Happy Birthday!!!

Another circle (er... ellipse) around the sun... 

6:23 am... Today is Little Man's 5th birthday. We will have a small celebration at Chicken Park (known to many as Chick-fil-a) this evening. Since I have class tonight, it will just be Honey Bee and Little Man and myself, with a small bag of presents for him to enjoy. 

His big party is on Saturday at Little Land. All of his classmates and a few other friends have been invited, and a grand time - with pizza and cupcakes and lots of ways to play - will be had by all. He will have a blast and will wear himself out for sure! Come to think of it, Honey Bee and I will likely be worn out by the time it's over, too! I can't wait!!

Being the science geek that I am, my mind always wanders to strange places when birthdays come around. First, I consider that Earth has only orbited the Sun five times since he was born. All of the things which have happened since then - wars, concerts, elections, weddings and bombings, love and heartbreak - are crammed into those five little revolutions of our blue planet about the fiery vastness of Sol. In contrast, Jupiter hasn't even completed half of it's orbit since that awesome afternoon when he joined our muddled little life.

In fact, our second closest neighbor, Barnard's Star, generated light on the day that Little Man was born, and that light hasn't even reached us yet! And it's travelling at nearly 300,000 kilometers per second!! Feeling small?  Isolated? Don't!! The awesome thing about the grandness of the universe is that we can comprehend it, observe it and appreciate it. We are part of it - the result of generations of stars living and dying, only to be reborn in successive generations. Without the stars, we would not be here, and without us, they would not be gazed upon and admired for their beauty. Look up into the sky tonight. Connect with the universe. Celebrate Little Man's birthday, and the wonder that life offers us all... 6:40 am...

Under a Bridge

me (an intellectual): Am I S.A.D.? Or just sad?

6:25 am... There are days when you just don't want to... not at all. Not a single thing inspires you, or even interests you at times like these. Depression, exhaustion, apathy or just the plain old "fukkits" have mixed a big load of crap into your fruit salad.

Whenever I feel like this the idea of living under a bridge seems appealing. Except, these days, I'd probably have more company than I'd like, so it'd have to be some remote mountain top. This thought immediately brings to mind the Monty Python skit where there is a whole mountain full of hermits, so many that they have formed a community of hermits... sorta defeating the purpose... 

<insert tiny internal chuckle here>

Alas, as much as hermit-hood sounds like a good idea at times, it's not really a particularly viable option. So we deal with things, and we get through the day by focusing on some good stuff - our favorite songs, the upcoming holidays <substitute for Depression Central as appropriate>, the people who make us laugh and give us love, Cyanide and Happiness, whatever helps us smile a little and forget about being down. Each of us just has to have those little things, don't we? Those little pick me ups make all of the difference. Even if they don't get rid of the hurt, aggravation, sadness, or doubt, they bury it for a while. They distract us from the slightly fecal taste of the fruit salad. After all, they may be covered in crap, but the grapes are cold and crisp and super sweet... Enjoy your Monday folks... 6:39 am...

Late night, sleepy morning

The sickness plaguing the United States.

8:54 am... I was up late last night, finally crawling into bed exhausted at around 3:30 am. It was day four of Strep throat for Little Man. As most of you know, because you've had it before, the medicine helps, but life still sucks pretty hard while you've got it running through your system. An about-to-be-five-year-old only knows that life is really sucky right now, and he just wants to sleep. But, on top of the Strep, he's got a head cold draining into his throat, so there's lots of coughing, wincing, whining and general distress at every waking moment.

It really sucks to see someone you care about when they're sick. Especially a child who you just want to scoop up and comfort, but instead are forced to tend as best you can while they suffer through their malady. Life can be cruel. Which leads to the election results.

In other news, the U.S. public has chosen a down to earth, successful business owner, who understands the working man, and real men in general, as their next President. It was an easy choice really, his opponent was a rich bitch who lies and peddles influence to get her way, and would happily give our money to the lazy parasites of society, and turn over control of our country to terrorists. At least, this is the general perception of things, this is what's on the bill of sale for the U.S. public's most recent purchase. The actual ingredients contained within said President, well, those are in the fine print, and we'll be reading over those for the next four years or so. Unfortunately, since we've already got a big bowl of Trump before us, we aren't going to be able to decide whether it's good for us until after we've eaten about half the bowl... It's a good lesson though... We should always remember that fear is the most powerful motivator in the world, and fear is what won this election... 9:10 am...

Emerging from Chaos

Those little inconveniences in life...

5:45 am... There are times in life when you look back over the past few hours or days and just shake your head and shrug your shoulders. Lacking any cause you can put your finger on, everything just went awry for a while. No major disasters, natural disasters or international conspiracies involved, just random life stuff that somehow forces your world out of sync for a little while.

There was a time when one might have blamed elves, fairies, goblins and the like for such periods, but for me I think it's just my brain's way of resetting itself to reality. The little day-to-day changes in our lives often go unnoticed, and we manage to automatically compensate for them without missing a beat. However, after a while there is this subtle interwoven misalignment to things which must auto-correct itself, whether we're ready for it or not. And, of course, sometimes Windows updates and the next thing you know, your damn computer is powering off about 30 seconds after boot-up, and you just can't figure out why. Such is life... such was last Friday morning when I got up and tried to blog...

