evtweet's posterous

 

The Harvest

Today is seed time. Just as it is always seed time, a new generation of life will begin and no one will pay much attention to what has already been cut down and consumed. A man awakes to begin his labor and is greeted by a woman who is already awake preparing for the day. They may speak a little or say nothing at all but they know it is another day; a new day but much like any other.

 

Far away, out of sight, a man is cut down at the edge of the city. A child on a bicycle is run down and a young woman is taken and abused while no one notices until someone wants something from her and they start to wonder.

 

In the same day, millions of animals come out and begin to feed on whatever they can. Most of them will either go without being noticed or will hide where no one can see them.

 

Also, a family will move out and leave behind the wasted pieces of their lives and no one will notice until the refuse gets in the way. Some will stop and stare and perhaps complain about the inconvenience but few will bother to remove it.

 

Even while all this goes without notice, a child will pick up a bicyle and head for the street and no one will bother to look and see if the street is safe or if there is a car speeding up right at that time.

 

At last, someone will notice that something has gone wrong that day and will be overcome with compassion and be shocked that no one has noticed anything. Soon they will pick up where they left off and go back to living there lives as before. But a child will die and a young woman will stand naked screaming. When they all notice the woman, their first reaction to it all will be to blame the woman for being naked and try to cover her.

 

Yet everything else that has happened will lie open. People will reason among themselves as to why it all happened. Once again, they won't be able to agree as to who was to blame for it all.

 

But when it all is over, the woman will know how it all happened and will once again cover herself and weep.

 

Kait Nolan

 Grumpy G.I.T.
Kait Nolan | August 23, 2011 at 10:49 am | Tags: G.I.T., Kait Nolan, Personal | Categories: Operation Goddess In Training | URL: http://wp.me/p4zXe-1lf

I woke up a total grump this morning.  Partly this is because they gave me the stinking tetnus shot in my right arm (because I am left handed).  Except I normally sleep on my right side, and since my arm hurts like a son of a bitch (the shot was way worse than the injury itself), I haven't slept well in a couple of days.  Add to that that the ER has total fail because the Dermabond they used to hold my nose together totally got sweated off IN MY OFFICE yesterday afternoon because it was 98 degrees and my desk is beside a 4'x10' window and I start sweating any time it gets above 72.  No vigorous activity my ass.  So I've been by Walgreens to get some liquid bandage that feels mostly like I'm holding this gap together with clear nail polish.  Don't get me wrong, it works.  But that claim of "flexible"?  LIES.
Add to that, I had a totally unpleasant epiphany this morning.  The reason I was able to get down to last year's low was because for six months, while hubs was down with a broken leg, we had no social life and didn't go out to eat, or to other people's houses to eat, and I had complete and total control of our diet.  As soon as we went back to "normal life," my weight started going back up.  Not like we go out all the time now, but a couple of meals not at home completely ruin my progress for the week.  Because I'm a short chick, who's over thirty, and sadly my body doesn't require much in terms of caloric intake, and it takes for-freakin-ever to burn much, and ONE MEAL totally blows the calorie deficit I've managed to create for the week.  So I wind up with this pattern where I lose x amount of weight during the week, then have a social event with friends or family and gain it all back again.  Which makes me feel like all of the exercise I do and the other hard work is for absolute nothing.
And that is not only crazy making, but it makes me blow my top, TNT-explosion FURIOUS.
Not at my friends and family (at least when I'm being rational).  It's not their responsibility to cater to my dietary restrictions since they aren't life threatening via food allergies.  But damn, how am I supposed to pick the veggie tray (if it even exists, which it usually doesn't) over chips and cheese dip? I have zero self control when faced with yummy, delicious food. It is my KRYPTONITE.  I do fine at home because I simply DO NOT bring this stuff into the house.  And it's not like we eat tasteless crap.  We eat healthy and mostly it's delicious.  But the rest of the country mostly doesn't operate on this principle.  The portions are out of control, they use full fat everything, and even their "healthier" options are not really healthy (and ARE tasteless and nasty--why should I waste good money eating shitty food out if it's going to be gross?).
Susan made a post this morning about how she is failure's bitch and holds me up as an example of awesome because I have self-discipline.  And I do.  I work long hours.  I get up early even though I'm chronically underslept.  I do the freaking workouts several times a day even though I really actually hate working out.  I pick up my house and do my dishes and make the damned bed even though I'm usually wiped out.  I have self-discipline in SPADES when it comes to absolutely ANYTHING but food.  But when it comes to food...I am failure's bitch (go read her post, it's funny, and that joke will make more sense).
In Simply Irresistible they say men think about sex something ridiculous, like 360 times a day.  That's about how much I think about food.  I enjoy food.  It's one of my chief pleasures in life.  If I've had a crappy day at work, I can come home and make something wonderful, and I feel better.  Totally self-medicating.  Because I get no personal satisfaction out of 80% of the stuff I do with my day (hence why I call them the Evil Day Jobs).  So I look for satisfaction elsewhere, and food always delivers.  I love the sensory nature of food, getting lost in the scents and the tastes and textures.  I love inventing new recipes and sharing good food with others who enjoy it too.  One of my favorite food related memories is when my husband's pack of boy cousins (five of them ranging in age from 12 to 18) were staying at our house and fell on whatever it was I'd fixed them like a pack of starving wolves.  I love seeing my food enjoyed and I love enjoying it myself. And I have a SERIOUS problem with entitlement.  I love food, ergo I should be able to eat as much as my husband, who is literally twice my size.  Who, if he did what I did, exercise-wise, would probably drop like 50 pounds in a month.  Because he's a man.
And when I eat at home, I usually manage pretty well.  When I'm IN CONTROL.  It's away from home, when other people cook (when it's rude to not eat what they fix, or to bring all your own food because they didn't cook something healthy) or at restaurants that's just the kiss of death.  Over the weekend I mentioned that Mom and I had Sonic for lunch, and I made the concession to get a plain, single patty burger (even though burgers just aren't RIGHT without cheese), medium fries and a coke.  And blew my calorie load for the WHOLE DAY.  What the hell am I supposed to do when a SINGLE MEAL uses up 90% of my piddly 1200-1400 calories (because of that short, woman over 30 thing)?  Not like I eat fast food often, but ANY meal not at my own house tends to fit those caloric parameters.  So I often feel like I have the option of being social and a part of the family and being fat (or at least perpetually 10-15 pounds over where I should be) or being a thinner recluse.  It's like the two are totally mutually exclusive.
I don't actually expect anybody to have any answers, but I definitely feel like a fail right now at Goddess In Training.  Susan is tasking me with learning to be more Zen about food.  In the meantime, I'm waiting for my nose to heal so I can go do some vicious workout and work off some of this frustration.
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Natural Cure

