I got him

a portable CD player with the little cirarette lighter power cord and cassette thingy so he can play it through his car speakers (replacing the CD player that got stolen out of his car). And a scarf.

So it's me that's gift-giving from dullsville.

Let this not be lost

on you guys as to the significance of Winston giving me toy robots every year for christmas; This does not represent callousness or thoughtlessness or obtuseness on his part; had he gotten me, say, fantastically expensive jewelry from Tiffany's, THAT would have been thoughtless. By honoring me with goofy robots, Winston is actually acknowledging my playful, child-like nature, affirming the wacky, nerdy nature of our relationship, and basically saying, "hey, this weird relationship we have going here? Sure, it's fucked up, but it's also pretty unique, too."

another robot christmas

You may remember that last year Winston got me the "robot barking dog" (barta, barta) for christmas. Well, this year he once again gave the gift of toy robots. I received not one, but two robots for christmas (both humanoid). One is the Rescue Power Team robot by Fisher-Price, fairly simplistic, but it still does some cool things. The other one is a big-ticket robot, the "robo-sapien", who is capable of voice activation, dancing, and delivering powerful karate chops. So we have a theme going here...

it's funny

there are no significant dates that I celebrate, no events in my life that I feel a need to commemorate on an annual basis. I used to try to pinpoint and feel solemn reverence fro the "top ten days of summer" in a given year, but since moving away from Ohio, that distinction seems to have lost it's importance.

Jesus of Nazareth Day

... instead of Christmas.

Then it's even more like Martin Luther King Day, which is the deification of just another historical character. In fact, Jesus has more historical impact than MLK.

Tornado Day. Wow. That's something interesting to commemorate. "Hey, remember that time that we all almost died?" Hmmm. But, I mean, maybe it is worth noting. You know, hey, another year and we're all still alive.

Dana, don't bug me about the military. I'm not sure there's any military left in me. For better or worse. I'm sure there must be, but there's not much left except some memories.


Anyway.

Merry Xmas.

Scott

not to jump to conclusions

I haven't read "Jesus Is Satan," so I can't say what the thesis of that book is. As I'm getting into "The Plotted Course" (pg 37), he (author Thayalan K. Reddy) is making more intimations that Jesus really was a patsy of the devil as well as the Romans (that 40 days he spent in the desert with Beezelbub wasn't a Test of Faith, it was a stategy retreat). But then the book is rife with snarky narrative such as "Perhaps the only dissimilarity between Jesus and Koresh is that Koresh actually died for his beliefs; Jesus, on the other hand, faked his death." (pg 7) Ultimately I guess I'll have to call up Mr. Reddy and ask "so what are you REALLY trying to say?"

I guess your doc friend was being facetious, cuz what does the commercialized version of xmas have to do with religion? Besides, couldn't you just celebrate xmas as a commemoration of the birth of an important historical figure without assenting to any claims of divinity? And besides xmas (and Easter, but how many nominal Christians go all out for Easter?), the rest of the holidays are pretty godless. They're rites of intensification (Thanxgiving, New Years) or rites of reversal (Halloween, Mardi Gras), but there's not much god involved.

He or she can always celebrate a made up holiday like "Festivus" from Seinfeld.

i couldn't have conducted the survey

if all the junkies were like the ones in Trainspotting or Andy Warhol's Trash. (BTW, one of my colleagues at the clinic is named Bunny Warhol, which I think is pretty cool). That so many of them are "normal" makes the idea of shooting up oddly attractive.

The Plotted Course

author is guilty of sensationalist marketing, if you ask me. Saying that "Jesus is Really Satan" is quite a bit different than saying he was the pasty of the Romans. Ones a freaky supernatural belief; the other's probably a rejected master thesis.

