This is a past life memory from another dimension and planet where I am a weapons designer.

The weapons testing room had been set up with a different crew this time.  All volunteers of course, but these were not the regular volunteers.  These were ex-military types who now made their living as mercenaries for corporations, countries, private individuals, anybody willing to hire them for a decent price.  I reviewed their names, and noted that some of them were quite famous, space pirates even, all incredibly lethal and all of course skilled at cheating death. Perfect, I mumbled under my breath, hoping no one would hear me.

“Did we pay them?” I asked that guard who was surveying the volunteers. “Yes, ma’am. And too much if you ask me.” He said not turning around. “Do they know what we’re testing and why they’re here?” I walked over to the instrument panels for one final check. I didn’t really care if they knew or not, and it was none of my business how much the government wanted to pay them, but I hated to test weapons on people who didn’t know what was being tested since it made for bad results.

“They know what we do here, so they are curious as to what they can expect to purchase next year.” The guard murmured finally turning around to look at me. I almost want to tell him they only volunteer to find out if they can back-engineer what we’re doing and get it market quicker than we can, but I’m not interested in making that much small talk.

"They say that this is a very special weapon that you’re testing. That there is nothing like it out in the universe.” Joked the guard. “I’ll let you be the judge of that.” I stared at the guard until he turned around and went back to where he had been standing.

I took off my lab coat and checked the cuff I was wearing. I surveyed the clothes my lab assistant had procured for me from Supplies, and wondered if all our soldiers had to wear to this crazy outfit. I was dressed all in black with enough pockets on my pants and jacket to carry all sort of things, although I am not sure how I would move if every pocket was full of something or other. The shoes looked right though. Regulation boots made to endure all sorts of weather conditions.

I felt someone looking at me and found the guard gaping at me with his mouth wide open. I couldn’t tell if he was in shock or about to say something. I decided I had better say something before he did “I am testing the weapon today. Is there a problem with that?” I announced in my most official of voices.

“No, ma’am. But, if I may be allowed to speak isn’t this a little unusual?” I shrugged my shoulders and confided in him “Yes, but we couldn’t find anyone else on such short notice to be handle the weapon. So since I developed it, management decided I should test it as well.”

“But ma’am, you’re not a field person. And you’ll be in there with those, those killers”. Warned the guard. “They will be more afraid of me after the test is done. But don’t worry. I will be standing on the other side of the room. Shall we begin?” I suggested walking towards the door on the other end of the testing room. The guard nodded, but I could tell he wanted to say something more. He said nothing, and I was thankful that the outlandish rank the military gave me prevented him from questioning my orders.

As we slowly walked to the room, I went over in my head all the precautions my team and I had put in place in case this weapon test failed. I was on opposite side of the weapons testing room, and in case of a failure, a forcefield would be activated in the middle of the room separating me from the volunteers. The field would be up for 5 minutes, and if anyone touched the field, they would get the equivalent of a small electric shock. The field could handle one thousand hands touching it before finally giving out, and there were only 10 people in the room so we had some confidence that the field would hold. The 5 minutes would give me enough to time to leave the room and lock the door. But I knew there would be no failure.

The guard opened the door, and I sauntered into the room hoping to look confident and assured. I heard the door close behind me.  There was 50 feet of empty space between me and my bloodthirsty volunteers, so I moved to the half way point between the line which demarcated the middle of the room. Thankfully, someone on the team decided that it might be a good idea to give me a microphone so I wouldn’t have to yell, so I flipped it on.

I looked up an the volunteers who were starting to move towards me. “Gentleman. Thank you for volunteering.” I began. They stopped in their tracks at the sound of my voice, so I continued. “This will hopefully be a short test. You don’t have to do anything but stand there, while I test the weapon.” I pressed the first button on the cuff, which measure the frequency of everyone in the room. There was a little screen on the cuff, and when it displayed the average frequency of the volunteers. I pressed the second button, which measured my frequency. Thankfully, when my frequency was displayed there was enough off a differential where I could be test up to four scenarios. The third button was an accelerator which you could press to set the beam to whatever frequency you chose.

“What type of weapon are you testing?” One of the volunteers yelled out. I smiled. “As you may or may not be aware, all bodies have a frequency which we now have instruments to measure. The body frequency is like an electrical current. If one cuts the flow of the current to the body for even just one second, the body goes out, faints, much like what would happen if you turned a light off. No harm would come to the person however, since the body would automatically start regenerating its currents on its own.”
“That type of weapon isn’t new. Those have been out for years.” Another volunteered bellowed out.
“True. The laser weapon isn’t new, but no one has come up with a laser that you could use on a large group of people.” The volunteers looked at each other as if they were trying to ask each other if what I said was true.”
“But you have obviously.” A volunteer marveled.
“Yes, and now we will test it.” I pressed the third button twice, which accelerated the the weapon frequency to two degrees above the average in the room. I pressed the fourth button, which activated the laser and sent out a high toned pitch which you hear. Immediately 2/3 of the volunteers dropped in a dead faint. I smiled at the efficiency of the weapon. Not bad for a first test. The remaining volunteers looked at me and started slowly walking backwards to the other side of the room.

I grinned and pressed the third button twice again, and hit the fourth button. This should knock  everyone out in the room, and it did. I looked up at my team who were staring in awe at me through the glass windows that lined the top half of the room, and waved and gave them a thumbs up. The test was a success and the weapon worked. I looked at the volunteers lying on the ground. None of them were moving. I briefly wondered how long they would be out, but that was for the team to figure out.
I felt a weight lift from my shoulders.  Five years of hard work and lab testing were over. I was ready to celebrate. I walked back to the door, knocked on it, and waited for it to open, fantasizing about the size of my next bonus. I was definitely going to take a long vacation this year, maybe even to that spa I heard about on Venus. The door opened and I walked out out of the room with a big smile on my face.

A memory from the past life with the Elf Man.

I am dying, wasting away. I am betraying every elfin law I know but letting myself die this way, but I do not care. Some part of me tells me there will be karma to pay for countless lifetimes, but even that dire pronouncement elicits no response.

I didn’t think I would ever hurt this way, feel this damaged, this broken. I feel like part of my soul was ripped in half, stolen so brutally, that time itself will never heal the scar. The scar will be open and bleeding, and part of my soul will forever be leaking away drop by drop through the centuries.

I sit in our lovely house, looking out the window at the sea. The beautiful wide sea, with all its power and immensity. I keep thinking that he will come back to me. That what I saw was a nightmare and I will wake up soon, and my beloved elf man will be here next to me nuzzling my neck the way he does so every waking morning of our life.

But I do not wake up because I do not sleep. I cannot sleep. When I sleep, the nightmares come. The moments I last saw you come back in all its cruelty, and I wake up screaming and crying. I cannot relive, will not relive those moments ever again, so I stopped sleeping.  I stopped eating as well because eating reminds me of you. Being out in the garden and working reminds me of you. Everything reminds me of you. But sitting at at the window staring out at the sea does not remind me of you, even though I know I have often sat here waiting for you to come home.

The plant devas come and plead with me to take care of the plants in the garden. They saw what happened as well, so they know my pain. They tell me that I can go on, that I can live again, and that they will help me find my joy again. I smile at them but I say nothing. They are persistent.  They come every day, and talk to me, plead their case.  And every day I smile and listen to them, and at the end, I say nothing.  Sometimes I fear they will find other elves to come and talk to me, but there are no other elves left.  There are very few of us left in this world now. And the ones that are left, have gone far underground or have made themselves as small as birds that one cannot even see them.  A few have gone to live with the humans vowing to adapt themselves to that world.

