First, Happy Birthday Brenda!

The next thing I want to say is that Sparks is truly and honestly my best friend. I don't say that to kiss ass. In all honesty, she doesn't read my blog. She isn't a blog person
and isn't really good in foreign electronic environments, she leaves that to me. That returns us to the basic point. She is my best friend. In fact she is probably my first true
best friend. I have had some close friends, but never anyone close enough to be a best friend. I'm a stand-offish person plain and simple. I don't make a lot of plans, I
enjoy seeing my friends and then again 6 months later thinking nothing of the time in-between. But that is not how you build close relationships. Enduring ones yes, but
not close. Yes, I have learned to open myself up and share myself and even to allow people to care about me. I care about the people I consider my friends and can even
consider a person a friend who I only met a couple of times in person, even if I spend more time challenging (read: bitching about) them then enjoying their company. I
my world, in my mind, you don't bother challenging or debating a person unless you really respect them. I guess I can attribute my upbringing to the courseness of my
ranting though. I don't talk about my family much, mostly because I wasn't allowed to really exist in a functional way until I was old enogh to be a physical threat, thus
demanding to be addressed at least as directly as a stranger on the street. My family is very combative in their way and all have a habit of listening only as a device used
to get a person silent so we can tell them what's what. I do feel I have done a great job in my life learning to counsel myself and learn to listen and openly admit my
quirks in conversation (e.g. say things like 'Look, I know I am babling like an obnoxious fool right now, just give me a minute and I'll finish my crap and then we can move
on intelligently and forget this is happening), but as helpful as that is, as humbling as that can be, it's frequently not enough. Once something is out of my mouth, it's out,
and owning up and even apologizing can not always right the wrong. So I resolve myself to accepting that and continuing to just try to do my best.

The fallout is however, I am now 31 years old, never got very close to anyone, or got really close to people only when they were safely far enough away that I couldn't see
them often even if I wanted to. I think you may begin to see where I am going here. Basically I am realizing that my anxiety makes it hard for me to have 'normal'
friendships. When I see friends I have a good time, but as soon as a single joke falls flat or as soon as I say a single foolish thing and people go silent, somewhere in
my head I have RUINED the evening. I don't believe it literally, but that fear creeps in and builds over time, only alleviating when I can make people laugh again. Beyond
that I feel that this model of functionality can not work on a frequent basis, it becomes too visible and people would start to see through it. Then there is the fact that I have
such a fractured background, never had favorite music or books or movies of any kind by the time I was 16 and finally lived somewhere for 3 years in a row for the first
time in my life. So I always wound up feeling on the outside, playing catch up to learn about something that everyone would be thoroughly done with by the time I was up
on it and eventually, realizing that I have never really developed the tools to make up all those years or even just relax and be myself, whatever myself might be at that
time... I slipped through the next two years and then went off to college. I have to admit, I did have one, in my mind at least, golden year. One year that I got a taste of what
friends and fitting in and belonging felt like and for the first time felt a sense of calm. But that was short lived, because now it would be life and not my family splitting my
first little group of true friends apart, the only group I had dared to spend a lot of time with and relax.

I both withdrew and exploded in college. Becomming super-active and at the same time drawing myself in to a hyper-defensive shell where I wouldn't or couldn't allow
myself to get too close to people. It was a paradox. I socialized a LOT, but always in controlled settings where there was some rigidity that I could work with and derive
security from. Like HS, I wouldn't appreciate most of the best people I knew until much later.

I do remember a short period though when I was doing a play with Skye his senior year of HS (with whom I'd had a tumultuous, if brief, history with to that point) and
although it was probably too minor for him to recall, I really enjoyed making peace, getting to know him and spending a bunch of nights with he and a few others in our
cars in various parking lots after rehearsals, just chewing the shit and having a good time. I never told him, but those few nights were among the very first times I was
able to just relax and have a good time with a few people, even one on one, and live without working. I always attributed that to the kind of person Skye is. I always
admired him since then and have never had any cause to change that opinion. It is a little embarrassing though and thus embedded so deeply in this prose that few if
any people will have the patience to reveal how highly I regard him. A person who, again, is someone I've probably haven't hung out with more than a couple dozen times
in my life.