Speaking of religion, one of the doctors commented that the bad thing about being an atheist is that you have no holidays. "Sure you do, they're just differnt. There's Change the Oil in Your Car Day and Garbage Eve and Put Away the Summer Clothes and Get Out the Sweaters and Warm Stuff Day. I think he thought I was being sarcastic, but I wasn't really. Okay, maybe things like Oil Changes don't really qualify. But there are yearly events that are as close to sacred rituals as you get if you're not religious. Like putting in the garden, opening and closing the cabin. In fact in my family we send each other emails on April 3rd that say "Happy Tornado Day." It's always a day we seem to remember.

So what are your personal holidays?

of course

I read the article. But I'm afraid I failed the quiz. It did seem like an interesting array of people coming in for needles. I always think of junkies as being like the people in that horribly depressing Scotish movie - what was the name of that??

so where's the address email, scott?

why are you so lame? i thought military training was all about following through and being up on things. it's really about amplifying the natural negativeness of humanity and spreading it around. happy festivus.

you guys didn't read the article, did you?

Well, you have to read the article, or I will... well I'll know you don't care about me.

to prove you've read it, you must answer these questions correctly:

1. what is mr. April's real name?
2. what's the name of the place where the BYOE party was held?
3. what gauge needle did the "Forrest Gump" guy come for?
4. what has the City of Berkeley declared to facilitate needle exchange funding?
5. what does the cotton fairy blow?

Religion

has done a lot of damage over the centuries, but I think that if it weren't religion, it would just be something else. Human beings could easily find another excuse to behave in cruel and baffling ways. I guess what's unique and handy about religion, compared to fighting over land or racial conflicts, is that religion shifts the blame - God told me to! But even though the old Testement is full of crazy rules and smiting and stoning, there isn't a lot of harmful stuff in the Four Gospels. In fact, what surprised me when I read them was that there didn't seem to be a lot in them at all. It was just kind of like Jesus went here and then he went there, and he ate lunch with these people, and he got in a boat, and peformed this miracle and raised that guy from the dead, and touched some lepers, and rode on a donkey,etc. Actually, I'm surprised that such pacifist beliefs like love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek weren't conveniently edited out of the bible at some point in history. To me that's the real miracle of Christianity.

yep, it was Kenny Chesney:

Please come to Boston for the springtime
I'm staying here with some friends
And they've got lots of room
You can sell your paintings on the sidewalk
By a cafe here I hope to be working soon
Please come to Boston
She said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle down
Boston ain't your kinda town
There ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like me
I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Please come to Denver to see the snowfall
We'll move up into the mountains so far that we can't be found
Throw I love you echoes down the canyon
And then lie awake at night til they come back around
Please come to Denver
She said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle down
Denver ain't your kinda town
There ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like me
I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Now this drifter's world goes 'round and 'round
And I doubt if it's ever gonna stop
And of all the dreams I've lost and found
And all that I ain't got
I need someone to cling to
Somebody I can sing to

Please come to L.A. to live forever
A California life alone is just too hard to live
We'll live in a house that looks out over the ocean
There's some stars that fell from the sky livin up on a hill
Please come to L.A.
She said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle down
L.A. ain't your kinda town
There ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like me
I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

I'm the number one fan of the man from....


TTT
for Tennessee Tuxedo!


man, that's a sad song!

