Orlando's Xanga

It Has Been Four Years Since Mom Died

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:21:27 GMT

Yesterday, she died on Veteran's Day... At 84 years old, outliving two husbands and raising 5 children, she certainly was a Veteran of life.

It was a Friday night in 2005 when I had come in from work.   Mom was in the hospital on Wednesday, and I spoke to her. She was tired, I let her go because she was falling asleep on the phone, but she was going home tomorrow, Thursday... so everything was fine.

She could have gone home today with the Dr.s permission but she decided to stay in the hospital just one more night, afraid to go home so soon after a spell of having a hard time breathing.

She had congestive heart failure, everybody knew that...

I told her that I loved her.

On Friday night my sister called. She called to tell me that mom had had a relapse on Thursday and was still in the hospital... it was bad... these were second had details from the second sister...

I realized I had to go home to California, now.    I bought an airline ticket and was in a taxi cab within the hour.

I was sick and felt like vomiting. I shook and sweated, sick to my stomach, all the way back home.

I got home at midnight and my nephew was waiting for me.   We drove directly to the hospital.   I didn't ask if she were still alive, we didn't talk about it...

She was still alive but my brother warned me it wasn't very good.

They were all hopeful, and so was I, that she would respond to my voice in some way.   She did not. They urged me to speak louder.   I spoke to my mother who lay in bed, in a warm sack of hot air blowing around her body, a plastic tube protruding from her mouth, head lolling back and forth to the rhythm of a breathing machine.

My siblings gathered round, mom's eyes rolling around,   looking at me... I'll never knew what she saw or what she knew. She died several hours later.

I held her had and squeezed it. I spoke to her desperately trying to get a response. I told her I loved her. I told her that I didn't want her to suffer.

Mother had a famous story that she was always proud to tell.   She told of her own father laying in the hospital and dying of disease, hanging on with a very thread to life just waiting for uncle to come home from war.

Mom was proud to have lied into his ear, the uncle was on the way home, he would be here soon, so grandfather could die in peace, which he proceeded to do.

I told mother if she needed to go she could.   I will live with that guilt forever. I told her I did not want to lose her but I did not want her to suffer.   I told her that the other siblings were on the way, which was true.

I only turned my back for a moment.

I was standing. I looked at mother, her head had stopped moving,   she was staring directly at me with an expression I could not read. Her face was strained and flushed.

Did she see me? Did she see me gasp in horror and take a step back? Did she see me call for my sister, call for the nurse, freeze in place not knowing what to do?

Why didn't I rush toward her? Grab her and hold her and hold her hand and try to revive her?   Why did I passively allow the nurse to hit the panic button on the wall. I looked at it, I contemplated jumping over to hit it, I knew she was going if not gone already...

I'll never understand my lack of action, my confusion, my utter lack of any type of self control at the moment of my mother's death and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I miss mother. I know she knows I loved her and that this is all my stuff.   I considered this part of the process, after 4 years of getting over the loss I am focusing on myself and am left with the vestiges of the moment..

This year was worse than the second and third.   This year I carried Mom's death with me for the whole week.

This year I miss my mother more than ever and as the pain subsides, the mournful sense of loss seems to increase.

On Saturday I am going to get some sleep and relax.

I've been focusing on Saturday.
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Journey To A Parallel Life : The Crone

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:48:14 GMT

Here is another experience I had while visiting myself in a parallel life.    If that sounds strange, I do these guided visualizations where you listen to a person guiding you as you visualize a scenario.

The CD is here at this link if you want to read more about it:

Amazon.com: Healing Across Time and Space: Guided Journeys to Your ...

My posts at this point are descriptions of my "experiences", rather than an elaboration on the what, how, and wherefore of doing this.

Suffice it to say that I do derive some benefit, whether acknowledged or not, from the exercise. I also enjoy it immensely and it constantly amazes me at the variation of what type of things I visualize and where they possibly arise from.

That being said,   whether it is an exercise in psychology and I "visit" a dark corner of my subconscious where I gain a morsel of self-truth... ...or an exercise in quantum physics and I am actually "visiting" an alternate self in an alternate reality having crossed the threshold between time and space, ...or, even if it is a spiritual journey, an experience where beings in other realms entertain me with a fantastical scenario for spiritual growth is beyond the point of my posting it here.

