Not Canon

I went all out and got crackers. They were on sale, so I thought why not. It will break my soy fast, but I will keep an eye out for any reactions. I also got some Nut Thins, and a few larbars. Processed foods are expensive. Wow, it is only nine? It feels like midnight. I am ready for bed. Too much excitement for me. Feel like hell.

Drink more water.

Then more.

Then bed.

Ugh.

Wake now.

How much pain do I have to be in before I call for help? My kidneys really hurt last night and my urine had a oily film on top of it. Horray for slow death. Woke up early and felt alright, but stayed in bed until almost noon. Now I feel much better, but have yet to eat anything. Drinking lots of water, and a smoothy waits for me in the refrigerator.

Hours later.

Ended up eating a lot today. Bowl of stew, the smoothy, two cobs of corn, two eggs, a whole pile of spinach, a squash. Cheese. Hardly been out of bed twelve hours and i am ready for bed again. Went to the card shop today and spent some time beating a kid who literally had won a gold medal at the special Olympics earlier in the day at his favourite Civil war game. I would have felt bad beating him, but he wins all the time. It is the only game he ever plays.

I like competitive table top gaming a lot. I miss it considerably. And truth be told, if all works out for mexico next winter, I likely will end up selling my collection. They do not have a version of Warmachine translated to Spanish yet. And I did not do a spanish lesson today. Hom hum, try to get two done tomorrow... before the bbq. Got myself involved with a bbq tomorrow. Should be good to eat something cooked on coals.

Rattle snakes are a big problem out here. Who knew? I am not allowed out to a Ranch until i have some high hard boots. They sleep most of the winter, but you know, it is a fucking snake, and you do not really get a second chance once you are a bitten by one. So boots. Do not know if I could swing that. Some people have some really fancy boots here, but I have not noticed too many outlandish belt buckles.

Feels like i may have had too much to eat. Should be an interesting night. Drink more water.

Then bed.

Rinse and repeat.

Sort of.

A full day later.

Last night was bad. Really bad.

Then I went and ate too much at the bbq. It was all so very tasty, and in true texas style there was more meat than any number of people could have hoped to eat. I learned how to make mexican rice. Most people do not mind the taste of aspartame. It is something I simply cannot oblige. I tried not to be rude, and have a sip or two, but golly gee. Nasty stuff.

Tired, and sore. Horray.

A day later. I am a little worried as to how well my body handles red meat. I keep avoiding it on account of Oprah, and every time I do have it I concern myself with how it will come to pass. No issues to report however, indeed I feel better, and slept better than I had in a long time. Rice and meat.

Whooooyeah. Dominion. Alternate victory cards are always worth it. They might seem a little strange at first, but if there are even one or two cards that will help you max out on them, they are a gold mine. I am getting really good at the game, and if i had a dollar to spare, I would pick up another set of cards. I think Hinterland or Intrigue are next on the list. I guess I will have to see how much it costs to fly back to Canada. Gotta get card sleeves for them all as well. There is an online undead theme expansion that I want to copy out, but when i did the math for how much it costs to make my own cards, it came out to around a hundred dollars. Which could get me two full official sets. So I think I may just select out a few cards from it and replace my Chancellors and sticker over the blank cards.

My suitcase has torn itself apart. It did so just as I arrived in Dallas. The only thing that was lost was my ipod. Which makes me believe that some one pocketed it. The rip ran right round the whole zipper, so it is a little beyond repair. Which should make packing to go home an interesting adventure. I might have to ship some things home federal express style. It would be bogus to pay import tax on things i already own. Not sure how that would work.

Oh yeah... camping. The week after spring break I have a chance to go camping with some folks I have gotten to know here. Camping on the Golf of Mexico sounds like a pretty good idea. Maybe I will wait on dominion until I am working again. I hear Mexico can be really nice.

Tall

It seems that people all over the world love Dominion. No one I have ever shown it too wanted to stop playing after the first round. One of my friends here in town was over last night with his girl friend and we played three games. Then he showed up again today on his own for another two games. So it seems to do pretty well no matter where you go, makes me want to get another few sets of cards. Perhaps I will keep an eye on ebay. When i get the internet again.