Sunday

I spent the afternoon sitting at a table on the corner of Haste and Telegraph Avenues in Berkeley hawking the Hotties of Harm Reduction Calendar at the Berkeley Holiday Street Fair, which is just another crappy street fair like every other one across the country with vendors selling crappy crafts and crappy art. So I got finagled into selling our cool but possibly crappy calendar (all proceeds-- after paying off the printer-- go to local needle exchanges), and I'm set up catty-corner to this tall swarthy guy selling some books. He has some illustrated placards in front of his little display, with a kind of heavy metal album cover-cum-Hieronymous Bosch picture of a cross-hanging Jesus with devil horns coming out of his head, who's overseeing an apocalyptic landscape (flaming skeletons!). The hyperbolic captions are "SHOCKER OF THE MILLENNIUM" and "THE BOOK THAT DEMOLISHES CHRISTIANITY" The book the guy is selling is entitled "The Plotted Course," and is apparently the sequel to his first book, "Jesus Is Satan." After accidently catching the eye of the dude for a while and smiling, as neither of us is exactly being swamped with business, he eventually comes over to talk to me.
"Interesting Title-- even more interesting illustration" I say.
I eventually find out that he is the author of the book, and he's a really nice, well-spoken guy. He's either Indian or Pakastani, and the book is self-published. He said he feels somewhat bad about bashing a guy (jesus) who isn't around to defend himself, but that he was compelled to write the books because of all the damage Christianity has done to the world over the millennia. He doesn't believe that Jesus really is Satan, any more than he believes he is God, but Jesus might as well be the biblical Satan for all the trouble he's caused. I asked him if he's taken a lot of shit for the inflamatory titles and pictures, and he tells me no, not really, but then he hasn't tried to sell his book in, say, Kansas. He's an interesting guy, so I buy a copy of "The Plotted Course" and start reading it in between begging people to buy my stupid calendar. Later my anti-christian friend tells me (jokingly, I hope) when his book is made into a movie, he wants me to play Mary Magdalene. Always the whore, never the virgin... anyway, I give him my email address, and I tell him to email me and I'll tell him what I think of it. I'm only a little way into it, and it holds one's attention; somewhat scholarly but nothing earth-shattering. As far as I can tell, the idea is that Jesus was brainwashed by the Romans to pretend to be the Messiah so as to undermine the Jewish resistance. It's not a novel concept, I don't think, but it would make an interesting movie.

What a great list Scott.

I should sit down and try to name all my years. I should research my own life. That sounds weird, but it's true. I've just kind of let memories of events drift away like helium party balloons.
Despite the fact that he didn't see any point to cyclic holidays, Mike recorded everything in his journal. He didn't like the idea of all his experience slipping away and dissolving into the haze of the past. I always wanted to do that. Inspired by his discipline, I'd make resolutions each year to keep a journal but never could follow through. I think some how the idea just seemed, sort of futile. Like I'd never really be able to capture the essence of things, or I'd focus too much on the things that in retrospect didn't really matter, or the memories would be so good or so sad that it would be heartbreaking to relive. What's worse - to read a journal and say "Thank God I'll never have to go through that anymore" or read something you wrote and think "I'll never be that happy; I'll never have that experience again."

But I'm afraid I've gone too far too the other extreme. I can't remember enough.

email

dana_claycomb@mac.com or dana_claycomb@yahoo.com or mudball@mac.com mudbrush@gmail.com or.... (just use the first one)

2004 The Year of Undue Expectations

2004 The Move to Oakley
2003 The Lake Superior Trip
2002 1983 All Over Again
2001 September 11th
2000 The Second Year of the Breakup
1999 The First Year of the Breakup
1998 The Gathering Storm - increasing signs of marital discord
1997 Escape to Victor St - moving to Victor St & growing problems w/ ABM
1996 Forgotten Year
1995 Helen born
1994 Luxembourg and London - the Zenith
1993 The Year I left the Army
1992 The Year I left Germany and my Mother Died
1991 Germany III - Desert Storm & Owen born
1990 Germany II - Desert Shield & Jehovah's Witnesses
1989 Germany I - Thrown out of quarters because of too many cats
1988 Fort Huachuca - MI Officers Transition Course & Officers Advanced Course
1987 Married
1986 The Year of Living Together
1985 Korea & then Fort Knox
1984 Fort Benning and then Korea
1983 Geralyn
1982 Ft Lewis Washington ROTC Advanced Camp
1981 Ft Benning Infantry School
1980 Ft Dix, NJ Basic

What's your email Dana? I'll send it to you.

Happy Solstice.

