverbs?" |
I've just been "tagged" ["Invalid Entry"  } by Of Fire Born mourns Mama  Hey, I didn't ask for this harrassment!!!  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... AND HERE ARE THE RULES EACH VICTIM MUST FOLLOW: 1. Click on the Blog Entry Link your "Tagger" gave you, and obtain and post these rules in your own Blog's entry for the day (see Rule #2). 2. Include in your above Blog entry eight (8) random facts about yourself. 3. Tag eight people at the end of your Blog post and list their names (*linking to them ). 4. Let them know they’ve been "tagged" by leaving them a comment on the Blogs of each of the 8 folks you "tag". * To link you Blog entry when "tagging" someone, use: { Entry:and then your corresponding Blog Entry Number } ~ EXCLUDING any spaces. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't think I can comfortably annoy anyone that much. Yeah, yeah, it's a cute idea and gets people into "communication" with each other. Unfortunately, I'm a hermit who doesn't answer his door to anyone who doesn't telephone first and screens all his calls with an answering machine. Sure, I may look friendly... but I'm NOT! And I hope there are LOTS more than 8 things that you don't know about me. BTW, my real name is not "Steve"...  |
| Did you ever have this one? You are dreaming you have to pee so you do. Then you suddenly wake up thinking "Omigosh! I didn't just pee in my bed, did I?" and frantically check the sheets. Whew! They are dry! And I wonder if bedwetters actually dream they are peeing? Technically you are supposed to be in a "paralyzed" state while you are dreaming and unable to move your arms and legs. I guess to prevent you from thrashing around in your sleep. [Aren't dogs funny when they "run" in their sleep?] But it doesn't seem to stop your privates from working. Or your voice, as you know if you've ever been awakened by someone calling out in their sleep. Especially if it's a scream. Speaking of paralyzed, did you ever wake up paralyzed? I assume it's caused by some malfunction of the dream machine. It's happened to me twice. Pretty scary for a few moments. I'm not talking about your arms or legs "going to sleep" - this is total paralysis, not even able to talk - freak out time!  I think if it had lasted longer than a few moments I would have become a nut case. Hey! No sarcastic remarks! |
| I don't understand what is happening to my dreams. I remember when they were just nonsensical little short subjects - a few random scenes. Now they are elaborate productions that seem to go on forever. I can only clearly remember the end of them but I'm vaguely aware of a lot of material preceding the ending. Maybe they were always long but I just wasn't paying much attention to them. Or maybe it's because I've been slightly sick for a few days. Dreams may or may not be important. No one really knows. Although scientists have shown that depriving a person of dreams will seriously disrupt their normal functioning. [And here's an interesting BTW... Did you know that depriving animals of sleep will eventually kill them? Usually in just a few days. This has been shown for many species. Yet there has never been a case of a human dying from sleep deprivation. Odd, huh?] But back to dreams. Famously boring to hear someone else's dream. Probably because of the randomness. But the person dreaming the dream never experiences it as all that random. Hidden meanings. Jungian glimpses of the subconscious. Puzzles to solve. This is really too big a topic for a blog entry, isn't it? Let's narrow it down. Last night I had my first "dream within a dream". Has that ever happened to you? I would try to explain what I mean with more clarity but I think if you have experienced it you probably know what I mean. |
| AHA! I know how women get their hips to sway back and forth now. They put one foot directly in front of the other when they walk. Right? I discovered it by accident yesterday when I had to walk downhill in a drainage culvert and the curvature of the culvert forced me to put one foot in front of the other. I felt like Mae West. Eureka moment. And with further experimentation I discovered that the further apart you place your feet when you walk then the more like a caveman it is. So whether you be man or woman, just by controlling where you place your feet when you walk you can be anything from a caveman to a sleek Parisian runway model. It will mean a bigger wardrobe, of course, to cover all the possibilities. I'm shopping for a loincloth and high heels today. Aren't you glad you just wasted two minutes of your life reading this blog entry? |