I almost started playing Diplomacy again, but now that I would have to go to Starbucks for each round it no longer has much appeal. Did not sleep very well last night, well really i did not fall asleep until around ten am and did not wake up until three. Still, now at eleven I am almost ready for bed again. It is a hard life. So I cannot just lay and sleep. My guts need to be cradled a certain way or they start to get really sore. So I am stuck laying in one of two positions all night trying not to upset my torn up guts, which has now started to cause me back pain, as I am always laying on this one part of my back.

On the plus side, this chilli is damn tasty. It has only a soup bone to flavor the protein side of things, as i forgot the beans until it was half done. And beans take a while. So they will wait for some thing else. The corn was cut into five pieces and dropped cob and all into the brew, and will have to be done from now on. It shifts the focus for a while, is very tasty, and way faster than trying to skin it raw. So bonus to corn.

What do you make of this?

Behold, Latin.

After taking a few lessons on European Spanish I realized that I was barking up the wrong tree. I have now corrected my course. It seems to be going pretty well, but i get the impression our Latin American friends just chopped off a few letters from everything in the old Spanish.

Yeahhhhuck.
I ate too quickly. I was pretty hungry, and I guess i should have spent a little more time chewing. It has a noticeable effect. Le sigh. I have now had two people try and tell me that the reason I am sick is because I have not let the Lord into my heart. I really do not know how to deal with such people, as there is no reasoning with them. And they just do not give up. I do not care what you believe, any more than I care if a dog believes its master is the creator. I do not care. But they do. Like I am some sort of cancer that must be corrected lest i spread into their own minds. As if my lack of belief might some how make the world less whole, and their gods less real.

If only I could accept my life as a spiritual path, I would be well. Cured even. Surely it is not that my genetic code simply lacks the programming for the digestive enzymes responsible for digesting gluten. No no, it is a lack of god in my guts that has robbed me of my health, and if i could only see the light I could find my salvation. For god has never struck down any man of faith. Never left any soul in anguish unduly.

In the early 1900 it was believe among some of the intellectuals and philosophers that the religious life in America would not survive the fifties. They postulated that so much progress had been made in casting aside the old beliefs, and in proving the fallacies of the bible that no reasonable person could possibly believe in a omnipotent creator. Well we are hardly a reasonable lot.

I read an article recently on how it is now safer to be a homosexual in Texas than an atheist. Which is good for the homosexuals but rather troubling for we fatalists. Our fate, our reason. That we would deny a power over our lives, and doubt something after would be enough to be alienated us from our communities, and shunned by our own families. They had a good few horror stories in the article, and even as ardent as I am, I must admit I have smiled and played along in my time here. It is not polite to discus such things with people you have only just met, and when there seems to be a good half dozen of them rollicking along. Really? Rollicking is a word. Huh. I guess frolicking was too faggy.

Faggy is not a word. Urban dictionary disagrees. Seems it was used in the opening chapter of Catcher in the Rye. Oh Salinger, you were right. We do not deserve you. I wish i could concentrate long enough to write a book. Or do anything for that matter. Already midnight. What did you do friday? Oh I Stayed at home, ate some Mexican food, got sick and brushed up on my Spanish. Then I trolled around urban dictionary on my phone looking at words to make sure they were words. Because I never really had that great a grasp on English in the first place.

Or what is becoming of it.

What is it with baby boomers never answering a question? After not speaking to the land lady for a few weeks I sent her a text.
-When will you be here?
-I am actually painting my apartment.
-Sooooo march?
-Yup going to send invitations out to my close friends... we will celebrate march 17th i think it is a Saturday. Green day.

It is like they all have a conversation going on in their heads that they expect you to be in on. They understand what they are talking about, why is it confusing you? So I am left to assume she is going to be here a few days before the party she is planning, but I am assuming. Oh well. Old people be old.

And none of us seem to skilled at communicating. How often do you feel understood? How often is it, that you can speak and feel that the person who is listening to you understands what you are saying with out having to explain things over and over. My, is horrible with this, as he will insist to the point of yelling that he understands, often before you get to your point .Then if you ask him to explain the idea back to you, he will relinquish. Only to again insist he understands a moment later.