I keep asking myself why didn’t either of us see this situation coming. We had always been able to see our future so we could stay ahead of it.  We wouldn’t have lived this long without staying steps ahead of the future. Where did we go wrong? You once told me a long time ago before we started down this path, that we would only be able run for so long and that the future and time will catch up with us. But even you weren’t sure when that time would come, and if it would come at all.

Did you know that time was catching up with us and not tell me? Because if you did know, then it was cruel of you not to tell me. Did you think it would spare me?  Could not you foresee my future and how I would feel? That by not telling me, you would condemn me to to this ever spinning vortex of pain. By not telling me you would banish me to a world where feelings of hatred and misery would intertwine within me and solidify as one feeling quite indistinguishable from each other. And that feeling would do its best to try and extinguish any love that I have for you. And that I would spend what is left of my life protecting the love I have for you from the misery/hate I have for you.

And that in the end, I would long for death, wish for death even more than I ever longed for you, so I could protect the love that I have for you in my heart.

And it is our love which is keeping me alive right now. Because in the end at the final end of my life, our love wants to win, wants to stay in my heart, and banish all the hatred and misery away. So in my final moments, I will not see your final moments with me but the first moment I knew I loved you and I knew that you loved me. Because this is the memory that our love wants me take into eternity.

Dedicated to the Elf Man, who followed the elves that led him to my blog once so long ago. This is what I see of our past life, our one relatively speaking short happy and contented life together.

We lived by the sea in a small cottage on the shore away from hustle and bustle of the capital. We were happy together you and I. We were neither very rich nor very poor, for all our needs were met. You went out every morning in your boat, and brought food for us to eat.  Strange food sometimes, gifts that the Mer people your friends had given you to bring to shore. I had a vegetable garden in the back, and with help from the plant devas our garden gave us more than enough food to eat.

Our cottage was filled with remnants of our old lives which neither of us could quite let go. The fancy furniture from both our parents, the luxurious linens and clothes that we brought with us from the capital. To an outsider who did not know us, we looked like any poor old elf couple eking a simple living by the sea as we wore the simple clothes befitting our current stature.

To those who did know us, whom I believed despised us because turned our backs on everything we knew, we were that rebellious couple with so much promise. You were the most brilliant wizard in our class, and could have had your pick of serving any kingdom as a spiritual leader. The head of our school said your powers were unlimited. There was only one other person who was probably your equal, and that was me.  I could have married a king or served as spiritual leader to any kingdom, which would have my parents very happy.

We might have even been able to marry each other, and served any number of kingdoms if we wanted to, for together we were that powerful and wanted. But that was not what we wanted. Not after what we had seen what was to come, what was to happen to our land and to our people.

And so we ran away, away from responsibility, away from our families, for a chance to experience the happiness we knew we would never have had we stayed. We had our many, many years together and we were happy, but such happiness does not come without a price. To keep our identities a secret, we vowed to never have children for a child would have seemed out of place in our disguise as an older couple. How I longed for children in those days, to see a miniature version of you or me or a mixture of both of us scampering about our little cottage.

But the war that ravaged our land which we had been able to escape finally reached us after all, no matter how many times we moved to different shores. I sometimes think I can see the soldiers dragging you away, but those memories are still so very painful even now that some part of me blocks them away unwilling to let me experience the horrors of that day.

And all I am left with is the very happy memories of us and our very many cottages by the sea. And the gratitude that thousands of years later, you were able to find me, that some kind elves led you to me, to remind me our stolen happiness. 

Past life memory of teaching a class in an Egyptian mystery school.

I teach this class to children who are at least 8 years old, to mystery school students who are tagged as advanced by other teachers. This is a beginning exercise that the student can explore further as they grow older. It’s a simple exercise really, at least it is to me. No one taught it to me. I just know how to do it, and when my mystery school teachers found out I could do it, they persuaded me to stay at the school and teach it other students. In my 10 years of teaching, I have not found another student who just knew how to do this.  I find this fact oddly disturbing at some level, but it does give me a sense of job security if there is such a thing.

My class is filled with children of varying ages, and they are 10 children in all. They all look rather smug if you asked me, but then I suppose they have every right to be. You don’t get to be in my class unless some teacher has singled you out as being advanced.

I smile and ask them to sit in a circle a foot apart. Having them sit in a circle allows me to walk around to make sure each child is getting the exercise. I tell them to close their eyes, and then to imagine taking a spark of light from their own soul. And once they have the light, to create  a large circle of light spinning to the right. After a few minutes when I can feel that each child has that spinning circle in their mind, I tell them to take another spark of light from their soul and to make that spark into another large circle of light, but this time spinning to the left. And when I can see the student have both circles of light  spinning in their mind, I tell them to join the circles of light to create the eye of Horus, our beloved God. Once I see all the beautiful eyes of Horus in their mind, I tell them to lower the eye of Horus over them making sure that they are in the iris part of the eye.

I tell them you might feel sensations coming over their body, a sense of weightlessness, a tingling maybe.  Whatever physical sensation they are feeling is okay and is part of the process. I tell them to lower their eye of Horus until the eye has touched the ground.

Then I tell them to imagine seeing themselves in the eye of Horus and to open their eyes. I tell the students that I will walk around the circle, and touch each student on their heads one by one, and when they feel the touch they are going to describe to the class what they see in their mind’s eye.

I start, and one by one each student says out loud what they see. The first student asks if he is sitting in a portal.  I smile because some person in the class always asks this question. I tell the student yes, this is a portal, but it a special portal, because it doesn’t go the same place for each person.  Since each student created the portal with the light of their soul, the portal becomes a vortex gateway to one of their past lives, a past life that is important for that person to see right now.

This is the fun part because each student talks about what they see, hear, sometimes smell as well, and I am always amazed at the type of lives that each student talks about in the circle.

When all the students are done speaking, I tell them to imagine the circles of light becoming one and forming a single spark of light, and to imagine that light going back into their soul.

When the exercise is done, I tell the students to opent their eyes, and I give them a 15 minute break.  Then I tell the class that they will meet with me for 7 more sessions, which is 8 sessions in all. I tell them that I have found through past experience, that it takes about 8 sessions for each student to become proficient at this exercise.  I tell them some of them will master this exercise in less time, and a few of them may need more time, but that they will all master this exercise. I tell them that this exercise will have many uses for them in whatever they decide to do with their lives. I let them know that one hour has passed, but that each session will get progressively longer as they practice stepping out of the portal and entering the world of their past life.

This memory fragment came this afternoon, although I have had different variations of this memory previously.

We are all standing in line in front of a large glass box.  There are armed guards everywhere. Everyone is terrified. The person who looks to be in charge is surveying the crowd.  He looks like your typical movie villain evil professor with glasses, a shiny slightly bald head, and a clipboard. 

There is a makeshift command center in front of him connected to the glass box. The glass box is full of different colored balls.  The whole thing seems dream like but not a good dream, more like a nightmare.  I have a memory of sitting in my cube at my laptop and hearing the fire alarm go off,  and then instead of the typical announcement that we should evacuate building or that this was a fire alarm test, the voice announced that we should all go up to the top floor of our building where there is a large conference room.  After the announcement, we all stood up asking each other what was going on and then the doors opened and the armed guards walked in signaling everyone to get to the elevators. One of the talky people on the floor asked what was going on, and we saw the guard put his gun to the man's head and motioned him to elevator bank. After that, no one said anything and we silently walked towards the elevators with our heads down.

