I have to admit when it comes to laptops, I’m a bit of a hoarder. I say this, as I just picked up another new one, albeit on sale, to replace my year old laptop. I don’t really know why I am so hard on equipment, but staring at the keyboard on the old laptop I using at them moment, there seems to be a decided lack of a shift and an enter key..I think.

But bless my husband for wanting to tinker with all of them, and tonight I wanted to see what was on this one. Turns out my not so distant past, circa 2007.

I went through the pictures first and my guess is my husband didn’t or I would be answering a lot of questions. He knows what he needs to know of my past, he doesn’t need proof. But on here were pictures of better times, old friends that have passed, and Simon. I still miss that cat.

There are pics on here of the two Anthony’s, one a 5 year old, one a teenager. Lordy they both have grown so much in 5 years. Other pics, private, of long ago fun cyber times..Rhode Island Red, my Quaker “husband” my ex Gordon..and old blogs.

I did say in my last post I would be moving some here. They still haven’t been edited, still the product of writing in my bed at 4 a.m. At least the corresponding pictures that go with them are on this laptop. Uh oh, I just remember why this laptop isn’t working. I better finish the quickly, before anything else pops up to haunt me.

Some days it just doesn’t pay to keep yourself anonymous online. Especially when you’ve been moving your blog all over the place, and forget which login that you used. I thought I had it all figured out, but it took me 3 tries and multiple password resets to get back online.

So without further ado, I’ll just be moving my old blogs over here, get them all situated (I know they are old, but hey, its easier for me to consolidate.) Hopefully WordPress won’t disappear like Shoutpost did, and my only remaining copies are over on Myspace. At the rate of social media sites going by the wayside *points finger at BookFace* don’t get cocky now FB, Myspace use to be the number one site as well.  I want to be able to at least try and keep my years of writing somewhere safe. Otherwise I’ll be forced to self publish, and somehow I find that just a little too sad. I’ve noticed now that I’m downloading a lot of ebooks on my Kindle, that editing seems to have gone by the wayside. I wouldn’t mind, but they have the nerve to charge just as much for an electronic version of books as they do for an actual copy. Plus I need to have a momentary rant here because I’m just fed up with the people pushing children’s books to the top of the NY Times Best Seller List.

 Seriously. The Hunger Games is written for CHILDREN, published by Scholastic Books. You remember them don’t you? Back in my day, it was a 2 page spread, worse then newspaper, that was sent home. For under a dollar you could buy Ramona and Beezus and maybe even a Clifford the Red Dog. To my knowledge they never created a mass buying or movie hysteria. As for the Shades of Grey Series? If I want to get off on poorly written porn, I’ll hang out on Literotica.com. At least there you can send feed back to the writer and rate their work. I’ve written better porn as a joke than what these repressed housewives are feigning over. I just want to bitch slap all of them, since they seem to like a little S&M.

Well rant over. Stay tuned for more in the future.

 

Its been a while since I have sat in a therapist office, and I wasn’t all that surprised on our initial visit, that it lasted 2 hours. What is surprising that in two hours, we barely scratched the surface.

When you date someone, you have the leisure of time to figure out if the other person will meet your emotional needs beside the mere physical attraction. Time is on your side and you can control the outcome, whether to continue getting involved or deciding that you aren’t a good pair and you move on to another person.

But if you’re in a crisis either through your own doing or another, you don’t feel as if you have the leisure of time. You want their pain to go away and yours.

I have always felt that therapy was an answer to resolving conflict in our past. The human being as a race, is always looking to a higher power; judge, jury, minister, parent, anyone that will listen and agree with them..the 3 year old who screams “I’m telling!” and mommy is there to fix it.

But when Mommy is the base issue of your emotional wreck that you carry around, because at the end of the day there is no greater betrayal than the person who gave you life , is the same person who fucked your life up. You get two choices at this point, recognize that this person had the biological function to create a life, but not the skills to be a mother, or sadly the other is to suffer in pain and sadness and not have the ability to get over the pain and trauma even if a confrontation is possible.

I fall into the first answer, my husband the second.

Tonight was day one of poking the pain and lifting the edge of the bandage to see just how bad that wound is. This isn’t going to be one of those quick, close your eyes, count to three and rip it off, spray a little antibiotic and let it air dry. I’m not even sure that soaking it in water to gently peel it off will help. I do know that come what may, the wound does have to be addressed once and for all, analyzed and figure out a prognosis.

Its a double edge sword, he would have the ability to confront his mother and get all his hurt and anger on the table, and whether or not she wants to listen even now (which I doubt) but it would give him some closure. He has always warned me about his mother, he never wanted me to meet her, he feels that she could have the power to hurt me. Ironically having invited my brother in law here to the states, she is sniffing around to come over as well. As politely as I could, I told him there were too many unresolved issues between them and she was not welcome. He was a tad perplexed at this but I did not elaborate. However my guess is he may have relayed my answer to her, as after his answer that he didn’t know what I was on about, I declined to answer.