An old boyfriend

(Mike) really hated Christmas and all holidays for that matter. I once said to him, well, if nothing else holidays are cyclic- they make one pause and reflect on the changes from one year to the next, and think about what was going on the same time the last year, or a decade ago. It's a way of marking time if nothing else. (He was not impressed by this concept.)

I've gotten in the habit of "naming" years. 2002 was the Year of Wishful Thinking. 2003 was the Year of Giving Up. 2004 was the Year of Living Dangerously.

Actually this is a recent tradition of mine. It started when it occured to me that when someone said "1985" or "1989" or "1993" absolutely nothing would spring to mind. I mean, I wouldn't instantly know what I was doing or how I felt at that year. I'd have to sit there and do mental calculations - okay, what apartment was I living in that year, what job did I have, was I in school or out, who was I dating, etc. So now, I name the years. And it's kind of interesting deciding on a name.

So what's your year called this year?

i meant scott's new address.

noticed something strange walking up the hill tonight: i could see my breath! it's been hella cold the last two days, so cold i haven't wanted to get on the bike. but i didn't think it was that cold. what's next, frosty windshields in the morning?

there's no place that i know of on the internet that's P2P music file sharing, but streaming instead of downloading. for free i mean. you might try mp3.com. iTunes music store lets you listen to... part? ... of a song before you decide if you want to buy it. i don't really know what's out there, all i ever use is limewire and kazaa. of course there are about a million radio stations and individuals streaming music on the web, but you don't get to pick what they play. wait a sec, there's launchcast, which lets you microfocus what gets streamed to you by rating songs; the more you listen to and rate, the more the program gets a handle on what your tastes are. at least that was what was happening there 2 years ago, i know yahoo or somebody bought them, don't know what they've morphed into since. and there are a number of audio recording programs you can download that will let you record whatever sound is coming out of your sound card (ie, you can record internet radio) as mp3 files. which turns you into an evil copyright infringing file sharer through the back door. wiretap is a free stripped down program that does this.

why, what do you have in mind?

i know the drill

remember, i was in Vancouver last year! in fact, i carry my passport with me everywhere; when people ask for ID, i like to whip out my passport instead of my driver's license because it messes them up a little.

next week Stickoid and i are going to Vegas for 3 days. there's lotsa places i'd rather go, but it's sorta a christmas present to him.

my shoe size is 11, as i am part sasquatch.

also don't forget

your birthcertificate or passport. Sure it's only Canada but they want that now at the airport. I've hats, miottens, skidoo pants unless you have a particular fashion preference of think you might have a need for such gear again. A pair of long underwear is good. You can always wear them as jamies later.

your xmas cards and presents

such as they are, will be alittle late this year; I just haven't been able to get my shit together. Work (CAP inspection's coming up), finals, and volunteering have gobbled up almost every moment. Oh yeah, and the bronchitis that lingered for 3 weeks. Anyway, check out the article
on the calendar the needle exchange gang put together. Go on read it. I dare you.

gimme f-up'ed winter weather!

ok, so I'll pop in the last week of Feb, which would be like the 26-27, except that I'll have to work Sat. night, so it will be more like Feb 27, 28, March 1, 2, 3, 4, or something like that. What I need to know is, is it better to fly into Toronto or Detroit? I assume Toronto, but I think you mentioned something about most of your visitors flying in to Detroit? Also, how long does it take to drive from Toronto (or Detroit) to your place? haven't really looked at a map yet, guess I could guestimate it. So I'm putting in for the vake now, so if you have a prob with these dates, let me know. Guess I'll have to buy some bad-ass winter gear now.

prolix jello.