When we got to the floor, there were more armed guards to direct us where to go.  I looked at the guards, and they were wearing US Army gear so I didn't think we were being held hostage by some terrorist group but it was frightening.  Why hadn't management said anything?

The evil professor motioned to one of the guards, and he came over. Evil professor started saying something and the guard had to bend his head down to hear him because he was at least a foot taller than the professor. The guard nodded and walked over the first person in line.  He motioned for the first person to stand in front of the glass box.

Evil professor walked back to the makeshift command center and lifted up what looked like some kind of helmet.  He walked over to the man standing in front of the box and motioned for him to put it on. The helmet had all sorts of antennas all over it. Evil professor went back to the controls, and nodded to the guard. The guard said very loudly, "See if you can lift the balls up with your mind. The helmet will help you".  This is the first time I think I have heard the guard speak.

The first man in line looked into the box, and closed his eyes.  Poor guy. He lifted his hands up and they were trembling. He raised both hands up as if he was willing the balls to move, but nothing happened.  After what seemed like a few minutes, the guard said to stop and told the man to take the helmet off.  Another guard came up and directed the man to stand in the left corner of the room, where another guard was standing.

One by one each person in line put the helmet one, and no one could make the balls move.  Finally a woman put the helmet on and the balls started rolling around, and when that happened there was a loud collective gasp in the room.  The guard told her to stop and motioned over to stand by another guard in the center of the room. There was no one by that guard. The other people who had failed to move the balls were all standing together.

And so it went on and one.  Some people were able to make the balls move and some were not, and they were separated into groups of people who could move the balls and people who could not.

Finally it was my turn. I wondered vaguely what group I would be in when I was done.  As soon I stepped within one foot of the box, the balls started bouncing up and down. I stopped and watched them. Then I could hear little voices popping into my head.  The voices kept saying "Hello Brenda", which sort of freaked me because they knew my name.  Then a more powerful voice said he was the leader and said they were a civilization of nanobots, and that they weren't balls at all but they have were told by the evil professor to turn themselves into balls.

I heard the guard say keep moving forward, so I stepped closer to the glass box and the balls formed themselves into letters spelled out "Hello Brenda". I heard gasps behind me. Evil professor got up from his console took his clipboard and started making notes.

I put my hands on the glass box, and the nanobots spelled out "redrum, redrum", which was murder spelled backwards from the The Shining movie. The leaders of the nanobots told me they were being held prisoner. I turned and looked at the evil professor who was now standing three feet away from me and said to him, "They are sentient." Evil professor said "Yes".

The nanobot leader told me that some of them could escape if I would be their carriers. I asked him how, and he said they would come through the glass. I nodded and I felt them coming through the glass and something coming into my fingers.

Evil Professor said "Are you talking to them?" The nanobots leader pleaded with me not to tell the truth.  I took my hands off the glass box and turned to the evil professor and said "No. If I put the helmet would be able to talk to them? They knew my name. How did they know my name?". Evil professor stared and me and then wrote something down on this clipboard. He motioned over to one of the guards, and the guard told me to come with him and led me away to another part of the room. The guard stood with me, and I watched more and more of my fellow workers putting on the helmet and trying to make the nanobots move. 

The nanobot leader after awhile said to me in my mind, "Thank you. We will make a home inside you.  We can help you. We can repair your body. We can return your vision to what it was in your youth so you don’t have to wear contacts.  We can fix that pain in your knee from that skiing accident. We can do many things."

I could feel someone staring at me and I looks to my right and saw the evil professor staring at me. I wondered if he knew that the nanobots had escaped and were not inside me.  The nanobot leader, as if he could read my mind, said to me, "Don't worry about him.  They don't understand us and our species, but they are trying to.  They are looking for people like you, who can talk to us, but they are ignorant of our true capability."

"Are they murdering your kind?" I asked because of the redrum message. "They are testing us, and sometimes the tests do not work, and so we are murdered in the name of science and experimentation. We are their slaves."

"Are you my slave now?" I asked him. I didn't really want a slave population roaming through my body. "What are the nanobots getting out of being with me?"

"You will help us. You will help us free the rest of our kind." A chill ran over me. "How can I help you do that?" I said. "We will show you. You will be the liberator. It is your destiny.  That is why we can talk to you and why we recognized you."

If you are a long time reader of this blog or have stumbled upon it, let me give you some background of what I am currently posting. I have these flashes of memory not of this life that pop into my head on a daily basis. It usually happens when I am walking to and from work, and any other time when I am walking. I am not sure if these memories are from a past life, a half-remembered dream, or some fictional character who has popped into my head showing me a story that they want to see written down. Whatever the case may be, I've decided to start writing these memories down in this blog as a sort of a free write exercise, to get myself back into writing and to store these memories somewhere so they are out of my head.

I should note that not all of these memories are from the past. Some of them are from some strange future and sometimes they happen on different planets.

And they won't be complete stories either with a beginning, middle, and end. They will be memory fragments, dream fragments, like half-remembered songs. In other words, they may not make sense because they aren't suppose to make sense. 

First past life memory. I was in junior high, and had read my first book about the concept of reincarnation. I cannot remember what I was doing or what triggered the memory, but this is the memory I saw in my mind which I can still see very clearly even today.

I am standing at the top of a castle. I look down and I can see that I am very, very high up. I look up and around, all I can see is land and trees far as my eyes can see. I look down at myself. I am wearing some type of long gown. The gown looks to be made of silk and it has pearls sewn into the fabric. My hair is long I think because it is done up in braids which have been wound around my head. I am young at least I feel young. I am not wearing a ring, which may mean I am not married. I have a necklace, a choker really, made out of some strange type of bead. I wish I had a mirror so I could see what I really look like.

I feel the top of my head and I have some type of cap on or bonnet made out of the finest wool. The fabrics I am wearing feel so different than modern fabric. I feel a draft underneath my skirt. I don’t think I am wearing any underwear, but I am too afraid to check.

Emotions come over me. I feel sad, heartbroken, but I have no memories of why these emotions are with me. In my vision, I see myself having a memory of standing exactly where I am standing now and wondering if I should fling myself off the castle wall. There is no moat around the castle, so any fall would mean instant death. In my past life memory, I have more past life memories of being this age and not growing any older. I think this means I have never had long past lives. The lives I have memories of were short, meaning I never see myself being older than 20 years old.  

I am not sure why there is no one about, but judging from the light in the sky it must be early dawn because the sky is a mixture of pink and yellow clouds.  If this is a castle, it must be poorly defended since I do not see anyone standing watch on this part of the castle.

I put my arms around myself so I can give myself a hug. I am not sure if this is a modern gesture or if people have been comforting themselves like this since the beginning.

I can hear a voice calling me. It’s a woman’s voice. I have a memory of this woman, which is dropped into my brain like raindrop. She's my nurse, which I guess means she is my servant. She has been looking for me, and has now discovered my hiding place. I want to scream at her to leave me alone, but I don’t. This version of myself seems so helpless. She is, I am fragile. I feel my waist. I don’t think I have been very well because I can feel my ribs sticking out. I take one more look around, at the land, my father’s land, our land, and head to the door which has just opened. 

