Another Etheree styled poem:

The poetry form, Etheree, consists of 10 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 syllables. 
Etheree can also be reversed and written 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ---

Anorexia nervosa is a dirty disgusting creature that lurks around, and picks on the vunerable and those that are afraid. I am going to talk about this vile nasty thing.

Most people will think it is about young girls who don't eat enough, because they are obsessed with being thin. Well, don't believe a word of it. It can happen to anyone, any sex, and age group. Yes, young girls are more likely to be seduced by it's appeal, but I assure you, I know a couple people with this disgusting illness, and it isn't pretty at all.

You could argue, well, all they need to do is eat, and they would gain weight, and that's that. If you think that, you haven't yet Googled it, and read up on it. It's far more complex than that. It is a psychiatric illness, that is life threatening in severe cases.

Why am I telling you this?

A friend of mine is going through a tough time recently. That's an understatement, this friend is currently in hospital with a body weight of around 5 and a half stone. She has reached the very limits of her body's tolerance. To be blunt, if she doesn't eat, or they can't maintain her weight, she will die soon.

Yet the stupid, stupid thing is, she has no idea how bad it is. She still thinks she is too fat for her height and hardly eats a thing. The hospital try to make sure she eats, but she will just go to the bathroom and throw it back up at will. She just will not accept, what is glaring everyone else in the face, she is starving to death.

Now, I am told, Anorexia nervosa is a control thing. She feels in control, because she decides on how she looks and what she weighs. If nothing else is under her control in her life, at least she has control of this. That's how it plays out, but it will kill her.

In the 6 months that have passed this year, she has spent 4 of them hospitalized. What sort of life is that? And this has been going on for years and years. Without sounding rude, she looks like a stick insect. I feel sick when I see her. Her bones are almost protruding from her skin. There isn't a bit of fat on her, and she thinks she is too fat. It is so sad. What can be done? Are her friends and family supposed to just sit back and be happy that she is in control of that part of her life?

Some days are harder than I care to admit.

I am expected to cope - So I do.

I am a generally happy person, but I can't be that 24/7, even though I profess otherwise :)

It isn't just the darkness that makes one afraid.

I hate being judged.

I read a lot, but I should read more.

Being able to express things through my writing, is very important to me.


We got a cat...
In Second Life...
see him Here


Today's Haiku (Will Twitter it later) :

The heat of the day
even the cat is restless
snoozing near the fan

Born To Dream

Don't tell me not to dream,
for I am born to it -

It's where I take your smile
and wrap it tightly around me like a cloak,
keeping me warm in the coolness of the night.

It's where your words become musical
and float gently on the breeze,
and I catch them one by one in a butterfly net.

It's where I share your sunsets,
even when we are far apart,
and feel the contentment of your hand in mine.

It's where our cheeks brush,
when you whisper, "I love you" in my ear,
and I feel the warm breeze of your breath.

It's where the deepness of your eyes
offers me a view of eternity
that even the stars have not seen.

So don't tell me not to dream,
for I was born to it.

Everyone has heard of the case in the US, where the pharmacist, killed the robber and the ensuing argument about him having the right to defend himself. Now the guy is accused of 1st degree murder, due to the technicality of the time between the first shot and the rest of the shots.

It seems he shot the robber in the head, and while he lay unconscious on the floor (Possibly no more threat) he gets another gun and fired 5 more shots into the youngster.

So, that's the story, the pharmacist apparently appeared to deliberately kill the robber. Was he just defending himself and the other staff? Did he believe his life was still in danger from an unconscious robber?

You see, that's the part that loses my sympathy for him. Ok, he was being robbed, and the adrenalin kicks in, and he shoots the robber. That's all well and good, and I am all for the right to protect what's yours etc etc. Where that ends is, when the robber was shot and fell to the floor, possibly unconscious. He was no longer a threat was he, with a bullet in his head? So why did the pharmacist walk to a draw and pull out another gun, return to the robber and shoot him 5 more times. He was still lying prone on the floor.