I merely write about what I experienced and hopefully I will receive some benefit from the experience, often which I realize later and have learned something about life or myself...    ...or at the very least a I get a blog post out of it.

In this experience:

My "guide" appeared. The narrator explains that we all have "guides" (spiritual, if you want to see it that way) that follow us throughout life. These guides are often referred to by people as "guardian angels".

Anyhow, this wasn't one of my usual 3 guides. This was a guide which was just like a black shadow of an androgynous person.

My experience was of a person in a full body suit made of spandex which covered head, hands and feet but upon closer inspection, it was a being with a black rubbery skin, very finely textured. It had no fingers nor toes nor features.

The "time ship" was a typical sci-fi looking space craft with an interior like a 1957 Buick.

When the "ship" landed and we stepped out, I was in water. It was like a marsh or estuary with tall grasses growing in the water and swaying in the waves and breeze.

Even though the narrator said that there was sunlight when I stepped out, it was dark and there was a brilliant full moon against a green-black cloudless and starless sky.

I was terrified and tried to run to land but there was none around me, I could see no land and I could see my guide was calm and the ship had landed in this water and we were both standing up to our knees.

I thought of horrible things like sharks in the water but I was able to just go with it, after all, it was in my own imagination, and maintain faith that I would not be harmed by this visualization that was unfolding in my mind's eye.

....The narrator states that the guide would point at a person and that individual would be me in this alternate life.

At first I was puzzled but gradually I made out a craggy shoreline and a lighthouse in the distance,   more grasses and then I noticed a row boat.   The guide pointed at the person in the boat and I focused in on my alternate self.

I had to walk closer up toward the boat and at first I was worried that she would hear me (in my past experience, I was a child and the child was aware of this "me"), she was a woman, but she remained unaware of the presence of me and the guide.

I maintained the sense of fear of what may lie beneath the surface of the water, the soft green grasses hid much more than they let on...

I was an old woman. I sat in the row boat, shoeless and apparently fishing. I held a line which ran down into the water. I held it tightly, tied to a stick. my hands were old and gnarled. I was a crone.

My/her hair was white and held down by a dirty bandanna. My dress was black and coarse and I had an over apron or robe of burlap which was patched in several places by cheap and mismatched cloth.

My/her dirty feet were covered in mud and sores in the watery bottom of the boat. I wore some type of pants under my dress, and had a dirty rag of a shawl draped over my shoulders.   It was not dark but there was no source of light but the moon.

...The narrator goes on to say things about learning from this other being, figuring out what is going on with it, what it is thinking and feeling... so I did this.

She was a widow. She was not used to being out fishing in the boat on her own. She was stuck out here late having caught no fish after the death of her husband; she had little experience.

I moved in closer and sensed remorse and emptiness in this crone, her empty face held no hint of emotion, yet her thoughts were wild and harsh and all of a sudden it hit me with a shock.... had she killed her husband?

Visions of her husband's dead body floating among the reeds, near my calves and knees, perhaps still on the cusp between life and death,   perhaps held down there by a rope and a weight, rotting and being slowly eaten by fish just inches from where I stood sent shivers through my spine and the water panic welled up in me again...

It even struck me, what was she holding on the end of her line? Had she just killed her husband? Had I just stumbled upon him as he struggled for his last breath just beneath the surface? I scanned the waves for bubbles.

I saw none but looking into the dark water I felt the Poeish thrill of a good visualization experience surge through my veins. In my mind's eye, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I had an adrenaline rush of fear with intellectual awareness of the non-reality of it all.

I thought I would merge with this woman, find out what she had done. I drew closer. Her features never faltered. She gazed sternly at the moon showing no clue as to either guilt nor grief.

I crossed too closely, sensed a pain in my side. A hot flash nearly drew me wide awake. I'd hit the line, the string in the water, I had crossed through it, nearly slicing myself in half.... I waited,   feeling a sharp pain, listening until I had to get up.

I turned off the CD and massaged my ascending colon. I figured some discount Halloween Butterfingers and individualized Almond Joys had done double duty at the exact same time I'd visualized walking through the fishing line.

I thought I would vomit and thought for sure this candy would do it's do and I hadn't actually made a Halloween year without throwing up... but I didn't throw up, I managed to just lay there, legs propped up on pillows for my back.

