Evil Doer Guild

The 21 Day Fitness Quest

Posted on February 3, 2012 by

Prologue:
To my friends who are gym rats and naturally talented since birth in such arts as tree climbing and aggressively running down deer then wrestling them for fun. This article is not for you. Rather – if you suffer from, ‘what the hell do I do’ syndrome when looking in the mirror and seeing the body of a heavy reader – this is for you. If you make it through this document it will tell you why you don’t have to kill yourself in the gym and you don’t need to diet – bonus – results.

The 21 Day Challenge
Run and Move While You Can – Don’t Take It For Granted.

I wanted to write this up because it flies in the face of groups like Sparkpeople etc. and its philosophy is based more on medical science and what I learned researching physiology (you all know how I love my research) then any fad book or diet. And, I realistically think anyone could follow such a plan.

You either pick 4 day challenges or 21 day challenges but not — lets jump on the train for the whole year set up a series of failures that may give a promising loss of a pound or two only to be gained back and nothing but failure gleaned from the situation. After completing a challenge, set another 21 day goal – be sure to track your progress.

I chose 21 days because, supposedly, it takes that long to form a habit. I have the body of a heavy reader. Unlike my fit freak friends, I can sit at a computer for fourteen hours figuring out niggling challenges or working on a singular project without barely moving a muscle – hungry? Cookie. I never thought of my turtleness as a gift until my more bouncy friends revealed that they could never do my job or want to – not in a million years. I found their constant need to fit a wide variety of crazy activity into their lifestyle like a marathon of adrenaline roller coaster. How does one stop to ponder the philosophy of life and the grace of idleness like that? I digress….ANYWAY…if you lack that adrenaline soaked hyper Red Bull fueled manic need to DO IT ALL, and work out (although, from observation they don’t really make athletes because that requires a great deal of focus and calm commitment…), here is what I personally do.

Shows like Thintervention and Biggest Loser are designed for QUICK results by smashing it as hard as humanly possible in the gym. Most athletes don’t work like this (they work out hard but they’re trained…) and for good reason. Smashing it creates Cortisol a stress hormone. Your body can’t tell one kind of stress from another. Stress generally either makes creatures lose weight or gain. If you COULD keep up the constant stress of extreme dieting with smashing it at the gym you wind up like Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser with a burned out thyroid and a host of other adrenaline gland issues (source: her book where she revealed that for the show she kept up a 1200 calorie a day regime fed mostly by power bars).

I have known a few larger ladies go in, smash it at the gym and immediately get hurt. Having a hundred extra pounds on your body, muscles that are soft and then exerting them like you’re running from the hounds of hell = traumatic injuries = not going to the gym anymore = extra weight gain.

If I work out at home, I never get to it. I get an e-mail from a customer, the phone rings, the laundry buzzes, the cat requires immediate attention and I put it off over and over again until the day ends. I can’t work out at home, it doesn’t work for me. But, it does for a lot of people so not saying it’s bad. Although many assume the convenience will work in their favor only to find it doesn’t. So if it doesn’t, don’t feel bad.

The first four days you have to force yourself to do it and you have to know what you’re going to do in advance and you have to do it for a long enough time it sticks. That’s at least 60 minutes. No, “okay I think I’m done, I did alright walking that mile.” No.

On the other spectrum of my hyper, often anorexic gym buddies are the slow plodding, never there for more then 30 minute and always overweight crowd. The often slouch up against a machine and conversate. They always have a diet to go along with their routine. I never see them again so not sure if it works. They don’t need to smash it, but they do need to MOVE.

Walking that mile a day (wow, so many people do that) works – if you’ve been very ill or are very old. I walk a mile in the grocery store wandering the isles aimlessly.

So in the middle is a common sense level of exercise that should start out slowly and build and progress. It should not lead to injury or excess. It should not make a person feel like they are never doing enough. You should be darn comfortable but still breaking some sweat. If you are stressing out beyond what a normal threshold would be (like housework, washing the car etc.) it’s most likely too much. It should feel like labor not death chasing you.

To get back into running shape I brought a book with me and my iPod. Yup a book. And I walked, but I walked for a full hour. It wasn’t too big of a deal, had a couple of blisters. Always good to get blisters out of the way before you do anything real. Everyday I walk for an hour or walk and do elliptical both for 30 minutes but an hour is non-negotiable. (Unless the kids call etc. emergencies) Two days a week I seriously do weights, 30 minutes each time and then put in my hour of what I might call, ‘non-cardio’. One can walk fast, up hill, long distances etc.

