Quill & Claw/Pen & Paw

Wait...one thing? Okay, okay, okay. All of us are on a journey in our life. Here's the problem, no one actually tells us what that journey is. Are we supposed to save puppies? Are we supposed to date that one person so they become famous and use you as the source for that one performace on hatred? No one freegin knows. Religion gives some ideas on the path we need to take for some. I'll buy that. But ORGANIZED religion merely just asks for money and sells platitudes for the masses. I mean, have you seen New Life Church? So basically, the plan is up for grabs. And frankly, with all my writing as of late working on a novel, I've discovered somethign that makes me more whole. I could literally do this for a living, believe it or not. Just sitting and writng has caused me to lose weight and reduce stress, not exactly what I would have expected. So, obviously, putting pen to paper has a purpose for my journey in some way. But knowing that I am improved in some way through the a...

Ijust received some terrible news. A dear friend of mine met someone, let that person housesit for them, and they robbed him blind. Took the car, took the DVD player, took money, took all the things that defined him in his environment. The guy is broken and I feel terrible about it. I wonder if I could have done or said something more to protect my colleague. Grant you, I doubt it, but if you care about someone, you don't particular want them to suffer. At the same time, I'm having a terrible time at my terrific job. I can narrow down my aggravations to one specific person (see Monday's input). Now this woman's involvement in my daily existence is nominal, not at all like taking my friend's life in a box and dumping on their pride. But still, it brought me to today's question... ...do we make our own luck? In Chinese cultures, there's the I Ching. The philosophy is that your luck will influence everything around you. Literally, everything, like coins in your...

The Republicans and their fellow Right Wingers (I collectively all them "the Flat Earth Society) amuse me. Yeah, I know it's a matter of perspective. When they had their man in the White House, Emperor Bush, they kept their traps shut. It's almost as if they realized through 9/11, Katrina and the bank crashes that their puppet was not one of their better choices. They wouldn't even quote him. Instead, they blanketed everyone critical as unAmerican, as if free speech and free thought were not be expected. Now we have Obama in Washington, it's amusing what they find fault with. He failed to get the Olympics to Chicago...they jumped on that. Of course, no one actually died from this failure, like invading the wrong nation for personal reasons, but they yelled. Then he follows up with getting a Nobel Peace prize. They screamed, "for what?" Since they couldn't seem to read the treaties the Swedes printed on the internet. Obama wants to fix health care. No...

Okay, I know I wanted to avoid this. I've doing my best to scream the praises of my current, brand-spanking new job, but there's someone I work with who is driving me nutzo. I mean, literally. Like I cannot function when they are around. And I don't mean like they are extremely hot or posed for covers of magazines or anything. I mean, they are driving me crazy. Now, I am aware that this is a difficult forum to air my greviences. I know future employers might stumble across this and go, "I won't hire him, he might whine about me...and he's really good about whining!" I'm not whining about my employers. I'm taking that out of the equation right now. I truly love my new job and the people within it's confines. In honesty? My last job gets worse and worse the more I work there--because I realized I was in the dark ages and pissing in a garbage can when I was there. When I left my previous job, I figured it was burnout. But when an old coworker...

I fucking hate commercials. Now I need to point out, I'm referring to those galloping aggravations on television. I hate, hate, hate them. I am a man with usually a one track mind. It's why I'm having problems with writing my book this month. I hate having to break it up into daily, short, inputs. I want to sit down on Monday and type through until the bleeding tale is done. Commercials turn me into a freak. Now, here's the further evidence I'm a freak. Commercials do actually work. Even I, when entertained by a decent show or commercial, like the good ones they attached to a movie--I'm sucked right in. I cannot help thinking I'm trying to avoid them because I am such a sucker. I keep thinking that I am not a slave to American buying machine. But look at me, I am all about commercialism. Cannot leave the house with a Mickey Mouse coporate logo. Starbuck's is fantastic. McDonald's chicken is decent! Is there any escape?

Seriously. The yahoos there voted down marriage equality. And, as usual, nothing happens. No one says a fucking word. Oh, wait, did I speak too soon? Yeah, straight people tell me to relax and point out it was only, by, like 2%. That somehow, losing, even tho another group of my people are out of equal rights, I should care about the small two percent. Then I hear the asshat of New Lick MegaChurch, Haggard gets a twenty minute coverage about his new church. He's 'changed.' Folks? He's still as queer as a caring conservative. He still likes to hide in airport restrooms with a wide stance. Do I care that he liked boys? Not really. I thought he'd find peace, like so many exgays who go on to help others avoid such snafus. But no. And his mere presence proves that this nation is still healing from the damage done from Emperor Bush. The fact of the fucking matter is, why the hell should they fucking vote. Do they vote on if everyone should breathe? Do they fucking have vo...

"Adopting a dog is the closest you'll ever have to picking a family member." I don't have kids. I keep mentioning that teaching is the best form of birth control I have ever encountered. Grant you, we lack a uterus between us, so that makes it difficult when you really think about it. There's an adoption option, surely, which involves in basically giving a shitload of cash to people who are completely overburdened and just wanna check to see if you have a clean bathroom. Once they discover that, they'll ask for more money and then send you through the American court system. Just so you can give a kid a life. It's ridiculous. My life is stressful as a teacher. I have a lot of responsibility for many, many children and have to really follow up. And I will tell you, for every group of parents I meet, the signs can be mixed. For every one that really is working towards their kids' future, there is an equal an opposite one that is screaming and yelling abou...

An excellent friend and I were discussing some random topic on Facebook and she inadverntatnly insulted me. She was talking about her aggravations with her coworkers, an all too famililar topic with many people over the globe, and pointed out ot her the Taoist concept of: "we can't others; we can only change ourselves." My advice followed the logic that perhaps she would be best to just change the way she interacts with that individaul instaed of trying to get them to bend to her whims. She called it a platitude. A deep philosophy was just reduced to a fortune cookie. However, I applied what I preached. This was an excellent friend and so I brushed it off. The fact is, even my Taoist self still wants and hopes for changes in many peoples and many environments. I think that is normal and motivates us to do things within our world. I can easily think of three things I would like to change within my own household: 1. As well as things are going here now, I would love for my...