Not to say that no one understands. People who do are just rare, or perhaps it is just people who understand me are rare. Many people questioned my friendship with Tyler, but when we spoke, we communicated. It was effortless, even though we had vastly different world views, he understood. And i like to think I understood him as well. But you would have to ask him to be the judge of that. Things did fall apart at the end of it all. Like the clothing i wear. Holes grow in everywhere.

Doctor, doctor,
can you help me please,
all these pills and problems,
keep piling down on me.

I would like to go lay down and go to bed. I would like to sleep. But sitting upright, for whatever reason seems to take the pressure off, if only a little. I am still hungry, but do not dare to eat this late in the evening. I am out of hemp hearts, and peanut butter. So my morning smoothy is going to be a little short of meal replacement status. I am so tired of this. Like a prison there is no escape from. No date for dismissal. To sit and wait. To hope that tomorrow will not be as bad as today.

Hope. I hate hope. That it has become an ideal we aspire to is a testament to how weak our race has become. Hope, hope things get better. I do more than hope. Reading these meaningless journals, and search every corner of the internet for answers. Sustained on the dullest diet imaginable, having now cut soy and wheat. If it comes in a bag or a box, i do not eat it. No sugar, aside from berries and fruit. I take yoga classes to balance my mind and body, to steel my will against this nightmare of unending agony.

I have no hope. I have no need of it.
For there is no one to save me, no grace divine that will show me mercy.
I expect no quarter, for this fate, my fate, is of my own making.
It will be what I make of it.

NO CODE

I do not like the way this is progressing. I am in a better place than I was when I first arrived, but better is a long road away from good. Which is just great. My schedule now involves waking up between nine and noon, then going to bed some time between eight and midnight. Then a few hours later waking up in more pain than I can manage to sleep through, so I get up and come complain to you before making my way back to bed. Don't want to hear me complain? Why are you reading my blog?

I come here only to complain. For it is all there is in my mind to do. I understand that there are flee markets in the area that are the size of small neighbourhoods. If I can manage to get a alright deal on a flight for April, i think i am going to look into buying a super Nintendo. I would rather play mario kart than complain to you, i must confess. I am sure there is some benefit to getting this out of my head, but i am not convinced that this is doing anything more than making my pain more articulate.

Ugggh.

I slept last night, and even dreamed. Something I do not do often. It was even a pseudo sexual dream, which makes it stand out even further, as I have had fewer than a dozen such dreams in my life. Which I understand is something strange. I was feeling some what restored when I woke up, and dispite the heavy rain took off to pay rent. I had been waiting for a letter with another check, then I got ill, and then i realized it was getting late in the month. It is not polite to leave these things, even if one is sick. So I found an umbrella and made the five mile round trip. I had to stop twice on the way back to rest.

I am an old man. I have already come to this place where every day life is suffering. And I do suffer under it. I cannot lift my spear as I once did, and this bronze armour is now what cuts at my skin. I am to afraid to yet cast it aside, but to lost to do anything but head further down the tree line. The ocean back to the left of me, the forest ahead to the right. No rest with sleep, no time in relief.

I mean really, all the time? Does it have to be all the time? Can you not take, a few days off and just let me sleep? What would it take for you to just give me, a few days, after all the time in this last year? To sleep, and to dream. To get out from under this armour. To lay aside my spear.

And yet, I have already met some one who wants to open a business with me here. I find it strange that no matter where I go, I find people who want to get me involved in what ever they are working on. A record store, aimed at the hip hop crowd. It would do great do here, there is nothing like it going on. The idea would be shoes, records, paint, and space in the back to have shows. Setting the place up to be able to do it all would be costly, but I get the feeling it would do well. Even if the clientele would likely be well armed.

I was walking down to the library, when in the top left corner of my peripheral vision, I saw eyes. He saw me, and in the typical fashion I locked my gaze with his a rye smile on my face as I walked by when a shock hit me, “Wait! Don't stare at people in their homes! You have no idea if this is some glass head, or what!” I quickly looked away, but the eyes had moved away from the window and the body they belonged too opened the door and took two steps outside. I looked over my shoulder, as he stopped short, then quickly stepped back in through the door of the second story apartment. I did not look over my shoulder again until I was a good block down the road.