Monday and Friday are my running days. Because I am a runner. I’ve run for four years so I have the muscles for it they just have to wake up when the season hits. So currently for my hour I’m up to: I run a half mile, I walk a half mile. But you know, I don’t have to kill myself to do so, and neither do you. I fully expect to run 10K’s this spring and be fully prepared. Next week I’ll tack on an extra quarter mile to my trek. But you have to walk, and walk a lot before you can jog and run. The quads have to build (they hold your knees, a lot of people think and say ‘I have week knees’ when actually their quads are not strong enough to hold their knees properly when they walk and run. Build those muscles and no more knee issues.)

Worse I hate people saying, “I have to have arch support” – do they? If I wore arch supports all the time my arches wouldn’t be strong enough to support my run.

For example – I talked to a runner – really skinny girl. At least 50lbs lighter then myself and a pretty good runner. I asked her what her 10k time was. She had never completed a 10K without injury. She wore heavy sneakers. Maybe it wasn’t the shoes – but since her injuries all had to do with her feet…

Read, “Born to Run” – it gives a lot of insights into the world of running and shoes.

Time

Okay – everyone says, “I don’t have time to work out”. You do. Really. It just takes figuring out. Last time I whined my husband told me to solve it. So I ended up getting up super early so I could drive him to work so I could hit the gym on the way home.

I worked out through each of my full time jobs. About the only time I’ve found no way to work out was when I was depressed. There are so many options now days – even dancing in the living room, surely there is something…

When you start to work out someone pushes a diet on you.

I hate diets.

After walking for an hour everyday and working really hard on your body and having to stare at it in large gym mirrors one usually finds that ice cream and chocolate donuts don’t have the same appeal. The body demands protein and it demands you start eating fruit and vegetables with enough force that automatically the diet begins to bend and change.

If you watch every calorie, track it every minute of every day – not only does this neglect that not all calories are handled the same by the body (source: Berkley nutrition course) but it is the fast track to an eating disorder and OCD. I got there. I was so paranoid about everything I ate that I didn’t want to eat anything. I ate artificial sweeteners (very bad idea) and power bars.

Finally: Genetics. I can run, workout all the time and I’m still frumpy around the edges. No spandex for me, I look like Mom and Grandma and I’m close to 40. If you don’t love yourself at a size 16 you won’t at a size 10 – some people don’t change appearance much just from wider to not so wide. Self acceptance has to happen, and happen completely before you ever enter a gym or start any sort of program. Happiness doesn’t come from either fit or thin.

I gain weight in the winter because I get depressed. I eat a lot of comfort dopamine releasing foods. I do it to myself each year. But, spring peaks out and I start thinking about the 5K’s I’m going to run and this year the 10K’s – decided to skip the 5K’s this time around. And I think about all the challenges I over came last time to kick ass. I ran in barefoot shoes over gravel for three miles in 33 minutes – and oh, it was 31 degrees out and I was in shorts. I ran on the beach with no shoes at all for two miles when it was 30 splashing through puddles and just kept going. It’s those wonderful moments of feeling like a total Valkyrie that puts a smile on my face when I go into the gym to train. I always wonder – will I be able to do it this year? (btw – when I look in the mirror, I think I always look far too fat to run, and I am rather large as a runner, 162lbs, so if I can do it – you can to!)

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Gamers Rule – Here is Why

Posted on October 19, 2011 by

I watched a re-run of “King of the Hill” last night about the addictive dangers of Gaming including obsessiveness, weight gain and nerdiness. At the end of the show Peggy Hill kills the computer and exclaims, “I married a man NOT a gamer!” The show absolutely slams gamers.

I found this interesting because had this been made twenty years earlier it could have been about the dangers of kids and people in general watching too much television which was eroding morality, causing people to get fat, and be obsessive.

And at one point in the past, someone had to warn about the dangers of reading fiction. In fact my Dungeons and Dragons books were confiscated in 8th grade as being unhealthy. When the printing press took off there was undoubtedly a back lash of fear that people would read scandalous unhealthy books, sit on their butts reading them too much and obsessively read to the end.

The interesting part is that the human race has not noticed that, in my educated opinion, the dissemination of information and the social bonds that creates is the chief reason for humanities progress. Without it we would be dead in the water. There is nothing more powerful then mass communication. (Maybe Halo?)

From scary Internet and scarier computers at least progress has marched ahead against a small wave of utter stupidity but only because deep down inside we’re a social species who cling to communication as part of our most basic primal programming.

Just my reactionary commentary to the ‘deep’ show King of the Hill.

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Dear Lao Tzu

Posted on September 8, 2011 by

The Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

I have decided to become a Taoist so am studying your work. I always thought it was a crock of shit, like, “you must run before you can walk” or “the weakest of the people are the strongest.” You know, that one wise sage who every damn thing he says contradicts itself until you get annoyed.

