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August 2008

 

August 31, 2008

There should be an easy, fairly painless way to bring this all to an end. There should be, but of course if were as easy as I'd like then I'd have found it already, and I wouldn't be writing in this Journal now at all.

Posted at 12:01 AM

 

August 30, 2008

I didn't sleep well last night, once I actually even managed to get to sleep, and I've had headaches all day, but I drove to Toledo and talked to Steve for most of the day about options, and there is a chance that I might escape having to live in a cardboard box in an alley. That's my biggest fear/worry right now, and there are still a million variables to work out, each one of them constantly shifting and changing as I go along.

It's an ugly situation, but I've managed to not get panicky (much) and am trying to do what I used to do best - find good solutions out of a crisis. Whether I still have my touch after all these years is yet to be seen, but this was always one of my greatest strengths. Let's hope it still is.

Posted at 11:51 PM

 

August 29, 2008

Well, it just gets better and better.

My mother, due to leave early Sunday morning, with just tomorrow left before she leaves, has informed me that she had planned to take my grandma home with her permanently when she returned, but since their house in Florida has received an offer (they've had it for sale for over a year), she won't take her yet ... but will as soon as possible. She thinks that may mean sometime in December or early January which I've told her is an insane time not only for moving in general but specifically a bad time to move a 94 year old woman. She should wait until Spring in my mind, but she seems unwilling to pay me much attention. I hope, for my grandmother's sake, that she thinks this through a bit more.

For myself this means I have to make a million decisions sometime yesterday ... While late December or early January are a little better than this Sunday, 32 hours away, it's still not a lot of time to: get a job, find a place to live, figure how to make ends meet with the debts I've incurred over the past five years while caring for my grandma, and pack up and move all of my stuff (and trying to sell more of my stuff to try to cover things) - all while caring for my grandma and getting her and her things ready to move to ... West Virginia or Alabama or Tennessee or wherever they actually wind up.

So it's crazy.

Anybody who's absurdly wealthy out there who wants to give financial support to some needy guy that's down on his luck - I'M OVER HERE!!!

Barring that sort of a miraculous situation, however, things look pretty bad ... pretty bad indeed.

Posted at 11:05 PM

 

August 28, 2008

Why is it so hard to find info about certain government programs online, programs that it would seem should be incredibly locatable and accessible?

I've been trying to find anything about public assistance programs for adult caregivers, and it's as though you're supposed to see enough to know something exists but you see too little to be able to narrow your searches to just the right place. I've been trying different searches and reading all sorts of links for days, and I'm at a complete loss. It's very frustrating.

Posted at 11:45 PM

 

August 27, 2008

Being an adult means being responsible for the results of your actions. I've made a number of wrong choices over the course of my life (even though invariably for the best and most well-meaning of reasons), and I have faced the consequences of the bad results that have come from some of those choices. It is always hard and depressing to do so, but I have accepted whatever has come each time - and I will do so again when I make a wrong decision in the future.

Many people feel exempt from these responsibilities, however, and feel that they are better than me and everyone else on the face of this earth who has to accept responsibility and face the consequences. Such people are the scum of humanity, even though they often see themselves as the elite or the popular or the privileged. These are the people who embody all of the injustices and inhumanities of the world, all without a shred of remorse. These are the people who are the true embodiment of evil that makes the world the deeply troubled place that it is. These are the people we must stand as one against.

Everyone must be held accountable and made to take responsibility for their actions. Nobody should get a free pass - not under any circumstances. Our better world is a place with truth, love, and compassion ... but it is also a place with responsibility and humility. Each of those values alone is not enough; all together are necessary to guarantee each individually.

Posted at 9:27 PM

 

August 26, 2008

Do I ...

1) ... take a little chance and give myself a small bit of happiness and a good bit of convenience while adding a small bit to my debt but remaining unsure whether my expense and efforts will benefit me for no more than a couple of weeks, or ...

