I finally found a combination of cold drugs that actually work. It involves alternating between Alka Seltzer Cold & Sinus and TheraFlu Severe Cold, and “assisting” each dosage of each with a half dosage of Sudafed Non-drying Sinus. It’s sort of the Tim Allen theory of cold management: it just needs more medication. I guess I shouldn’t be encouraging that sort of thing, but fuck it, it works. Specifically, I think it’ll work well enough that I can actually attend work tomorrow.

In other news, I’ve discovered I’ve gotten kind of wiggy about processed food. This may be a good thing, assuming it lasts for any length of time. I love shows like Unwrapped because I usually find manufacturing processes facinating. It’s not just limited to food items either. I just like knowing how things are made. But lately I’ve found manufactured foods sort of disturbing. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I live on manufactured shakes. Nothing I eat these days resembles anything found in nature.

I miss food that doesn’t taste like artficial flavors. And when I watch shows about processed foods, I feel this self-righteous voice in my head chastizing people for eating this chemical-based crap instead of fresh vegetation. Which is funny, as I recall I used to be quite the processed food offender. Hell, if you look at the crap I drink, I still am. I don’t drink caffiene nor sugar, which means that everything I drink other than water is loaded with chemicals.

This fact now disturbs me.

I also find myself upset and self-righteous about a storage place ad I keep seeing. The ad suggests that people can store the useless junk occupying their over-full garages in storage places so they have room to put their new junk which the next Best Buy ad will try to convince them they need to be happy. All I could think was “perhaps if you just bought less stuff?” This is also terribly absurd as I am a huge abuser of retail therapy.

I feel overly consumeristic. I feel like there’s too much to atone for. I feel like I should be able to hold on to these feelings more of the time, letting them guide me in my actions. And I feel as though these thoughts border on the edge of spirituality.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m Wiccan

I received an email consisting of a grand total of two sentences from Rita today. I didn’t mean to diatribe, but it’s been on my mind, so I’m sharing the bulk of my response to her. Yes, I’m probably nuts, but I’m 99.9% sure this is true.

And I can’t say I’m surprised your plans changed. The weeks of Beltane and Samhain are just so prone to insanity anyway. Honest to god, the reason the freeway melted? Beltane. I’m sure of it. And it’s not just the Maze being in pieces. Last time my commute was routinely *this* *fucking* *nuts* was the week of Samhain. Yesterday I got trapped in Alameda for two hours when an accident happened in the Posey Tube, and because EVERYONE then tried to head for the bridges, every North-South Avenue in Alameda became a parking lot. A car was on fire at the top of the highway 4 grade when I cruised past… the cops, the driver, the tow truck driver, and the paramedics all just standing around, shooting the shit, watching it burn as they waited for the fire trucks to come back. And what were they coming back from? Apparently two or three hours earlier in that same place, a small plane had to make an emergency landing *on* *4*.

This morning I left my house at 6:30. I got to work at 9.

Oh, and I’ve had a major deadline appear out of NO WHERE every damn day this week. Of course, just as I finish, my boss announces “just kidding! It was pushed back to tomorrow! Oh, but since you have time, do this before the new deadline.” And I can’t even be pissed at him because it’s not him changing his mind, its just as he gets more info on what we need, there’s another step.

This week is fucking insane. I remember that essay about the Lammas Men: “if you don’t happen to Lammas, Lammas happens to you!” And I suppose it’s true. But Lammas, hell, even Ostara, which I never celebrate but always happens to me anyway, have NOTHING on Samhain and Beltane. These are the weeks I always end up having high blood pressure from the traffic and a breakdown from life’s general insanity. Oh, and I usually manage to be bleeding for them too. Because it’s appropriate in some sick way.

It’s true. I know the sabbats are insane. But these two take the fucking cake.

Mood : uncomfortable Music : Blink 182: Action (I’m Feeling It)

It’s been a long day. I feel alternately like an emotional wreck and like there is great hope for me, for life, for the universe. My life is in transition. There is a hole inside me, but it is a necessity. My mother once told me that for something new to come into your life you have to make room for it… and that is usually in the form of a hole. Having the hole is hard, and it hurts, but I embrace it with a certain hopefulness through my tears; something new is coming.

Part of it is already here. I am able to look forward without fear. Something changed within Monacita and my relationship, and I realized that she is a friend. It’s been a very long time since I’ve opened my heart and made a friend. I’ve spent a long time hiding a secret part of me away from people who didn’t already know it was there.

I don’t know how to explain the sense of comfort, joy, and trust in this discovery. Perhaps it was there all along and I just never noticed. Perhaps it is new. But ultimately it doesn’t matter because it is there now, and it makes me happy.

My life is in a weird place right now… but it is a good place, a hopeful place. It’s a hard place, but nothing truly worth doing is ever easy.

There are tears running down my cheeks, but there is no fear in my heart.
It’s an amazing feeling.

I got ordained today!

I am now an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. Go me!

I don’t really know what I’m going to do with my new ordination, but I like the idea of being ordained. I’ve wanted to ever since Rev. Cisco did. They have classes you can take to get your Doctor of Divination too, in all sorts of weird things like motivation. That kind of baffles me, but what the hell.

You too can become an ordained minister!

Best of all, like my Alma Matter and that high quality wine Thunderbird, it’s based out of Stanislaus County! Woo Hoo! The hell with Valued Sony Customer, I’m running with “Central Valley Mama!”

…

Jesus, that HAS to be the cold talking.