At least my brain seems to work working a little better today.

When I first started getting really bad... well no... when... fuck now that I think about it, I have always done little mental tests. Reading signs that I see every day to keep track of my declining vision. Seeing if can make 10,000 in ten minutes in supreme commander. Being able to write. Hardly scientific, but some measure of state. If you practice too much though, you just get good at beating the tests. Which is not the point. The point i have yet to figure out. It just seems to be tracking points on a downward spiral. Perhaps it is best to avoid getting to scientific on this one.

Fuck.

Fuck itty fuck fuck.

I am tired

but this eviscerated feeling will not fade.

Fuck. Fuck it awl.

All i wish. All i pray.

Is here with me. And here it stays.

Answers left in fingers tips,

prostrated for self

a vapid pursuer,

of this last angel,

Death and mercy,

to became one

and the same.

It is easy to be dark and depressing when you are sick with depression, and depressed on account of always being sick. Always being sick. For more than a year now, a year and a month rightly, i have waded in this murky pool. Blaaaah. And all i can feel is tired.

Mexico sounds like a good idea. I hope they take the necessary steps to secure the safety of their people. But first Merica needs to explore some market options for correction of the current drug problem. If it can stop caring about itself for a moment. The Americans will do the right thing, after all of the alternatives have been exhausted.

Twist and shout.

Ron Paul 2012

Oh rite yo.

Blaah.

Last night was not so bad, thanks in no small part to not eating anything yesterday. The two nights proceeding the last where rather uncomfortable in a whole new way. The pain was not intense, but it lasted all fucking night and into the next day. A low unrelenting feeling for two whole fucking nights. So now I feel rather drained as you do not really rest very well when your body has nothing to burn.

I cannot help but feel like I am buying snake oil when I buy probiotics. I understand the concept, I know how they are supposed to work, but the language they use in marketing such an items just set off so many bull shit alarms in my head that it is hard to stomach them. Still relief at this point can come at any cost it wishes to charge me. I am not really in any position to argue.

It has been raining the last three days. Not constantly, but there was a huge clapping thunder storm for a good few hours last night, lighting up the sky in vivid blue. People here will leave there dogs out side day and night, to bark and bark and bark. It does not bother me so much, but I have to wonder about the animals. There are a good number of dog missing posters up in the area, and well, never mind.

Wow. I have nothing to say.

I feel drained and empty.

Ugh.

What a life.

Free Internet

My smoothy does not have enough peanut butter in it. And the addition of cantaloupe did nothing to improve its texture. I think next time I will eat the slices on the side.

I found chocolate without soy in it, and have so far managed not to eat much more than two thirds of a bar per day since this discovery. My budget is very tight and extravagances in the way of things that taste good need to be limited lest i run aground before the end of the month. The peanut butter is helping, but I calculated that I have been spending nearly four dollars a day in hemp hearts for my smoothies. Protein in Texas is not cheap if you are not eating beef. I made collard wraps on Friday and thought that I had made it safely into a nights sleep, only to be rudely awaken just after midnight to what felt like my intestines being ripped in half. The sensation was localized within the newest area of my suffering, a small section that only recently started to give me trouble.

Since this particular kind of pain first started to surface nearly three years ago, it has slowly been extending back up towards my stomach, like a snake taking more and more into its maw. I can feel my sustenance moving into and out of the area, like a hand roughly scratching over an area you forgot had a scab. It is getting better now, better than it was a few months ago, but it can be hard to remember that in the middle of the night with tears streaming down ones face. It can be hard to remember anything.

When last I found myself out of love, I took Socrates advice and enveloped myself in tragedy. Listening over and over again to Romeo and Juliet the point that the whole of the play sat easily within my mind. It was good advice, and the pangs of loss soon left my heart free again to beat to its own rhythm. Now that I find myself in suffering I turn not to Shakespeare but to Nietzsche. That such a man ever lived is enough to bolster my spirits, and return the want for life to my being. I doubt that many people have that reaction to the philologist, thought I know I am not alone in it either.