2) ... take a big chance and give myself a great deal of peace of mind and a great deal of personal security that would be secured forever but at a significant build-up to my already large amount of debt, or ...

3) ... take the same uncertain path I've been treading and have no prospects for any improvement of my state of happiness, contentment, or security (now or ever) yet with no additional burden of debt (even thought my current debt load is such that I foresee no way to ever pay it off in my lifetime short of winning the lottery).

There are, actually, more options than this, but all of the others are totally uncertain, largely unproductive, and mostly illegal. I'm not a gambling man, but I'm leaning toward taking a big chance, but taking big chances in my past has been a mixed bag, and trusting to fate in my case is simply begging for trouble.

Posted at 5:44 PM

 

August 25, 2008

Your mission, whether you choose to accept it or not, is to get screwed over, repeatedly and horribly.

Your brain will self-destruct in five seconds.

Posted at 7:44 PM

 

August 24, 2008

What goes around comes around.

As you sow, so shall ye reap.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

There are reasons that these phrases have endured through time.

Posted at 12:25 PM

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August 23, 2008

Desperate situations don't call for desperate measures so much as they force measures of desperation.

Posted at 2:21 PM

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August 22, 2008

Where's Jim Jones with that refreshing glass of Kool-Aid?

Posted at 11:54 PM

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August 21, 2008

Damn car suckin' me dry with more stuff to be repaired.

Posted at 9:49 PM

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August 20, 2008

My one remaining purpose in life looks like it will end soon, if certain people have their way with things, and then I'll be left with only the pain and emptiness and hopelessness. Maybe this will be for the best, as I'm being told, but I have no belief that my grandma will do well outside of her life-long home and my care. If not for that fact I would look forward gleefully to a final release from the last of my responsibilities and the freedom to finally let go. I'll fight for what's best for my grandma, but I largely suspect that my grandmother's welfare is not remotely at the root of what I've been told is to come, and what is best for her will quite surely be a moot point in this effort to remove me from the equation.

Posted at 10:15 PM

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August 19, 2008

Will it ever end?

Posted at 10:46 PM

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August 18, 2008

Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Posted at 8:59 PM

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August 17, 2008

Why is it that I feel uncomfortable around pretty much everyone lately?

Posted at 12:42 AM

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August 16, 2008

I'm not stable enough for this shit.

Posted at 11:48 PM

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August 15, 2008

Life - just as craptastic as it seems.

Posted at 9:38 PM

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August 14, 2008

LIfe is pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Posted at 8:53 PM

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August 13, 2008

I am fortune's fool.

Posted at 11:08 PM

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August 12, 2008

It's the migraine that won't die. Any time now my eyeballs will finally pop straight out of my head in response to the massive pressure that's been there. Oh joy.

Posted at 10:38 PM

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August 11, 2008

Scratch what I said yesterday. All of life is a disappointment. Any decent moments are just setting you up for a fall, and for the most part it's all misery and pain. The only people who have any "happiness" are the people who don't care how much pain they cause or how many people they hurt, so long as they get what they want from life. Some of them make those decisions consciously, others unconsciously, but the end-result is certainly always the same.

Posted at 8:26 PM

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August 10, 2008

My life is such a disappointment.

Posted at 9:11 PM

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August 9, 2008

If any kind of miracle or burst of rare good luck is to happen in my life, now would be the time.

Posted at 8:20 PM

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August 8, 2008

08:08,08/08/08

Moments like this only come once in a lifetime - heck, only once in a millennia.

Posted at 8:08 AM

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August 7, 2008

This is spot on.

In Defense of Liberalism
by Wayne Besen

It is campaign season, once again, which means conservatives, will try to paint Democrats as "liberals," as if it were a dirty word. I, for one, am proud to be a liberal and believe we should stand up against these conservative smears.

One of the great fallacies in modern lore is that liberalism stands for nothing and liberals have no core beliefs. The right wing, from the Pope to the President, has impugned the left by unfairly portraying it as a valueless movement mired in moral relativism.