Had my nutrition final tonight. It was way easy. I was out of there in 30 minutes. I had been courting the prof in that class all semester for a letter of rec, as this is the only "science" course prof that I can get an LOR from, and most of the med schools seem to ask for one from a science prof (although they really mean hard science, like chem or physics, but, hey, it's all I've got). She said first that she was so overextended that she couldn't guarantee she could get it in the mail until after the first of the year, which I said was cool (I asked her around the middle of the semester, late October). And she wanted to "get to know who I am" before writing it, which is certainly reasonable. So I gave her a couple pages of biographical stuff cobbled together from some of the essays I wrote for med school apps, plus as a bonus, I composed several sample passages that she could cut and paste into a workable letter (it's the bfc way!). But she wanted to talk to me one on one, too, so twice I came in during her office hours and had really nice, heartfelt talks with her. At the beginning of the semester I thought she was rather cold and off-putting, feeling like I wouldn't get a letter out of her. But I came to realize she was actually pretty cool. When I handed in my exam tonight she smiled and said not to worry about the letter. So I guess I won her over? I really hope so, because her letter is key to several apps I sent out.

To celebrate I rode my bike downtown to see Jello Biafra do spoken word at Slim's. The show started at 8 with an opening act that was another spoken word artist who was quite entertaining. Jello came on around 9 and didn't finish until freakin' 1:30 am!!! Good thing I can sleep in late tomorrow (working graveyard); At least the guy gave us a short intermission. It was like a congressional filibuster almost. The title of the show was "Surviving Bush, Inc." and it was good stuff, but, wow, he just went on and on. When I arrived a little after 8, the place was packed, and I had to sit up in the balcony. By the time intermission rolled around, I was the only one left up there, and maybe a third of the crowd had departed (at one point I noticed Matt Gonzalez, of the 2003 mayoral race and green party stalwart, milling around in the crowd below, but he left after a while). At another point, I fell asleep. At least I stayed around to the very end.

hey i'm serious!

give me optimum dates for me to visit you so i can submit a vake request! ideally after our CAP inspection, which if i recall is sometime during the first week of Feb. (which also is the weekend of our bfc hepatitis section retreat in Tahoe-- woohoo!)

toonz

So which version of "Zero My Hero" did squirrelygirl like best? I'm partial to the Lemonheads' rockin' version. Apparently, schoolhouse rock made an impression on a lot of kids of our generation. There are a bunch of covers of schoolhouse rock songs by indie bands (I also have a version of "interplanet janet" by Man or Astroman?). But for me, "Zero MY Hero" was always the best-- I got chills when I heard that song back when I was 9 years old; it made me feel like humans were amazing and that anything was possible. My second fave was "Hey Little Twelve Toes" because it was kinda science-fictiony. I've been known to call Winston "Little Twelve Toes," even though he doesn't have polydactyly. I just like baffling him (he doesn't know schoolhouse rock, poor thing).

another high stakes

standardized test in the hopper. This afternoon/evening I took the GRE. At a testing center in one of the office towers in the financial district. The security was a lot more lax than at the MCAT (taken at a different testing center run by the same company, Thomson/Prometrics), but still there was a surveillance camera peering straight down at your carel. It was all on computer, like the MCAT, but this time the computer was infuriatingly unresponsive, although while I waited for the next screen to load, at least the countdown clock had the consideration to freeze while I twiddled. This wasn't so bad during the question part of the test, but on the writing sample part it was beyond annoying to be typing a sentence and have the characters display a second or two later. I'm assuming I wasn't the only one having this problem. At any rate, it was a cakewalk compared to the MCAT, although some of the math problem were brutal. I kicked butt on the verbal and writing part, though. Hopefully, though, it was just a harmless exercise and I won't actually need to use the results.

Had Xmas Party too

It is that time of year I guess.

Ours was last Wednesday. I'm not sure how many actually came out of approximately 3,000 employees in the region. There were a bunch. Held for the third year in a row at the Northern Ky Convention Center. Neither of you would remember it. It's new. Part of a hotel, entertainment complex by the river in Covington.

The food was nothing very good. The beer was uninspiring. I asked, "Do you have anything imported or micro-brew?" "There's Heineken." "No, that's brewed in New Jersey." "No it isn't. It's from Holland." "Look at the can." "New Jersey! How about that."