So anyway, to sum up. Sparks is the first person I have ever been able to develop a friendship with that not only endures 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but does so with
the easy calm that I had only ever known briefly via special people in isolated moments of my life. I hope that time will pass and I will have the opportunity to make more
friends in a real way. In a way where I can see them more than 2 times in a month and not freak out. In a way where I can relax and feel like I am fine and no work is
necessary. I'd like my friends to know what high regard I hold them in. Not simply because I find the courage to tell them so, but because I find the peace in my heart and
soul to tell them so transparently and by simply being. To make these people feel like I am someone they would WANT to see more than once every few months.
Yes, I could name some exceptions, some people I have seen more and been close too. I saw my old roomie every day, and we are friends, but I also know I hid away a
lot became more rigid when my anxiety mounted. It's not that I haven't seen people often it's that I haven't been capable of seeing them often easily and without anxiety.
So life is a process. I'll take the opportunities afforded me and maybe some people will roll the dice and decide they want to hop on board and see how the journey turns
out. I look forward to those people surfacing and I look forward to working to find that place where I wont have to work any more.

I thank whoever of you have endured and read this entire mind purge (no pun intended) and I hope it meant something to you as well as me. Either way, thanks.

As always...

Happa I know what you mean. Sparks is totally frustrated because she wants me to feel the baby move so badly to share her experience with me and while I have felt it a few times now, 95% of the time, the baby stops moving the second my hand is on her belly. :-)

Thanks to Boogie Shoes for the greatest poetic ballad of our time! :-)

I see Ghost has now become all that he has lothed in the past I wish him luck.

Got the info, thanks for your e-mails. It was a tough night, but ultimately a pretty good night, relatively speaking. It was warm and loving and ultimately very uplifting and as enjoyable as can be reasonably expected. Maybe a little bit more...

Always...

If anyone hears from UIM or has details about his Nana's funeral, PLEASE E-MAIL ME. Thanks.

I knew UIM's Nana. I adored her. I have so many memories of being at UIM's house with Him and his Nana and Lady running around with a tennis ball in her mouth. Chasing down nerf arrows in the tall grass of the back yard keeping half an eye out for land mines. I remember the Games we'd all play at the kitchen table, Franks poster rack, the piles of Toys 'R' Us booty, the pitiful old computer that he managed to coax the darndest things out of. I remember the peacefullness of the place for me, the permanence. Some things changed, as all things do, but they were still The house, UIM, Nana, Lady, the feeling, the sense of the place, like a blanket always loosely draped across the back of your mind in such a comfortable way that you forget sometimes it's there. Even as I heard of your Nana's illness, UIM, I never really registered that there was anything to worry for, that is end was possible. In my mind, my heart, these people, these places, are supposed to last forever. Because there was a magical quality there for me. A meaning beyond immediate perception. In some strange way, I had made that place, those memories, sacred to me, put them in my pocket and locked them up for safety so they would always be close. Now those physical things have fallen away one by one and we're left and the memories and suddenly I am forced to figure out what to do with that locked box and the permanent things within and as I write this I know. I will open that box, check the contents one by one and put it right back in my pocket, because in the best of ways everything is still there, just as I left it.

My heart is with you Frank, I feel for you truly, even if no one can truly feel AS you in these moments...
Please let me know what I can do to help or where I can be to be there...

Miss you buddy,
Always...

As odd and unweildy a combination as is reasonably possible:

Al, my most sincere and heartfelt condolences...

Happa, my most sincere and joyous congratulations!

The Shallow Contraption

Who knows where the beauty lies?
The eyes perceive it
The mind believes it
But where is it really?
Or when may be more correct?

Must there be experience for existence?
Is that this beasts nature?
Surely I say to you it is.
There is no relative without perception
And it's meaning damns it as such.