This could not be further from the truth. Indeed, the left is the backbone of freedom, the defender of personal liberty, the guarantor of free speech and religious worship and the nurturer of democratic movements across the globe. Far from believing in nothing, wherever liberal democratic values prevail, civilizations flourish and free people thrive.

The cornerstone of liberalism is the idea that each person is endowed with the precious gift of liberty and can freely choose his or her own path - for better or worse. We believe this is crucial to greater enlightenment, personal growth and ultimate fulfillment. It also offers the best opportunity for people to realize their dreams and achieve their spiritual promise.

Liberalism encourages exploration and education. It reveres science and celebrates the inquisitive mind. Indeed, liberal values are often superior to those held on the right, because they are tenaciously subjected to rigorous examination. Beliefs that are questioned and still prevail are the ones that stand the test of time.

Like conservatism, liberalism has very strong core principles. But unlike conservatism, liberalism is not afraid to question "the way it is." The fulcrum of this philosophy is that all ideas will be constantly examined, scrutinized, studied and debated. If new information emerges to counter the culture's prevailing values or understanding, it will be rightfully taken into account. Far from moral relativism, liberalism searches for the ultimate value in which to build a moral foundation: Truth.

Right wing movements across the globe often seem uninterested in truth if it contradicts their obdurate belief systems. Reality averse, they are woefully unable to adjust to new understandings, burgeoning ideas and cultural awakenings. For example, despite overwhelming evidence that women are the equals of men, they still can't drive or vote in some Muslim countries. In America, gay people are still treated as second-class citizens, even though mountains of science and empirical evidence suggest that homosexuality is as biologically ingrained as eye color or handedness.

Liberals believe in the power of "reason," while conservatives are often just plain reactionary. This is why the GOP is the party of the "southern strategy" and anti-gay subterfuge. Republican power is directly related to fertilizing fear and fomenting fanaticism.

Indeed, the great appeal of modern conservatism, or other forms of authoritarianism, is that people don't have to think for themselves. They can mentally "check out" of this world and place their worries in the hands of a commanding politician or a higher deity.

Modern conservatives are often discomfited by the complexities of life and demand answers to the world's many unanswerable questions. They arrogantly and disingenuously claim to have absolute truth, while liberalism boldly proclaims that it does not have such ubiquitous powers of understanding. Liberalism is for those who are unafraid to fully embrace the magnificent journey of life and tackle the great mysteries of our time.

If one looks at modern conservatism in the United States, it is easy to see that it is a movement of intellectual and spiritual atrophy. In the political realm, conservatives essentially call for judges who are "strict constructionists," which is shorthand for saying "the Constitution is a dead document."

What a monumentally ridiculous notion to put forth, that American jurisprudence has not evolved in more than two centuries! Do strict constructionists believe that women and African Americans should have their rights restricted because the nation's founders treated women as second-class citizens and owned slaves?

Likewise, modern conservatives have also rendered the Bible (or Koran) "dead documents." In conservative houses of worship, traditionalists put forth the untenable belief that holy books are literal. They call these books "God's Plan," as if the Creator hasn't had a new thought in a couple of thousand years.

Modern conservatives will claim that liberals are sacrilegious for holding such beliefs. To the contrary, liberals are often extraordinarily religious or spiritual people. However, they diverge with conservatives in that they believe the strongest faith is one that is subject to healthy skepticism and painstaking examination. In encouraging people to explore all faiths -- free of guilt, shame, coercion or fear -- liberalism also offers people the greatest number spiritual options.

Many of my columns deal with gay themes because equality for gay men and women is the civil rights issue of the new Millennium. However, gay rights mean nearly as much to heterosexuals as they do for homosexuals. The very peace and prosperity of nations can be easily predicted by looking at how they relate to their gay citizens.

If a country treats gay people with dignity and respect and offers them equality, it signals that the country bases its decisions on sound education, rationalism and science. This inevitably leads towards success in all spheres of life.