But I needed a religion and I wanted to go Eastern because I’ve exhausted my reasonability about Western religions, they’re too new, too packaged, too marketed and make me feel green around the gills.

So I am working on getting through a book on the Tao, The Way — pretty good concept the way. I lost mine, so having a book on it – all the better. But I have a few questions for you Lao Tzu.

The wise man, the pure man — the person who has not head up ass – despises weapons of all sort, despises violence. Violence goes against natural order. What verse is this? Well I don’t remember what verse, and it’s some Dyer guys interp anyway.

So I wonder, what about the violence we do to the land, the sky, the animals we kill and eat, the bugs when we plow the earth. Violence doesn’t seem to be outside of the way but an integral part of it – even if we don’t want it to be. Even war might be – I don’t like it. I’m a peace lovin’ , tree huggin’ total West-Coast liberal hippy….but might war be a good way to cull those who do like killing shit?

That’s my question Lao Tzu.

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Bring Me Up – Take Me Down – Senses

Posted on July 31, 2011 by

I think we take our five senses for granted.

Reminds me of a popular Jedi Sanctuary post called, “are you living in your head?” Most people are, in their dramas and wells of to-do lists. Mindfulness, yeah – okay. We all love it (well, if you’re into the self-improvement evolution). MINDFULNESS. Forget mindfulness, this isn’t about mindfulness k? Really. If you don’t know it, Google that shit.

A faceless person wrote into a forum I read. ”I’m on all kinds of medication for my manic bipolar and ADHD. I drink coffee all day long and my doctor says that’s a potential problem. She wants me to cut out all stimulants she says. Is this even for real? How could that possibly be effecting my manic episodes.”

Geesh. Idiot. Ya’ think? So she uses stims all day long and then takes shit to drop her down. Seroquel vs. Stims. Can stimulants cause excitability? Can sleeping pills cause you to sleep? Man people are stupid.

Okay – the point.

For years I’ve suffered with Meniere’s disease. Which may have started when the doctor thought it was a good idea to remove wax with blasting my ear with high pressured water over an extended period. After that I started getting dizzy to the point of falling. I’m really young to have Meniere’s. (Like cow manure). Sometimes I just have to hold onto my kids’ shoulder or my husband or touch stuff to stay upright. And sometimes the floor does this wavy gravy thing and I’m not sure if I’ve fallen yet or if I’m going to. Just going to love it past my 30′s.

What I hadn’t realized however, that possibly because of the Meniere’s or maybe forever I had hypersensitivity to sound.

The five senses have a direct fiber optic line into your brain. Instant ‘you need to know this’. So, when I worked in a library I was okay. When they set my computer in the lobby beside the coffee pot and secretary where the noise level sometimes prevented me from either hearing my phone calls or responding to them, my brain broke.

Like the stimulant vs. downer scenario – I was trying to do subtle and quiet work carefully threading servers, code, images and macros together to work efficiently and beautifully while all hell was going on around me, a stimulant nightmare.

In a stimulant nightmare the body responds with natural downers. I couldn’t concentrate, I was tired all the time – so I started drinking 24oz. Pepsi’s and popping Green Tea pills. I piled on weight despite working out and going without food.

When you’re in a quiet uneventful environment – then what? For me, I become increasingly creative. My best writing, illustrations and thinking is typically done when I am quite bored.

For some people all five senses get hit all the time and they end up really sick. Everyone goes on about “Coritisol levels’ creating fat sick individuals and they allude to stress, bad diet and lack of exercise. But stress is generally categorized as emotional up-heavel. The spouses bad decision to buy that monstrously huge boat. 14 hour days and corporate marathon meetings. The son who is growing pot plants in your beloved green house – that sort of stress. The “living in the fast lane in modern America” stress.

But – listening to your iPod can be highly stressful. You’re blasting music into your brain at different beats and analog waves. I like it. But I like caffeine and most people whether they will admit it or not like stimulants and that iPod, the computer, the tv, and all the noise in your life is a stimulant. My iPod really screws with my brain, but I didn’t realize it, and why? Because everything in the world wrong is caused by bad diet, stress and lack of exercise. I never thought in my wildest imaginative weirdness that listening to my iPod for an hour long work out could leave me frazzled and my brain fuzzed out all day long. It can and does.

When I start sinking into depression I can grab a cup of coffee. When I am in a mixed mood anxious and pretty stinking awful state a beer usually clears it up. Downers and uppers, uppers and downers. Anything that makes your senses dull or tingle.