So we must have experience to ween it
from ugly or plain or nothing at all
kissed into our minds evermore
Or as longs as minds will hold such things
But therein lies both the comfort and The rub
In irony

For love is beauty
I dare for proof otherwise
And where there is love there is memory
And eternity and revel of soul
Twisted twine in our garden
with flowers to scent whistfully on and on

There is no loss or such thing
No time, No age, No end
Save to us and only then if the true end is ours
Yet if not
Then that love, that beauty is forever
And our hearts will have comfort
Waiting just ahead
Waiting always and Inevitable
With peace bunched in it's windings of sweet rope
Unbroken

And our love is safe there
And pure and perfect
Beyong the frail and warm
Beyond the walking, seeing, breaking
Beyond the all that is not in the truth of after
In the timeless, the forever, the final
The Beautiful

Ah Happa, you make it all worthwhile :-)

Glad things are improving in most areas. Hope everything continues to do so.

Skye, I truely feel for you. One of the true boons of love is that is doesn't have to be logical, it just has to be. Being able to feel for someone so strongly is a valuable gift, even as that gift causes great pain. One day I pray you will find the peace and comfort of knowing you loved so deeply and not the regret of not loving when you had the chance. On this subject I do know just a bit. Good luck my friend.

Since I'm probably boycotted by a bunch of people by now anyway... :-)

If oversimplifacation were a crime, some of us would be in jail.

A. We support Israel, because we are on the same side of a political fence most of the time and they are our easiest access and safe haven in the area. It's in our best interests. We do not fear Isreal nor it's political "power". As witnessed this week, when Isreal does something that seems counter-productive to the peace process, we do not hesitate to take action.

B. We need the Arabs FAR MORE than Isreal as we rely on them for 66% of our oil supplies and that keeps us constantly open to resolutions to this and all these types of conflicts.

C. Throwing a fire-bomb at a government building is far different than blowing up a passenger plane. The same methods may be employed militarily, but that is semantical. The bottom line (As I will explain below) is that your "Only" means of fighting MILITARILY, is not your only means of fighting, nor is it necessarily your best one.

D. The arab states could far more easily utilize peaceful and political means to bring public opinion to their cause, uniting the arab states in a truly powerful way. Their infighting, mutual jealousy and power/greed thirsts keep that from happening. If the Indians had control of the resources that the Arabs did then yes, it would be wrong if they utilized their only "Military" options because Military options are not the only nor the most powerful options available.

The botton line is to think three-dimensionally. Don't reduce something to a single variable or black-and-white.

Hope you all had a good weekend.
Psyche, is a kick ass name.

As always...

Congratulations!
Your general IQ score is 154.

Oh well, Happa is smarter than I. :-)

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY TO MY LOVING WIFE.
YOU GROW MORE BEAUTIFUL WITH EVERY PASSING MOMENT.

I may not always feel like I deserve such a wonderful person, woman and friend in my life, but for as long as you'll have me, walk, talk and Laugh with me, my single-minded goal will always be to make you as happy as the limits of my body and mind will allow. And if prayers have the power I hope they do then I'll make you even happier than those limits will allow. Thank you for walking beside me and thank you for the chance to know you in every sense of the word. I never truly dreamed I'd be so happy that when my friends call to hang out, my first reaction is "Well, I'd really like to spend time with Alicia right now..." That feeling has only grown and as foreign as that is to me in this life, it is also sacred and I will care for and nurture that with my very life.

I love you sweetheart,

Always,
Joe

Happa: Great news about the baby, sorry you had such a scare! Our prayers for your StepFather, I hope he gets well soon!

Is Paul's Website permanently down? Does anyone know?

UIM, Sorry I haven't got back to you, I am looking forward to reading your re-write as soon as I get a free hour or two to give it a good once over.

Ghosts of Dolls

I had a frog, it's name was Fred
I stretched his neck,
Now he's dead,
He didn't plead
Did not protest,
Most likely cause I squished his chest
I didn't know he'd come apart
They just assumed I'd be so smart.
I never held a living thing
Only dolls and toys and rigid things
I sat and cried and felt such pain
I'd never see my Fred again
It's odd in life how you remember
Something like a frog dismembered
But in my life I've seen and see
That frog again metaphorically
Sometimes I try with pure intentions
And fall in ways too foolish to mention
But to judge when to not try
Is half the battle by and by
Because some things can be re-said
But some can be like old Fred's head.

...