Selfish, Histrionic Flake!

Indigo Incarnates

I found out from my brother last night that my selfish, histrionic flake of a sister decided to move back to Tennessee without any forewarning or prior notice. She *had* been helping to take care of mom (who has a terminal illness). Jenny *had* been living less than five miles away. Andy l(my brother) lives 40 miles away, and I live 210 miles away. So it had been REALLY helpful that Jenny could so easily look in on mom to make sure she was eating and taking her meds.

Well, Jenny has about as much depth as a piece of paper. Since it’s actually stressful to help care for someone who is terminal, Jenny decided to take the easy way out and just abandon mom in a time of need. Apparently, according to Andy, Jenny’s plan is to try to make amends with her husband in Tennessee. Good luck. Jenny came to Pennsylvania in the first place because she was conducting an adulterous affair with a man nearly 20 years younger than her husband. She’s a slut who has sex with any man in town who *isn’t* her husband, and she has shamed him every chance she ever got. So, with that said, I predict her reception in Tennessee will be a tad chilly.

I won’t call her a “whore”, however. See, whores get paid for what they do; Jenny is promiscuous for free.

Of, she stole some of her boyfriend’s money to make the trip to Tennessee and then ditched her cell phone. Typical.

When Mom dies, there will be no way of notifying my sister. This is really going to suck.

Indigo Incarnates

Imbolc Stuff: First, I wanted to say that the Imbolc service at Turning Circle was very enjoyable. Since it's the Friday closest to Imbolc, the service honored Bridget, the Celtic goddess of blacksmithing, fire, poetry, and healing.


As usual, we had difficulties with the cigarette lighters. I was smart this time, however, since I brought my own. It was a gift from Doug. It runs on propane instead of regular lighter fluid, so it sounds like an itty-bitty welding torch, hee hee. :)

I'm leading a rites in February and March. They are going to be a full moon ritual, but I'm writing it in such a way that it could be used for Imbolc (February) or as a general winter ritual and Ostara (March) or as a general spring ritual.

Moving on to the "soul freezing" part: Yes, it is nine degrees outside. We live in Baltimore, so we’re just not supposed to get single-digit temperatures – even in winter. Tomorrow is Imbolc, so winter is supposed to be halfway over, but you’d never know it. The furnace is running 24/7 but the house is still cold. I really need some favorable weather.

On the bright side, Turning Circle rarely holds outdoor rituals.

I’m almost finished writing the ritual for February. It’s a luck ritual, and I can’t think of anyone who couldn’t use a bit of luck these days. Certainly the economy isn’t doing anyone any favors, that’s for sure.

Rant #1: The iPad. So, I was cracking up as Steve Jobs & Co. were extolling the virtues of the ever-blessed iPad computer. Lemme tell ya: “iPad” sounds like a feminine hygiene product for starters. The device costs between $500-$800 but has some *serious* limitations. For instance, although it has a touch screen, it cannot do handwriting recognition or signature capture (so the shipping companies won’t be using it). It’s lacking an IR sensor or any kind of optical device (so it’s useless for scanning/managing inventory). It doesn’t run Windows or Mac OS/X, so you can forget about word processing, spreadsheet, etc. Thus, Corporate America is going to take a pass on this gadget. For personal use, it’s also crippled. With it3lacking a USB port, you won’t be able to watch movies via portable DVD drive. The proprietary operating system also cannot support Flash content, so you won’t be able to watch Netflix or other types of animated, multimedia entertainment. It doesn’t have a SD card slot, so the only way to transfer files from one iPad to another device is to email the file. And that, of course, brings me to Apple’s unholy marriage to AT&T. With an iPad, your ONLY choice in 3G internet is AT&T. While they are not the worst service provider, they fall way behind Verizon for coverage. An iPad on the AT&T network will be operating at EDGE speed, not 3G speed, much more often than AT&T would like to admit. (The latter is four times faster than the former). Oh, and the iPad cannot multitask. So you have to close the current application before opening a new application. Uh… computers have had multitasking capabilities since 1988. That was 22 years ago, Stevie! Finally, for laying out $500, you get a whopping 32 GB storage space. Whoooopie! Even a bare-bones Netbook has 160 Gb of storage, two USB ports, multitasking capabilities, and a card slot – usually for $349.

Rant #2: Obama: Oh… so I noticed that Obama has been in office for a whole year and NOTHING has improved. I guess we should have seen that, since Obama is a lazy, lying Chicago politician. Other than formulating a bad healthcare bill and buying his daughter a dog, he broke EVERY promise he made in 2008. The *real* unemployment rate (the U-6 figure, not just people collecting unemployment) is now 17% – basically it doubled since Obama took office. He spent $1.2 trillion in one year that was nothing but fat, padded pork for the megacorporations. He stabbed the GLBT community squarely between the shoulder blades when he backed DOMA and DATA, as well as removing from his website any reference that he had ever supported gay rights. He also then compared homosexuality to incest. He won’t close Gitmo. He won’t end the war. He won’t revoke the Patriot Act. He won’t end earmarks and lobbying. And if the closed-door meetings concerning the healthcare bill are any indicator, he certainly isn’t interested in “transparency in government”. Yeah, I guess by 2012, we’ll probably get stuck with a super-majority of hard-core rightwing Republican bigots in the House and Senate thanks to Obama’s gross incompetence. I wish he’d do the honorable thing and resign.