We put arbitrary divisions on it all right now, but if, in wonderful mindfulness one starts to step back and look at the big picture one realizes that stimulation is stimulation (why does exercise help depression? Why do people jump out of airplanes or go on exotic cruises..?) Why is it some weekends we may just want to stay home in bed and watch Star Trek marathon style and not get out of the jams.

There is a balance there. The body expects stims and downers – but we subject it to all kinds of crap – an assault on all five senses at times of all stims, it tries to bring us down but we fight it with artificial stims like caffeine etc. and then when we can’t sleep because of all that put it to sleep with tranquilizers.

So the trick? Well – there is no trick. Just avoid all the shit I just mentioned.

excellent.

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Schizophrania and EMF fields – aluminum cap aside…

Posted on July 23, 2011 by

Since the early 20th century electro-shock therapy has been used on patients to reverse and control symptoms of psychosis and ‘madness’.

Shock therapy is still used today and still reportedly effective, although more humanely administered.

Stanford study lists that immigrants from Mexico have a sharp increase in mental illness when arriving in this country, and that level within a generation is the same as the national average.

Many countries have below average mental health issues. Scientist contribute this to family structure. These studies are done by outside American Universities.

Within the “hippie” culture, grounding beds against EMF and laying down copper in a certain pattern within offices and places of rest are trendy – and from experience effective. Negative ionization devices were popular sellers at one time (I used one in my computer lab while people would test.)

In a quiet house you hear no noise. When the electricity goes out in a neighborhood an uncanny and unfamiliar silence ensues – true quiet. It’s always startling because I never knew there was noise – and then there is REAL quiet.

Schizophrenics and people with mental illness often complain of ‘brain static’, ‘voices’, have psychotic episodes and notably the infamous aluminum foil or, even recently I saw – a football helmet to supposedly help shield them from, “thoughts put into their head by the government”, “the noise”, “keep people from reading their thoughts”, “Keep demons (supernatural) entering their head.”

EMF, Electromagnetic Field.

It is interesting to me that people scoff openly and ridicule schizophrenics and the serious mentally ill for their aluminum caps and sensitivity they report to EMF. Almost all serious mental illness studies of any sort have been done on genetic linkage, which is doubtlessly true in most cases, but could EMF have an effect on the brain? If shock therapy works (and small shocks applied with a device have shown to help in Parkinson’s…and Pacemaker anyone?) then why dismiss EMF?

Why hasn’t the EMF field been seriously considered as a cause for mental illness all across developed countries?

If a society, like ours, relies on electricity at its core fundamental existence, but it is found that in such abundance and in its present form it is unsafe – would anyone even study that let alone put their professional credentials up against the population who uses electricity every second of every day let alone corporate giants? Or would, instead, they realize the futile effort and how paranoid they would sound – even labelled as ‘crazy.’ Electricity is a fundamental of society that is not and should not be questioned because without it we die.

Another staple that can’t be questioned – corn. From 20 bushels an acre to 200 an acre, the green revolution boosted the population of the entire planet and is responsible for feeding the world. Want to stop Monsanto? Expect people to die. Five major food corporations control the food supply on this planet. A little creepy isn’t it? Have pets? They’re probably eating corn. How many days a week do you go corn free? It takes a lot of effort, like living without electricity. But people start to wonder – is all this corn really that great for us….it’s a LOT of corn.

And wait, no food is natural food anymore is it? All the corn was hybridized and created more or less, as were our chickens and even cows. Like one farmer said to me, “no one knows anymore what the heck a REAL chicken would look like, let alone taste like.” — But I still eat them.

It’s really hard to test out and find if the synthetic lives that provide food and shelter for an overpopulated planet may be responsible for a whole host of illnesses that effect mood and brain function.

If from 500 year old bones they can tell the diet of the person from the make up of minerals….what we eat is important. From the cellphone to constant bombardment of electricity – important, but all we do know about either subject in a reliable manner comes from less then reliable sources. My usual read comes from someone pushing a book and sounds wildly alarmist with the source of every problem coming from Gluten, or Corn, or Cellphones, or Contagious Memes, EMF, etc. etc. Alarmist are abundant and typical specialize in fear – but it’s a tired bit of PR – the media uses it to such an extent and scale that one lone alarmist has a tough time in the fear waters.

I’m not committing myself to any strange books or theories, just a few questions. Why do so many mentally ill contend that EMF causes issues for them, from the barely depressed to full on psychotic? Why is it so very quiet when the electricity is turned off? Why is it when you go into a green house or put a fountain into a room it instantly feels just a lot better? My best friend is a masseuse, when I went into her office I remarked – WOW – holy goats, how did you do it? This room is the quietest and most peaceful place I have ever entered. Wow. — She revealed the copper stripping on the floor. EMF’d diminished.