But hung out with a few pals, and it was fine. The party itself was only 3 hours long. It was over before it started. The Younger Element of course always continues the party at other venues, but I just headed home.

We got our tree on Saturday at the Hyde Park Garden Center off Wasson Rd. 8 foot tall Douglas. Helen and I did most of the decorating. It looks pretty nice.

Well, that's about it for now. Later.

whither the blog?

another clinical lab xmas party successfully negotiated. this year it was held down at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, which CPMC bought last year. We're gonna tear it down and build a giant 15 story hospital in it's place. completion date: sometime in like 2012. So now that CPMC owns it, it's the official party and meeting site. at any rate, it's the one time of year when i get to actually see all my coworkers in the big picture. winston accompanied me and was generally well behaved. I won a stereo for answering the most xmas trivia questions correctly. who said i was holiday impaired?

I always thought

the reason Hitler hated the Witnesses was because they were a competing millennarian cult; the Witnesses were religious, and Nazism was secular. They were prophesying the 1000 year reign of Jesus, and he was prophesying the 1000 reich. But really, it was probably just their pacifism that bugged him.

A trannie I knew in New Mexico used to be a Jehovah's Witness. When she was a teen, like 12 or 13, she was really coming into her own, her mom let her wear girl clothes and stuff. Then a male cousin of hers raped her and it freaked her out. She totally shut down her transgendered feelings, suppressed the memories for almost 40 years. She (well, 'he') grew up, married, fathered some kids, got converted to J. Witness, became a deacon (or something like that) in the church. Then one day something triggered all those suppressed memories of the rape, and with it, 40 years of transgendered feelings. Within a year she was transitioning. Needless to say, the church wasn't too cool with that. Pretty much her entire family turned against her.

can't please anyone

I ditched Winston tonight and I feel rotten about it. He bought "a little christmas tree" the other day while he was at Target or somewhere. He wanted me to come over and decorate it for him. He was really sweet about it. Well, I had to work graves last night-- it was crazy, busy all night long-- then I had to go directly over to Berkeley for a half day training 'cause our section is revamping it's protocol. Another nice thing-- my 2 favorite phlebots were working this morning, Lillian & Annabelle, and they snuck out to hang with me while I was waiting for the streetcar this morning, and it was really COLD this morning, too. There's a bunch of people I'm really gonna miss if I leave that crappy job. Anyway, I finally get home around 2pm, haven't slept in like 20 hours, so I take a nap. Sleep maybe 3 hours. Then Winston calls, says he ordered a pizza, double garlic, our fave. I go down there, and see his tree: it's this tiny potted ceday, maybe 9" tall. In his crappy cluttered apartment. It suddenly all seemed so sad. I'm the only one who'll celebrate xmas with him. But I also remembered I had a meeting to go to back at the bfc. I was conflicted, cause I wanted to hang with Winston. But then he started crabbing about something and I didn't want to deal with it. So I got up and said I had to go to a meeting, and left. Just like that. I called back and apologized to his answering machine, but he hasn't returned a call. I feel really bad. But it was good that I went to the meeting. So now I'm all conflicted. I hate this.

It's never really bothered

me to be around someone who's religious, at least one on one. My partner when I did my med tech internship was a born again Christian, very sweet and virginal, was engaged to her highscool sweetheart, pretty much the opposite of me in every way at the time. But we got along surprisingly well. She was a sincere person, kind, and laughed at my jokes. The one time she broached the subject of my own beliefsa I was candid with her, and basically said these are the things I have doubts about, these are the things I have trouble accepting about religion, and she didn't try to argue me out of it.

I think it's kind of good idea sometimes to throw yourself into the company of people you would not nomally seek out.

I was under the impression that JW have pretty traditional views about the role of women, though, and that is what confuses me about Audra's interest in it.

