As you can tell by things on here, I've had some free time in the last couple of days. Been meaning to updated the look on here for a little while. Its sad, the main reason I'm using mySpace now is to host pictures for one here LOL. I've tried to keep a few other online journals over the years but for some reason none of them really worked out. I guess the problem is they never really felt personal to me. My Space just has too much extra garbage to it. LiveJournal I've always been overly cautious about putting too much of myself in it for some reason. I guess I like the freedom that on here they actually let you see the code for your page, not only that they let you edit it as well. If you don't like the header, change it, if you don't like the color scheme, you can change it. I dunno, we all have weird reasons for why we like or don't like things and this is just one of mine. Bottom line I feel more comfortable with this journal than any other one I've ever had.
On a different note, my dreams have started to become increasingly.....well interesting. As I've been telling Angel, not only is the content of them different than my normal dreams, but they are so damn vivid. Normally there are only two times that I have dreams this vivid, when they are "memories" or when I am dream-sharing with another person. Right now both of these are pretty impossible. They can't be memories because the settings are too recent and I can't be dream-sharing because the other person is not asleep. No I'm not complaining at all right now because all in all the dreams are.....pleasent. I'm just concerned that there is a third party playing games, and I hate having someone trying to poke around my head. If there is a third party then its possible they know me entirly to well, because they are using the image of one of the few people that I would never raise my defenses against because I won't risk hurting them. I guess I'll just have to see how this plays out. Then again...sometimes a dream is...well just a dream.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Screw Hallmark
Well we're coming up once again on another Hallmark holiday. Yes its that time of year again, Valentine's Day. A day we're we spend too much money in an effort to tell our Significant Other that we love them, something that we should be doing everyday anyway. It’s also a day where single folk get to feel rather miserable about not having a significant other. Since this will be only the second or third Valentine's Day that I've been with someone, I understand that feeling completely. My normal answer was to drink myself into insensibility, which sometimes ended up with me waking up next to one of my equally depressed single female friends.....both of us naked. I'm normally all for hooking up with one of my friends because we both just need to get laid, but in that situation its usually known what is going on ahead of time. For some reason after drunken Valentine's Day sex you both feel the need to justify why you don't want to be in a relationship with each other, and try to do it in such a way to not hurt the other person's feelings.
Back to the question at hand, why do we do this to ourselves? I did some research and discovered as with most of our modern holidays this one yet again is based in a pagan holiday. Anyone surprised? Anyone, anyone, didn't think so. The short version of what I found is Feb 14 was originally a feast to some pagan god/goddess of love/lust/fertility. Basic version went something like this: Any single females of marrying age in a village had their names put into a big old pot/hat/whatever. At that time any single males would come forward and draw names from said pot. The couple where then paired up for anywhere from the rest of the day or in some accounts for the entire year. The idea was they would fall in love (optional), get married (probably optional), and start producing children (not optional). If it didn't work, then come next Feb 14, back in the pot you go! So we've now turned the entire human courtship ritual into a lottery. Now this is where the history gets a little vague. My guess on what went on is, the practice of a human lottery, at least the pairing for the entire year anyway, probably fell by the way-side. So now we're left with a wonderful celebration of love and passion, in other words probably one of those celebrations where everyone get drunk and goes out and gets it on in the fields (reminds me of high school). Anyway, of course the Christians come through, see people drinking, having sex, and generally having a good time of it and immediately thought, "nope this has to stop!" So they go back through their immediate histories and locate the story of a priest named Valentine. Here was a guy who was pretty much just going along minding his own business being a priest, right? All of a sudden then governor, king, section sergeant whatever makes the decision, "no one else can get married until I say so!" Little known fact, this was seen as a punishment for something or other, in actuality it was because after his 6th wife, he was trying to keep the people from making his mistake :-p. Seriously though, after this came down, Valentine decides that he his going to continue marry people in secret. Obviously he was found out, and martyred (stoned to death probably) on Feb 14th.
Such a joyful thought for a holiday isn’t it? So when you’re out looking at the $80 bouquet of roses for your sweetheart remember, your celebrating the anniversary of someone being stoned to death. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Back to the question at hand, why do we do this to ourselves? I did some research and discovered as with most of our modern holidays this one yet again is based in a pagan holiday. Anyone surprised? Anyone, anyone, didn't think so. The short version of what I found is Feb 14 was originally a feast to some pagan god/goddess of love/lust/fertility. Basic version went something like this: Any single females of marrying age in a village had their names put into a big old pot/hat/whatever. At that time any single males would come forward and draw names from said pot. The couple where then paired up for anywhere from the rest of the day or in some accounts for the entire year. The idea was they would fall in love (optional), get married (probably optional), and start producing children (not optional). If it didn't work, then come next Feb 14, back in the pot you go! So we've now turned the entire human courtship ritual into a lottery. Now this is where the history gets a little vague. My guess on what went on is, the practice of a human lottery, at least the pairing for the entire year anyway, probably fell by the way-side. So now we're left with a wonderful celebration of love and passion, in other words probably one of those celebrations where everyone get drunk and goes out and gets it on in the fields (reminds me of high school). Anyway, of course the Christians come through, see people drinking, having sex, and generally having a good time of it and immediately thought, "nope this has to stop!" So they go back through their immediate histories and locate the story of a priest named Valentine. Here was a guy who was pretty much just going along minding his own business being a priest, right? All of a sudden then governor, king, section sergeant whatever makes the decision, "no one else can get married until I say so!" Little known fact, this was seen as a punishment for something or other, in actuality it was because after his 6th wife, he was trying to keep the people from making his mistake :-p. Seriously though, after this came down, Valentine decides that he his going to continue marry people in secret. Obviously he was found out, and martyred (stoned to death probably) on Feb 14th.
