So, one of my favorite books is Illusions, by Richard Bach. I first ran into it on my mission when it was sent to one of my companions. He was kind of unnerved that someone would send him one of his favorite books that wasn’t on the approved reading list. Such things didn’t bother me, so I borrowed it from him and read it in a couple hours in the evening. I loved it and since have been trying to get people to read it ever since. I’m not sure this has ever worked, but it seems I’m always having to get another copy because I can’t find mine. I decided last week that I was going to get a couple used from Amazon.com and give one to Mandi. I think she would like it. The funny thing was my brother brought in the mail and I had three similar sized packages. It seems that I had lent a copy to my cousin, Mara, some time back, and she came across it as she was packing to move. She’s getting married on Tuesday.
I find it a bit unnerving that they all showed up the same day, especially on this week that everything has changed. Especially since the theme on the cover is about how the author envisions a blue feather as he’s learning to draw things into his life. The crux is, imagine a thing and the thing will come into your life. I purposefully have avoided blogging anything about the upheaval that’s gone on lately. I’m not sure this is the forum I want for my deepest feelings, but I’ll just put a note in here. I met Mandi in the pottery class I was helping John with this semester, and we got to be friends. Then I fell in love with her over the last little while. This is odd in that I had decided to be a loner all my life 10 years back and had done really well isolating myself.
Anyway, Tuesday changed all that when I told Mandi how I felt. I found out tuesday that she’s gone back to dating Chuck, one of my friends, and it kinda upset the balance, as that situation has been complicated. I think I’ve worked it out that we can all three still be friends, at least from my end. And upon the advice of several of my friends I’m throwing myself back into the dating arena, although with no prospects. Lara convinced me to sign up with eharmony, but there is something really wierd about that which goes beyond the newness of the idea of a date.
So in short, lifes been really wierd, and then it shows me it can get wierder.

So, I can’t say I’m hugely political, but I can’t help thinking that the country is going wrong. It depresses me in that I feel so disenfranchised that I can’t make a difference. It’s as if we’ve become a country of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. Every now and then at work I read a little news and it gets me all fired up. I came across the “Case for Impeachment” today and was really impressed by several points in it. I think this specific paragraph sums up a lot of what I feel:

We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country’s good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world’s evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation’s wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child’s tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?

So I’m sitting out on the porch enjoying the evening just now when I feel a slap on the side of my face. Instantly I knew what was up and kind of froze so I wouldn’t squish the little fella. I looked down and saw a little bat hanging off the front of my shirt. He must have flown out of the bat house hanging from the eaves next door and headed for a bug that was circling my porch light. I’m not sure how he ended up smacking into me, but he hit me right in the ear and his wing hit right about my eyebrow. I pulled out my shirt tight and he was a chubby little thing just hanging on to my shirt, so I gave him a little lauch with my shirt and he flew out into the night. I just wish I’d thought of taking a picture of him with my phone first.

Hopefully William Gibson is close to finishing his book, because I’m really waiting on the next one. I have no idea what it’s really about, but he’s been offering tidbits on his blog from time to time, and I really liked this slice of the excerpt I found today:

“A nation,” he heard himself say, “consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual’s morals are situational, that individual is without morals. If a nation’s laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn’t a nation.”

I read things like this and find a measure of solace to think I’m not the only one out in the world thinking these types of thoughts. Although, it does leave me wondering why, if other people can see these things, how come it seems the world revolves on an axis of stupidity.

I just shut down the last brain in icebox for the last time. The data has all been moved off and it’s ready for organ donation.
At least you made it to summer, baby.
Mark it. 8:20 a.m.