Paradise earth

exactly. Do the plants not grow? Do they exist in a state of suspended animation? Or do the plants and animals grow and die? If they do, then why would it make sense for plants and animals to be born, live and die, but not people?

I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous anyway.

what I didn't get to in my last post was that the only reason I went into bible study and all that was basically to play along with it. I had been unsuccessful in talking her out of involvement with them, and the more she got involved with them the more disturbed I was. So, I went along for the ride figuring that I'd be in a better position to counter it.

In the end, the logical inconsistencies caught up with her. I think personally they caught her at a time when we were overseas, she was probably feeling isolated and lonely, and just wanted friends. That's my thinking. And they were nice. Not freaky. They were model people. Always kind and understanding and helpful. Ready to help you.

So, I dunno. One compulsive obsession to another.

I think I would prefer

a paradice earth to heaven, given the choice. I'd prefer reincarnation. There's so much to do here. You can't fit enough into one life time. We get such a small sampling of experience. And so much time has to be spent in repetitive be necassary tasks.

So what sort of things are left in paradice earth and what is gone. Don't you run into all sorts of logical inconsistencies when you try to design paradice? If you got rid of, say, death, disease, decay, that also makes other things, like birth, growth, the entire arc of life, unecessary - no babies, no flowers, no fuits, no seeds. Elimination of chance, accidents means nothing unexpected ever happens as well.

Maybe the universe isn't the problem. Maybe the biggest problem is just people, corny as that sounds.

Raining again.

Yahweh's Children

In my novel (well, the outline for my novel) about the Witnesses called "God's Righteous New World" (which was a favorite saying of our witness friends as in "In God's righteous new world we won't have blah blah blah.) I call them Yahweh's Children.

The German witnesses drank plenty of coffee. German coffee. Yum. But I never saw them play hockey. And i want to say that we even drank beer occasionally. Never to excess. Of course Germans don't view beer as alcohol. Beer is food.

I never had any real contact with the Witnesses here in the States, but I think they are completely different. More prurient I would suspect. But I don't know.

Hitler despised the Witnesses, and they were persecuted with a vengeance.

Oh, the notion behind GRNW was that the world was washed clean as per the Witnesses predictions, ushering in their Paradise on Earth. You see, the Witnesses think only a few thousands will go to Heaven, while everyone else will live on Paradise Earth. Earth returned to a state of Eden-like bliss. But they always said that you had to be a practicing witness to go. And I thought, wait, you mean you're going to lock me out of the Witness Hall when you guys go in to save yourselves? The JW's figured they would get the call, go in the halls, and that God would shield them from the destruction. They said, no, family members would be allowed to come with their believing spouses/mothers/fathers. And that made me think, hmmm, if this really happened, then what would it be like afterwards? I mean, I'm not a believer. But God has just washed the earth clean. What would happen?

So, that's my idea. The "Left Behind" Series kind of stole my thunder, but my idea is different.

i just can't see either of you

(Scott or ABM) as Jay's Witnesses. Still, it's easy to get sucked in to someone's religious mania when you're trying to make new friends. It's hard to say to people with strong beliefs "I don't believe" when the subject of god comes up, cuz you're afraid it will kill the relationship, but when you don't say anything, they assume you're on board, and therefore ripe for conversion. Better to just be upfront about, well, everything.

I think I might have said it, but I just chose the junkie-religion topic because I'm lazy; I didn't want to have to actually do any book research for a topic, and here I was finding myself in the presence of all these junkies on a regular basis through bfc and needle exchange and the goofy clients at Davies, so I thought, gee, I'll do an actual field research paper, which will really impress my prof, and won't require much effort! Boy was I mistaken. A book research paper would have been way less time consuming, I ended up having to do a little book research anyway, and getting people to answer the questionnaire was maddening! But then my prof said it was a "model of how to do social research on a modest scale," so I guess it was worth it.
I'm actually really good at this stuff. Man, I really shoulda stayed in school.