Indigo incarnates

I'm pretty excited about leading three worship services this year at Turning Circle. I'm leading an esbit service (a Full Moon rite) at the end of February. I'm doing a Spring Rite in March, and I'm officiating over Samhain in October. I've written two of the three rituals so far and I'm working on the third. 

One of Doug's friends is planning on offering training for 2nd and 3rd degree initiates. Obama looking forward to that since I am a 1st degree initiate right now. 

The great thing about Wicca is that it's a participatory religion. Unlike many religions where the congregation just sits in a pew, Witches of all degrees of initiation get to participate in the construction and leading of worship. 

I've been taking some online Wiccan studies too. The interesting thing about the faith is that it's a really new religion and a very old religion at the same time. Wicca came out of the "broom closet" in the 1950s when the practice of witchcraft ceased being illegal. But the roots of Wicca predate Christianity. Some of the Christian holidays are really just repackaged pagan holidays. Even the birth of Christ was moved from April to December so match Yule, which celebrates the birth of the sun god. 

So, hopefully it will take less than a decade to become a 3rd degree initate. 

Indigo Incarnates

I am happy to say that, after four months of scrounging, I finally saved up enough money to buy a new computer. Yay! It's a cute little 13" Toshiba. So it's bigger than a netbook but smaller than a regular laptop. It's also got an "ecology" mode that makes the computer draw as little as ten watts. Very awesome!

I haven't been visiting many blogs lately since my iPhone has been my primary access to the Internet. It's a nice phone, but it's sorta hard to make posts because my eyes get tired looking at such a tiny screen. I will be better at visiting the blogs -- especially Phos, Carol, and Java. 

I joined the handbell choir located at the Unitrian fellowship in Columbia, Maryland. My Wicca fellowship is associated with the Unitarians. They are pretty nice folk. We play handbells at the 9:00am service this morning. It should be pretty cool. It looks like a Unitarian worship service is pretty positive and life affirming, and is also sort of "generic deity" as opposed to being explicitly Christian. That outlook works for our system since I'm Wiccan and Thistle is Christian. This format seems like a workable compromise. 

There's a brass quintet playing this morning too. That should be really cool!

I talked to mom. Her health is getting pretty bad, pretty quickly. I will visit her next weekend since I don't think she has a lot of time left. I worry about what will happen when she dies. I have about $2,000 that I could easily access, but that's about it. My sister is a spendthrift who never has two nickels to rub together. My uncle is a millionaire but already indicated that he won't part with a penny. I don't know how I will be able to afford her funeral. She also won't talk about these things, so I have no idea whether she would prefer a Christian or Wiccan funeral service -- she's been more Pagan in recent years but never became an actual initiate. I do know that I will do everything in my power to exclude Uncle Jimmy from the funeral.

It sucks being the one furthest away. My sister just completely flips out when the subject of mom's looming death gets brought up. My brother never answea his phone, so I haven't talked to him very much at all. He's 25 but his emotional outlook is closer to 15. It's going to be really bad when mom dies.  

Indigo Incarnates

Last night was pretty cool. Phoenix led a New Moon ritual at Turning Circle. Phoenix is pretty good at leading worship services because she has a background in both Wicca and ADF Druidry.

It's been over a year since we/I have had any cutting incidents. Halo worries that bad things will happen to us because it has been so long since any of us has hurt the body. I know that it doesn't make rational sense, but Halo thinks that periodic self-injury is required to pay the spiritual debt of having not died in 1982.

I am visiting mom this weekend. Wow... The 4-hour drive is really boring. The 10-year-old Accord is getting way too creaky for long drives, but Doug let me drive his Scion xD. It gets 40 MPG on the highway, so it's a pretty thrifty ride!

It breaks my heart to see mom so sick. She has COPD and congestive heart failure. She weighs about 80 pounds. The docs have her on a lot of pain meds, so she isn't suffering but her mental acuity has taken a real hit. I am grateful to the Goddess that mom has so far lived 15 months longer than her doctors thought she would. But I will be amazed if mom is still alive six months from now.
PermaLink Posted in: Uncategorized

Indigo Incarnated

Egads... It is really boring without Doug this week. I will be really glad when he comes home on Sunday. He said that it is STILL snowing in Erie! Aiee!

Note to Phosgene: I made it home in one piece! Yay! Thanks for asking :)

On the bright side, I started ringing in a new handbell choir at the Unitarian church in Columbia. My Wicca group is affiliated with the Unitarians, and they rent chapel space to us for a whopping $120/year. Yay! 

The choirmaster, Tom, ses like a pretty easygoing sort. I don't think he's been directing bells for very long. All the equipment looked brand new and none of the sheet music scores have ever been marked up. It's a small choir of five members. The other four seem to have a skill level similar to mine, so I was happy about that. At my old choir, I was sort of a low/mediocre talent at best. At this choir, I'm more of an equal. 