After sitting and listening and talking for two hours, I’m trying not to second guess myself that together we can get through this. I did end up snapping toward the end, I’m too pragmatic and realistic to know that stimulating neuroscensors under the ears just isn’t going to cut it, when his blind rage takes over and I’m the target of his wrath. My response to a smack or punch isn’t going to be to reach out and lightly tap below his ears, or hope he can find his safe happy place.

Logically I know that I’m not the cause of his pain, and I’m the one person he does trust to handle it. His instinct is to run and go back to England as I don’t deserve it, and he will just hermatize himself but that doesn’t solve his pain. He feels shame, embarrassed and he always asks forgiveness. I tell him what I use to tell my charges, “Don’t say you’re sorry, just don’t do it again. Repeating the same behavior, proves you aren’t sorry at all.”

I don’t know if wishing I was younger, would make me able to weather this oncoming storm easier, or being a weathered older woman who’s been through her own storm tested seas able to deal with this correctly. Life still has to go on, responsibility doesn’t go away, I’m just hoping our week off will give us some time to reconnect and realize I’m in this with him, but its going to be a deluge of emotions and I don’t want him to give up, but I’m also not going to be the whipping post anymore as well. Its like I told her tonight..I fight back, I know how to drop him to the ground but I also don’t want to be in a volatile relationship. She suggested a few books, thank god I have my Kindle, seems like he and I have some reading to do as well.

As I read another news story today about another suicide bomber taking out 102 Shiites, and the escalation of attacks in Syria, I wanted to review, in my own mind what I understood about this conflict.

If one was going to compare it to Christianity it would go something like this: Christians have the Bible – main players God and the Christ family, Joseph Christ, Mary Christ and Jesus Christ and his band of merry men (Disciples, then Apostles after his death.) If you follow the general beliefs, JC died for your sins, yada yada, rose from the dead, sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Live a good life, try not to sin, ask forgiveness and accept him as your savior, you have your golden ticket to the angel factory.

For fun, you could ascribe to the musings of one said Dan Brown, and you have Jesus and the Magdalene (hmm, now that would be a name for a Christian rock band) got it on, had a kid, and made for a very interesting movie Dogma, and The DaVinci Code. We then break it down amongst Catholics and Protestants, but overall we don’t have people driving their Volvo’s’ into SuperFresh on a Saturday and killing a hundred people in the canned ham aisle, because they don’t believe the same as we do. That’s one basic fundamental difference. But since this is a primer for Muslim, I don’t need to expand on this further.

Muslims have the Qur’an or Koran and the main players: Allah and the Prophet Mohammed who died 632 A.D. Everyone got along in the Islamic world and all was quiet on the Mid Eastern front. Mohammed’s father in law became Caliph and united the entire Arabian Peninsula under Islam for a record spanning two years. Then along came Umar and Uthman the next two Caliphs, who got in a squabble by wanting to expand the empire and get some White Castle Burgers.

They succeeded in kicking ass through western Asia, the Mediterranean coast and eastern Iran ,until Uthman was assassinated.

Enter stage right, the new caliph (drum-roll please) Ali. Thank him for creating a  new fundamentalist radical sect. Ali continued the spread of Islam through North Africa, Egypt, and also Spain until you guess it, someone knocked his block off. Those that followed him are called Shiites which goes something like this: Imam-ah (not to be confused with Yo Momma or Yoyo Mah the violinist) believes that there’s only One Prophet and no others, and Imams are appointed by God (kinda makes me think they copied off the Pope and the Catholic belief system.)

In any event Shiites mean “supporters of Ali.” Since the Shiites lost political power, they went for religious power and buddied up to anyone who got the cold shoulder from the Sunnis.

When Ali was killed, Caliph Mu’awiya and the Sunnis (not a good name for an Islamic Band) came to power. They stayed in power until 750 A.D. when the Shiites regained control until 950 ,and you think term limits are a good idea?

From 950 on the Sunni’s have been in control. Now during this tenure of converting people to Islam the people who were not Arab were known as Mawali. According to the Koran everyone was equal and no one was supposed to pay taxes. The Umayyad’s however (mentally I’m singing this to the tune of Kum By Ya) were racist and only Arabs were good people.

So the Mawalis said ‘screw that’ and went along with the Abbasids who killed all the Umayyads but one lone male.

From a tactical standpoint, they concentrated their force into Iran and Iraq and moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. Coincidentally this is also the same time that Jeanie got placed in her bottle and eventually wound up on the beach with Major Nelson, who I always wondered how major his Nelson was.