Writing this post while typing on my iPad. It is strange to type on the glass screen. I am watching this horror movie called "Drag me to hell", and it is genuinely scary. Memo to self - do not rent horror movies to watch on Netflix because I get scared too easily. Parts of the movie are actually quite campy and funny, but the scary bits are freaking me out.

What else? I went to see the J W Turner exhibit at the de Young museum on Sunday. I knew Turner was considered a master in art, but I never quite got why until I saw the art in person. There is something about his work that is absolutely breathtaking. His depiction of light is amazing. His light has texture and depth. Who knew light had such substance to it. And it is different from Monet.

Monet depicted light as well, but his light was dappled and transparent. Turner's light is different. His light is so substantial. There are no words to describe his art. And seeing Turner's art in a printed book does not do the art justice. You have to see the work in person.

Art can be such a relevation. I am thinking of the time I saw Van Gogh's Sunflowers at the Tate Museum in London. The sunflowers leapt out of the canvas, and all Van Gogh did was layer the paints in the piece so it had depth. All previous art until then was flat. And then when you see the art of Jay DeFeo, you see paint layering in its extreme with her piece "The Rose".

So if you are in San Francisco, go and see the Turner exhibit at the de Young. I am now dying to see the movie about Turner's life that came out last year, and then going back to see the exhibit. That will be fun.

I thought morning pages might be easy to get into, but the process has not been easy. I used to be so eager to write that getting up early in the morning to do it was no big deal.  Now it is a huge effing deal. I am not sure if my reluctance to get up in the morning is because I am getting old, or it's because I don't have the enthusiasm for writing that I used to have. Most likely it is a combination of both things and then some others.

But I want to get back into it, the problem is I cannot guage that want. Writing used to be like an addiction, like if I didn't write, I thought I would explode with all these voices in my head. Have the voices gone silent? Or have I jus stopped listening for them? Where have all my story characters gone? 

I can hear them, but they seemed so far away. They are saying there is too much clutter in my head and the clutter blocks their voices, their sounds. 

I have a theory about story characters which goes something like this.  If you are writer, and I believe anyone can write, so that's everyone, the story characters find you  They inhabit your mind, hoping you can hear them, because all they want to do is to get their story out. And when you write their story down, they are ecstatic because they want their stories to be told. I don't think much care about the story being published, they just want the story out. But if you can't hear them, they will move on the next person and the next person until they get story out.

And even when their story gets out, some of them will go to another writer and have that writer get their story out, because the new writer will tell their story differently.

I wonder if my story charcters have moved on. I hope not. They say they are still around, but I need to get that that clutter out of my head. They say they are attached to me and they want me to tell their story. I'm glad that they are sticking around.   

Morning pages today have become very late evening pages. I am trying to get to work half an hour earlier now, so I get home at a decent time. But I am not used to it so my whole morning routine is still off a bit. I think if I keep at in in 30 days, I wiill get used to it, at least that is the thought.

I've been listening to reviews on the youtube channel "What the Flick" of Netflix's new series called "Sense8", and the reviewers make me laugh so much. They are having such a hard time with the concept that people could be linked telempathically, and are having such a hard time following the story. I did not have this problem. I am not sure if I agree with how the Wachowskis are portraying what it is like to be telempathic, but I applaud them for trying to do it on tv.  

The conspiracy side of me says that the ideas in Sennse8 are exposing people to what it is like to be hive-mind, where you are an individual but still part of the collective. They are outlining the advantages for human beings to come together and link telepathically.

I am reminded of the sci-fi stories of Olivia Butler, who is one of my favorite science fiction writers.  In her books, one person was able to link all the minds in the story telepathically but I believe they were all linked by DNA, by genetics.

In Sense8, the 8 people are all linked by the fact that they all born on same day.  The show was not explicit on whether it was the same time but definitely the same day.

Watching the reviewers of What the Flick trying to dissect Sense8 made me wonder if I am living in the same world as the reviewers since these ideas of linking minds are normal and easy to understand.

On another topic but still somehwat related, I was listening to an interview on the radio and I got the feeling that the woman I was listening to was coming from a deeply negative space. The interview was like an infomercial for a conference where the person being interviewed was going to the featured keynote speaker. I was half a mind to go to this conference, but hearing this woman being interviewed totally turned me off. I feel like this conference is for beginnners on this topic, and I am more advanced. They were talking about all of these break-out sessions that would be held, but none of those senssions appealed to me on any level because they were all for beginners. 

Again, I felt like I am living in such a different space than most people. Or maybe this means progress for me, because I know I am a fairly negative person myself. But that lady who is the featured speaker for this conference was in an even more negative space. It's like there is no room in her reality for people to have a positive experience on this topic, and if people have had a positive experience they need therapy. Which is such a laugh, since the keynote speaker is a therapist herself.

There are other some speakers at this conference that I would love to hear, but I think it is going to look strange if I don't hear the main speaker. I mean what am I going to do with myself during her session? Stay in my room? The conference is a few months away, so I have time to decide if I want to go. I just think it is so awkward if I go to the conference and ditch the mian speaker.  I guess I could always say I wasn't feeilng well, and needed to rest or lie down. Being sick is such a great classic excuse for getting ouf of events that you do want to attend. Normally it would just freak me out to pay for a conference and miss sessions because I paid to attend the whole conference. But now I am like, maybe I need to do it just so I can hear the other speakers. The conference schedule has not been finalized so I am hoping that when the schedule comes out, I will get a better idea of how many sessions I will have to miss.  

Julia Cameron recommended morning pages to be written in the morning before the mind wakes up, to get whatever thoughts are in your head on paper which presumably leaves the mind empty for the creative ideas to come through. Her suggestion was to write the "morning pages" by hand and to choose a limit of the number of pages.  I really must go back and read the book to find out exactly what she said.

As I am typing this, I feel like it is cheating a bit since Julie said to write by hand to connect the mind to the hand. And if I am blogging my morning pages, what will be my limit.  There are no page limits like in writing. Is it going to word count? Is this even going to be a good idea.

The only thing I am liking about doing this right now, is that I am typing on my iPad in bed with my apple keyboard. And I am thinking to myself, I am finally getting use out of that darn apple keyboard that I bought because I haven't been using it for writing like I thought I would.

Truth be told, it's sort of strange to have the keyboard separate from the screen.  Don't get me wrong, because I love  my iPad. I love lying in bed with my iPad and surfing the net before I go to sleep. I love that it is light enough to be carried in my giant handbag that I use for travel. I have even gotten used to watching movies on this smaller screen. But carrying keyboard that I bought for this iPad sometime is not practical.

I keep on thinking it is the fact that the apple keyboard is much longer than the iPad itself, and that it's too long to fit in my giant travel purse. When I went on vacation last May, the keyboard traveled in my backpack. I had the backpack with me the whole time, but it seemed a pain to take it out and use it on the plane. 

The apple keyboard itself works like a dream. Connection to the iPad was easy, and the clunky cover that guy at the apple store recommended actually works quite well. So the two items together fit very well together, and it something I am going to have to get used to unless I want to buy another keyboard  The apple keyboard feels like a real keyboard, and I seem to be able to type my normal speed.