Countries that ostracize and penalize homosexuals tend to be superstitious, authoritarian and anti-intellectual. This almost uniformly leads to poverty, war, oppression and ultimately tyranny.

A cynic might argue that the United States is not as gay friendly as other countries, yet, it is the richest country in the world. True, but nearly all of America's cities and states that are centers of profit and creativity offer acceptance for homosexuals. States most hostile to gay people are relatively backwards, with lower levels of education and income. Places that offer acceptance signal that they are open-minded and looking towards the future. Locales that reject homosexuals indicate that they are stuck in the past -- at their own peril.

In essence, gay rights are the canary in the coal mine for freedom and prosperity. Unfortunately, the bird is hacking, signaling a period of increased oppression and a dangerous erosion of freedom. It is up to us to rescue this nation from the perilous path it is now on. It is time we proudly stand up for what we believe in. If we don't defend our values, our opponents will define them.

Progressive does not mean passive. Our compassion does not mean that we lack passion. Our respect for other beliefs does not signify that we don't hold strong beliefs of our own that we are willing to fight for. Indeed, our power comes from out ability to adjust to reality. We are secure in our values, yet humble enough to adapt if our viewpoints are proven obsolete. Wherever liberal democracy takes root, a strong and proud record of economic, moral, social and political achievement follows.

Posted at 10:10 PM

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August 6, 2008

I am getting so much more tired, having so many more prolonged migraines, and feeling so incredibly low that I don't know what to think. If I didn't absolutely have to keep an eye on my grandma and take care of her and take her to appointments, I have absolutely no doubt that I wouldn't get out of bed at all. Maybe I just need to catch up on sleep - after all, my grandma has woken me up way too early a few times in the last week and kept me from going back to sleep, and I haven't had any chance to get more than six and a half or seven hours in any given night, if that much. Then again, maybe I'm heading toward another full break-down.

The last time that happened I was getting this same sort of overwhelming, crushing depression, and finally it just became too much and I was too tired, and I just slept constantly for about twenty to twenty-one hours a day for nearly three months. I think that my responsibilities to my grandma would keep me from finally letting go like that again, but I don't know. To a very, very large extent, that sort of thing is completely out of my control, and once it overwhelms me I'm done.

I'd expect to be afraid of that happening, falling into a new break-down, because following my previous break-down I was nearly terrified of losing myself like that again. Strangely, though, I don't fear it. A small part of me even wants it, not that I can really understand why. I guess whether I want it or not is silly to contemplate, though. If it's coming, then what I do or don't want is completely irrelevant. Whatever is going to happen will happen one way or another.

Posted at 9:54 PM

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August 5, 2008

Happy Birthday to my nephew Hunter, who is now a teenager. I hope his teenage years are as different from mine as possible.

Posted at 9:23 PM

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August 4, 2008

If it can hurt this much for this long, why don't I just choose one method of suicide and get it over with? It can't hurt any more than this, no matter what I do.

I think the only thing that still stops me is the likelihood that something will somehow go wrong and I won't in fact die but will come out of it as a paraplegic or a vegetable, trapped in my head, or something equally unpleasant. Let's face it - that's exactly the way my luck runs: whatever thing, no matter how unlikely, will happen so long as it gives me the most misery.

I wish there were a foolproof way.

Posted at 11:21 PM

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August 3, 2008

I managed to visit Steve and Steffen and Paul in Perrysburg tonight - the first time in weeks. We spent a lot of time catching up and joking around, and then it was time to leave practically right away.

It's just never enough time. At least I had a break, though, even if it was brief. I certainly needed to get away. If only there could be more.

Posted at 12:25 AM

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August 2, 2008

I'm sinking further and further. How low can I go?

Posted at 11:05 PM

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August 1, 2008

Happy Birthday, Tijuan, wherever you are.

Posted at 10:52 PM

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Journal, by Paul Cales, © August 2008

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