Everyone is panicking about the state of the global economy.

So the media says, "Of course! Let's write streams of provocative, panic-inducing news articles about how much of a crisis we're in!" ...thus scaring people more, decreasing the demand for stocks further, and perpetuating the spiral of economic decline.

Fucking r-tards.

It's hard to dig a hole, just a few cubic feet of earth removal. It's harder to put a loved one in that hole, a feline companion since I was 9. Especially here by myself, while my parents are out of town. I held a ceremony for her. I buried her with her food, since she loved it so much. I wrapped her in the book cover I use for my Buddhist texts; it's all I have with me to give her, and I want any bodhicitta or spiritual energy from all the practices it's seen to go with her.

Goodbye Maggie. You don't need your body any longer. You're free to run the universe, tour the cosmos until your soul takes its rest. I love you.

I'm more or less back now. I'll try to catch up on all the messages I've missed while I was struggling, but I'm sure it will be slow-going. I really appreciate everyone's support. =)

I'm browsing through job ads, and this made me laugh out loud. It's from the Census Bureau:

"Come join the Census Team, where everyone counts."

At least they have a sense of humor.

I really appreciate everyone's support. It means more to me than I can express. Tomorrow I have an appointment, and I don't know what to think.

But for tonight, Thomas Fritsch gives me chills. Especially from 2:21 on out. I think German is really the best language for this song, although the Japanese and Hungarian versions aren't half bad.

Since I'm a year older, I'm going to make a rather difficult post detailing what's been going on with me. It's going to be friends only and all that jazz.

T minus 4 hours to winter solstice. Hellz yeah. This is an important occurrence in my life, because I have a lot of seasonal issues in winter, and from the solstice on it's all downhill--there's a little more sunlight each day. So happy solstice to all! =D

I should have a functional apartment soon. By January, about a month after I signed the lease. >.< Parties will follow.

Also Stella Artois is icky. It tastes like water.

And that is all.

From time to time I search for information on schizophrenia. I tried to click on a link and turned up the following message.

"Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.schizophrenia.com"

Yeah, neither can the majority of the world, I suppose. Only thing funnier would be the same error from autism.com.

I'm going to hell.

I wander through personal ads on a whim, find precisely one person who really really appeals to me...

...then realize the ad belongs to someone I'm already friends with.

The universe, how it mocks me.

I had a strange realization today. Or maybe it was yesterday. I don't know, the days have bled together since Sunday, because I've gotten very little sleep (a couple of hours each night), worked long hours, and I've seen so many awesome performers in the evenings.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone's aware of my perfectionism. But something nestled in my chest on Monday night, and it's begun to grow. As I prepared to go to that first concert, I had a feeling I couldn't shake...like I could in no way predict what was about to happen, but something was indeed approaching. That night was the beginning.

I looked in the mirror today...and for the first time I can remember, instead of seeing my imperfections, I was content with my reflection. Really content, with my human reflection, and content with the qualities of it.

I can't emphasize that last sentence enough. I don't know that I've ever felt that before, even when I was small. Not only do I feel peaceful about my weight, my gender, and my physical traits...which I haven't felt in years...I feel content to be a human. I don't EVER remember feeling content to be a human. As a child, I was always bitter that I hadn't been born as something else.

I thought about all the things I've done, all the things I've been, the things I've studied...and I realized that I've become the person I wanted to be as a child. Not only that, but that I've become the person I wished I could have met ten years ago, to help myself through all the pain, through all the depression and the confusion. I'm sure the amazing Hanson concert helped catalyze it...a feeling like after 10 years things have come full circle. It's sort of like the ending of Donnie Darko...I feel like the loop in a 10-year journey through an alternate reality has closed, and things have been restored, in a strange way, to the way they were before. But moreso.

All this is not to say I feel perfect. The person I wanted to be as a child is certainly far from perfect. But...I feel like I can really begin now, in some sense. I feel like I have everything I was working for, and now I can start to use it. I feel like I have a new body...or maybe like I have a body for the first time. I don't feel like I have to fight my biology anymore.

Stephan Groth makes me happy. Especially in the Cambodia video.

My schedule is changing. I put an updated version in my info. I now have one day off. I'm working about 50 hours a week...and that's just the official hours, not including inevitable run-over at the end of the day. It'll be a good thing. I've been freaking out about money, probably unnecessarily, and now I'll get a better chance to do cost-benefit analysis with my work effort versus money gained.