Perhaps I had a twisted bowel and this witch of a woman, this crone in a boat represented some type of medical cry for help that was now beginning to feel on my right side.

I still lay on my back, legs propped up on pillows in a 90 degree angle, the relaxed position, and not bothering to get up to shit, I dared pass gas.

If there was to be an end to my adventure of being either a starving or murderous old woman in a boat it would come in the form of explosive flatulence as I proceeded to produce the loudest and longest tuba sounding fart I have ever expelled in my life. I swear the neighbor in the next apartment beyond the wall jumped up to see what had happened.

The sheer volume of gas was enormous, enough to provide evidence for all of quantum theory; to say that I expelled a mini-universe is putting it mildly, and then I produced another long and grating Tommy Gun effect and lo and behold the pain subsided.

I don't know why the spirit guide chose to show me the image of myself as an archetypal old woman in a rowboat alone, who had possibly murdered her husband or was possibly just hungry and alone and unable to get a fish.

I think deeply about the symbolism of the fishing line, and my being nearly bisected by it, and then of the tearing gas pain and its ensuing report back in this reality and I must say I am mystified.

I suppose I should avoid any fish sandwiches, fillet of fishes and the like for the next several days.

I usually have a nugget of insight after doing one of these visualizations, especially when I remain awake to remember it all and it is so vivid.

I am really torn on whether or not she killed her husband or was left a widow to fend for herself.

I would really like to know what, if anything, she had on the end of that fishing line.

I'm still thinking.   Perhaps I too am fishing, in a way.

I do know that I do not like standing knee deep in a body of water at night in the moonlight with only reeds waving around me.

I don't think I like what might be down there, even if it is just me sloshing around or fishing in my own wet and murky subconscious.

I can't wait to try it again, but it doesn't always work. I generally fall fast asleep when I try it. I'd say it takes about 10 to 20 or so times to try and listen to the CD without falling asleep that I am able to remember any of it,   and it makes a blog post.

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Reflection On The Second Sun

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:04:19 GMT

Living in Manhattan can be a dark and dreary experience. Someone like me who moved from the west coast has a hard time getting used to the change in season and the rapid fleeing of the sun to just far west as it can possibly go this time of year and even farther away into the winter.

Today I went walking, to the post office and to buy cat food, and I noticed at 2 PM the strong retreat of the sun down 3rd Avenue toward the horizon.   It is brisk and cool and the shadows are long and still mid-afternoon.

I noticed that at high-noon in the apartment the rooms were dreary. I have ample mirrors to reflect the light and luckily, in this apartment I do have 6 windows and both eastern and southern views.

I am able to see large expanses of sky as the tall buildings that are near me are a few blocks away.   I am lucky to live on a block with low buildings.

At work there are often no windows.   I often leave the building and it is already night time, this has become sudden since the time change and the early coldness makes it winter-like already.

My first Manhattan apartment was in the back and had windows which butted up against a small back courtyard of about 20 feet and then a brick wall. Needless to say I never saw the sun there.

My second apartment was not as bad but still , although there was an air shaft in the middle of the building and the noonday sun shown down through the middle of my apartment, I couldn't really see anything out the windows without stretching and there was no direct sunlight after mid-day.

I have been lucky about the mirrors, I have several large mirrors and they have all been found on the street. People abandon items on the sidewalk here as a type of cultural habit, it is an offering, a giving away of a nice item to the first person who is willing to take it.

I have done it several times with bags of clothing, cds, books, a vacuum cleaner, you name it, whatever you don't want and is still good, just set it on the side walk and generally in under an hour it is gone...

Anyway... the mirrors, I have large huge old heavy mirrors and a stained glass window that I found on the sidewalk and the mirrors reflect the sun into the apartment so that even when the sun is on one side of the room, there is often a reflection of the sun on the opposite side.

They have been building a huge building, condos,   about 4 blocks down. It rises into the sky. Sadly to say, last year a worker was killed in a crane accident at that very building.   The building now seems to be complete and finished with all mirrored glass.

When I came home before 3, I had a very nice surprise! The sun, although hidden at the moment for another hour or so behind the building on the southwest, it is reflected from the new building, in the southeast, and it becomes a second sun, so bright in fact that it can blind me from my bedroom window.

I now in fact have, a sun that moves from east to west, and while setting in the west, is also reflected and setting in the east.

