Journal Archives from theDreamworld ... November 2007

November 2007

November 30, 2007

It's been a rather long, frantic day with me rushing from one place to another to take my grandma to various appointments and to do lots of various shopping in spots literally all around town. It's been simply exhausting, without any time for me to stop even once to just catch a breath or sit down. As it is now, I'm falling asleep in front of the computer screen as I type (note to self: lying in bed to type a journal entry while extremely tired is an extremely bad idea).

The good news is that all of the Christmas shopping for me and my grandma is done, and a number of other things around the house have been taken care of in such a way as I won't have to worry about a number of things for a while.

Now it's time to sleep, because I don't really have a choice. Sleep ...

Posted at 12:23 AM

November 29, 2007

Why are November and December always so exhausting? Isn't this supposed to be like a vacation time or something ...

Posted at 11:24 PM

November 28, 2007

Running a leaf blower for five and a half hours straight really messes up your arms. Trust me on this.

Posted at 11:19 PM

November 27, 2007

I still can't believe it's not butter.

Posted at 11:59 PM

November 26, 2007

I am so tired of so many things, so very incredibly tired. Let me sleep forever. Even that may not be enough.

Posted at 10:11 PM

November 25, 2007

After a few weeks apart my friends Steve, Mark, Dakota, Steffen, and Paul had a get-together tonight, and after an afternoon of errands out of town in Bowling Green, I headed to Perrysburg to spend time with all of them. It was a good time, and it was good to see all of them.

The flare-ups and problems that signaled the end of things the last time we met were not even mentioned, and I'm not sure if that was good or bad. In a way I was glad that we didn't reengage some touchy issues, but at the same time I feel like we missed something of an opportunity to fully put things to rest and not have it hanging there like the proverbial elephant in the room. Maybe it is best to just drop it and move on. I just hope the same issues don't fester and get further irritated, returning later as a time-bomb of our own construction.

But if you put that aside, it was a decent evening, and all signs suggest that we will be returning to a very regular once-a-week evening together. I would certainly enjoy the camaraderie and the change of scenery once a week, particularly now as the holiday season has its usual effect on me and makes me feel increasingly depressed and hopeless.

Ah, such fun. Yeah buddy. Right.

Posted at 1:38 AM

November 24, 2007

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

“War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

“Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.”

- James Madison

Posted at 9:44 PM

November 23, 2007

The American Dream - another victim of the real world.

Tattered Dream
Who'll Tackle the Issue Of Upward Mobility?

We're not who we think we are.

The American self-image is suffused with the golden glow of opportunity. We think of the United States as a land of unlimited possibility, not so much a classless society but as a place where class is mutable -- a place where brains, energy and ambition are what counts, not the circumstances of one's birth. But three new studies suggest that Horatio Alger doesn't live here anymore.

The Economic Mobility Project, an ambitious research initiative led by the Pew Charitable Trusts, looked at the economic fortunes of a large group of families over time, comparing the income of parents in the late 1960s with the income of their children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Here's the finding that jumps out at me:

"The 'rags to riches' story is much more common in Hollywood than on Main Street. Only 6 percent of children born to parents with family income at the very bottom move to the very top."

That's right, just 6 percent of children born to parents who ranked in the bottom fifth of the sample, in terms of income, were able to bootstrap their way into the top fifth. Meanwhile, an incredible 42 percent of children born into that lowest quintile are still stuck at the bottom, having been unable to climb a single rung of the income ladder.

The study notes that even in Britain -- a nation we tend to think of as burdened with a hidebound, anachronistic class system -- children who are born poor have a better chance of moving up.

The Economic Mobility Project can't be accused of having an ideological bias; it's a collaboration, led by Pew, involving four leading think tanks that pretty much cover the political spectrum -- the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute.

"Both left and right can care about this," said John E. Morton, Pew's managing director of economic policy. "Traditionally, Americans have been ready to accept high levels of inequality because of our belief in the American dream. What happens if we can't believe in the dream any longer?"