Such a joyful thought for a holiday isn’t it? So when you’re out looking at the $80 bouquet of roses for your sweetheart remember, your celebrating the anniversary of someone being stoned to death. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Friday, January 13, 2006
ramblings in the night
Fair warning, if you don’t understand what I’m talking about or at the very least how my mind works, then you’re not going to and I have no intention of explaining myself.
Something is coming; there is no doubt about that. I’ve felt it for months now, like an itch in the back of my mind. I can feel in my bones, hear it in my sleep, and in my dreams, against the horizon I see an outline. Outline of what? Something that I believed destroyed long before history. A shape against the clouds of something that shouldn’t, no, couldn’t still be there. A memory burned into my soul that I cannot escape, no matter how hard I’ve tried. A tower, all that remained of a once great and beautiful city, now twisted and dark. Sometimes I find myself wondering if this is how Roland felt. The difference is this tower holds no answers and I am no Gunslinger.
Most people don’t understand what its like to wake up with memories of things that they have never done, places they have never seen, and people they have never known. In a way I envy them. It is very easy to dismiss the things in my head as simple dreams, compilations of books that I have ready over the years, movies I have seen, and so forth. Many times I have told myself just that, it’s all in your head. But what happens when someone else describes these things to you? What happens when someone tells you about their dreams (nightmares?) and they mirror your own? What does it mean when you walk into a place you’ve never been and suddenly know not only your way around but also where things are? What happens when you close you eyes and you can describe events that took place there in centuries past, without every having learned the history of the place? Well, Freud? Where are your answers now?
Questions upon Questions. I gave up searching for answers long before this life. When confronted with these things you have two choices, cling to your view of the “real” world and allow these images to drive you mad. Or, you can embrace it, which is perhaps madness in itself. I listen to the whispers of a past that is mine and not at the same time. I listen and I look for the patterns that run through out history. Recently, Angel posed the question, what do you do when the darkness comes to your doorstep. Do you run? Hide? I don’t know the right answer or even if there is one. I remember my answer from the days when a great city fell. You fight and you become something that the darkness fears. (How very Batman of you.) You push back against the night so hard it has no choice but to acknowledge you and eventually fear you. These are not the movies however. There is no shining hero at the end of these battles, no white knight to emerge, cloaked in honor and valor. In order to become that which the darkness fears above all else, you must become something that the light will fear as well. After its all over, where does that leave you?
They say there is forgiveness for the repentant, but how do you repent driving back the darkness?
Something is coming; there is no doubt about that. I’ve felt it for months now, like an itch in the back of my mind. I can feel in my bones, hear it in my sleep, and in my dreams, against the horizon I see an outline. Outline of what? Something that I believed destroyed long before history. A shape against the clouds of something that shouldn’t, no, couldn’t still be there. A memory burned into my soul that I cannot escape, no matter how hard I’ve tried. A tower, all that remained of a once great and beautiful city, now twisted and dark. Sometimes I find myself wondering if this is how Roland felt. The difference is this tower holds no answers and I am no Gunslinger.
Most people don’t understand what its like to wake up with memories of things that they have never done, places they have never seen, and people they have never known. In a way I envy them. It is very easy to dismiss the things in my head as simple dreams, compilations of books that I have ready over the years, movies I have seen, and so forth. Many times I have told myself just that, it’s all in your head. But what happens when someone else describes these things to you? What happens when someone tells you about their dreams (nightmares?) and they mirror your own? What does it mean when you walk into a place you’ve never been and suddenly know not only your way around but also where things are? What happens when you close you eyes and you can describe events that took place there in centuries past, without every having learned the history of the place? Well, Freud? Where are your answers now?
Questions upon Questions. I gave up searching for answers long before this life. When confronted with these things you have two choices, cling to your view of the “real” world and allow these images to drive you mad. Or, you can embrace it, which is perhaps madness in itself. I listen to the whispers of a past that is mine and not at the same time. I listen and I look for the patterns that run through out history. Recently, Angel posed the question, what do you do when the darkness comes to your doorstep. Do you run? Hide? I don’t know the right answer or even if there is one. I remember my answer from the days when a great city fell. You fight and you become something that the darkness fears. (How very Batman of you.) You push back against the night so hard it has no choice but to acknowledge you and eventually fear you. These are not the movies however. There is no shining hero at the end of these battles, no white knight to emerge, cloaked in honor and valor. In order to become that which the darkness fears above all else, you must become something that the light will fear as well. After its all over, where does that leave you?
They say there is forgiveness for the repentant, but how do you repent driving back the darkness?
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