As I said, I am happy for a law that allows people to protect themselves and their own property, but that is not what I saw here. Yes, the first bullet was the protecting part, but the rest seemed like revenge and anger. While I don't think 1st degree murder is right (He probably acted irrationally in the heat of the moment) I do think however, that he should be charged with killing the robber. Manslaughter maybe?  We can't end up with vigilante type situations, or we will be even less safe

I got myself a new Fuji camera. 10 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, and very simple to use. Check out the chocolate fudge cheesecake I tested the camera on. That cheesecake lasted less than 10 minutes after the photo was taken, and it was delicious :D

Well, the people who we bought our land from in Second Life, are downgrading, so they are closing the SIM we were living on. A sad day, but also hard work, as we had to find new land fast, so we could move our home. The recession hits everyone, and it has hit business in Second Life just as well. I can't blame the people for wanting to cut their costs, but it has made a lot of work for us.

Finding new land takes time and effort, and although we didn't find land that is quite as perfect as the old one, west facing (gorgeous sunsets) facing out to sea. Nothing to spoil the view, right on the sand, and a corner plot, we have managed to find one almost as good, just no west facing. But, the move was hassle-free and quick. We even bought a new house, and I have been busy designing the landscape on the plot.
I have put up Pics here

I haven't done too much creative work these last few days, vacation time etc, but I have been doing little bits to the epic, which stands around 500 lines by now. Not exactly an epic yet, but it will be one day :) Aleksander is back to work today, and everything will fall back into routine and normality. A very humid day. I can smell the thunderstorms brewing. Sitting with the garden door open, a breeze blowing around, creating currently.

PS: Happy 10th birthday Live Journal. I have shared 7 of them with you, and it's been fun :)

I always enjoy my times with Aleksander, and this weekend was especially nice because Aleksander finally took his vacation. Don't know if he "really" wanted to (He likes work) but I am glad, and I think he is too. As I said, it was entertaining and quite funny. We decided we would give the Conan game a try, as there was a seven day free trial floating around, so we took it. I first want to say, it is not the best game in the world, but it has some nice features, and is quite an easy game for casual players like us. Lord of the Rings is our mainstay, and will remain so, but occassionally, it is good to sample a change of scene and see what the opposition is doing.

Ok, so I apologize, I "really" need to point out, that I forgot to take a screenshot of the laugh out loud moment of seeing Aleksander's char lying dead, face down in the mud. You just had to see it to appreciate the humour there, trust me. I ressurrected him, and we continued as if nothing happend, didn't want to dent his pride though :D (Though, to be fair, I had just died too. The difference being, I was the priest, so I have to release, and run back to revive him. So getting back and seeing him face down in the mud was one of those giggle moments.)

The day is very windy, and feels wintery all over again. We had a few sunny and warm days, where we could show our naked arms, and now, in true British style, after three ot four of those, we need to have cold weather back. At least I managed to get the garden looking decent again. It is really cold today, I keep shivering.

I am toying with the idea of turning my webpage into a blog. Well, I already thought about having it in a blog style, but I mean, maybe to have it so that the entries scroll down the pages, rather than links to the side etc. Still considering that one.

My epic poem is going better than I planned. Of course it will be a long term project, but so far, it has reached about 300 lines. That's absolutely tiny in the scheme of things, as this epic will hopefully be...ermm epic! I am really enjoying the challenge.

By now, you have heard the name Susan Boyle, and if you haven't, then you must have been living under a rock for the past few weeks. The internet is awash with it, Google it, it isn't hard to find.

Ah well, I am feeling kind :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Ok, so this woman has the most fantastic voice I have heard in a very long time. It is brilliant to say the least. But that's not what I am writing about here. What I AM concerned with, is people's spitefulness towards this lovely ladys personal appearance. And yes, make no mistake, it is spitefullness. This lady gave us a gift, and we took it, and yet most news stations and presenters seem more obsessed with her 'frumpy' image.

Their words, not mine, because, quite franky, I think she look just fine, and it is her voice she offered us. She didn't ask us to judge her on anything else other than her beautiful voice.

