Month: August 2004

So, had meetings today, and decided this afternoon is going to be a “spa” day for me. Stopped by Sevananda today and picked up the wrong thing. Meant to grab potassium and inadvertently grabbed vitamin K. How? Because all I could remember was the atomic letter of the stuff and the guy handed me the stuff with K, too bad I didn’t notice the “vitamin” before I left. Heh, oh well. Anyone need some? Willing to sell minus the tax. Got some nifty mags I picked up, might help out with the BP discussion topics.

*grin*

In a recent emailing, a list member invited anyone interested to her space to discuss community building, effectively. In her invitation, she listed her grievences towards the general pagan community, mainly lacking cohesion, anti-christian sentiment, gluttonous behaviour towards the body, and of course…promiscuous behaviour. At one point in time, I recall one of my instructors at school (a psychotherapist by trade) discussing how we tend to focus in on what we want to see, e.g. we’re buying x car and suddenly we start noticing x car on the road every day.

So it got me thinking on how much we might, as a macro-community, perpetuate these problems because we focus on them, and thus we always see them? I, personally, don’t believe these problems to be any greater in the pagan community than in the greater community, at large. I also think that it might be part of a greater conditioned POV from our society (can only speak from the American perspective), that says we much remain sexually puritanical in public, and the backlash against obesity vs. the acceptance of the body that many alternative religions espouse, and of late – the anti-smoking epidemic that forces to the fringe, those that choose to light up. There’s also this ideal of some in the alternative religion community, that snags the body is a temple philosophy from Buddhist teaching, but takes it to an almost puritanical extreme. One thing that I notice in the pagan community is the respect for individual choices. Meaning, respect for the individual’s choice to smoke/not smoke, drink/not drink, have various relationship set-ups, being healthy or having not-so-healthy habits, etc.

I understand the desire to create a micro-community that one can belong to, because we’re a tribal species. But there is a limit to the control of one, because it becomes its own entity and grows and expands. That is a problem in the greater community, due to some parts of it growing faster than others, and the problems caused when some aren’t ready to give that type of respect or control to individuals. I can appreciate the desire to create a community, to which we, as individuals, can belong. But when we focus on the issues we seek to fix, we ultimately set ourselves up for a downfall when the community grows and leaves us behind.

Heh, Alice Cooper kicks ass. But we already knew that. Too bad Paul Begala really needs to stock up on his rock history if he’s asking whether Alice is a “has been” or a “never was”. I think I’m liking Carville the closer we get to the election.

Heh, been over at the Polytheistic Hearth boards, to be reminded how much I’m slacking in my research. *grin* As I now have multitudes of free-time, I should start writing the physical work, thus far, down. I’m kinda irked, because I was developing my theories as I worked on people at the hotel. I’ll have to tap some of my grove elders to toss theories around and practice on them.

*note to self* remember to email them to discuss a new meeting night.

I love the fact that my goals with my body work are starting to show, however, the recovery after each session is getting more and more excrutiating. I’m still not able to spend lengths of time standing up, and all I feel is the throbbing in my ankles, as well as the twitching in my hips. My knees still hurt, but I have to agree with my therapist…it’s the result of the changes and the muscles are still in their adjustment phase. Though, I’m happy that I can move my knee caps now, haven’t been able to do that in about 7 years.

Today I was yelled at by WB. I forgive it, because of issues that she’s projecting on to me, so it’s not a big deal, mostly amusing. Her claim is that I constantly berate and demean her. This was a reaction that started with MM’s new bitch, basically WB telling this kid that it’s ok to make mistakes, we all do. So I turned around and said, “Yeah, she should know, she made the most of them.” Complete with the usually absent pixie grin that says “I’m just fucking with ya.” She turns around and says I make more than she does, and brings up the $50 under-charge. That promptly brings the, “come up with a different example” comment and she says I’m being overly sensitive. Yeah, I’m being overly sensitive, I’m quite sensitive about any mistake I make as a result of being deaf. I convey this in a not-so-nice manner. Which escalates to me always demeaning her and every word out of my mouth is reminding her how stupid she is. SL hears most of this, and decides that our “issues” need to be discussed. So he sends me after her, I confront her, she makes her claim and I listen, and debate. I ask for examples she gives the one that just happened. I told her that I was smiling and joking, she argues this. Etc. etc. Now, this is the woman who spent the greater part of the WTs first month making them feel like idiots to the point neither of the two like her.

So anyway, seems my dry sense of humour has gotten progressively crusty, to the point where WB can’t tell the difference between my jokes and my serious comments. 10 minutes later, SL starts making comments straight to her lack of foresight after taking her car next door to get the oil changed, and finding them closed. So yeah. I’m the bad guy. Granted, I treat most people like they’re idiots, so why she thinks I might be singling her out is beyond me. The sad part, is I’m damned nice to most of the people I work with, and put up with a ton of shit (it all ends up here). So I’ve decided to treat her with kid gloves, all the way down to the b.s. ego boosting they do in grade school (Oh yes, that’s absolutely wonderful, what is it?). Yeah. This’ll be fun.

In watching the olympics (tivo rocks sooooooo much for this), I watch all the medal ceremonies, regardless whether I like the sport and I feel the urge to cry, occassionally shedding a tear. Why? Because these are people’s dreams coming true. At one point, it was my dream. Now, none of you guys knew me back when I was a gymnast, but I was damned good. To the point where I was getting close to hitting the national scene when shitty things happened (like encephalytis) and my mental connection decided to give out. So I cry with the person on the medal stand now. The most moving tears so far, have been Japan’s gold in gymnastics, every win that Iraq’s soccer team gains, and the foot hold that all the smaller countries have gained in the individual events for women’s gymnastics.

The irony of the situation, is that had I kept things up and ended up in one of the last 3 olympics, I would have been holding up at the swimming pool. My inner joke is to have been interviewed on supporting my fellow americans, and admitting I was there to just stare at the Aussie men’s team. Pitiful, but right up my ally on what I’d say.

Oh yeah, on another amusing note….at the store, we’ve stepped into the political ring and got some republican/bush stickers. Now, the one about flushing both johns is hilarious, as is the farenhate one. Anyway, we had our first debate on Saturday evening. Ending with the woman yelling, “I love my Bush! Vote for my Bush!” and me holding in the longest amount of laughter I possibly could. Along with the lines of, “I hope you love your Bush, because you’re damned ugly and no one else is.” Mention this to the Boss Man today, who starts laughing hysterically (this guy is a closet new waver of old, and had no clue what gaydar is). I later mention that we need some “Lesbians for Bush” stickers and his comment is, “This election could only get better if Kerry’s last name was Cox.” Only in my world does my boss say this in public, after yelling at an old lady because he wouldn’t give her her money back from a year old receipt.

This bloody rocks! I was just reading through the rosters for the olympics. The female wrestler I worked on, she made it! Fucking awesome! Definitely have to watch women’s wrestling now.