We have much in common, and to read his story in his own words I cannot help but wonder if he was a celiac himself. His symptoms, and his remedies for these ills ring many bells all too familiar to my ears. The lose of sight, the gastrointestinal difficulties, the aversion to alcohol, and even his brief stint as a vegetarian all indicate that he too may have walked this path. Nietzsche however was ten fold the man that I am, (that is little surprise,) as his dealings with his illness, and the lessons he pulled out of this time far surpass anything I have been able to gain by it. Being ill his whole life seems to be what pushed him to his great heights, where I feel rather crushed by this all.

Bed time.

And I wake. I slept, but awoke exhausted. Drained of energy from the first moment of the day, I stumble out of bed and into the shower. I added more peanut butter to my smoothy and made my way down to Starbucks. I cannot wait to get the internet at the house, I am growing tired of these faces and substandard coffee. I am growing tired of a good many things.

I should have brought my paints. It would have been far more useful to my mind than the luggage i did bring with me. Perhaps I will invest in some water colours. It rained last night. First time in a month. It has dipped down to 11 degrees here for the first time and I found myself in need of pants and a sweater. Oh come on now Wagner, I need some class up in this bitch. It has been three days! Finish downloading. The bandwidth is better than I expected for the price of a coffee, and the plug in powering my little laptop must have cut into the proffit they are making off me, but I have noticed a few people here who do not even bother buying a drink. They just sit, and no one tells them to leave.

My mind is mud. So I go.

Spell check? I do not even proof read.

A man asked me if I knew where the other starbucks was located, and I told him that I did not know. He looked a little taken aback, and then thanked me for my honesty. We live in a world of pride bound liars, unwilling to even consider the possibility that there may be something beyond understanding. You should not have to thank me for my admission of ignorance. I remember when I was just out of highschool I got in an argument with a girl at a party. Suddenly I stopped, “Oh, yeah, no you are correct, I am wrong.” She grabbed me by both shoulders looked me directly in the eye and said, “What did you just say?” Confused, i repeated myself, “You are right?” Over come she thanked me again and again, saying that no one had ever capitulated before, even when they were clearly mistaken.

I do not want to live on this planet any more.

Oh thank the inner light,

Mandala yoga studio will be opening tomorrow.

Though if they are actually teaching any classes is something I have yet to discern. From what I understood of our conversation they do not have a licence to be open from the city just yet. I could hardly get past the spanglish, but I did come to understand that they would be open tomorrow until one. So I think I will just have to poke my head in and see what is going on.

After another close call, I have decided again to forgo the recommendations of my doctors and peers and stick with my fear of prescribed medication. Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors are just too gross to think about, and many of the side effects listed were the symptoms I was hoping to escape. I think I would be better served by simply increasing my intake or precursors, and go back to taking 5HTP.

I got a letter from the city of McAllen asking me to trim the grass in the back alley. At first I was a little put off by such a request, until i went out back and saw what was growing. My first reaction was, “I hope there are no snakes in this grass,” and then I realized why the garbage men and thus the city may object to the long grass. Anything could have been hiding in there, and likely does from time to time.

Ugh. I am unwell. I think it is time for bed.

Few hours later

Well that did not work.

I feel like hell. I think I need to limit myself to eating in the morning. This is not working.

There is a story I had been putting off, for a few years now, but that I started working on recently. It is something I think about a lot, and that once finished is to stand as a final note on this symphony. A final punctuation point at the end of a sentence run on for too long. A way to organize myself, so as to have something to look back on and perhaps find some clarity in it all. Or just find what has always been there.

I doubt I am going to make it to the studio now, they are only going to be open for two hours and even if i fell asleep now I would likely sleep though it. A new month and I am worse than I have ever been. It is clear now that returning to Saskatchewan was a monumental failure of judgement on my part. I thought I was doing poorly when I left Vancouver, but I was in no way ready for the cliff i was about to walk off. Everything got worse, and just kept getting worse.