I now have streaming sunlight coming from both the west and the east for a sunset after about 3:30 PM,   which means I can now sun myself on my bed in the morning and in the afternoon!

... and with the mirrors in there and on the kitchen wall, I get "direct" sunlight, the real sun and the second sun coming off the tall mirrored high-rise that has risen a few blocks down, shining itself into my apartment while the sun sets in the east.

I have a second sun and see the sun going down in two opposing directions, from the sky and from a large mirror in the sky.

This is bizarre! I have a second sun!

I imagine I live in a huge sparkling metropolis on a planet with two suns.
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Are We Americans Really That Stupid?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:30:54 GMT

Who is Kate Gosselin and Jon Gosselin?   Why do people listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, and even worse, the media go and mention it or put them on the front page of Yahoo and all that?

It used to be the Television that was so shitty with all this nonsense but now all the Web pages are full of this crap.

Do you like Lady GaGa?   LADY GAGA?   Lady GAG ME,   sure, I wanna POKE HER FACE with a big pointed stick...

What the hell?   What is all this shit?   All these "put me on TV" shows, I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU STUPID PEOPLE!

Who are these people and what really dumbfounds me is, who the hell are the people LISTENING to and WATCHING these people???

I knew we were a nation of FAT and STUPID IDIOTS but I had no idea it was so bad.   I've been turning the television set on more to watch Jeopardy and it seems there are entertainment shows all over the place talking chit chat about this celebrity and that, and then I see it HERE, ON XANGA....

Like is everyone 12 years old and having a PUBERTY CRISIS?

Tell me, are you an intelligent person that actually gives a shit about any of that celebrity and radio show assholiness?   If so,   why?
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Can anyone give me ANY REDEEMING QUALITIES of POPULAR AMERICAN CULTURE?
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I mean really DO YOU PEOPLE ACTUALLY WATCH THIS SHIT, OR LET YOUR KIDS WATCH?
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The Ghosts of Halloweens Past

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:32:39 GMT

I wandered the village as a deflated soul.

The rain came down just enough to keep some people home. I hopped a few bars. They were dead for a Halloween, and on a Saturday night. Police barricades kept traffic and people off of the streets. No more parading around in costume for photos....

I did not see the parade. I was going to stay home but someone talked me into going directly to the village early on.

The Ghosts of Halloweens past were heavy on my heart.

I just stood around and watched.

It seemed as if Halloween were for the young but no, I did see many, many people of my age and older.

I made it a point of noticing adults my age and there were many, and I even saw several seniors were dressed in costume... but it was just different.... There was no excitement and I didn't even bother taking a photograph even though I had my camera.

It was actually depressing to be out and I don't know why...

It will never be the same again...

I guess 9/11/01 ruined everything as far as security and crowd control goes... The barricades have been getting steadily more and more restrictive since...

I don't know what it was other than unmet expectations which caused Halloween to be pretty much a non-event for me... I couldn't get exited about it no matter how much I tried. I had the whole day and plenty of time to plan...

I had events papers and magazines...

I couldn't figure out why everybody was so happy.

And I wouldn't exactly call myself "unhappy" at the moment...

I just didn't like the crowds and standing around in the bar.   I had a slight stomach ache which was from candy and I was tired...

I came home and watched a hideous movie called Dead Girl which I wouldn't even classify as a horror movie due to how perverse and base it was. It was a hideous excuse for a movie and I can't believe it is on the shelves of BlockBuster.    I won't even go into it it, it was disgusting...

Anyway... I expected to be happy and jovial and everything and never got there and that was the let down thing...

It can't just be age... I just couldn't get into it...   I kept looking through the events and thought I should want to do something, even just go to the park...

Halloween came and went this year and I didn't feel a thing...
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It wasn't so much even that it was a "let down".... It was a non event which never even got off the ground.

I refuse to believe it is my age... Perhaps I didn't have enough people to be with, but it just didn't happen. I don't know why and now things go on as before.

I don't know what I was expecting... But it certainly seemed something that should have been there wasn't.

It was almost like being constipated, only emotionally.   Like I wanted so badly to take a shit but couldn't.

I wanted some type of feeling,   to inhale something in the air which would enlighten me, or get that tickle in my heart...