Why then, are there news stories all over the TV, the internet, in newspapers, taking potshots at her looks? You nasty people, get a life! So many people these days are over the top about how people look. Bully boys, who take great pleasure in other people's misfortunes. Ok, this lovely lady is not a looker, but she is a Human Being, and she has a gift. Please give her the respect she deserves.

I don't care what people look like physically, beauty isn't a pretty face or a shapely body, beauty is what is on the inside, and it radiates from people if they have it. Many people have good physical looks, but they are very ugly people. Personally, I would rather hang around ordinary people who are not obsessed with physical attributes, they are generally far nicer and more interesting people to be with.
/rant off.

Being a kid isn't all it's cracked up to be. We all say to our kids, stay a kid as long as you can, you can't go back, once you grow up, that's it, it's all hard work from then on etc etc etc. But, that's only true if you had a good childhood, or even a normal one. I didn't really get either, and I have already put into words what that was like and I have laid that down, and I don't want to go there again. I would never want to be a kid again. What I am trying to say is, there isn't much about my childhood that I wish to remember, thanks to her, but of course, there were a few little things that for a brief moment were fun.

By the time I was eleven, I had a second hand bike. I would have hidden that bike under my bed at night if I was able. I adored that bike, and was so scared of anything happening to it. It was the catalyst for my frequent escapes into the woods, which were a few miles away. It made things easier when I needed to go there. The woods were the one place where I could believe that things would change. It wasn't much of a bike, but it was functional, and it was great fun. It was a fixed wheel bike, which meant, you had to turn the pedals all the time, even downhill. This was no problem to an eleven year old, as all you needed to do, was take your feet off the pedals at the top of the hill, and you got the most fantastic freedom whizzing down the hill at top speed :)

I was never one for dolls and prams etc, I liked Lego...yes Lego, those fun building blocks most kids come into contact with at some point in their lives.The name Lego comes from a Danish phrase leg godt, which means play well. I had a huge collection of these wonderful bricks, and I would lose myself in building all manner of things with them. Houses, shops, tower blocks, museums, roman temples, churches, you name it, I built it. Of course, I was one of those kids that never liked to break my creations apart again, so the collection grew, and the bricks dwindled, until I was forced to break something to be able to build again.

I always carried a set of Jacks with me, where ever I went...those 10 little metal star shaped things you scatter on the ground and try to swipe when you throw a ball up in the air, grab the jacks and catch the ball. I never went anywhere without those. They were always in a pocket. They passed many a dull moment. In fact, I still own a set stashed away somewhere for the nostalgia.

I also played a lot of tennis in my young days, and was quite good too. I was never a really sporty person, but tennis and throwing the javelin were my sport loves and I have certificates for the javelin throwing. My racquet was always poking out of my saddlebag when I was out and about on the bike, one never knew when a game might be offering itself. Never knew why I didn't take up tennis professionally, I guess by then, the need to write was already very strong, and that took a lot of my free time. I figured I couldn't do both. Never regretted it either.

And I promised myself, I wouldn't sit up too late tonight. Ha! Here I am making this journal entry at 1.30 in the morning. Why?
You might well ask. And I will tell you.

Let's start at the beginning then. I spent the day in Aleksander's good company, and we did a lot of talking, eating and gaming, as is usual for a Saturday (and Sunday etc) But Aleksander is more sensible than I, because when he is tired, he goes to bed (Although, I think, he just hasn't got the stamina. He is one of those people that once they get tired, they act all weird. Slurred speech, and hardly able to function. Losing all idea of where they are and what they are doing. They have no option but to sleep. That's Aleksander.) We were gaming in Lord of the Rings at the time, it was getting a bit late, so, we finish up with the missions we were doing, because he is nearly falling off the horse and doesn't seem able to steer the horse, so rather than run into enemy trouble, we head for the nearest town (Elf tree platform in this case) and park ourselves there for the night. Lorien is a very pretty place btw, just so you know :)

Anyway, while Aleksander goes to join the land of nod, I start tinkering with my webpage a little. But a little becomes a lot, and soon more than a couple of hours have gone by. I have no idea how it went so quickly. I also did a bit more to the epic poem I am writing. I think it will be a long project though, but I am pleased with it so far.