When the three studies were released last week, most reporters focused on the finding that African Americans born to middle-class or upper-middle-class families are earning slightly less, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than did their parents. Julia B. Isaacs, the Brookings scholar who authored the reports, said the reason for this is still unclear; overall, the data suggest that blacks are somewhat less upwardly mobile than whites, although about two-thirds of African Americans do earn more than their parents did.

Isaacs said she was surprised at finding that the personal income of American men -- including white men -- has been almost perfectly flat for the past three decades. One of Isaacs's studies indicates, in fact, that most of the financial gains white families have made in that time can be attributed to the entry of white women into the labor force. This is not the case for African Americans; in 1968, when the group was first surveyed, black women were far more likely to already have income-producing jobs.

The picture that emerges from all the quintiles, correlations and percentages is of a nation in which, overall, "the current generation of adults is better off than the previous one," as one of the studies notes. The median income of the families studied was $55,600 in the late 1960s; their children's median family income was $71,900. However, this rising tide has not lifted all boats equally. The rich have seen far greater income gains than have the poor.

Even more troubling is that our notion of America as the land of opportunity gets little support from the data. Americans move fairly easily up and down the middle rungs of the ladder, but there is "stickiness at the ends" -- four out of 10 children who are born poor will remain poor, and four out of 10 children who are born rich will stay rich.

Isaacs, who specializes in child and family policy at Brookings, said she thought that improved early-childhood education was one way to begin making the promise of economic mobility more of a reality; one key to understanding the racial disparities found in the studies, she said, might be the vast difference in wealth (as opposed to income) between white and black families.

The Economic Mobility Project's work should be part of the political debate. Every candidate for president should read these studies and then explain why it's acceptable that a poor kid has only a 6 percent chance of reaching the top.

Posted at 11:02 PM

November 22, 2007

The days when things seem to be going well with taking care of my grandma are the days I should always be most worried about, because invariably it's just fate's twisted way of getting me to drop my guard so that some stupid thing I never would have or could have possibly expected or anticipated will crop up and drive me to the brink of insanity. Just because the first part of the day goes fairly smoothly does not suggest that it will continue in that manner. Quite the opposite in fact.

Days like today would be much more manageable and much less stressful if I would just remember that. It's strange that the cynic in me somehow fails to maintain that knowledge.

Posted at 11:30 PM

November 21, 2007

I woke up just after six this morning feeling incredibly alone and empty. Ken was on my mind amid all that I was feeling, and then I just started sobbing uncontrollably for about a half hour. I felt completely exhausted after that, but for the next four hours I tried to go back to sleep and simply couldn't do it, no matter what I tried.

The holidays always upset me quite a bit, but usually just by making me feel very depressed and quiet. It's not usually anything like this crushing worthlessness I felt this morning, and it was very difficult to feel better as the day progressed. I forced myself to do the errands and some of the shopping that I had to do today, but I wasn't very comfortable doing so. I can tend to get freaked out by big, crushing crowds, and I hadn't anticipated shopping today already being as full and stressful as it was. THe amount of people on the roads even just going through town were outrageous, but shopping in the toy store and the mall were particularly rushed affairs. I just had to get out of there.

I got back to the house after 5 PM, and after a few hours of reading and watching some TV, I've wound down, and I feel okay. I have a continuing headache that won't go away, and there's an underlying anxiety that won't go away, but I'm coping better now. I hope I get a full night's sleep, though, because I really need the help to relax and regain some strength. I feel really whipped emotionally and physically, and I hope this was just a freakish sort of day and not a sign of what to expect through the whole holiday season. We'll see how it goes. I just don't really know.

Posted at 11:11 PM

November 20, 2007

These sorts of archeological finds fascinate me.