I mean it's not that bad. I listened to a seminar online yesterday, and I was taking notes with the iPad and keyboard and that seemed to work well. I was even thinking of sending the notes to a friend of mine, which will be easy now because the notes are already typed. I just have to go in and delete my comments about the lecture.  When I've done this in the past, I had to type up my handwritten notes which I sometimes couldn't read because i was writing too fast.

So perhaps this is another reason to do morning pages on my iPad; so I can get used to typing on apple keyboard.

Wow, I forgot how mundane morning pages writing is. Julia Cameron said you need to keep writing in morning page, and make sure your hand never stops moving. And never put the pen down. But when you follow her instructions like I am trying to do now, it seems like the most boring crap is filling my brain.

That is sort of sad isn't it? That your all important brain's space is filled with the boring comments and issues of your daily life. But at least now, some of my brain space has been emptied of this morning's inane thoughts and concerns.  

I may write more later, but this feels like a good stopping point.

Blogging used to be such a passion of mine and now it's been forgotten like an old lover. And somehow the thought saddens me greatly.

But for a reason I have yet to discover, I have not been writing anything down anywhere. Not even in my journals. I do keep notes of when odd things happen to me, but I would not call that writing, not really.

But I do really want to get back into writing, so I am thinking of blogging again. Maybe make it like morning pages recommended by Julia Cameron.

Maybe the months of NOT-writing have to come out so the creative stuff can come out.  This technique has worked for me before, so I am going to give it a try again.

So expect more posts ....

Wow, almost a year with no blogging. So as a treat since I am back to writing. Here is something I posted as a note on Facebook on Friday July 25.

My horoscope for the week said that you need to plant the seeds of things that you want to have happen in your future. One day I want to publish a novel and be a writer who makes enough money where I can quit my full time corporate job and be an honest to goodness, decently paid full-time writer. With the new healthcare laws, you don't need a job to get health insurance and this was something I have always worried about if I didn't work for a company.

Anyway, the idea for this novel started back in 2003 and I kept writing about the characters and who they were and what was going to happen, but I didn't  get the inspiration to start writing the story until 2006. I wrote that early first draft in first person, and then changed to third person a year or two later. It was a slog to write, but I finished the whole first draft of the novel in 2012. I kept reading it because I knew I know I needed to edit it and get the novel in better shape, but I don't know, I didn't like reading the story in third person. There something missing from the story, and I think it was the sense of immediacy that writing in person gives me. There is something detached about writing in third person. It's great to look be able to write from another character's point of view, but I had always envisioned this novel as being told from one person's point of view so the reader sees everything from this person's perspective. I see this novel as a historical novel, and history like politics is always local, always personal. So I made the decision to go back to the beginning and start the novel again but this time back to first person. 

So here's my seed planting for my future life of being a decently paid full time writer. I tentatively titled this novel - The Elf Chronicles - Book 1 - The Price of the Future. I see it taking place on earth 150,000 years ago in the mythical land called Lemuria or Mu, which many have said was an island continent located in the Pacific ocean where Hawaii is and which stretched far down the Pacific ocean to Easter Island and far across the Pacific to Japan. A medical intuitive told me I had an incarnation in Lemuria as an elf, which Bashar later confirmed for me when I asked him at one of his sessions. So I was an elf in Mu, and I was born in Hawaii where Lemuria was, and in the heart chakra energy of the planet (since 2012) which is Mt Haleakala. When I heard this story, I thought wouldn't it be fun to write a history of me in that incarnation and what happened. So this is the fictional story of my life in that time in Lemuria / Mu. And I always see the story as starting this way. I've played with starting it at other points in the story, but this point feels the best.

Chapter 1 - still very much a draft ...

Our world is so different now. Some things remain the samelike our festivals, our traditions, our gatherings, and our schools. But we area changed community, changed by war and scarred by battles. I am changed. Andas I draw near to the time when I shall one day soon be reunited with myfamily, I find myself drawn back into my memories. Drawn back into the daysbefore it all started. But try as I might those days are hazy even in mymemories. The only memories that are clear are the ones when I think it mayhave all started, and our historians I know still endlessly debate this point.When did it all start? Our histories are being written, written by those who livedthem, so we and our future generations to come remember and will never repeatthe mistakes of the past, our past. And I was there when they say it allstarted.

It was the winter of my 14^th year on the nightbefore Samara, one of the most important festivals of the year. When elvesthroughout Lemuria gathered together to celebrate the shortest day of the year,and the start of the longer days. When all elves would gather at their templesof worship and be led in prayer and remembrance of our beginnings, when thesource of our life created the first elves and allowed them to live in his newland. We had traditions and rules that governed our lives and gave us structureand an order that had allowed us to survive at a time when many of the sourceof our life's creations had died out. And those rules had rarely if ever beenbroken until that fateful night.

I was in my room, up late as usual practicing myclear-seeing. Elves have the gift of clear-seeing, which allows one to see thefuture, but unless inherited or practiced never amounts to more than momentaryvisions before life-threatening events. My gift was inherited. My uncle Shankulwas our kingdom's spirit leader, like many in our family line. One day my unclesaid to me, “Daliana, my child you have a gift, a rare gift. I can see it whenI look into your eyes. I will give you special exercises to develop and honeyour visions, ancient secrets only taught to those who had dedicated their livesto serving in the temple. But you must promise to practice them every nightbefore you go to bed.”  And so I practicedthem every night before I went to bed, but that night my visions were not clear,They were blurry, like I was seeing too many possibilities of the same event.And no matter how many times I tried, the results were the same. In all my sixyears of practices, this had never happened. I should have known then thatsomething was wrong, terribly wrong. But I was but a young elf girl of 14years, who was doing exercises meant for those who had trained for decades tobe able to see the future, so I just stopped and decided to give up for thenight.

But then I heard a commotion at the gates. Since my roomfaced the courtyard of the castle, I decided to peep out the window to see whatwas happening. Any kind of activity was strictly forbidden before Samara, whenthe general accepted practice was to stay at home with your family and pray.

There was an elf dressed in man’s black riding clothestalking to the guards. His horse was lathered with sweat looking as if therider and horse had come a long way. The elf wore a hood and from where I wasstanding I couldn't get a good look at his features, but I could tell from theway he was standing and talking to the guard that he was a man of importance.Part of me was appalled at such a flagrant disregard for our rules andtraditions. I was sure that if my uncle were here he would order the man to beseverely punished for his transgression. A couple more minutes passed when Isaw the captain of the guard approach the gate. When he saw who the strangerwas, the captain immediately bowed and shouted for the gates to be be opened.The stranger walked slowly into the courtyard and took off his hood, and I feltmyself gasp as I saw my uncle Shankul's face under the hood.

No wonder the guards were confused and didn't respond rightaway. Shankul was not wearing his usual priestly robes, which he even wore toride his horse. As if he had read my thoughts, I saw Shankul look up towards mywindow. I crouched even lower fearing that I would be seen. I looked around andsaw that there was only a single candle burning in my room, which I hoped wouldlook like the glow of a fire in my room. I could hear the captain instructingthe guards to take care of my uncle’s horse, but Shankul said he was notplanning to be there for very long. I looked out of the window again and saw myuncle being escorted into the castle.