In other news, many thanks to everyone who's called, e-mailed, facebooked, etc. regarding my last post. I feel very, very loved and I truly appreciate every one that I have received. I haven't been able to respond to any e-mails yet, unfortunately, because my schedule has been crazy and I need to correct the address on LJ...the cliffhanger e-mail is goofy. If the wireless gods have accepted my offering I will have e-mails sent this evening.

I have a few issues right now. They're not painful, paralyzing, or insurmountable...quandaries I guess I should say, instead of issues; issues sounds too severe. But they are persistent, and I'm feeling stuck.

One concerns my sexual orientation.

Another concerns my snakes, which I may have to sell or give away.

Another concerns my religious practices. In a nutshell, my doubts about Buddhism as a good fit for me (some general, some specifically pertaining to certain vehicles), my draw toward Taoism, and my conflicts in those areas.

Another concerns my eating habits--specifically, my mixed feelings about the idea of being a vegetarian and how I want to approach my diet, philosophical/ethical issues, etc.

That's what's nestled in my chest right now. If anyone happens to be wrestling with similar issues, or just interested, I'd love to discuss any of these in greater detail, but to facilitate me spilling my soul I'd like a somewhat more intimate form of dialogue than LJ can offer. ; ) E-mails, facebook messages, and phone calls are delightful, although my work schedule is shifting so the latter may not be practical.

I should also add that these are NOT by nature logical. They're matters of the heart. Anyone who wants to fix me by beating me with the rational stick is bound to get frustrated really quickly. =p

You may or may not have heard about the 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Peru yesterday...it's on the front of CNN's web page today.

My dad was in that quake. He happened to be in Peru for a couple of days on a business trip. What're the odds? Anyway, he's just fine, fortunately, and he arrived home safe and sound today. To hear him tell about it, though, is wild.

Edit: OMG we ate at a Chinese restaurant yesterday, and my dad's fortune said, "Your road to glory will be rocky but rewarding." We almost died.

There's a contest to write the worst, most convoluted opening sentence to a book; if you haven't heard of it, it's the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Here are some winners:

"Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee."

"The highway coiled up and around the mountain like a snake ready to strike because it was being harassed by one of those annoying guys on 'Animal Planet.'"

"There was a pregnant pause--as pregnant as Judith had just told Darren she was (about seven and a half weeks along), which was why there was a pause in the first place."

"She had curves that just wouldn't quit, like on one of those car commercials where a stunt driver slides a sexy new sports car around hairpin turn after hairpin turn while some poor musician, down on his luck and having been forced to sell out his dream of superstardom for a lousy 30-second ad jingle, sings 'Zoom, zoom, zoom' in the background."

"She'd been strangled with a rosary--not a run-of-the-mill rosary like you might get at a Catholic bookstore where Hail Marys are two for a quarter and indulgences are included on the back flap of the May issue of 'Nuns and Roses' magazine, but a fancy heirloom rosary with pearls, rubies, and a solid gold cross, a rosary with attitude, the kind of rosary that said, 'Get your Jehovah's Witness butt off my front porch.'"

Anyway, if you want to see more, you can go to the web site and click on the "2007 Contest Results" link. =)

First, much love and appreciation for everyone who came to my graduation today. =) I had a stellar day, and it wouldn't have been half as enjoyable without all the cool people.

Second, I'm told that I've changed since I got back from France, but I'm at a loss to explain how. This may help some people. I re-took a few Myers-Briggs-ish test applications online, and...



...instead of being an INXX, the tests have consistently pronounced me an XNFX. I'm not going to go into analytical details, because quite frankly they bore me; I'll save the theorizing for those who care to do so.

I will say this. I don't care about being right, about being logical, about being a self-appointed expert of anything anymore, unless it's something goofy and fun. Conversation, for me, is not about proving my intellectual prowess--it's for connecting with people, whatever the situation demands, standing up for toes that get stepped on, exchanging feelings, having fun, and so forth. I may be saying a lot more than I have before on a wide variety of topics, because being wrong is not a threat to me at this point, and I want to engage people. I make no claim to make sense. If I do, it's a convenient side effect.