Roman Grotto Linked to Mythical Founder

ROME, Italy (AP) -- Archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled an underground grotto believed to have been revered by ancient Romans as the place where a wolf nursed the city's legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.

Decorated with seashells and colored marble, the vaulted sanctuary is buried 52 feet inside the Palatine hill, the palatial center of power in imperial Rome, the archaeologists said at a news conference.

In the past two years, experts have been probing the space with endoscopes and laser scanners, fearing that the fragile grotto, already partially caved-in, would not survive a full-scale dig, said Giorgio Croci, an engineer who worked on the site.

The archaeologists are convinced that they have found the place of worship where Romans believed a she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of the god of war Mars who were abandoned in a basket and left adrift on the Tiber.

Thanks to the wolf, a symbol of Rome to this day, the twins survived, and Romulus founded the city, becoming its first king after killing Remus in a power struggle.

Ancient texts say the grotto known as the "Lupercale" -- from "lupa," Latin for she-wolf -- was near the palace of Augustus, Rome's first emperor, who was said to have restored it, and was decorated with a white eagle.

That symbol of the Roman Empire was found atop the sanctuary's vault, which lies just below the ruins of the palace built by Augustus, said Irene Iacopi, the archaeologist in charge of the Palatine and the nearby Roman Forum.

Augustus, who ruled from the late 1st century B.C. to his death in the year 14, was keen on being close to the places of Rome's mythical foundation and used the city's religious traditions to bolster his hold on power, Iacopi said.

"The Lupercale must have had an important role in Augustus' policies," she said. "He saw himself as a new Romulus."

Andrea Carandini, a professor of archaeology at Rome's La Sapienza University and an expert on the Palatine, said the grotto is almost certainly the "Lupercale."

"The chances that it's not are minimal," said Carandini, who did not take part in the dig. "It's one of the greatest discoveries ever made."

Most of the sanctuary is filled with earth, but laser scans allowed experts to estimate that the circular structure has a height of 26 feet and a diameter of 24 feet, Croci said.

Archaeologists at the news conference were divided on how to gain access to the "Lupercale."

Iacopi said a new dig would start soon to find the grotto's original entrance at the bottom of the hill. Carandini suggested enlarging the hole at the top through which probes have been lowered so far, saying that burrowing at the base of the hill could disturb the foundations of other ruins.

The Palatine is honeycombed with palaces and other ancient monuments, from the 8th-century B.C. remains of Rome's first fledgling huts to a medieval fortress and Renaissance villas. But the remains are fragile and plagued by collapses, leaving more than half of the hill, including Augustus' palace, closed to the public.

Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said the first area to benefit from an extensive, $17.5 million restoration of the hills' ruins will be Augustus' palace, scheduled to reopen in February after being closed for decades.

Posted at 10:09 PM

November 19, 2007

I made my first Christmas purchase today. It's nice that my grandma's present is all wrapped up (so to speak), even though it has yet to be shipped to me, but it's sad, really, considering I used to always have every single present, card, and trinket purchased and wrapped before the week of Thanksgiving. Heck, I don't even buy presents for as many people as I once did, and I still don't get done until a week or two into December.

I'll admit - I'm really not in the Christmas spirit or in a mood to buy gifts, but ... I don't have a choice if I'm to get my grandma out and shopping for the gifts she will give to everyone as well as getting my own gifts for others, and then I still have to wrap and ship everything to my sister's house for everybody to get before the big day. It's not fun like it used to be, not really. All of the magic has left that I once got out of this, and it adds further to the continued devaluation of Christmas as far as it feels to me. Now it is just a bad tribute to capitalism with little love and less shared humanity. How truly sad it all is.