Baghdad became the happening place and everyone got along, Arab’s, Persians, Jews, Greeks and they worshiped many things including Christianity. At one point, there were over a million people living there and it was the second largest city in the world, only surpassed by China. The one surviving Umayyad (remember him?) hightailed it to Spain and became a Caliph for several years.

The Abbasids managed to hold it all together until about 1000 AD but then their hold weakened. The Turks left North Africa and  broke away in 908 A.D. and formed the Fatimids, named after Mohammad’s daughter, Fatima. Now if you have followed along in the think train, these were Shiites as a direct descendant of Mohammad. They took over the Egyptian territories as well as Israel, Lebanon and Syria to name a few.

Finally with a blare of trumpets and a Happy 1096! Enter the First Crusade. I’m not trying to point fingers here, but essentially there was ‘world peace’ or at least an Arab Summer, until the Holy Roman Empire stuck its big fat Pope’s nose in it. They wanted to take Jerusalem and the Mediterranean back as any world power likes to do when going for global domination. So Pope Urban II gives a great motivational speech at Clermont, and everyone drops what they are doing and rushes off without weapons or money, because…and we are quoting here,”God would just knock down the walls of Jerusalem as soon as they got there.”

Now that was one hell of a speech.

Proving that people are lazy when things get difficult, some of the Crusaders found that it was just easier to stop in Germany to rob and kill the Jews because they weren’t Christians. That’s tolerance for ya…Go Pope!

Forcing onward and upward in 1097 the First Crusaders arrived in Antioch and was their face red! Not only were they surrounded by the civilization, but advances in medicine, hot baths and beautiful mosques, and as they say in real estate, Location, Location, Location.

So the Crusaders under direction of three men spent six months of fighting, famine, earthquake, cannibalism, factions, and infighting over who’s direction to follow. The Fatimids knowing the Seljucks held Antioch, tried to faction with the Crusaders on the premise ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ but following the words of the Bible,the Crusaders told them to Armageddon themselves. So after months of siege and warfare, spies, double crossing and rivers of blood shed, they inform Pope Urban II that mission accomplished and he should take personal control of the city, to which the Pope graciously declined, and oopsie, I meant Jerusalem..march on..

Fast forward, present day.

Nothing has improved, our politics are mired in thousand-year old wars. Where is the Vatican in all of this? Oh that’s right, the geniuses who elected a Nazi Pope, are calling for World Peace, the United *cough* Nations aren’t united at all, factions are formed and we watch and react and shrug as Syrians are killed by their own government, in hopes of democracy. Arab Spring? When secretly most affected by 9/11 hope for the Arab Fall.

Now I have one more idea but it would take another generation or two to make it work. Unite the Sunni’s and Shiites with arranged marriages, the male from the Sunni’s and a female Shiite and they have two children, a boy and a girl.Do this about 10 thousand times 10 (that always sounds so biblical and I didn’t feel like typing all the begets) This unites the Arabs/Muslims again. Now, find the lost descendant of Mary and Jesus and have Dan Brown turn over his notes. Depending on the sex of the child, we marry that child off to the new Shinuties (rhymes with Shapoopie) Lather rinse repeat. Now we have united the Muslims and Christians. They all have children and marry them off to the other global powers that are still around in thirty years.
Mohammad and Jesus & Magdalene reunite as judges on their own Reality Show FALSE IDOL if anyone tries to raise a new religious war.

Hey, I’m a lover not a fighter (well, I am when need be) and since killing isn’t working let’s try sex. I think an orgasm is the answer, and it is universal.

Problem solved. Vote for me.

 

I’m Back...

Two years and four months ago, I put my pen down and picked up my avatar and went off to game. Gone was my ability to be snarky and jab at the insanity that surrounds us daily. My heart was broken, I felt betrayed, and four deaths in a row, including my faithful cat Simon, took a lot out of me. Where better to bury yourself than online gaming?

I was also in a huff as I went to log into shoutpost one day and the site was simply gone. No warning, no email, just two years of writing *poof*

Fortunately I had backed up most of it on Myspace and was able to grab cached versions of it on Google. I debated dragging all my old blogs over here, but for now Myspace is holding steady, unless the evilness that Facebook is, figures out how to completely control the web. If anyone is placing bets..its a sure thing. I have a fear that I will wake up one day with a little blue F on my ass with Like underneath it, while my husband and cats point and laugh dramatically. We are Facebook, you have been assimilated…

But I digress, and I do that a lot. Point is, I buried myself in gaming. I pulled myself away before, knowing the addiction it is. For ten years I avoided the lure of slashing, shooting, or watching jewels drop and match at least three in a row. But I found a new “free” (how I laugh at that now) venue of browser games. When free to play means, no monthly fees to log in, and if anyone wants to know how China has risen economically, ask any gamer. Billions of dollars are spent globally to buy virtual money, to enhance virtual items online. Sure I have an avatar with a heroic g10 cloak, but that doesn’t stop me from getting beat..oh the silly things we do to entertain ourselves.