Once upon a time, I would have been dealing with it that very evening, working the problem until it was remedied. But this weekend I just shrugged it off for a while - surprisingly, it just seemed to go away by itself... no idea what was wrong actually. In the interim I baked some fresh pumpkin pies, a nice fruit and nut soda bread, and made a dish of ziti for Sunday dinner. The Little Man got sick (and is still sick) so Monday was thrown off, as well. But now I'm back! Blogging in the wee hours prior to heading to work, sipping on leftover microwaved coffee and wishing I had more time to write... things are back to normal...5:59am... Oh, yeah... Last chance... VOTE, BITCHES!!!

Why I hate (and love) Tumblr

Why do I do this to myself?

6:37 am... I've just climbed out of the wormhole. I'm running late, and I'm exhausted. My head is now filled with weird and wonderful shit that almost certainly doesn't belong there. I hate that fact that I love Tumblr.

It has stolen away days of my life by now, and I'm a lightweight. The intent is so pure and innocent each and every time. 

me: Let's just spend a couple of minutes looking at posts.

my brain (3 hours later): you had class tonight, you know?

me: Damnit!! I'm done with Tumblr. I'm deleting the app right no... Oooh, a kitty dressed as an avocado for Halloween. <continues Tumbling>

It is The Devil in his most pure form. You are lured in by comics and vines and memes, then your soul is devoured and you spend eternity flipping through an endless heap of shitposts, seeking that one pure post which will make it all worth it. But they trick you! The Holy Post of Purity is a lie. It's just some video of a cat standing on its back legs, walking like a human. As you watch it, the creeping realization of your situation engulfs you, like a huge black wave moving in slow motion. You're damned, you're doomed. Tumblr... 6:49 am...

Appreciating Life

Finding contentment and happiness, when you don't have...

6:20 am... Sometimes... Let's be honest, often, we find ourselves focused on the down parts of life. It's easy to worry over the things we don't have - the better job, the new car, the ideal mate. In fact, studies have shown that it's instinctual. Over the millennia we have survived by focusing on the bad things more than the good ones. After all, eating the perfect mango can happen a thousand times, but getting eaten by the tiger you didn't see is pretty much a one-time event.

But what about in the modern era? For most of us, getting eaten by a tiger is a pretty remote possibility, and survival, as our ancestors knew it, is essentially guaranteed. So, what do we find ourselves focused on? Usually love or money... or the lack thereof. But what is this really? What are we doing when we yearn for these things? We are creating desire. A desire for things we do not possess. A negative point upon which to focus. Since tigers are not around to menace us, we menace ourselves. And while running from the tiger may be difficult, running from ourselves is impossible.

But that's the key, isn't it. There is no tiger, there is only ourselves. The tiger is imaginary, the desire is imaginary. We can let it go. We can choose to focus on the good things in our lives. And once we do, there are so many to focus upon that we are surprised by them. 

Another lyric comes to mind from the band Uncle Lucius. The song is No Time Flat... "I'm thankful for laughing, the air that I'm breathing, the journey itself's become the reason for living. It's the reason for living."

When you find yourself worrying over all the potential destinations on your path through life, remember that it is the journey which matters, not the stones in your passway... 6:44 am...

Fun with Stereotypes

How does your culture stand out in the crowd?

6:24 am... A lovely good Tuesday morning to you all, and Happy November 1st. Here in Texas it is Dia de los Muertos, a twist on the Catholic All Soul's Day. Today will see lots of folks with skull-painted faces, visits to cemeteries and wondrously decorative sugar skulls. Although it is considered a "Mexican" tradition, it was really started by the indios, or natives from the southern part of North America.

But that's probably not what you think about when you think of Mexicans, is it? You probably think of sombreros, tacos and jalapenos. Isn't it interesting how every culture gets broken down into a few key things which seem to define it for the rest of the world? Yesterday, Honey Bee showed one of her Irish students (actually from - as in born in - Ireland) a piece of soda bread she had brought for lunch. (Compliments of yours truly!) He didn't know what it was, so she explained that it was a traditional Irish recipe. He replied that it must then be made from shamrocks, rain, leprechaun gold (and tears,) and other things stereo-typically Irish.

It is funny to see that even the very young get it, and are scornful of stereotypes. I'm sure that Texans get tired of being asked whether they ride horses, work at an oil rig, wear a ten-gallon hat, drive a pickup truck and say "yee-haw" when they get excited. They mostly don't but there are some (more than a few) who fit this description to a T. At the end of the day, the stereotypical image of a culture isn't necessarily a bad thing to have, until you actually have some contact with people from that culture. At that point, please leave the stereotype behind and learn some truth about what makes other people wonderful and unique. After all I love tacos and tamales, shamrocks and shillelaghs, pickup trucks and Texas... but I love people even more... 6:46 am...