Posted at 10:10 PM

November 18, 2007

IN THE LAND OF BEGINNING AGAIN

There's a land of beginning again
Where skies are always blue
Though we've made mistakes, that's true
Let's forget the past and start life anew
Though we wander (*) by a river of tears
Where sunshine won't come through
Let's find that paradise where sorrow can't live
And learn the teachings of forget and forgive
In the land of beginning again
Where broken dreams come true

Sometimes there're tears behind a sunny smile,
Some hearts hold sorrow for a long, long while,
If we could only forget,
Think how much further we'd get.
And though our hearts are filled with sadness,
We'll see the sunshine yet.

Don't ever feel that ev'ry hope is gone,
It's always darkest just before the dawn,
Just try a smile through the tears,
Some day you'll laugh at your fears.
And though your life is filled with shadows,
They'll fade through future years.

There's a land of beginning again
Where skies are always blue
Though we've made mistakes, that's true
Let's forget the past and start life anew
Though we wander by a river of tears
Where sunshine won't come through
Let's find that paradise where sorrow can't live
And learn the teachings of forget and forgive
In the land of beginning again
Where broken dreams come true

Posted at 9:30 PM

November 17, 2007

There is no gravity. The Earth sucks.

Posted at 10:51 PM

November 16, 2007

Do you ever feel randy, baby?

If so, what does he say about that?

Posted at 10:34 PM

November 15, 2007

If it keeps raining day after day like this I'll never get out to rake leaves and cut back plants. What a shame.

Posted at 11:01 PM

November 14, 2007

Well, if this is true then all mankind is seriously boned.

The Consumer Paradox: Scientists Find that Low Self-Esteem and Materialism Goes Hand in Hand

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.”

- from the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.

"By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth," they write in the study, which will appear in the Journal of Consumer Research.

The paradox that findings such as these bring up, is that consumerism is good for the economy but bad for the individual. In the short run, it’s good for the economy when young people believe they need to buy an entirely new wardrobe every year, for example. But the hidden cost is much higher than the dollar amount. There are costs in happiness when people believe that their value is extrinsic. There are also environmental costs associated with widespread materialism.

In the book “Happiness: Lessons From a New Science”, Richard Layard exposes a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most of us want more income so we can consume more. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. In fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. This paradox is true of Britain, the United States, continental Europe and Japan.

Statistically people have more things than they did 50 years ago, but they are actually less happy in several key areas. There is also the considerable cost of what materialism does to the environment. We don’t yet know what final toll that could take in terms of quality of life and overall happiness. What many people don’t understand is that if we want to save the environment then at some level we have to buy and consume less. We don’t need to buy so much bottled water, for example. Studies have shown it’s usually not any purer than city tap water, which doesn't’t leave mountains of plastic bottles strewn across the nations landfills. It also wastes energy and resources to make those plastic bottles and the many other unnecessary things that both youth and adults alike believe they need to have in order to enjoy life and feel good about themselves.

Mad Magazine summed it up with the statement, “The only reason a great many American families don't own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.”

That funny statement, is only funny because it’s somewhat true. The reason people want whatever is currently “hot” is because they believe it will contribute towards their satisfaction and happiness in life. The word “believe” is the key here. People believe that buying more and more things will make them happy, when in fact research has shown time and time again that this simply isn't’t the case. What we do know for sure is that buying more and more unnecessary things is damaging our planet and contributing to global warming.

Sure, one person being less materialistic isn't’t going to make a noticeable impact on the environment, but it will make a positive impact in that one life. Once entire nations start to understand the myths about what really makes individuals happy, the world will stand a fighting chance.

Posted at 9:51 PM

November 13, 2007

Nary a phone call; nary a word. So much for being kept in the loop. Why do I expect any different?

Posted at 7:34 PM

November 12, 2007

I did some shopping today for things I needed for the house and for around the house, and it took forever and even with all of the time spent, I still didn't find half of what I needed. While I was out there I got to look around briefly at what's for sale, and I honestly have absolutely no ideas for what to do about Christmas presents. I mostly just buy for my niece and nephew, but I don't have a clue this year about anything. Of course when you get down to it, I don't have a clue about just about anything right now, and even where I do, I just don't have the energy to do anything about it.