Letter to the author of a book on the subject of a natural cure for cancer

 

It is difficult to believe in the sincerity of someone who claims to have an answer to save untold numbers of people yet uses ths knowledge for profit. As for myself, I know there are natural cures for cancer and inform people about them at every opportunity. In fact, with all the information I pass on to my followers, I have never collected a single red cent from the internet for this. It would be different if you were the one who invented the cure.

 

I was told by a doctor that I needed a biopsy for a growth on my prostate. I asked him if it was something serious.

 

He said: "Yes, we believe it is."

 

I answered: "Then leave it the hell alone. You'll only make it worse."

 

I had to escape from the hospital and catch a ride from some friends who were veterans to my home 80 miles north.

 

Then I told the nurses in Saginaw I would not return to the hospital for the procedure because there had been a growth there since I was a teenager. The doctor had made a mistake.

 

I also went in, prior to this, for throat surgery. After being put through living hell, having to take vicodin to relieve the pain, and starving myself for several days, my wife said I should discuss this with the doctor. He said I should return for another procedure.

 

Frankly, I'd rather die than waste any more money on a cure for anything that I didn't personally check out. Please don't send me any more news about something I'm already aware of. I am the healthiest 61 year old man I know!

 

Thank you, Diethild

 

Nights in White Satin
This music, by the Moody Blues, was popular in the sixties; at the time when I was in college and before enlisting in the Navy. Some said it was music written by cultists or people on drugs. However, the album I bought in Houghton, Michigan which had this music engraved on it was performed as a joint effort of the Moody Blues along with the London Festival Orchestra. Now you know.

Prejudice in out culture effects and affects every aspect of our culture; just as it does the various cultures of our world. The culture of the sixties was not only influenced by our government but also "orchestrated" by governments which sought to bring a renesance that would divert the rebellious nature of the fifties. At that time, alcohol fueled independent lifestyles which made it difficult to hold people in an occupation or style of life that could be controlled by any means. Yet the rejection of new ways by the West forced our society to be changed in ways which are still impossible to be managed by any organization, other than the federal government.

It became impossible to maintain an acceptable level of employment and many of us were forced into the military because of lack of employment and the inability of our government to secure and maintain the standard of living desired by the main populace. How can you justify the bloating of the military with large numbers of the unemployed? There has to be war to do that.

In the case of psyco-mymetic drugs, which became prevalent then, the government sponsored research to produce drugs like LSD and other chemicly cheap formulas to enhance a social change which became the accepted reason for the rate of unemployment. The reasoning was that there were too many young people addicted to drugs so that they weren't fit for employment.

And all this because of a few drugs which were produced in an effort to find new pain killers like heroine and cocaine which were needed for wounded servicemen and others who were afflicted because of war. Now perhaps you can see why war has lead to a viscious cycle which is created and maintained by it's own end product: pain and suffering.