I grabbed a cloak, put on some shoes, and ran to the stairs.There were usually guards in the hallway, but thankfully they had all gonestairs. Fearful that they would be coming back to their posts, I ran and openeda hidden to one of the secret passageways that my grandmother had shown me whenI was a child of six.  She told me never totell anyone that I knew about these secret doors.  The hidden passageways had been built intothe castle, by one of our ancestors and that their location was handed down toonly certain members of family. I was sure that one day would tell me aboutthese secrets, but that day had not yet come.

The passageways led to every room in the castle, which I hadhappily spent my childhood exploring, so I knew exactly where to go even in thedark. I knew the guards would probably take my uncle to my father’s waitingroom, so I made my way there. Sure enough as I got closer to the room, I couldhear my uncle’s voice talking to the captain and telling him what to say to hismen about his appearance.

“Please reassure your men that I am here under the mostextreme circumstances and that I seek the counsel of my brother, their king. Butthat there is no need to worry. You must do your best to impress on them thatthere is no need to worry.” I could hear the captain murmuring somethingalthough I couldn’t quite catch what he saying,

“But worry they will in any case.” My father said fromfarther away, which meant he must have just entered the room. “Please do as thespirit leader has asked, and leave us now”. The captain asked if my fatherrequired any type of food or drink, but my father said no and asked that aguard be posted outside the waiting room door. I could hear the captain shoutfor a guard, and then the sound of the door closing which I took as anopportunity to move and to sit down so I could be comfortable for however longthey were going to be there.

“Your highness, forgive my intrusion on this most blessednight.” Shankul said in an even tone. “I would not have come unless there wasan urgent need for your counsel.”

“Brother, you surprise me with your formality. Are we notfamily?” My father asked with a laugh.

“In this instance your highness, I feel that I come here asyour kingdom’s spirit leader and not your brother. Perhaps it would be betterif we sit down before I tell you of my news.”

“As you wish.” My father said and I could hear them walkingover to where the chairs were in the room. My uncle then told my father, thathe had a nightmare a couple of night ago which he did not think much of untilhe received messages from other spirit leaders in other kingdoms that they toohad had almost the same nightmare. He had met with the other leaders of theSpirit Council, and found out that all spirit leaders in every elf kingdom haddreamt the same nightmare. Everyone agreed that this was was an omen that mustbe discussed as one body, so they had decided to hold the yearly gathering ofall leaders be held three weeks from now. He had received confirmation from theElders at the Misty Isles late this evening that they had agreed with theSpirit Council’s decision. And what was more, the Spirit Council had alsodecided that all spirit leaders talk about what had transpired in the last fewdays, and meet with their kings tonight.

“So tradition is being broken throughout elfin kingdoms.” Myfather said simply. “This will cause chaos.”

“It doesn’t have to, if every spirit leader can explain whathappened and calm everyone.” Shankul said softly.

“The streets are rampant with rumors of the disappearancesthat are happening in the outer lands. Does this nightmare have anything towith the elves that have gone missing?” I could hear worry in my father’svoice. While no one had gone missing in our kingdom, the stories coming fromthe outer lands had made it even to our small kingdom by the sea.

“I don’t know, but everything inside me is screaming yeseven though my dream was inconclusive But we must, I must be careful to notjump to conclusions until I meet with the council.” There was a long silence inthe room, and I wished I could see both their faces.

“I assume you have a plan, you always had a plan even whenwere kids.” My father said at last.

“Yes, there must be no surprise from the family. We mustpresent a united front. This is what I advised the Spirit Council and theyagreed with my decision.”

“So what do I tell my family?” My father said without anyemotion in his voice.

“The Queen will have been told I am here, and I could havesworn I saw Daliana watching me from her window, so they know I am here andwill not be shocked.” I felt my cheeks burning because I was sure I had notbeen seen. “Tell them what I have told you. They will understand. And now Imust go. There is much to prepare.”

“And the guests in this morning’s party? Do I tell them aswell? I am sure they will talk of nothing else but your appearance here thismorning.”

“You may tell them what I told your captain, and that allwill be revealed at tonight’s celebration.”

“Tell me honestly brother, are we in danger?” my father saidin a soft voice and which I detected a little fear.

“We have not survived this long, outlasted so many others,without our elfen unity. It is the only thing that has kept us, our kingdom,and the whole country together and alive and thriving. We must preserve it atall costs, and I mean at all costs. If we can do that, then we can survive anydanger.”

I heard the door open and my uncle call for his horse. I wassure my father would come up to see me, so as soon as I heard him leave theroom I stood up and ran to my room, opened the secret door and dove into the mybed and pretended to be asleep. A few minutes later the door to my room opened,and my father walked into the room. I had forgotten to blow the candle out, andwhen the room went dark I knew my father had blown out the candle. There wassilence in the room and I was almost ready to burst out of bed, when I heardthe door close. Breathing a sigh of relief, I felt my body relax. It mustnearly be morning, but I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until I felt and heardmy servant Letinas trying to wake me up.

New Short Story - Tentatively Titled "A Short History of the Sirius Crystal People"

Two weeks ago, I started on a rewrite of novel I finished last year. I decided that when I get bored with writing my novel, I would write short stories based on my parallel / past life memories.  I wrote the outline for a short story / novella which I have tentatively titled "A Short History of the Sirius Crystal People." This story is based on my memories of a past / concurrent life on the planet called Sirius where I was part of this civilization that called themselves "they crystal people". I've been trying to imagine what it would be like to be a crystalline being, but as a physical human, it is hard to imagine what a crystal being would be like so my descriptions are based on what know of physical crystals.

The memory I have of this life is that the Sirius people had reached a point in their civilization where their population was threatened with extinction. The cultural impulse was to seek perfection and diversity had been stamped out.  But the logical consequence of perfection without diversity, is species extinction. So the Sirius Crystal people had to find a way to add diversification back into their world, their DNA. At some point, I know that they left their planet and went to other worlds and created hybrid beings.  If they could not preserve their species, the Sirius crystal people would somehow make sure that their crystalline nature would live on in the DNA of other beings. But this story will be about how their first attempts at diversification.

I think this story reads like a short story, but it's just the beginning of what I know will be a longer story. This is a first draft with hardly any edits so please enjoy.

A Short History of the Sirius Crystal People - started on July 1, 2013

The matured cells started disintegrating in the dish. Da'el watched in silence, and then reviewed his notes. Impossible, he thought. He repeated the experiment again for the one hundredth time, doing each step as slowly and as precisely as possible, but the results were the same. Shaking his head in disbelief, Da'el went back to his desk and wrote the results down in his experiment book. He turned to first page and reread the goal he had written for his work, find a cure for the strange illnesses that was causing the older crystals in his civilization to weaken and die before their time. He shook his head in disgust and thought over the events of the last three years.

When the task was first brought to him it was still early enough in the epidemic, that he was able to study and collect material from everyone who had been affected. The illness was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Crystals grew larger as a person aged, with some crystals nearly doubling and sometimes tripling in weight and size. A person's crystalline structure also became stronger over the years, and breakage at that age was nearly impossible. The illness changed all that when older crystals became fragile and experienced breakage. Doctors were dumbfounded at first, and considered it an anomaly until more and more older crystals started coming checking themselves into hospital.

At first the illness had attacked the very old, but within three years the epidemic had started to affect younger and younger members of the population. The illness was still confined to those in his population who were considered old, but the High Council of the Sirius Crystal World were concerned that the illness would spread to to the younger population so they funded his experiments. And in three years Da'el was no closer to solving the illness but one thing was clear to him after he reviewed his work, the cells of the old and new of his world had started to age faster and faster as year passed. He closed his book and looked at the night sky, and realized it would soon be morning.