Aleksander can't have his week off next week, due to work pressures, and has had to defer it for two more weeks, that sucks, and I was very disappointed, ask him, I nearly chewed his ears off over it :D. But on the upside, he will take two weeks off instead of one.

I didn't get any journal entries done this week due to not having the time, and I didn't want to leave it blank until Monday, so I am sitting here writing it now. I am very very tired, and I really must crawl up the stairs and sleep :) *Yawn* Goodnight

Some people say power naps do a world of good, personally, I have never been able to do that. I either sleep fully at night, or I stay tired until the next allotted sleep time. I can't nap, I find the concept odd. I am not a cat :D

When things get busy, there is nothing like a short recharge of the batteries to make one feel refreshed. Taking a walk, stepping into the garden, getting absorbed in a book, or even closing the home office door, and listening solidly to my music, will all give that lift.

What people don't realize about being a carer, is just how little time one actually gets in one block to do their own things. When you are a full time carer, and have to run a home too, it is occassionaly hectic, always running around doing stuff. No resentment there btw, but carers are people too, and I think we deserve a little bit of our day. I am lucky in that respect, my arrangements mean, I have my evenings free, and I really appreciate that.

The very warm weather of the last few days has been replaced with wet, cool and cloudy weather, which was preceeded by a thunderstorm. The storm happened late at night, but luckily, it was over before I drifted off to sleep. If it continued after that, I have no knowledge of it. I am a good sleeper, and only get woken up if things are very loud.

Slowly Aleksander and I are getting through the new Lorien missions in LotR. We have the first two sets of characters done, and started working on the third set last night.

I am still holding out for the iPhone. I sooo want one of those, and have made up my mind I will spend the cash, but I am just hanging on a bit longer, just in case they lower the price a little, as it gets towards the new update. I am not sure they will on the pay-as-you-go version though. But I will try to hold on until May (The new software update is at the beginning of June) I am so having one of those whatever :D

My writing has been hectic recently, I have no idea what's going on, but I am just flowing. My epic poem has been started, and it is making progress, my Haiku are jumping out onto the page, my inspiration has been high for so long now, it's very nice.

Those that read my journal often, will be used to the fact, that Josie e-mails me (and a bunch of other people on her list)some random questions every so often, in the aim of building up her own global database. So here is her latest set of questions;

Do you put justice higher than mercy?
Certainly. If someone has done the crime, they do the time. Simple. I have no time for people that harm others.

Do you recycle household items?
Quite a bit yes, but I am not a fanatic.
I want to save the planet, but to be honest, I don't want to put too much effort into that.

The tv show you are currently watching is?
Now that Battlestar Galactica has ended, I have just LOST once a week, and The Wire, which I am watching from DVD's, so can watch as much or as little as I want.

Are you a morning or night person?
Both actually.
I am a morning person, so I get up fairly early, but I also like to sit up late (Too much to do) this makes getting enough sleep tough :)

Would you rather be by yourself or with lots of other people?
Not necessarily totally alone, but I like my space. Shut in my office is good enough, even with others in the house. But I am not a big crowd person at all.

Do you like it hot or cold?
Do I like what hot or cold?
Weather, I like Spring weather, just warm and cosy, not too hot to sweat, not to cold for my toes. Ice cream, don't like that much anyway. Yoghurt subconsciously seems to get left to reach room temp before eating it. Ice cold milk, nah, not that cold. Water from the fridge, nah, room temp please. Guess the pattern here is, I like things warm, not hot or cold, whatever it is.

Inside or outside?
Inside always. I like to feel the sun, from a shady position, I like to feel the breeze from a sheltered position, I like to watch snow fall from inside. Small burst of the outside are ok, but inside is far nicer :)

Currently the most played artist on your mp3 player is?
Hmm, difficult to say. Guess it won't be just one artist, but a few. Pearl Jam, Crowded House, Talking Heads and Counting Crows likely.

Your desk is usually neat and orderly?
Absolutely, definitely, totally!
I can't stand working in a mess of papers and junk. That is such a distraction. So everything has a place, and only bare essentials are on the desk anyway.