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The Bush Wrens
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There's a little wren which lives in the bush on the great southern continents between the peacful sea and the roaring monster that is the home of the world's shipping lanes. In the southern world are billions upon billions of small animals; more than you could ever imagine. They work hard all day to keep a good home and live safely.

I've never seen it, only films and videos. It lives far away from the ocean mammoths like the great white sharks and whales; so far that the whales are just a speck that has vanished long ago.

Tirelessly and with frantic pace, the wren builds a nest but, more than that they work thoughtfully and carefully to keep it together until the mate comes home. She must feel satisfied with the nest and it's surroundings. It she's not, they must move far away and begin again to scout a location which she decides upon. Then she flys all over her world to see if there is anything better for them.

But she must find her way back home again so that she can quickly destroy the nest in the presence of her mate so that he will  be enraged enough to build another before nightfall when the great, horrifying bats come to nest.

Then seeing that she hates the nest, the wren works so fast you can't see it. It moves faster than a hummingbird; spinning one nest then another which each disappear one after another until she sits in it and rests. The following morning, it all starts over again when she destroys the nest as she leaves. It is a sad sight.
 

The Deposed King
The war waged on and there appeared to be no end in sight. The warriors took counsel; counting the lots of the men who complained about the stratagies and the lack of a victory. The truce was only temporary and the end of it was soon. The lots were counted by the captains who were charged with deciding the fate of the king. When the votes were counted it was in favor of dethroning the king. The captains chose their messenger and gave him the document to proclaim before him. When he raised the order to read it,  the king commanded: "How many chose to remove me from the throne and who will be responsible for the decision you bring.

The messenger, being new to his office, brought the order before the king and asked: Your majesty, how is it that you already know the nature of this document before I have even read it. The king told the messenger: "I am your king, it is my duty to know everything about my armies and therefore I'm only asking that you read the order."

"Read it now..."

The messenger trembled knowing that the king might have already prepared to kill him and claim the order to terminate him had never been delivered. Then no one would be able to warn the captains to command in the absence of a clear plan to remove the king and give the order to advance before the end of the truce.

"How many?" Said the king.

The messenger; realizing he was charged with delivering and reading the result, fought his fear and said: "All."

"Is that all?" Said the king.

"Yes," the messenger replied.

Since that is your proclamation, I will give you the decision as to the responsibility for the fall of our army and the fate of the kingdom. Everyman shall die by his own hand as they have chosen their own fate. I will remove to my estate and the army I have kept behind to defend the throne which is loyal only to me will go with me. The kingdom will fall and I will make a pact with the enemy. There is nothing more I can do. The order is given. Remove yourself and return with my decision. That is all.

The same day, all the warriors died both of the king's army and the enemy. There were only a few men who had been removed from the battlefield when the messenger came back late. The army had fought the battle while he was gone. When they advanced, the enemy came from the sides and attacked without warning, their cry was: "Kill them all for they are cowards who only serve themselves."

That is all, except to say that regretfully, the enemy also killed the king before he could make his plea to surrender his army. The enemy brought in reserves which had been held back to siege the kingdom. The king's plan to use his army to destroy them was never executed since he knew in any case their would be no support from his men in the field. He had known this and simply bought time to save as many lives as possible.
 

Let it Drop
You used to say I was such a humble man. I thought about everything you did and called you beautiful and  touched you so much you drew away, face reddened at the thought. I helped you with some of the things you did and so said: "It's OK, I can do it just fine." I walked away sullen and did nothing. Said nothing. Sometimes you said you weren't beautiful. You never thought you were even though I said it with all the feeling I had inside. You know, you never thought you were beautiful. That killed me inside that you denied all that was in me. The most precious jewel in my life. Should I not have been proud. So proud of what brilliance that gave you should snuff it out? Words failed me like a roof fails in a flood.
 
I became proud of myself and hated it. Even if that was what I needed.
 
But you know I really didn't need it.
 
Where were you when the world was falling down and I held it up; so amazed that I should be the one to carry that burden. It gave me so much fear that I even thought I might drop it and I was saddened and sickened that I should feel that way. The pain of my own misgivings ran through me like acid and burned my soul. I can never forget that. I ought never forget that. Yet I held myself up and the world went on. It always does. It always will.
 
You were in grave danger and life was choking you. Everyone overwhelmed you. You fought back with strength then prayed for another to come and deliver you. Someone to hold <i>you</i> up; to make you feel wanted and secure. I never gave a thought for him. You were my focus and the reason I came to be by your side.
 
Now you say I think I'm a god and make a devil out of me. You look at me with contempt though I came to you with one name on my mind. The name that would set you free forever. You chose to kill what you said you loved. You know that you did.
 
You killed me. You killed my heart and the love I had. But worse than that; you resurrect it with the memory of you and <i>all</i> that once was. That I can forgive.
 
Yet I will never forgive myself for the gift I gave to you. I can never forgive my love.
 
 
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