I am in the midst of a bitter war on intellectualization. I've already discussed my concerns with some people, that my war-torn psyche will inadvertently alienate certain groups of my friends. I try hard to express myself tactfully, but it doesn't always work. Sometimes I snap and attack others when their brains start talking to me. This is because I'm struggling to claw my way out of old intellectual ruts which no longer satisfy. If I do attack you, please know that it's nothing personal, and I'm sorry. A blanket apology here is lame and no match for an in-person apology, so I will try to be observant and note any transgressions, but I may need some help.

I'm getting bored sitting here typing about this junk. I'd rather be interacting with someone face-to-face instead of vomiting words into cyberspace. So I'll close by adding that I've updated my interests to give people a better idea of where I'm at, if anyone's curious, and I've posted my schedule in my userinfo so that people know when I'm conscious and contactable.

Or, "A bit more about what aspects of Windows Vista annoy me."

I ordered a laptop recently to replace my desktop. I wanted it to be able to handle gaming, so I sifted through a number of stores and web sites before stumbling onto an amenable collection of specs from a reliable company for under $1500: duo core processor, 2 gigs of memory, and an NVIDIA 8 series graphics card. Plus built-in webcam, microphone, TV adapter, 200 gig hard drive, a fingerprint scanner, etc. I was utterly thrilled, salivating with the expectation of efficient technology.

This expectation was my first mistake.

Nevertheless, a few days ago, the laptop arrived. We picked the little bundle up from Circuit City. I gingerly freed it from its oversized padded cardboard box, gave it the gift of electronic life, and named it Oscar. Oscar was shiny, delightful, and smelled of new machinery.

But Oscar has a dark side.

Oscar, like his peers in the modern computing domain, is plagued with an unfortunate disease called Windows Vista. For the uninitiated, this condition is something like Alzheimer's for the PC. Windows Vista causes Oscar to frequently forget that I AM, in fact, the administrator, and his sole user. Thus he must ask me, by thwarting my actions with a pop-up window each time I attempt to run an .exe file, to grant myself permission to continue.

( Other actions that trigger the prompt, according to Wikipedia. )

Essentially, modifying the computer's settings in any way or running an .exe file will trigger the dreaded box. Configuring it was thus a royal nightmare, compared to the relatively streamlined procedures I have come to expect from past incarnations of Windows. The program responsible for these hiccups in efficiency masquerading as security features is User Account Control, and I turned it off promptly. But this creates a second problem.

It seems that taking away Oscar's User Account Control makes him rather insecure, and he manifests symptoms of borderline personality disorder. He constantly reminds me that his security center needs my attention, displaying a red shield with a large white "x" through it that cannot be dislodged from the toolbar, and he refuses to run certain applications (such as the HP security center) if he cannot run User Account Control. The only way to successfully eliminate these problems, in Oscar's black-and-white, binary world, is to turn off Windows security alerts altogether...meaning I rid myself of annoyances by totally compromising security features. This does not make me particularly comfortable, but my computer has BPD; what can I do?

On top of all this, the new layout is just plain confusing, and needlessly so. As far as I can see, it is far less efficient than its predecessors. In an attempt to make Windows more "user-friendly," all applications and configuration-related material of any value lie hidden away in the center of a matryoshkan nesting of menus, the outer shell of which may or may not be intuitively connected to the innards. To help users locate them, there is a search function, but this is rendered useless by the fact that many familiar functions from former versions of Windows have been regrouped and renamed, apparently for shits and giggles, leaving me with no knowledge of what exactly I should search for.

Windows Vista also causes Oscar to eschew wireless B routers, and I cannot partake of the wireless network at my parents' house.

These are the annoyances I have discovered so far. (By "so far," I mean that I have probably used the computer a grand total of five hours; between its frustrating interface, lack of internet, and the fact that most of my programs are still at school, I haven't had much to do on it.) It brings me to tears to see such beautiful hardware besieged by such carelessly executed programming. Tears of frustration.

Windows Vista.

I require vengeance for this affront to my sensibilities.

...my cell phone died in France, and they couldn't save my list of contacts, so if you guys could e-mail me phone numbers or something, that'd be super. Thanks! =)

I'm back from France, and...I want to see people! I'd have a birthday party if I could get away with it at such short notice...don't really want gifts or anything, but I want to see everybody and have fun. =)

In France from today through June 29. I won't be able to talk on my cell phone there, so no calls please; I may have to use it as an alarm clock, and I don't know what kinds of charges I'd encounter. E-mail will be a much better way to get in touch with me, and I'd enjoy chatting with you guys. Lots of love. =)