While his driver too him home, a theory began to form in Da'el's mind about what was happening but he dismissed it immediately but the scientist within him rebelled. Every theory must be considered he knew, but the implications of this theory would be considered heresy. What was worse, Da'el knew that if he was correct his own family would be affected. If he could get his wife Bishka to understand, he knew that he would be able to continue the work that he now knew would be the key to the future of their world.

When he walked into his house, he found his wife Bishka sleeping with her head on their eating table. He smiled at how often he came home and found her sleeping like that. He wondered if she would ever grow tired of waiting for him, but in all their many years of marriage she never did.

 Da'el went to his wife and kissed her on her head, and stepped back. Bishka sat up with a start, and stood up and found herself gazing into the eyes of her husband. She smiled and walked over him and hugged him.

“It's a little early for you, isn't it” She said with a chuckle.

“I thought I would come home and surprise you with an early dinner.” Bishka smiled and bowed, and went to their food supplies and came out a few minutes later with some warm food which she lay on table next to the plates that were on the table. Da'el smiled and sat down. He wasn't really hungry but he knew that eating some food would calm his mind. Bishka sat with him while he ate, and asked how his day had gone. Da'el told her a little bit about his day, but wanted to wait until he was through eating before he any serious discussion.

After he had told her of his theory, Bishka sat back in her chair in a stunned silence. “Are you sure that there is no way to regenerate the cells?” Bishka said finally.

“I have spent two years trying to regenerate the cells and nothing has worked. The only thing left to test is to add other DNA.” Da'el said surprised that he was able to even say the words. The Sirius Crystal people had cherished order and simplicity; their whole culture was build on these principals. And there was no place in their world for the chaos of diversity and change.

“The High Council will never agree to this. It is against everything we have stood for, our way of thinking, our way of life.” Bishka said with tears slowly falling down her face, knowing that what her husband said was probably true. He was considered the most brilliant mind in their race, which is why the High Council had given him this problem to solve.

“Without an infusion of a more diverse gene structure, the illnesses will spread to a more younger population. The only logical result that I can see, and believe me I have turned this over and over in my mind a thousand times, is our population will be unable to reproduce and we will eventually die out as a species.” Da'el said slowly and carefully.

“But that will take generations. Perhaps a cure will be found by then.” Bishka said with enthusiasm until she looked at her husband's face. What she saw in his eyes frightened her.

“The disease is progressing geometrically. In three years it has jumped 20 years. We have less then 5 years before our people are dead. But the High Council must be told, so we can begin to experiment with adding the new genes.” Da'el looked at his wife and saw fear in her eyes, and it struck him why she was so fearful. He looked down and cursed himself. He had forgotten that four years ago, they had decided to start a family. Their first set of twins would be born this year, and ever year after that for the next three years since they had decided on having four sets of twins. In their ordered world, crystal children were born as male and female twins so the energy between the two beings were balanced. Bishka has guess that those births may now be jeopardy.

“There is no reason to think that we still cannot have have our children.” Da'el said with a calmness and confidence in his voice that he did not feel.

“But to what kind of world would they born? Into a world that may be dying out?” Bishka said practically screaming at her husband. When she realized what she had done, she held her down in shame. She had never raised a voice to her husband, and in fact had not lost this much control since she was a cihld. Crystal people were taught to control the few emotions that they had from a very young age. Emotions made one lose control and without control there was no order and balance. Bishka and Da'el sat for a long time in silence, unsure of what to say to the other. Finally, Bishka finally glanced at her husband and said in an even voice, “Will our twins be born with this illness?” Da'el looked down at the food left on his plate, and felt sick.  

He did not know how to answer which was a first for him. He really did not know the answer to that question because even if the twins were born without the illness, it was more than likely that within five years they would most likely contract the illness. And because he did not know what to say, Da'el said nothing. He stood up, walked over to Bishk and bent down and kissed her on the cheek before whispered in her ear “I cannot tell you what the future will be, not even for our children, but if I don't continue my work there will be no future for us or our children.” Da'el straightened up and started walking to their bedroom. He stopped before he left the room and said, “Are you coming?”. Bishka stared at him and mouthed to him “No.”. Da'el stared at her for a moment and left the room.

Bishka sat there with her head in her hands and wept until she could cry no more. Then she lay her head on the table, closed her eyes and fell into an exhaustive sleep.

Oxford chooses 'omnishambles' as word of the year.   Oxford University Press on Tuesday crowned the word — defined as "a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations" — its top term of 2012.

I've never even heard of this word, but it defines what I thought of the presidential election.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Oxford-chooses-omnishambles-as-word-of-the-year-4029991.php#ixzz2C4ZmSJUM 

Bob Ross on Google

Bob Ross is the new Google doodle.  I had no idea the man had died.  I love his show "The Joy of Painting".  He makes painting look so easy and it is not easy at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Traveler's_Wife

I saw the movie "The Time Traveler's Wife" a few months and liked it so much I decided to read the book.  The movie was very much like the book, although a much abbreviated version.

The book had several quotes from the book "Possession" by A.S. Byatt, which I read years ago and now want to reread.  Perhaps I will like "Possession" more the second time around, since I wasn't hat impressed by it when I first read it.

I'm not sure I liked "The Time Traveler's Wife" novel, which is strange because the book itself was quite riveting.  How shall I say it, the novel did not touch me as much as I thought it would. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but whatever it was I didn't get it from the novel.

The novel had no big revelations about love or free will, even though the theme of love and free will is rampant throughout the book. Maybe the science fiction part sort of confused things for me, I don't know.

Okay, this is bad but I was more moved by "The Mummy" by Anne Rice than by this novel.  I don't think anyone would call "The Mummy" a classic, I mean I even know that this book is nothing more than decent trash.  But Anne Rice's trash novel moved me more than this new novel.  Too bad because I felt so sure "The Time Traveler's Wife" novel would be so much better than the movie, but it wasn't. The movie was very moving and novel, not so much.  Usually the book is better than the movie, but not this time.

http://www.france24.com/en/20121020-tens-thousands-rally-london-against-austerity

Another story that is not making the local news here in San Francisco.  I guess the mainstream media news doesn't want us to know that people in the UK are protesting by the thousands on the planning cuts to Britian's generous welfare system. It makes me wondering what important news stories are not being reported.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/holiday-shopping-women-want-men-153800266.html

This story is so true at least for me. My favorite gift is a gift card so I can pick out what I want and need. I hate when people buy me actual presents because honestly, mostly of it has been pretty awful.  It's not that my gift givers have bad taste, okay some of them do have horrid taste but not all.  It's just that most people buy presents that they would want and never what I want or would like.  I am very hard to shop for and most people who really get me, of which there are few few, figure this out early on.  I was a picky eater as a child, and that pickinesss applies to almost every aspect of my life.

Almost every aspect because my friends tells me I'm not picky about who I date and shack up with, but that's dating.  I am very picky about the person I want to be in a long term relationship with, but for the short-term, honestly, who the hell cares.  It's short and sweet and almost everyone works for the short-term. It's the long-term that guys fail at, and miserably I might add.