There are probably amazing and better questions out there. And maybe it’s all the little observations made by many that one should be looking at. Reasonable observations.

Just the, “I hope this is deep” thought of the day.

As a question to you all – if you’ve read this far. If you think you’re an EMF sensitive then put any sort of ways you combat it, plants, water fountain, copper, magnets — BIG wolf in front of your door wearing garlic — whatever it is. I would be most interested to hear.

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Obi Wan Kenobi – phonin’ it in and fakin’ it.

Posted on July 20, 2011 by

Today while making salad this thought came to me. Obi Wan faked his own death in his fight with Darth Vadar because he was just sick of that shit. It really should be obvious, but here is how it spins out in a historical sense. Let’s start with some quotes.

Obi Wan Kenobi says to Darth Vadar, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” We’ll go back to this one.

And we know from Qui Gon, “You’ve been a good apprentice, Obi-Wan; and you’re a much wiser man than I am. I foresee you will become a great Jedi Knight.” Smarter then Qui Gon – check.

From Yoda we know, “Qui-Gon’s defiance, I sense in you. Need that, you do not.” Jedi Order trying to repress Obi Wan like any unquestioning religion full of dogma. For his devotion….

Obi Wan Kenobi was left on a desert rock as a recluse not allowed to have sex or any sort of FUN for most of his adult life. He wasn’t given any important Jedi missions. No one from the Jedi council wrote. No one said, “hey there is a great Jedi” – they were like, crazy old geezer. Did Obi Wan just stopped having any decent skills? Didn’t the Jedi have something like a protecto droid, or surveillance cameras maybe? What about a damn forcefield. But he has to live several miles away even and doesn’t have a car, so if trouble arose, that old guy better have a good sprint, maybe a six minute mile time but still even at a sub 20 5K speed he wouldn’t truly make it there in time to do shit, and how would he know if something terrible was happening? I digress. Lets just say Obi Wan was just fucked over.

He had dreamed of Padme of course – thought he had that sewed up. He thought a lot about that in the desert crap hole he lived in. She was freakin’ hot. He was a Jedi Master, mature, buff, confident and had that smile for her – and even a braid at one point – SEXY. Did she notice? NO. She went for that stupid ass kid. ANAKIN? Are you serious? Then worse she gets pregnant. He had hoped he could be the rebound boy when that relationship inevitably came to an end. But no worries, like a good Jedi he looked on the bright side – the universe is full of hot chicks – surely.

Then she has twins and they decide he should spend his days stuck on a dusty rock protecting the kid from…his father. Great. Not even his kid, just a squirt of a reminder of his failure. It wasn’t even his choice to train Anakin. Actually he never liked him, never got along with him and thought – personally he was ugly. What did Padme see in him? He was CREEPY. Luckily he had about 20 snapshots of her in his trunk that had kept in through many a lonely day – albeit nursing a true thorn in his side. A pissed off streak that he tried to Jedi away but lingered on.

Obi Wan was generally sure the Anakin would turn to the dark side any minute and fuck him up.

Obi Wan - Definitely Better Looking.

There was no loyalty in someone as vain and stupid as Anakin.

The Jedi Council was desperate though. ”We’re running out of Jedi.” So they thought to sequester hopefuls around Yoda and take anyone they could get. It was how Qui Gon, the very imperfect Jedi and Obi Wan had come to be in the order. For the order NOT to want Anakin was testament enough that he was a turd of the highest order.

The day Obi Wan killed Anakin was just a dismal predictable conclusion that Obi Wan had to sigh and have a few shots of whiskey over. Damn Anakin however had worn his asbestos Jedi Robes that day and defied the intense temperatures required to create molton rock. Maybe rocks on that planet had a low melting point, like that of milk chocolate. He had managed to kill Padme – what a fuck up. He should have killed Anakin a lot earlier.

Obi Wan’s life was a dismal, bitter, angry existence that was covered in a frosting of Jedi meditation and peace that he tried to hide his growing mental illness that was from having his true state of being waring in side with his indoctrination with the Jedi.

When he started, at a late age, to go into Mos Eisley he found the dancing girls of Bri and at first was disgusted but found himself drinking and hanging out there in disgust every weekend until, well – fuck that Jedi shit. He used cool little Jedi tricks to charm and wine and dine girls of his choice. What he had been missing. The Jedi order had cost him his youth. He imagined what kind of fun he could have had if he had been allowed his 20′s.