You are?
A poem

Ok, so I had a busy schedule this morning, the day started early, and upon peering through the slats in the blind when I got up, I saw it was very foggy, but it cleared pretty rapidly once the sun came out.

I don't seem to be progressing well on the webpage update, I just find that, any of the free time I manage to get, is better spent on my writing as first priority. I start to do a bit on the site work, then I find myself slipping into inspiration mode, oh well. It will get done when it gets
done :)

The "aspiring writers" workshop went very well, and it was buzzing with excitement, and people wanting to show off their work. We learned a few things about the do's and don'ts of publishing, how to present and pitch. How to make your work more attractive to a publisher. Surely, the whole point is, you write what you feel, not what the publisher sees as right or wrong, oh well. But we learned, that many publishers are changing attitudes these days, and getting "with it" more in tune. In the old days of publishing, you were just the pawn. You could write, but it had to be the way they said it had to be. This long, that genre, this cover, that title etc etc, Heck, it was hard to even choose your own title, how can that be? Not so much now though, thank goodness.

Twitter is proving to be a reasonable assett. It won't take over as any kind of social thing, but it sits side by side with my other haunts. I have found since using it, my website hits have sky rocketed, so that's certainly a positive. When I joined Twitter, it was reluctantly, and at the time I just saw it as a clever, but subtle way to drive traffic. It has been just that, but I have discovered a few nice people on there too, and I do twitter a bit with folk. The extra website hits are nice, a significant jump I would say :D

Josie sent me one of those question emails on Friday, I will answer that here sometime this week. Just not today ok :)

As many of you know, I write poetry, and many, many Haiku. (Putting plenty of those up on Twitter lately too, as Twitter lends itself very well to Haiku. Just the right amount of letters) But I digress; most people think poetry is all I write, and although poetry is a favourite things to write, I also write letters in character, and plenty of prose. People often ask to see these, and I don't often share them, maybe sometimes in google docs, I will share the odd thing with folks, but they are not generally public. The reason I write a lot of prose, is because, it seems to naturally spread itself to around five thousand words for me. Yes, prose can be as short as a sentence, or as long as you like, but it just seems to work that way for me. Five thousand words is a nice practice length for a day. So a rare treat today, one of my short prose pieces, this is what four thousand one hundred words looks like:


Whenever I saw Julien, it was sunny. Maybe that was because I only saw him in the Summer months when the weather was more clement, or maybe I just remembered him as a very easy going person, who had a sunny nature, I don't know. But what I do remember was the way he always had time for a smile and a tip of his hat as he passed. He would stop and discuss the weather and the ways of the world.Ten minutes in, and he had changed everything that was wrong with it.

There was never anything pretentious about him. He wrote books, yet he never bragged or carried on about it. Most days, when the weather allowed, he sat by the river with his notepads and plenty of pens, scribbling away at whatever was his current topic. Always busy, yet never too busy to smile, wave or have a word. His leathery, wind worn complexion, red and rugged, always ready to facilitate a conversation. He never minded interruption, as long as you didn't ask what he was writing about.

He had long passed the age of youth, yet his books kept him in good fortune. The house he owned, just yards from the riverside where he sat, was large and rambling, bought with the proceeds of his work, along with the large motorboat bobbing in the wake of the river boats cruising the river at any given moment. At certain times of year, swans would frequent that part of the river where Julien sat, and he would feed them with bread and wild bird food. He said he recognised each one of them, even gave them all names. More than that; he said they knew him too, though I suspect all they knew was, he was the chef in their favourite outdoor restaurant.

Well, Julien was a bit of a celebrity in our village. It gave us all a nice feeling to think that this very genteel man, was talented enough to sell books, and to sell enough to make vast amounts of money. Julien once told us that he had come from France when he was just knee-high to a grasshopper. His mother was French, his Father Dutch, and when his Mother was widowed and left alone with two young children, she boarded a ferry to England and stayed with some friends until she finished grieving. By then, the children were settling into English life, and she didn't feel she should pull them away. So the status quo prevailed, and life went on, and little Julien began his writing. At first he wrote to cover the loss of his Father, retreating behind the pages, and soon he was sending off essays and pieces to various magazines. It didn't take long for publishers to hear of his talent, and the first book was on the way.