| I went to visit relatives on the river. My brother-in-law owns a little vacation house there so he and my sister (his wife) and their son spent the night. I arrived around 11am for "breakfast". Then I went hiking in the cypress swamp with the son looking for snakes but none to be found. However, he and I both had our cameras and we took pictures of the mushrooms and cypress knees. Then my sister's daughter arrived and my brother-in-law's sister. We ate barbeque chicken and barbeque ribs and rice with barbecue hash and two kinds of cole slaw and drank ice tea or cherry juice. Lots of yakking and we even sang some patriotic songs like "Grand Old Flag" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" "God Bless America" and ended it with a stand-up version of "The Star Spangled Banner". LOL! My niece had brought a fondue pot thing that she got for Christmas and wanted to use to dip raspberries, banana slices, and blueberries into melted chocolate. ("Red, white, and blue" - get it?) But she didn't have the little candle to go under the pot so we cut pieces off a big table candle that was there and melted the pieces in a tin can. I used a string from the mop for a wick and a paper cup for a mold and we made a little candle which we cooled in the freezer. It worked long enough to have some fondue, then it self-destructed after heating the fondue chocolate so hot it sizzled and turned into fudge! Driving home I arrived back in town shortly after sunset and saw (and heard) many fireworks going off. Even in my own parking lot as I was getting out of the car there was a spectacular mini-display from some kind of fireworks device that shot up little whirling, whizzing things that exploded into white sparks which then exploded into red, blue, gold, and silver sparks! Wow! To think you can buy something like that for personal use! When I was a kid we just had bottle rockets and firecrackers and whistling chasers. Now you can put on a fireworks spectacular in your own backyard. |
| Everytime I read about twins who were separated at birth I feel a pang of empathy because, although not a twin, I, too, was separated at birth. It's an amusing little story, although not suitable for squeamish people who don't like to see gruesome things. My mother had a difficult time giving birth to me. This of course was in the days before modern hospitals, X-rays, TV, electricity, dental hygiene, etc. I don't think donuts had even been invented yet. They just ate fried bread for breakfast. So there they were in the log cabin with the "doctor" (actually called a "shaman" in those days) and he could see my mother was having trouble delivering so he used one of those big stainless-steel forceps/clamps to assist by pulling on my head and he pulled my head off. Instant panic, of course. Blood everywhere. The black maid screaming, "I don't know nuthin' about birthin' no babies!" My uncle fainted. But my daddy, Rhett, calmly walked out in the yard and yelled for the barber. In those days the barber did a lot of routine, doctor-type stuff like blood-letting with leeches and emergency amputations. Well, he came running and immediately grasped the problem, that my head was separated from my body, and he ran down to get Polly Olmstead, the town seamstress, and together they managed to sew my head back on and there were a lot of relieved smiles and congratulations all around. It wasn't until seven days later that my sharp-eyed grandmother made the observation: "This boy's head is on backwards!" Well, once pointed out, everybody noticed it, so it was back to the barbershop for a quick slash, twist, and sew and once again I was whole and complete. I suppose if it hadn't been for my alert grandma I might not have fared well in the world at all. Learning to walk would have been more than usually difficult with my head facing back the way I had come instead of forward to where I was going. But isn't it interesting that Time works that way? We can only see where we have been and not where we are going. We ride down the river of time looking back at the places we've been, the past, concentrating on where we are now, the present, but we just can't see where we are going, the future. It's no wonder we never see the rapids until we are bouncing through them, screaming as our shaky little craft is pounded to pieces on the rocks. Sometimes I wish they'd left my head on backwards. Then I could see what was coming up next. |
| I walked down the hallway of the apartment building and knocked on one of the identical doors. The girl that opened it was in her 20's, blue eyes, no make-up, long straight hair kind of sandy blonde pulled to either side of her face. She wasn't glamorous, but not ugly either. Pleasant-looking, nice, average. She wasn't smiling or frowning. She looked vaguely familiar. I lightly kissed her left cheek, and she leaned her head that way and I kissed her on the right of her neck, then briefly on the lips. As I was lifting away I whispered, "I love you." She looked at me and I wondered if she was going to say, "I love you too," but she didn't say anything and so I wondered if she was NOT going to say anything, but then she said, "Is it okay if I say I love you too?" I woke up a few moments after that. When I say she seemed "vaguely familiar" I mean that in my waking state I don't know who she was. In the dream I must have known, but as in most of my dreams I was just riding along as an observer. I'm not even sure it was me I was riding on, although it felt like it was, but it always does. It's only after I wake up that I realize it might not have been me. But I lay there in bed thinking about her and wondering what I would do if I met her in real life. Would I think, "I know you from a dream I had about you!" Would we become friends and then one day reenact