When it was time to leave with Luke he thought about turning the boy down completely, but you know, he had a lot of built up disgust and hate by that point for the entire Jedi way of life – and watching that miserable kid (Obi Wan doesn’t like children of any sort) was not just an irritant but constant reminder of Padme getting knocked up and insult to injury he got to babysit the result. Remember by this point he had stopped choking down the Jedi way as “righteous”, stopped accepting that what he was doing as the only option and the best option for his life, and after discovering sex was really frickin’ pissed.

So he said – sure Luke, lets go do this thing. Because he knew Luke would go be a Jedi and join him in his fate. He set Luke up to go through the same bullshit he had gone through – and that was his sweet, sweet revenge. HA. Screw you Anakin. Okay, so Obi Wan was vindictive. Yoda and Qui Gon knew that – but you know – overlooked it.

Obi Wan was smarter then Luke. When learned that Darth Vadar was Anakin and he was now some kind of super mechanical transformer robot dude – he was like, shit, I’m an old dude. This guy is mostly machine and machines are super powerful. For a long time Obi Wan really thought about fighting him. Find that battery pack and unplug ol’ Darthie boy and he would be stuck hurling insults.

But no, it was savory to think of Anakin/Darth Vadar finding out that he had been a dysfunctional absentee father and that his son was a goodie goodie Jedi wanna be. It would be Darth’s greatest face-palm moment. A shame that would run deep and remind him how he had screwed things up so bad with Padme and how his mechanical parts hadn’t included ‘everything’. Suck.

So Obi Wan, we have established was both bitter and smarter then Qui Gon Jin. He had seen Qui Gon speared through with a lightsaber in a short duel with a Sith that had ‘the moves’ – Obi Wan had always wondered – why don’t I know how to do that fancy shit? I just hold up my saber and wave it around.

I digress – so the story goes, Obi Wan setup the disappearing act. Honestly by that point in the story he let go of his bitterness and hate. Once off the planet he realized that he had just needed to get the dust out of his teeth and having his whole life and a thousand possible choices ahead of him was stimulating, inviting and he couldn’t wait to finally LIVE. No more old crappy Jedi ways. It was time for Obi Wan to get out of the cave, for good.

Obi Wan knew he was going to have to fight Darth Vadar. It was inevitable, but he didn’t want to. Hell – mechanical man vs. old dude who was out of practice to say the least?

Obi Wan returns to his life letting go of his bitter past.

Seriously? So Obi Wan faked it, he used a hologram beamed in from a local ship. Darth, he knew, could sense his presence so he had to be close by and the beam strong enough to be convincing.

Notice how he said, “if you strike me down I’ll be more powerful then you ever imagined” – well, in the movies did he ever cash in on that? Did he ever block Darth at all? Did he stop the needless deaths of so many innocents? NO. Darth, had in fact been around dying Jedi and they didn’t just dissolve into thin air but Obi Wan knew that Darth/Anakin was gullible and prone to the power of suggestion. He was just fucking with Darth, making Darth jump at shadows, wonder — when is Obi Wan going to show back up as super powerful? I wonder if he’ll be a zombie, or a ghost, or just Force kick my butt. He had it in the back of his mind constantly, obsessively per usual, and that gave Obi Wan a smile everyday for the rest of his long life.

See Obi Wan took off in a stolen ship and never looked back. He started a new life, used his Jedi powers whenever it came in handy. I know of his continued adventures and new life – his regeneration on Sigmus Prime that gave him a taste of youth again and a chance to start over, his exploits as an archeologist that turned him into a renegade running for his life, and also the time he couldn’t find a toilet on Caspian prime where the inhabitants internally recycled their waste, oh’ how Obi Wan laughed in bars at that story.

Toward the end a demoralized Vadar died, “My imperial stormtroopers might do a lot of

Darth Rethinks his Life

shooting, but they almost always miss. It’s YOU rebel people who are actually doing a lot of injuring and killing. Screw me for trying to bring peace and order to the Universe!”

The End.

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The Philosophy Trap

Posted on July 2, 2011 by

I was once a Jedi – a group dedicated to self-improvement.

The many people self-absorbed into the world of Anthony Robbins, Jedi and Oprah are trying to shore up the holes in the ship.

Sometimes we’re lucky and it gives us a new way of looking at the world or something we had not thought of before. Maybe it’s necessary for wisdom and higher order thinking. But for those who pervasively seek self-help it’s because they usually are facing a Goliath in their life that if they were just a little bit stronger….they would be okay. That their inability to cope, succeed or deal with a chaotic life stems from a misfortune in their personal training and discipline.

This focus on – God what’s wrong with me – forgoes something really important…what is wrong with this fucking situation?

It’s like thinking there is luck and alchemy behind every situation and business transaction and ignoring stable predictables like accounting.

Interpreting tea leaves is still in vogue and always will be as people take on too much in a too confusing world and are stressed to the max. Sometimes it’s all that will shore up the holes unless hard and painful decisions get made.