As for CD players, they all work well and are ridiculously cheap, thanks to Chinese labor. Winston bought one that he used in his car for a coupla years until it got stolen for like $15. I remember bying one from radio shack in 1996 for $99! It's the classic consumer electronics paradigm. Quality goes up as price comes down. I like the ones that are perfectly round, like skeets. But portable CD players are so not worth it compared to mp3 players.

Went shopping

It seems like a big jump from Jehova's Witness to Goddess. The two would not seem to have a lot in common. There are Jehova's Witnesses on the island, although it must be kind of a tough sell here, if they can't drink coffee, or play bingo, or hunt or participate in violent sports like hockey.

What made you curious about the religious beliefs of drug users? I wouldn't have through to connect the two. Actually, it would be interesting to know how religion correlates with lots of things like profession, income, attractiveness, age, hobbies, various personality traits. I don't think I've read a study like that.


I went shopping today in sudbury. It started to snow; I was late getting home. For Christmas Carolyn is getting a loom, the kind with the bars you push back and forth. It's kind of cool, but it's plastic. I hope it doen't break. She wanted a lipstick maker ( I don't know why) but Walmart was sold out. Maybe I'll get her a crayon maker instead. That seems like it would be more fun anyway. Also I got her crosscountry skis and boots. The came from Play It Again Sports, so I'll have to explain why Santa is giving her used skis. The elves tried them out first, or something like that. The boots are new, though. Also I got her the game Operation because it was on sale and I remember it being kind of silly and fun. She wants a CD player, but there were so many different kinds and such a wide price range that I decided to wait and ask Dana what I should look for if I get one, and whether to get the liitle one with the head phones or the small boom box kind. Walmart had one for $28.00 but they were all sold out. For Ed, I got him clothes so far. He's hard to buy for because he doesn't really have any hobbies. I though I would finished with all my shopping but I'm not. I think I'm done as far as Sudbury goes.

It was so nice to be away from work for a day. I didn't think about it the entire time.

as for IDUs returning to religion,

let me quote from my paper:

"Young IDUs are not enamored of mainstream religion, but this is not necessarily the case among older IDUs. Some of the 'old hippie' IDUs seem to have returned to traditional Christianity as a way to find rootedness and make sense of their life choices, especially those in recovery (i.e., methadone treatment)."

To summarize the findings of my modest little study, here is the conclusion:

"The causes of intravenous drug use do not necessarily have a spiritual or religious component, but certain trends in attitudes about religion were evident in my admittedly limited survey.

IDUs typically have a high degree of spiritual uncertainty, tending toward apathy or even hostility, compared to the population at large. But along with this spiritual anomie comes a high degree of tolerance and fluidity. IDUs are somewhat nihilistic by nature, as evidence by their participation in such a taboo activity. I believe this nihilism influences their attitudes toward religion and spirituality. The absolute certainty associated with faith is not a part of their world view; the immediate reality of the next fix eclipses thoughts of a judgmental supreme being. 'Whatever,' the popular expression signifying resignation and apathy, comes to mind in summing up the typical IDU attitude toward religion. However, I believe the “whatever” precedes the opiate habit, and is perhaps shaped by his religious upbringing, or lack thereof."

I have an upper respiratory ailment that's been going on for a week. Some opiates would be the bomb right about now.

i made winston watch the

Guided by Voices documentary "Watch me Jumpstart" the other day (since he really enjoyed the GbV concert at the Fillmore a couple of weeks ago; all during the show he would turn to me after they played a song he particularly liked and say "put that one on a mix CD for me!"; this is GbV's farewell tour, their last show is New Year's Eve in Chicago). Anyhow, he was fascinated with how Dayton looks (that's a lot of snow! does it get cold there?). He especially liked the part where one of the band members says "It's been said Dayton is a microcosm of the whole country, it's the crossroads of America. In fact, the actual crossroads of America is right over there by that red sign..."

Anyway, what's my point? Forgot. Gotta run.