I don't know if it was the fact that nothing happened or the fact of missing that nothing in the first place that was the worst...
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oh well...
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The Halloween Letdown

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:21:08 GMT

It was unmet expectations is what it was. What made me think that today was going to be some type of special day stems back to an inbred childhood ritual.

I had no spirit, I had hurt my back and didn't really feel like going out and doing anything, just thought I should and expected to feel something.

There is no "Great Pumpkin" Charlie Brown. The Trick is that there is no Treat.

Although many would argue that Halloween is but a Death related children's holiday, it is much an adult celebration in the large cities and specifically New York City.

There is much drinking and reveling around.

I see children out already being led by parents to and from parties and trick or treating in businesses, to be whisked away and sheltered behind locked doors before the sun comes down.

Halloween is for the celebratory adult of the reveling kind and a 'Ween in The Big Apple is like a Mardi Gras in The Big Easy

It's so crowded down there tonight, and I don't feel like lugging the camera down there and I never had any desire to wear a costume this year at all, just thought I should.

I held off with the candy as long as I could but admit there there were...are movie size boxes of Milk Duds, Hot Tamales, Raisinettes, mini ButterFinger, peanut M&M's...

...oh, there has been a "Monster Mix" and a chewy mix full of Tootsie Rolls, Mary Janes, Bit-O-Honey, Slo Poke, and those very delicious English Toffee caramels in different flavors as well as regular Kraft caramel squares...

I miss the Smartees and Nico wafers this year... I'm being good to my teeth...

....but don't get me wrong, this has only been in the last few days, I was really candy avoidant for awhile...

...Now someone says "Well, let's go down there anyway and just take pictures" so I'm not sure what I'm doing...

I had two new horror movies to watch, Dead Girl and Coraline (w/ 3D glasses).

It is kind of funny but it is Halloween and although I've put an orange ribbon on the cat and taken a photo or two, I was fully resigned to sitting home and now I'm actually AFRAID I won't know what I'm doing until after it is done!

Could it be that a Halloween 'eve has more to offer than what it initially appeared?

Is there a spirit and is it willing after all?

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The hand is on the prick of 4:20, the sky grows darke and the breath of burning pumpkin is on the wind...

...an unplanned spontaneous Halloween? I honestly never thought of this...

Spooky!

upon the 'morrow will the Weentide tale be told!
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FREE MOVIE: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:15:13 GMT

In honor of the holiday.

If you have never seen it and have no Halloween plans here is the classic George Romero Night of The Living Dead

Put it on full screen and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

You'll be able to put it on full screen view after the commercial.

I came across this on television at age 9 or 10. It scared the hell out of me. I actually ran out of the room but crept back in for more... it chilled me to the bone and left a Halloween scar.

It is a masterpiece of film making on a budget.

The mood is set with great music right away.   The action begins early on in the film and does not let up with campy theatrical acting by Judith O'Dea, high contrast black and white imagery and wonderful cinematography.

There are bits of cinema verite which was not so popular in its day, yet as a horror film this certainly can be seen as having had quite an influence on modern horror film making.

If you like film making, this is full of great angles and juxtapositions and from the beginning a starkness and foreboding sense of doom.

From the opening dialogue of classic nerds brother and sister, to the shocking twist ending, I find it a homemade gripper of the utmost kind and the ultimate classic Halloween video experience.

If at all through the camp you don't find your heart racing, perhaps you are among the walking dead yourself.

Check out the photography and the framing of the scenes; the stark imagery, trees almost like skeletons hover over a cold cemetery.

Look at Johnny's haircut, glasses, polka-dot tie and pens in shirt pocket as he chides sister Barbara while putting on his cool driving gloves.

See Barbara hype up the drama, fallen helplessness, a distant shoe in carefully framed awkward knee level shot.

Admire Hitchcockian shots of a keyless ignition as it sends your hearts helplessly pounding even as Barbara struggles, Shakespearean elbows against window in terror.

She'll bound like a gazelle to her haunted house haven, a Pennsylvania farm house alone, cold and with strangers...

It is 1968 as far as the context in which the movie was made, if there are any redeeming social connotations, that remains up to the viewer.

My personal opinion is that it is a genius work of black and white, light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong and freedom and entrapment in layers and is much deeper than the obvious yet masterful symbolic play of shadows and lights and life and death.

It is actually a quite masterpiece.

