nice

A slightly older friend of mine just returned from India. I've been helping her out with a family problem which is a source of great stress and grief to her ... the problem, not me.

While there, she set a candle on a leaf to float down the Ganges River, and said a prayer for me.

Very moving. 

boy howdy

yeah, yeah, yeah ... 54 years old.  um, let's see ... my 12th birthday was spent at home because i got in a shitload of trouble and got grounded for a month.  my 16th was spent getting my driver's license.  um, work with me here ... um, sorry.  i got nothing.  i'm sure more things happened on my birthdays since 1975, but nothing comes to mind.

tis a day to endure and pass on.  has nothing to do with being or not being my birthday.  i just don't celebrate them.  seems odd.

i like being told happy birthday.  then we can end it, right?  no card, present, special meal, cake, song ... nothing.  please.  nothing.  if you don't like that approach, then you don't understand - and that's ok, but don't nail what you don't get.

if only ...

breadcrumbs

letter in desk drawer

draft e

real life twice settled

dreams with same hue

foundations laid

paths set far enough

shattering

just around the bend

wisdom

Some things are better left unsaid albeit not unfelt.

few words ...

sitting home alone.  wanted something on in the background as much to add input for the dogs as anything else.  so star trek 3 was on.  no, 4.  something comes up when all the old guys are on vacation (they called it shore leave; funny).  so two of the lesser guys - sulu (sp?) and somebody else - are wandering through the woods somewhere.  lost.  i guess the writers didn't anticipate a GPS.  sure, they got what amounts to a cellphone, but no google maps.  much later in the movie right now.  wow ... they hit warp drive or speed or whatever just in time.  remarkable.  almost got shot by klingons.  that woulda sucked out there in the vacuum of space.  regardless of how explosive things are portrayed, i think it just kinda goes whoomp or something, then people kinda implode.

i'm eating salt and vinegar potato chips.  one of my last splurges before i switch over to high protein to support p90x.

i've been watching neala (still cringe every single fucking time at the name) for hours.  no accidents.  she's getting better, plus i watch her closely to get her outside often.

did you see that papa john's thing with the super bowl where you picked which way the coin flip would go, and if you were right you won a free pizza?  i get it at the office a couple of times a month, so i'm on their mailing list.  i got like five reminders to enter.  never did.  then the day before the game i got an email thanking me for entering ... no one did.  then the day after the game i go an email telling me i guessed right and giving me a code for my free pizza.  odd ... i mean thanks, john, but you're fucking with me.

i've never seen toilets on the Enterprise, or had jim called only to respond that he was taking a dump.

have you been following the science reports over the last few months about planets in habitable zones?  i laughed years ago when the supposed brightest among us said that few stars would have planets, and that of those planets it would be foolish to assume that any would be in the habitable zone.  now, of course, the brightest are telling us that planets are out there in almost uncountable numbers, and that the ones in the habitable zone are plenty.  all anyone ever had to do was look up. you think God made all of this for just one planet?  that's worse than the catholic church excommunicating people because they claimed the earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around. goofballs.

i've never liked roller coasters.

in the several months before my dad died, God seemed to allow a lot of loose ends to be closed for him.  He gave my dad experiences of family that were unique and in many ways holistic unlike anything he'd experienced before.  i didn't piece it together at the time, of course.  perhaps there were more personal experiences as well.  no way of ever knowing.  like everything, we're more cognizant the second time through. five and counting.  well, five.  no way to know if still counting.

back to work.

wow ...

good stuff.