After that, book followed book, and Julien made a good life for himself and his family. An idyllic life some would say. But all was not what it seemed in Julien's life. For one thing, the loss of his Father deeply affected this quiet man, and for another - well, for another, there was his brother, older by three years, who was, by some un-written rule, never spoken about. No-one ever knew what happened to Marc, but somewhere in their past, at the age of twenty, Marc vanished forever. Of course, there was much speculation about his disappearance, mainly the idea that he fell into the water where the boat now sits, but the police had searched and combed the area in a wide radius, and never found a single clue. No-one had ever seen Marc on that day, and after a few years the case was written off as another missing person case.

But talk is cheaper than vino, and talk in the village was rampant at the time of Marc's disappearance. Talk of sibling rivalry floated high in the air. You see, Marc was also a writer, and although Marc wrote in plentiful amounts, he was in Julien's shadow, and couldn't shake it off. Even more talk revolved around the fact that Marc was a better writer, and jealousy surrounded his demise. But nothing was ever proven, just gossip, village here say. Well, Julien took it all on the chin, and had never faultered in his manner, ever the shy man that he was. Over time, Marc faded into the past, and life went on -

Then, thirty years after his disappearance, Marc returned to the village of his childhood, and what he had to say, rocked the village to it's foundations -

Sings  @Aleksander ..."It's only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart away." (get your earplugs hehe)

(my rock, I am glad my days are filled with you.)

I am well aware I can't sing, but does it really matter? I will have you know, I was karaoke queen for quite some time. Somehow, karaoke doesn't seem to count, when you tally up the making a fool of yourself :)

The next Lord of the Rings update is on the 2nd April, new book, new missions, new area...Lothlorien! Can't wait.

The AWC desktop wallpaper changer is really cool. If you like a variety of wallpapers, this tool is soo easy and cool. Set it to how long till it changes, and forget it. I have a different wallpaper every 30 minutes. So nice.

I was a young child of the 60's, and grew up with some wonderful music. Many great bands were born in these times, and I feel priviliged to have witnessed it first hand. There never was, and never will be, another era like the 60's. Not just because that was my time, but because something magical happened to music then, and became the measure for all that has followed it.

When John Lennon was shot dead on a New York street in 1980, a part of me was lost. I can't explain it, I didn't idolize him, There were many other singers I liked more than him., but John was like having another brother. I used to talk to him about the bad things in my life. He was someone outside, who I could talk openly to.

It was an enriching time, a time to savour music. We had no idea then, how the 60's phenomenon was changing the course on music, but one thing is for sure, it has had a huge influence in the industry.

Ok, another Monday morning, after a fantastic weekend in Aleksander's good company, as always. We managed to get a lot of stuff done, including Lord of the Rings gaming, lots of chat time and browsing, and we even got to tinker with our respective pages, and I got a bit of writing done, now you may not find that particularly interesting, but given that Sunday I was running on tea and fumes all day, after getting only 4 hours sleep, it was pretty amazing :D

It was a tough week overall, and I hope to get an easier time of it this week. Indeed, in the words of Captain Picard, I intend to make it so :)

Now, I have a big confession to make, that only Pia, Hippypaul and Theswov1 already knew before now.
I gave in and joined Twitter.
Ok, so bite me, but come on guys, it is actually quite fun, and I can see it has uses beyond just the chatting part. It is rather a weird concept, trying to make friends and keep your conversation in 140 letters, but it is also challenging. I even write some Haiku there, and with the help of the hash key, it is all neatly organized. While it will never replace the journal, forums or email, it does have a use. Many people use it for marketing, and reaching people, and this is where it's potential lies. Being in the writing business, it may even serve me in the future to help promote etc. If the next innovation hasn't come along by then :)

My central heating system stopped working, calling them this morning to come and fix it. It just didn''t come on at it's usual time, the water is still getting hot, so it appears to me, in my limited knowledge of the whole thing, that the thermostat timer switch, isn't doing anything. There was no click at the designated on-off times, so it just isn't doing anything. Maybe just a fuse has gone in it. Will know more when they have been. At least I am grateful for the hot water still working. Ok, going out into that wonderful sunshine that we have right now, need to do stuff.