that scene I had dreamed (long forgotten by then, of course) about the hallway and would I have a feeling of deja vu at that moment? I lay there thinking about how she seemed to almost know what I was thinking and how her words, "Is it okay if I say I love you too?" were so perfect for her, for the situation. How they were a little passive and yet at the same time witty and understanding of how I was thinking... Then it struck me: Steve! You idiot! Of course she knew how you were thinking! You dreamed her up! She was a product of your own imagination! If a character in your own dream doesn't know you, then who does? I would like to be walking in the mall and see that girl from my dream. Maybe I won't even introduce myself. I'll just kiss her cheek, her neck, her lips. And then she'll say, "You're the man from my dream, aren't you?" |
| Oh yes, there are real bluebirds and they are VERY blue. You can't confuse them with a bluejay. They are smaller than bluejays and not as common or as loud. I'm not even sure what a bluebird sounds like, but the calls of bluejays will be ringing in my memory forever. Fighting bluebirds originated at the Walt Disney studios where people would get so sick of all the sweetness and joy in the movies they were making that at night they would seek out new forms of sin and decadence. Sleeping Beauty? - drug overdose. Snow White? She was BLACK, girlfriend! Daily skin-lightener treatments at the Michael Jackson Institute of Cosmetic Surgery. Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse? - brother and sister! Ewwwww... The Little Mermaid? - thalidomide baby. Donald Duck? - excessive tongue piercing results in speech defect. Goofy? - they called him the Little Professor until he drank one of his experiments and his brains turned to fur. But my favorite has always been Cinderella, probably the only person in history who has ever been able to dance in a glass shoe without breaking it. She was really light on her feet. She had a lot of bippity-boppety-boo. You have to respect that. |
| Looks like I'm going to have to update this blog just so I won't keep getting reminders. *sigh* So many chores. I feel like Cinderella. Because she was pretty, too, and yet had to sweep around the fireplace. Fortunately, she also had bluebirds who liked to sing with her. I love my bluebirds, but they refuse to sing with me. Well, not completely true, but their song choices are so lame and they refuse to sing anything I choose. I would trade them in for Cinderella's bluebirds if bluebird trading was allowed in my state. But we do allow bluebird fighting, which is the only reason any real man would keep bluebirds in the first place. My best bird, "Lucky", has tiny custom-made silver spurs. You should see him rip the heart out of another bird. Very exciting! Blue feathers everywhere! But then afterwards he wants to sing "When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like A big Pizza Pie" and I just want to slam a big dictionary down on him and end it. Always I awaken from my trance just in time and I'm standing there over his cage holding a 20 pound book over my head, trembling, beads of sweat on my brow, and I think "Omigod! One more second and I would have killed Lucky!" and then I toss the book in the corner and collapse into tears. After I've had a good cry I get a cold beer from the refrigerator, snuggle down into my LazyBoy recliner, and watch a rerun of Survivor. |
| I'm going to sign up on EBAY and try to sell some books. Have you ever tried to sell anything on EBAY? How did it work out for you? Any pitfalls? And if you ever bought anything on EBAY, how did it go? Smooth? |
I think the main problem for ALL of us is that Life is not perfect. And we really want it to be. People speak of "writers block". Of course there is no real thing that "blocks" writers. It's in our heads. But what is it? I think it's just the realization that what we are doing isn't going to be perfect. It's going to have flaws. We all begin our projects (not just writing, but EVERY kind of project, including marriage or remodeling a home or even getting a haircut) with a mental picture of the desired results - an idealized picture - and it's disappointing as we see the real results not matching up. The disappointment can sometimes make you want to abandon the project, to give up. The "writers block" doesn't come from outside, it comes from inside. All negative feelings come from "inside". All positive feelings come from "inside". Clean up the inside and the outside looks better. The world seems a better place. Half full, half empty? It's your choice. It's always been your choice. Blame no one. Accept the responsibility. Uh oh, now I'll get hate mail from "abuse survivors" who want to keep blaming the past for their current problems.  I don't care. I really think you can get over anything and move on if you try. Except your own death. That's a tough one. I don't think anybody's gotten over that problem and moved on. Or have they? Hmmm... I see the basis for a new religion here... I just need to work out the details and get on Google and make sure no one else has already done it. Later... |
 Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