I would say that after two years and four months and did I mention $8000.00 later? I decided that enough was enough, and while some of you may be gasping at that amount, it really boils down to *gets calculator out to justify* $83.00 a week on entertainment. Or roughly speaking a movie, popcorn, pretzel bites and  two large sodas.

To  justify my spending further..it is where I met my husband.

Now before you get the geek gamer in mind,no,  we don’t dress up in our gear and hit the cos-play arena. As everything in life, our meeting started out simple enough, I was playing a war game and I noticed a particular guy irritating my alliance members by destroying their cities and annihilating their troops.I would whisper him to tell him to stop, which only spurred him on more.  I was more interested in what goes on behind the scenes, and I never take myself seriously in game. However I did deploy  my inherent Nancy Drew sleuthing skills (a.k.a intel and detective work) to stay alive and maybe one eye on world chat to see if he was around.

I was logged in at work (shhhh) and I saw him poking at someone or another, so I sent a public  message in world chat hoping to impress him with my knowledge, and promptly  blew it. If ever you are on Jeopardy, the correct answer if asked who is Sweeney Todd? the answer is: Who is the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, not  The Barber of Seville. I’m lucky Sweeney didn’t send  100k scout bombs (which was alot back then) and take my city for being a plunk, or another one of those fabulous expressions I’ve come to know so well.  However, we still argue over what a “fanny” is.  Fast forward to our own reality show  living on Skype, sleeping with my laptop beside me, accruing miles and living with a five hour time difference, we finally tied the knot. Now we are getting to know the Department of Homeland Security on a personal level.  Beside my mini the other British import in my life beside my Toddy.  He’s pretty much the same in real life as he is in game, except for the multiple times I watch my cat climb up his shoulder and wrap her little paws around his neck, and snuggle into his beard. Warriors are fearsome using catapults, not kittehs as scarves.

Online gaming persona’s are fascinating to say the least. I don’t care who you are, you can’t pretend to be something you aren’t online. Its too hard to keep it up if it isn’t a part of your personality, or personality disorder. Case in point, as much as I thought I keep my private self private, and only show people what I want them to see, a very small handful have the courage to delve deeper..then call me out on it. Not in a bad way, but while I was searching for a new name, a good friend in game  volunteered a name for me. It is from a Salvatore novel, and I never have figured out if it was a compliment or insult once I researched it. I still choose to take it as a positive.

Face it, we are who we want to be depending on any given situation in real life or online. Personally I would like some incidental music warning potential strangers or co-workers exactly what they are walking into when I stare at them in my path on any given Monday. I wish I could state that  life is easier in game, but after spending the last two years going through highs and lows with others in my league,  I’m now convinced the Chinese have built a huge skinner box, and someone is using it as the worlds biggest thesis on society as a whole. If they take copious notes and catch every nuance for their reader..they’ll get an A+.

For over two year (and counting) I am exposed to a whole new world of people with one thing in common. Kill or be killed, align and/or figure out who you can trust and who you can’t. Everyone shares log ins, the only way you can know who you are dealing with is if you get to know the person intimately and suss out if its them or not. I have to say, I never gave anyone my log in, though I hold multiple ones now. What started out as me finding a little online game, turned into becoming host of my own  alliance and having a lot of those gamers follow me into four, or is it five, different games on multiple servers. One things for certain..I’m a good leader, not that I had any doubts, but its always good to have positive reinforcement. I’ve heard of people actually listing ‘ hosting alliance’ on their resumes, and as geeky as it sounds..I understand. Say the wrong thing and you can upset your team member, and they can turn into a liability quickly and in the next moment you are under attack.

But that brings the old adage to mind, the pen is mightier than the sword. This blog is not and won’t be  about changing your mind, it is just  my views of the world. There’s another old saying, ” Don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out alive.”  Also to clarify my blog site, it is two fold. I write when I can’t sleep, normally between the hours of 4 and 6 a.m…and yep I’m nekkid and ye, I also am exposing myself online which at anytime is fodder for comments and other peoples opinions. I’ll moderate comments on this as I see fit because, Hey! It’s my blog.

I’m not sure I’ll get all my followers back that I had on Shoutpost, but if you’ve read this far, thank you. I write about whatever is on my mind, in the news, or odd things I find amusing. I hope you will too. But now..I have an itch trigger finger and some role-playing to get out of my system.

*drops virtual pen, stalks off to go kill more things*