I am a big music person. I like music. I wouldn't be without music. I play music for a large portion of the day, but (There is always a but) I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR MUSIC.

It is nice to gather your thoughts sometimes. If you are at the riverside, feeding the ducks, and you can hear the sound of the waves swishing in the wake as the boats go by, and the odd duck noise, and nature doing it's wonderous thing, it is soo cool. I don't NEED a musical background.

Noise pollution is a really big issue for a lot of people, and it is getting worse and worse, everything from traffic and music, to mobile phone use, and generally loud people. The world has become a noisy place, and people are far more aggressive than they once were. With so much stress in the air, it doesn't take much to tip people over the edge, and your unwanted music may be just the thing to do it.

Why I have never joined facebook...
I don't want to be contacted by old acquaintances who suddenly, twenty years down the line, decide they want to be my friend. If we didn't like each other then, why are we going to like each other now? I'm already in contact with the people I wanted to remain in touch with, and I make new contacts and friends through various places I use. I see little point in creating a profile on Facebook, and nothing more to do. Profiles are part of something else, or they are supposed to be. What else is Facebook about? I am constantly asked about joining it, but I refuse to do anything just because everyone else is doing it.

I never joined Twitter either. I have been tempted, but it seems so pointless. Maybe I am just not seeing the whole picture yet. If I joined, I would probably post a couple of twits? tweets? a day as a novelty, then it would fade into obscurity.

Quite a few people I know have been twittering/tweeting for a while, and they often ask me, when am I going to join. I usually reply with something like, I like a journal because I like to write, and twittering isn't really writing. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but to me, twittering is to the internet, what text messaging is to the mobile phone. It is for the most part, pointless, and yet another degredation of language and communication. I may join one day, just because, but I can't say I am all that interested so far.

I always seem to trail way behind people with 'the latest fad', I jump on board when it seems right to do so, not because everyone else does. Last.fm was an exception, I joined that when it was a tiny little baby on the net, and it felt like a good place to be, full of interesting ideas. I liked what I saw, and knew I would use it a lot. I was right, after more than 4 years, I am still using it.

Something in the news that interested me, was a poll that revealed that people actually lie about what they read. And the top 4 books that people lied about reading (presumably to impress other people) were:

1. 1984
2.War and Peace
3.Ulysses
4.The Bible

Well, I have fully read 1984 and War and Peace, and I have read parts of Ulysses. The only time I have read some bible bits, was at school (In my day, religion was part of the curiculum) And even though I am not religious in the slightest, and would say I am atheist, bordering agnostic, there are some reasonably interesting stories in there. If you treat them as fiction stories, things like, soddom and gommorah raise interesting thoughts of nuclear destruction etc. But I will stick with my sci-fi and fantasy books thank you :)

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick

What if we looked back to 60's America, and saw it split into two sectors, half run by Nazi Germany, the other half run by the Japanese?...
Set in the 60's on America's west coast, Philip K Dick's book, sets out to explore the idea of the Nazi's winning the second world war. And what a story it makes, a very engrossing tale. The most delicious twist in this story, lies in one of the characters, a recluse, who lives in a castle, who writes a best selling scifi book about how it would have been if the USA had won the second world war. An alternate history, within an alternate history.

Now add to the mix, the Nazi's try suppressing the novel, but it is too popular, and the fact that they don't like it and want him dead, and you see how this tale is ingenious. Dick uses thoughts and ideas that are not too far off in our own time and world, and twists them until they squeal, yet the reader is never pulled into the unbelievable.

As usual in Dick's books, there are some complex characters and solid dialogue in this book, ordinary people caught up in extreme conditions. The message of this bizarre book suggests that history comes back into balance when events threaten to destroy the world, not just the future changes, but the past changes as well. 