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Pervasive Anarchy

Posted on June 27, 2011 by

There is a meme where authority is defied and cannot do anything about it, where chaos is let out of the box with a dollop of hedonism balanced with genius. It relies of course on madness and absurdity but in both is a seedling of truth that rests ever ready for rebellion – a pervasive anarchy.

What was it long ago? Was it the swing kids? The free riders and Hells angels, was it the street gangs, the skaters — all heralding chaos and the suspension of morality of the whole for the morality of the self or of the group — which may break down to none at all.

I read a great book recently called, The Church of Anonymous, which is about an anarchist online group that lacks structure yet like a pool of fish moves in the same direction. There are many layers to the book as it delves into the personalities and motivations to be part of revolution, chaos and absurdity.

This pervasive anarchy feeds on those who feel like they have no voice, no power, that their personal decisions are reliant upon a set of expectations provided by church, state and family. Church of the Anonymous is explosively powerful because instead of having to wear an identity as a ‘Hell’s Angel’ or ‘Skater’ — it allows the person to be just as faceless, mundane, victimized, and ignored as before just with a little secret that on the side when no one is looking they wield as much power as their intellect can provide for them.

And in my time as an admin for groups on the net I’ve noticed it doesn’t take much to lead a group. Passion, however has the most of it rises to the top. Whoever wants it the most or needs it the most. Those with the shittiest lives survive through the anarchist act of at least online releasing the chains to bullshit – a luxury usually reserved for the very wealthy, artists and the insane. (Often those three are mixed….)

So the gift of the Internet really is this outlet for the population to indulge in worlds and communities that they never have the ability to in the ‘real world’ and in many ways the net becomes their real world with real life friends and real life out comes.

Everyday the privacy and the censorship of the net increases. I’ve been kicked off search engines for discussing unpopular topics in my forums and the search filtering now makes sure you see only what the algorithms want you to see. They preach that online piracy is worse then killing babies and try to convince the masses that it is the worst medium only useful for sharing documents and kind e-mails with family.

Churches warn that pornographic addiction happens because of the Internet. Any husband caught looking at porn – well it was because of the Internet baby….yeah….so there it is. One giant anarchist hub that most of us belong to even without Anonymous.

Long live pervasive anarchy – it is what keeps us free in a world of patriot acts, torture and the silent dissolution of the economy base.

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Supernatural Ghost Week

Posted on May 22, 2011 by

So I had a vision where I was so normal. I mean upper class soccer mom kind of normal. The state of normal and lofty heights that a girl from a trailer park can’t quite fathom. I put on my t-shirt and jeans and looked in the mirror. I almost looked normal. Holy goats.

The days that preluded Friday got weirder in a thousand tiny little ways that added up. First I had an overwhelming urge to go cut lilacs off the shrub – next door. Just hit me. I NEED ME LILACS! As I arranged them in a vase I thought – these were Mom’s favorite.

I realized I needed to put up a couple of photographs of my kids as babies. I went up to the attic to find their photos and found a pic of my Mom. I decided to have it framed up with the photos of the kids.

My chicken needed defrosted. No problem, I just ran a sink of cold water and tossed the package in. I had never done that before but Mom always did.

Next morning my husband said, ‘I had the strangest dream your Mom came to talk to me and she lived in a house directly across from ours and she was always watching the kids for us.’ He took it as a literal of course but I got the message and also knew why I hadn’t dreamed it. I start to cry whenever I think of Mom.

At the ocean an osprey hovered at my head – gorgeous. Everything seemed to talk to me and I felt a really amazing sort of catharsis and started thinking about those little things I normally don’t like to ever think about like who am I? Really? I’m all those people I knew growing up, all my relatives and even those I didn’t know – all in the genes I have – I’m not much more then a re-blend. Better or worse, there it is. 5% is me left holding the reigns of a brain full of opinions and personalities.

I knew it as soon as I got to know my cousins and we had such similar habits, ideas, wounds, not to mention we look so much alike. Shared DNA is a powerful thing whether I like it or not.

So as I lay on the beach I realized that my Mom didn’t want my help. I had helped her my entire life as much as I could and I was the one person she didn’t want help from or to burden, she wanted to help me. And I couldn’t understand that in life and I don’t understand it after death either.

I don’t listen to people enough I realized. I had all the voices and personalities of everyone I had been related to bottled up inside but had never listened to what they had to say just screamed in my head for as long as I can remember “shut up!” The noise, oh the noise.