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A Gift Horse's Mouth

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:03:19 GMT

It started with a trip to Union Square Park to see the Halloween Dog Costume Parade and take photos to show you here, but apparently no dogs bothered to dress up.    I found later that I had gone to the wrong park.

What took me to that park, along with phantom dogs was a trip to the nearby Staples for envelopes and a pen, Barnes and Noble for the large print softcover edition of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, a visit to PetCo for some canned food (grain free) and possibly a visit to the DSW, Filene's Basement and the other cheap clothing store at the south end of the park for a look at possibly a new hat or scarf since the weather has closed in with a vengeance.

Anyway, Staples was having a contest.   They were giving away tickets which were then scanned to see if you had won a new Hewlett Packard item, a laptop, web-ready digital printer, net book or a $200 gift card.

On my way out,   the sales girl happily held out a fan of tickets in an array like cards.   I carefully considered them and ran my hand over them slowly until I felt one with a vibe. I picked it and handed it to her and she scanned it and happily announced "Oh, you won the printer!".

I was kind of in shock and disbelief and like, what do I gotta do or buy?.... as I don't remember winning many times before.

I was happy, but like I've already got a really good printer...

I had my dog park parade camera around my neck and she said, "See, I see you take photos, this is perfect!".

Hewlett Packard is having some team up with Staples and giving these away and they are really happy about it.

I must have not looked too happy when she pulled it out from under the table, as it is in a HUGE box and weighs about 60 pounds!

"That's a $400 printer, you can just sell it" another sales girl piped up, noticing my lack of glee.

A crowd of onlookers had gathered around gawking and grasping for their tickets, I kept hearing "Awww",   "Awwww", "shit"...

... like that and one guy was completely covetous and bummed when his ticket was not a winner either.

I asked privately if I could actually have the cash... I was told that everyone asks for the cash or the laptop but no, it is a really good printer and I could just sell it.

I carried it out to Barnes and Nobles. I went up one flight of escalator. The second escalator was broken and the large print book was on the third floor... I went back down, arms beginning to get numb, more than tingly.

I took the elevator up I was determined to do my chores with this new prize not getting in my way.   Everyone stared at the man with the large brand new boxed printer.

I looked at the book. It was heavier than I thought and more expensive than the hardback, at $31 bux or something. Forget it.

...I'll wait until it comes out in Mass Market Paperback in England and buy it on Ebay like I did with The Da Vinci Code over a year before it came out in paper here.

I could not make it to the south end of the park and gave up, hopelessly hugging a 3' by 3' 60lb box up Park Ave. toward the 23rd St. subway station.

There was going to be no special cat food.

I stopped, my neck hurt, my back hurt, I was crushing my spine but fool I was I didn't know it.

I knew I would take a cab and sell this muther and consider the cab fare of probably close to $20 just less the free prize winning profit.

For now it has a towel draped over it and acts as a coffee table.

The only problem is I have to deal with some strange person coming to the apartment to pick it when I do sell it and that gives me ultra anxiety.... I'm just weird that way.

My shoulder started hurting on Wednesday. It hurt all day on Thursday and I left 1/2 hour early and came home and went to bed.

When I woke up this morning I could hardly turn my head. My neck hurts and whole upper left quadrant... I stayed home from work today and slept.

I must need something to stop the inflammation but haven't taken anything... It's the os of my neck vertebrae gone calcified and the swollen nerve which runs through it which is causing the problem. Nothing to be done but rest and anti inflammatory agents.

Some would want to keep and use this nice printer. It prints from the web and prints wonderful photos and doesn't even need a computer to use. It is wireless and has a small screen.

I can print movie tickets, maps,   photos..

I don't do any of those things and nor do I need to.   I have a printer which prints photos and I never print photos.

I have shoe boxes of photos that I don't know what to do with and am tired of having.... What's the fuss? I have duplicates of most of those photos...

I have digital photos up the yen yang all over the web and on 2 hard drives as well as those small plastic discs that I don't even have a disc drive for... those 3.5" floppys, remember those? I want to throw those away!

The only thing I print from the web are some receipts and the Time's Crossword puzzle.... I have no room for this too..

Why did I win something I don't want and hurt myself carrying around?

Now I see why people complained about winning cars on Oprah.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth?    I suppose that is usually true but perhaps things are said from only the giver's perspective and not always true.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.

Have YOU ever gotten a gift horse with bad teeth???