There are signs that things are getting better, but it is hard to keep that in mind when you are too tired to stand. In too much pain to sleep. No reprieve. No escape. Just that feeling like part of you is being torn from inside of you. Even when it is not there, it is. Even when the hours between are good and the fist loosens itself, it is never for long enough to recover. Just enough to remind you that this may well be hell. Since I arrived, i have had three normal bowel movements. I have slept through fewer than five nights.

They think all of the foxes in the Florida everglades are dead. Possum sightings are down more than ninety five percent. The result of a booming snake population brought in by pet stores, and released into the wild by our fellow man. It is a shame we are such senseless creatures. They tried to ban the import of more snakes, but the pet stores have lobbyists, and managed to have this list of banned animals cut in half. So while a few of the worst offenders are now illegal, you can still have your anaconda if you really would like one.

There are parts of the world where we share the top of the food chain with snakes. The local human population hunts and kills the snakes for food, but they themselves often fall victim to the coils. Some one is eaten by a tiger every other day on average. Mostly honey gathers.

To be so hungry, and so afraid to eat.

To close your eyes, and find to rest.

While time, takes its time.

Unwinding itself slowly.

It is all i can do,

when there is nothing to be done.

But wait. And wait. Knowing the worst will pass.

If you can just wait. Wait a little longer.

And it will all come to pass.

I think this was easier to deal with when I was going mad. It is insanity to sanely sit here. To be awake and aware with a clear mind. Made to realize ever pang, and twinge. With out any hope of an escape, but time. Time to promise its future. Far off in some place, away from here, away from this rotting flesh.

I wonder if I could start a trans-humanism religion. Based on the idea that we are just a middle step on the road to manifesting god, by building ourselves into the gods that aught to be. Capable of infinite life, infinite love and and unparallelled understanding. Unbound by our evolution, our programed desires for reproduction, uncoupled from the will to power, free to see the world, as we want to see it. Casting aside hate and envy. Sloth and pride. No longer motivated by our personal greed, but free to define our own new ideals of life.

The idea that we, as we are now will simply come to be compassionate loving beings is more than a little silly. It would have happened by now if it could happen at all. Not to say that it cannot be within the individual, but we as a people, as the whole of humanity are petty short sighted wretches. We live lives too short to gain any sort of perspective on this place. Our minds calcify far too quickly to learn the lessons that are needed to become the stewards this planet desperately needs. We need to become something more, the over man, further thinking, with a grasp that can see without pride or self satisfaction what this place is. And how best to maintain the life herein.

The early gods, were men. Pharaohs who walked the earth, living and breathing. The early Jews believed that Yahweh was a man, that would one day bring them earthly salvation. For this great experiment to continue, we must re-assume this ideal and allowe ourselves to become these gods. We have to change. Take our future into our own hands, and direct the next generations, imbue them with the power to see beyond the vistas we can only now glimpse. To give them the gifts our natural selection could not afford.

Do not mess with gods work? Do you still have your foreskin? Will you allow your son to keep his?

Or do you already believe that this intelligent design can be improved upon? Well let us see if we can take it to the next level. We are now on the cusp of this potential. To rewrite the whole code. To take this great work that has been building at a rate of about one bit a year, and in the mater of a life time come up with something wholly new. We are innocent enough in our current efforts. Cure the blind, cut the cancer.

What does it mean in the end? It means an end. An end to every single lineage of the human line. It means that every one alive today will soon have no living descendant. This is likely the end result of our great human experiment no matter how you would like to look at it. However it need not be the final punctuation point, but the start of a whole new chapter. A chapter written by the last of humanity to ensure a legacy does move forward. More capable, more understanding. Beyond human, beyond good or evil.

If I could take you, and make you twice as smart, would you still be you? Would you want to be? How much of yourself would you want to keep with you once you could see yourself from the next elevation? If you could forever free yourself from doubt, and understand inside and out, that you know nothing. And be okay with it. Would you keep your petty fears, and willing ignorance, not wanting to lose that which made you human? Or would you gladly cast them aside, and move on to the next vista, too see beyond the shadows of the cave.

I think I could start a religion.

Its too bad my guts hurt.