But like my dating life, I hardly ever get gift cards so I'm always getting stuff and guys I don't want.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/danny-devito-rhea-perlman-split-his-womanizing-ways_n_1950832.html

When I read about this event happening, I felt sadness.  Not that I really follow celebrity gossip, but it was distressing to hear that a 30-year marriage was ending.  I was bummed when Al Gore split up with his wife Tipper as well, only because they had been together since high school.  Is there no future for a long term marriage in today's society?

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Calif-expected-to-lose-100-dairy-farms-3946897.php

I believe remote viewed Ed Dames predicted a long time ago that something would happen with the milk supply and that mothers would be crying because they couldn't find milk for their children.  I am wondering if this event is part of this prediction.

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_10_11_sfnmlb_cinmlb_1&mode=recap&c_id=sf

Congratulation to the San Francisco Giants!  We are off again to another series!

http://blog.sfgate.com/chronstyle/2012/10/10/shocking-plus-size-model-wears-bikini/

When I read this article at SFGate.com and saw how beautiful this woman was, it was so shocking to find out that some people are commenting that she is a size 12.  The average American woman is a size 12 and for once the public is seeing an average woman in an ad, which should be applauded and not be freaked out about.

Don't take the media brainwashing that only women who are size 6 and under should be in print advertising, and kudos to Ralph Lauren for putting this model in an ad.  Makes me want to go out and buy Ralph Lauren clothes so I can support him and his ads.

From my daily Dharma quote - Kongtrul Rinpoche suggested we pray to the guru, buddhas, and bodhisattvas and ask them to grant their blessings, “So I may give birth to the heart of sadness.” But what is a “heart of sadness”? Imagine one night you have a dream. Although it is a good dream, deep down you know that eventually you will have to wake up and it will be over. In life, too, sooner or later, whatever the state of our relationships, or our health, our jobs and every aspect of our lives, everything, absolutely everything, will change. And the little bell ringing in the back of your head to remind you of this inevitability is what is called the “heart of sadness.” Life, you realise, is a race against time, and you should never put off dharma practice until next year, next month, or tomorrow, because the future may never happen - Heart of Sadness

This quote made me so sad because it made me realize again that nothing is permanent and in the true Buddhist way, it teaches that one shouldn't be attached to anything because desire leads to attachment. I have given birth so many times to the Heart of Sadness, I'm not sure I want to pray for it.

If you haven't seen the movie 2003 South Korean movie called Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, you need to watch it.  It illustrates so beautifully the Buddhist philosophy.  I attended a screenwriting conference in Los Angeles and screenwriting guru Robert McKee recommended this movie.  The movie may break your heart but you will begin to understand the "Heart of Sadness" if you don't understand it now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wsfwmzAZgOw#!

What is happening in Spain with the rioting crowds is amazing.  This youtube video was posted on of my favorite websites.  The crowds are pushing the police back.  None of this is being covered by the San Francisco Mainstream Media (MSM), but it should be because it is so powerful.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/nyregion/for-poor-schoolchildren-a-poverty-of-words.html?src=recg&pagewanted=print

When I read this NY Times article, I saw myself in it.  I was raised by immigrants who barely spoke english but spoke english to their children so they could do well in school and hopefully get better jobs and a more affluent life.  I spoke english but my vocabulary was sadly lacking.  How do you describe things to your child in a language that is not your own?

But in 4th grade, I was tested as having the vocabulary of high school senior.  And what is the secret of my 4th grade success?  My parents and I watched lots of TV.  The television was my babysitter and by the age of 7,  I had my own room with a small TV and probably never turned the thing off until I went to bed.  I graduated third in my class in high school, did really well on my SATs, and attended and graduated from a top 10 private liberal arts college.

I will admit that my speaking vocabulary is not great.  I don't use what a friend of mine calls $5 words.  My parents never used them and so I don't normally.  And the few times I've injected $5 words by mistake into conversation with my family, they ask me to explain what I just said and look hurt that I've talked down to them.

I work in corporate America where people admire and at the same time resent their coworkers who use words that they cannot understand.  In my current job, I write website copy sometimes and I've been told that you have to write like a person has a junior high education.  So all those $5 words I learnt in school have no place in my job.  And I can't imagine texting $5 words or using them in an email.

So do words matter?  Yes.  They matter for tests and schools, and if you are planning a career in academia.  I think they also matter a great deal for books and reading because it's a pain to read something and to find a word that you don't understand and have to stop and look up.  And yes, I do stop and look words up.

But do words matter in real life?  Not exactly.  You don't need a large vocabulary for work, for emailing and texting and for general conversation.

What really matters is getting your point read and heard clearly, and you don't need a large vocabulary to do that although words are tools to help you get the nuances right and be more precise.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49320705

Gas prices are high in California and on Sunday they went up even more.  I picked up gas on Friday night at $4.549 at Costco for premium because I knew the prices would climb higher, and sure enough they did.  How crazy is that?  If gas goes to $6 a gallon, things in the Cali republic will break down. We're not used the high gas prices that is charged in other countries.

http://blog.sfgate.com/mlasalle/2012/10/05/must-see-movies-since-1960-2/#7588-1

From SFGate.com - the must-see movies post 1960.  I was amazed at the number of movies on this list that I've seen.  Of course now I have to see the movies on this list that I've never seen.

Since I am blogging again I thought I would post one of my favorite pics - turtle face taken at the aquarium on the island of Maui during my April 2012 trip.

The Trishas are playing on my Hardly Strictly Bluegrass livestream and they aren't that bad for an all girl band.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is livestreaming music from the Arrow Stage.  I hate all the crowds so I will be checking the livestream out.- http://www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com/

Do you really trust anything Mainstream Media (MSM) tells you anymore.  They tell me that unemployment has gone down since 2008.  I'm like hello, is that progress?  And what about all those Americans on food stamps?  I went to Stonestown mall last night, and one of the restaurants there is closed.  Restaurants close because people are not spending money on dining out.  If the economy is doing so well, why isn't there a new restaurant being built in that space?

Does it feel like you are a child again and your parents are telling you everything is all right when you know that it's not?  The MSM are telling us everything is okay and you know deep down they are so not.  But the MSM are not my parents; they are supposed to be reporting on the news and they are not.

Completely forgot about my blog for ever so long.  It was my online diary for so many years when blogging was new.  So many things have changed since that time. We live in such a different world. I'm on my third job since my first blog post and we are finally in the year that the ancients spoke about that will signal the end of the world.

I am saving all my blog posts so I can have a record of my life.  When I read my blog posts, it's like I'm reading the diary of someone else which is a strange feeling.  That person who wrote those posts does not seem like m and yet I have memories of that person.

I used to be so political back in the day.  Now I don't see any differences between the parties.  You need so much money to get elected and corporations give money to both parties so their agenda gets in no matter who is in office.  Does it really matter who we vote for since the Supreme Court decided who should run the country.  The people that think they see the future expect that will happen again next month, so does my vote really matter when a court can decide who wins any election?

And honestly, has anything changed really for working people since we put the other party in office.  The US still has too many troops deployed abroad.  I just paid $4.50 for gas which the news reminded me this morning is the same price I paid in 2008.  Food prices have not come down and for whatever reason, I cannot find Sumatran coffee at Costco anymore.

As you can tell, I am in a very melancholy mood this morning.  Have been for the last two weeks, and I'm not sure why.  Maybe blogging will help me tease out my indian summer of discontent.  But it's not like I am unhappy because I'm not, but I do feel like we are all on the edge of something and that something is not very good.