I feel like I could just lose all coherence at any time now and just dissolve away into the earth. That wouldn't be so bad, really, because then I'd at least be doing something. Instead I just exist here, barely able to move or think. If it weren't for having to take care of my grandma, I think I would have just given up and wasted away in bed. It's unlikely that anyone would have noticed.

Posted at 10:23 PM

November 11, 2007

What I need is a miracle.

Posted at 10:21 PM

November 10, 2007

More proof that being gay is genetic and not just a "lifestyle" or a "choice", as the fundie freaks would like you to believe.

Born To Be Gay

For years scientists have debated if sexual orientation is determined by nature or nurture. New evidence suggests genetics is a significant factor for whether an individual is homosexual or heterosexual.

The findings emanate from a Canadian study of the brains of healthy, right-handed, 18- to 35-year-old homosexual and heterosexual men using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

The research, conducted by Dr. Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist at McMaster University was a follow-up of a ten-year old study that demonstrated there is a higher proportion of left-handers in the homosexual population than in the general population – a result replicated in subsequent studies which is now accepted as fact.

Handedness is a sign of how the brain is organized to represent different aspects of intelligence. Language, for example, is usually on the left - music on the right.

In other research, Witelson and research associate Debra Kigar, had found that left-handers have a larger region of the posterior corpus callosum – the thick band of nerve fibres connecting the two hemispheres of the brain – than right handers.

This raised the hypothesis for the current study – whether the anatomy of the brain of the sub-group of right-handed homosexual men is similar to that of left-handers.

They found that the posterior part of the corpus callosum is larger in homosexual than heterosexual men.

The size of the corpus callosum is largely inherited suggesting a genetic factor in sexual orientation, said Witelson “Our results do not mean that heredity is destiny but they do indicate that environment is not the only player in the field,” she said.

While this is not a litmus test for sexual orientation, Witelson said this finding could prove to be one additional valuable piece of information for physicians and individuals who are trying to determine their sexual orientation. “Sometimes people aren't’t sure of their sexual orientation.”

The researchers also undertook a correlational analysis which included size of the corpus callosum, and test scores scores on language, visual spatial and finger dexterity tests. “By using all these variables, we were able to predict sexual orientation in 95 per cent of the cases,” she said.

Posted at 10:52 PM

November 9, 2007

Who needs me anyway.

Posted at 9:37 PM

November 8, 2007

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

- Maya Angelou

Posted at 10:51 PM

November 7, 2007

My mind is just completely shutting down.

Posted at 10:29 PM

November 6, 2007

There is no justice. Those who should live die; those who should die live. Life is not fair.

Posted at 10:23 PM

November 5, 2007

Kill me.

Posted at 10:24 PM

November 4, 2007

What can the point of it all possibly be?

Posted at 9:15 PM

November 3, 2007

I've deluded myself for forty years that things would get better. Always dreaming things would get better - with time, when I did this or gained that or got away from whoever or found that certain someone - and it never does get better. It sometimes gets worse, but never better. It's always miserable, and it's always painful, and it's always empty, and that never changes.

How does anyone ever accept that hopeless, pointless, fruitless future? I can't imagine. I just know that I can't accept it myself. If it never gets any better than this then there really is nothing worth existing for.

Posted at 10:26 PM

November 2, 2007

Yes, I had heard that.

Posted at 12:19 AM

November 1, 2007

Wouldn't it be sadly ironic if there actually is a life after death - a much better, much more wonderful existence - and we're putting up with this miserable crap world of life day after day for years and decades and even more times of repeated suffering and unhappiness - all while a better existence awaits is later. Yes, that would indeed be ironic. The truth, however, is rather surely that there is nothing after this, and this horrible, cruel world is the best we've been able to manage after thousands of years of the existence of our species. What a sad testament to mankind we have created.

Posted at 11:14 PM