The bells were pretty neat looking. The bells I'm used to using are round, brass, and have the strikers on the inside of the bell. The ones I used on Monday night, however, were rectangular, aluminum, and had the strikers on the outside. 

This type of bell has its plusses and minuses. On the plus side, they produce a loud, very pure tone. They also resist fingerprints (always a bugaboo with brass bells). The rectangular form factor also means they don't roll around on the table.  The down side is that you can't ring four-in-hand with square bells. Because they have external strikers, there is less dynamic control than on round bells (ie. These bells ring mezzo-fotre and forte, but not mezzo-piano or piano). 

My first bell assignment is for six bells. Very cool. I usually only got three bells at Saint John's. A smaller choir generally means bigger assignments. 

Of course, it can't hurt to have Turning Circle represented in the UU's handbell choir. The Unitarians let us lead two of their worship services each year too. They're pretty supportive of the Wiccan community even though they aren't Wiccan. 

I think this is going to be pretty fun :) 

Indigo Incarnates

Doug and I drove up to Erie to visit Doug's mom for New Year's Day. In the past, I was never able to visit because Doug's sister had violent tendencies. However, she died in 2009 so I was able to visit with the rest of Doug's family ( he has a pretty small family -- just his mom, an aunt and an uncle). 

The area of Erie she lives in is called Edinborough. It's very pretty and has a huge lake about 200' from the house. Walking around the lake is usually good exercise but that was not possie with this visit. It snowed all four days I was here. Doug cleaned the car off twice but it just gets buried again. I think it totalled two feet. It's also really cold here too. The high yesterday was about 25 degrees. It was so overcast that the streetlights stayed lit all day. 

I did have time to finish chapter 59 of the novel I've been writing for the past several years. It now had 288,000 words and 617 pages. My best guess is that I'll have it finished around 750 pages. 

I have to make the dreaded six-hour drive today so I can be home in time for work on Monday. Doug has the whole week off since he gets more vacation days than I get. The drive may take 7-8 hours because of all the snow. Ugh! 

Indigo Incarnates

I have to say that I won't miss much about 2009. It wasn't the worst year I've been alive to see, but I've certainly seen better. 

In our personal lives, Doug's sister died of cancer this year. I got diagnosed with an inconvenient heart condition (not life-threatening). I got two pay cuts this year because of the recession. My laptop bit the dust. The cardiac meds made me gain 25 pounds. 

In the broader view, we got yoked with a lazy, lying President that utterly betrayed the GLBT community at every opportunity. He pretty much broke every other promise too. He spent $2 trillion in borrowed money wilth nothing to show for it. The economy is actually worse than the Carter years under his "leadership". 

This year also saw the Christians declare outright war on the GLBT community. Bills like Prop-8 and Prop-1 stripped us of basic civil freedoms and were 100% funded by Church donations. Rick Warren and his cronies also are responsible for the gay-extermination legislation in Uganda. It's a trial run for what the Christians want to accomplish in the United States. 

So, yeah, this year really sucked. Good riddance!

Indigo Incarnated

I know it's been a while since I posted. It's the same tired story every year: the sun goes away, and with it so does my energy. Sometimes I feel like I'm maxed out just going to work and back. It doesn't help much that, in Baltimore, the sky can be overcast for weeks at a time in autumn and winter. Add to that the fact that we usually get a thin, bone-chilling rain instead of snow. It just plain sucks. 

This winter had an additional twist. I was prescribed a cardiac medicine to control tachycardia (my heart sometimes goes to 210+ for no good reason). Well, the medicine was a disaster. Not only did it *further* deplete my energy, but it caused me to gain 25 pounds in about three months.  So I stopped taking it. 

The Solstice has come and gone. With the malfunctioning meds out of my system, I'm back at my usual exercise routine (being a little more careful, so as not to trigger the super-fast heart rate). The days have lengthened just enough that I can see the sun for a few minutes after work (on the rare non-overcast day). 

So things are looking up. 

I've been writing a novel for the past five years and am now working on chapter 59 (the chapter is called "The Palace of Hemi-Powered Drones"). I have 277,200 words written overall. The fact that I'm writing again is another effect of the seasonal energy-drain letting up a bit. 

I wanted to thank Java, Phos, Carol, and Celtic for always having kind words for me. :)

I'm looking forward to spring. 

Blessed be!

Indigo Incarnates

Doug and I had a pretty low-key Yule today since the worship service at Cedar Light Grove got postponed until Saturday (thanks to about 2' of snow). But it really is nice getting REAL snow at least once per winter. And to have snow at Yule was a real bonus. 

The funny thing us that Christmas and Yule basically celebrate the same thing. Jesus is a lightbringer, born of Mary. The Sun God is born of the Mother Goddess. The days will start getting longer again. And, in a few short months, life will return to the land. The cycle of life, death, rest, and rebirth continues, as it should. 

Doug gave me a pair of statues for my altar and gave me a book. The Goddess and God figurines are pretty and really round out the altar. 

I did a very complete job cleaning the house as a special treat for Doug. He was pretty happy with how clean the house looked when he came home. I didn't have any money, but I could at least do something nice for Doug. 

Blessed be :)