One thing to remember, this book won't give you an ending, it doesn't end, it leaves the door open.
First published 1962, this is 249 pages of pure joy. Philip K Dick is a brilliant writer, and excels himself in this Hugo Award winning, alternate history tale. There are many alternate history tales out there, but when this was written, it was considered one of the forerunners. This was Philip K Dick's attempt at being taken seriously.

A pure classic, a masterpiece that deserves a place on your shelf. I feel this is one of Dick's best works to date.

Monday, and already after lunch. This post was intended to be done in the morning, but as usual, things are a little behind :)

I am just going to drift and ramble on, stream of consciousness and all that (You poor people) I find that works so well for me. It just allows one to get thoughts active, and shared, before one thinks to change bits.

We all tend to do that, we write something, read it back and think things like...Hmm, they won't like that, that's too icky, silly, rude, offensive, or that's not what I 'should' say/want people to think that I would say etc etc etc.

So, you end up editing, and editing is such a nasty word. We shouldn't have to edit, but for sanity, privacy and politeness, we do it anyway. I am not talking about revisions, I am not talking about cleaning up grammatical and spelling errors. I am talking about, actually removing bits that you think others wouldn't like to see or hear. The thing is, if you write something that you are happy with, ie: something you wanted to say, why should you water it down? If people don't like what you write, they have the right to leave, or not read it.

But it still stands, we all edit bits, I do, you do, they do. It is a fact, we don't write, or say how we 'really' feel. We want to put down on paper, the things that are in our minds, yet we don't 'really' want others to see that. We need the clarity, but are still afraid to share that clarity. Am I even making any sense?

The day is a pretty end-of-Winter day, cold, yet full of sunshine and promises of Spring. Blossom trees are starting to - ummm, blossom. We have plenty of those locally. Where I live was farmland years ago, mainly cherry growing farms, and many of the cherry trees were left in situ, and houses built around them. Though some residents have removed some over-grown and old trees, (Me included a few years ago) there are still enough of them left to give a nice Spring display.

There was an old cherry in the corner of my garden, very pretty, but it was in danger of falling over, especially in high wind, so it was cut down. But I did replace it with a 'Prunus Amanagawa' and for those not familiar with trees and plants, or are too lazy to check that wonderful tool called the internet, it is a small, upright flowering cherry tree, with pretty pale pink blossoms, and as the name suggests, it's branches grow straight upwards, not out. It is only about 1 ft across (30cm) and about 10 ft tall (300cm) So it is pretty compact, yet has loads of blossoms.

A couple of LJ friends are going to make a community, themed on books, poems, writings, musings etc. I will likely get pulled in to help as always lol, not that I mind really.

Being a beautiful person means inner beauty, not a pretty face. There are some really stunning faces out there, but they are ugly people. I would rather mix with normal people that are nice, kind people, than mix with the ones that worry about what they look like.

Well, I have rambled long enough, I need to do other things with thoughts of tea on my mind.

I talk a lot about Haiku poems, and how much I love them. They are treasure snippets.
I write a lot of them, and though I like the discipline of the 5-7-5 regime (Traditional Japanese Haiku) and practice with it often, I prefer the more relaxed "English" form better, which doesn't really require the 5-7-5.

The reason for this is, while the discipline is nice for practice work, and yes, jems occur at times with them, I find you can't always say exactly what's on your mind using it. You could argue; then find other words that fit, but if I do that, then I am essentially losing my train of thought and what I actually want to say. Having to change the words to fit the pattern, is not necessarily what I want to convey.

Two examples below, hopefully show what I mean, while the first fits the 5-7-5 exactly, the impact of what I am saying has been lost to a desk (or any other thing I would add there to make up the numbers) There is an interupt of thought. It is no longer pure. I have cluttered it, like having a minimalistic decor and throwing a pile of mags on the floor.

In the first one, I have described a scene, where as in the second one, I have described a moment in time.

So for me, it doesn't always need 5-7-5 to be a Haiku. It has to be pretty, and I want you to see that moment, and just that moment. The second one is far more pure :)


And in the middle
of all these words on my desk,
is me and my pen.


And in the middle
of all these words, there is me -
and my pen.