( that is my Xanga Formula obligatory "catchy question" )

Next up:   Is "Chaz" Bono still technically Gay?

The Halloween Spirit

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:21:12 GMT

I had it but where did it go?

I was eating an orange and playing with the seeds, holding them behind my lips to look like funny teeth, GA-Faw Ga-Faw Ga-Faw, and then having only one Hillbilly tooth, and then it struck me; I want some funny teeth! And maybe glasses and a hat.

Then it struck me again, I've already got funny teeth but I mean some real funny teeth, plastic ones for Halloween.

Earlier on I toyed with being a zombie again and even thought of going to walk in the parade which seems to be financially broke this year and short of sponsors, therefore short on commercialization and floats with advertising but guess the fuck what, that's how it all started out and that's how it is supposed to be.

Someone has to pay for all the police, they get double duty for setting up the barricades and harassing people but the famous Greenwich Village Halloween parade started out as a group of people in their costumes winding their way down the streets of the village.

Anyhow, the spirit is waning anyway.   I really want to just take photographs and I'm not sure of what.

There is the parade proper, and then there is the parade of revelers all night long all over the city.   The usual thing is to hop a few bars and take pix of the people on the streets.

Christopher Street becomes a big photo plaza where the lavishly costumed gather to show off and be photographed.

I'm not all that keen on dressing up. Now I just don't care.

Last year I got a bright idea an hour before I left, I went out as a photo journalist with a press card in my hat and a jacket...

I may go see "Paranormal Activity" on Friday night and hope it scares me, before I actually hear how bad it really prolly is...

I wasn't invited to a party and don't have that Halloween zest today.   I've considered even staying home....

There's no one to do anything with either,   although I haven't really asked around, just learned that a couple of people aren't going to go out....

Can you not go out in Manhattan on a warm Saturday night that happens to also be Halloween? Can you just NOT go out?

I'm not really sure I'm comfortable with just NOT going out.

Even taking photos in the park of the Halloween leaves during the day and children in their outfits.... I mean really.

Where did my Halloween Spirit go?

If the Halloween Spirit actually dies,   is that true irony, or just another sad coincidence?
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I Got My Flu Shot

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:27:34 GMT

The regular seasonal flu shot, not the H1N1 vaccine which is NOT yet available and they overturned the state mandate so I don't HAVE to get it now to work at the hospital, in fact, it may NOT EVEN be available to me as an employee.

I am thinking of going to my Dr., if he has it, to get it.   I believe I want it.

I did not get sick from the Flu Vaccine and it will prevent me from seasonal flus, certain types, the typical seasonal flu.

I did have a sinus infection which was cured with antibiotics.

Flu is a virus and cannot be cured by antibiotics.

5000 people have already died worldwide due to Swine Flu.

1000 people have died so far in the USA and Swine Flu is at epidemic rates in every state already when generally flu is not at this rate until February of the following year.

This is the FIRST Pandemic (world wide spread of infection) in over 40 years.

This is the FIRST time Flu has not ended by Fall to follow a seasonal decline and incline again in winter. Meaning that this is the FIRST time that FLU is spreading during this season.

I want the Swine Flu vaccine.

If you disregard the paranoia and anything you could possibly see on FOX News,   and look at the historical facts, there is every reason to get the H1N1 vaccine and only a pretty LAME reason NOT TO GET IT.

Just for the sake of NOT SPREADING IT TO OTHER PEOPLE, EVERYONE SHOULD BE VACCINATED.

The Swine Flu is killing people because it contains a VIRAL PNEUMONIA and this connection is JUST COMING OUT.

This VIRAL PNEUMONIA does NOT respond to treatment.

It's all about the LUNG TISSUE people.   Get the H1N1 vaccine.

I know people who do research at fairly large medical establishments.

Once you get SWINE FLU in the inside LINING OF YOUR LUNGS.... You're a GONNER.

You will be begging for it before long.
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You better read your history and think about Polio, TB, Small Pox, previous PANDEMICS and WORLD WIDE NATURAL CLEANSING OF THE POPULATION, before entertaining any conspiracy theories or anything.

I'd get the SHOTS if I were you!
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The vaccine is SAFER than the FLU

And you are a walking GERM DISPENSER if YOU CHOOSE TO CARRY IT.
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You better not wait for the MASS PANIC, because it is coming!
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