So as I tidied up the attic I found my Mom’s obituary and it was the anniversary of her death. I had refused to memorize the day. REFUSED. I didn’t want to know it, not ever. I knew her birthday, I never wanted to remember the day she died. Who wants to be remembered for that? It has been Seven years.

I’m Seven – I’m Seven because growing up that number was sacred. It’s the number of God, the divine, the lucky and the protected. Seven is the number you always pick if you want to ward against evil and bad luck. Hunters is for staying attuned to the environment, aware and distrustful – it is the black card.

Both Mom and I could read just about any deck of cards put in front of us. We knew our runes, we knew portents and auras and just about anything supernatural. It was the old ways and something that carried over in the family. I don’t think even my husband knows that. After awhile in the academic community you don’t tell people – I can interpret dreams like nobodies business, have psychic dreams regularly and can read cards. yeeeeah….anyway…

After Mom died she didn’t come back as a ghost.

My Grandma, she was crying — “She should have been back by now, you know she should have. She knew the way, she wouldn’t be gone this long.”

It took about three months, not sure why so long. After her AND Grandma died, well, Grandma went to peace, she was tired but Mom has stayed on but at a distance watching. I guess I always knew that.

At the end of the experience I was walking back home around sundown. And the old military Victorian homes lined up properly their chimneys proud. The trees were gorgeous, there was a bald eagle in the sky and if I listened hard enough I probably could hear some surf.

It struck me that as a kid I had often described such scenes to my Mom and said — that’s the kind of house I want to live in! I want BIG trees, and I need hills around me….and I was looking at it, had been for awhile. And then I counted up how many coincidences and chances had to add up for me to arrive at such an unlikely location thousands of miles away and I had to wonder if she had known. If she hadn’t sorta helped me all along or at least tried to.

Seven years.

She knew for a fact I would find meaning in that.

Everything is a bit beyond us humans so I have had to settle for, ‘will never understand’ a lot lately but substitute, ‘will listen’ . Since listening I’ve felt a lot more normal in a strange accepting the absurd kinda way, which shouldn’t be relieving yet was…My head feels quieter and I’m just a lot more peaceful. I heard a lot of what I needed to hear last week and that is rare indeed.

Her photo hangs on my wall now as do the photos of my kids as babies. It’s kinda my way of saying, “I will always, always love you.”

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Started With the End of the World

Posted on May 22, 2011 by

Nothing like the end of the world to get everyone snickering about religion. It was 10am on Friday the 20th when a Jehova’s Witness knocked on my door and her and I were laughing in no time about how it really was probably too late – the world was ending. By the time anyone reads this – well, there was a crazy religious Y2K meme started by someone another that added up some numbers Nostradomus style and said today- the 21st was IT. Goodbye cruel world.

Later in the day I was talking to a Later Day Saint and we had a cool conversation about religion.

It made me start thinking about how much I detest Christianity after growing up in the south where it’s used as a shield to justify bullying, abuse and humiliation in Gods name. Communities are built off of, “if you’re not with us your agin’ us” and the first precept of God is — DO NOT QUESTION. So the man behind the curtain telling everyone there is a satanic cult in the town with a church on every corner doesn’t get questioned. It’s not God’s word that you’re not supposed to question – it’s someone’s interpretation. A God head.

But out here on the West Coast — I try to explain Christianity to Christians and they’re baffled. Man oh man — I got asked by a Christian…”why do Southern people go on about getting saved? What is that?” Wow.

In the south you meet someone and it was, “where do you go to church? Have you been saved? How many times?”

So many times I felt like I was standing up against inevitability shouting at the ocean – “STOP, you can’t do this. You’re hurting loads of people!”

But, talking to Christians this week about the world ending made me start seeing things in a different light. I lived in a culture that valued trailer homes and wood paneling despite being located in a place called “tornado valley”. It wasn’t just the faith that was screwed up, it was small minded, small town, going no where fast sort of places.

Some mornings at 5am I would go out, summertime, a nice balmy 80 degrees already and sit on the fence and watch the meadowlark call in the morning and there was prairie and shrubby trees and you felt like part of the sky. Everything flowed, everything was in harmony and I could feel those grasshoppers as they buzzed from one blade of grass to the next and what the weather would be by the sweat on my forehead. I wistfully dreamed every second of every day of fantastic places far far away.

After awhile, like a hurt animal, you see everyone as a potential threat. As only looking out for themselves. Watching for weakness. Ready to take advantage of any situation. There is no help, because anyone you might ask for help would, in a heart beat, set you up in ways you just didn’t want to imagine.

I wonder though – I’m pretty sure everyone in that myopic bubble saw things pretty much that way too, they did what came naturally. I wanted to get away and be as different as I possibly could be.

I didn’t have a voice, so when I went off to college and I started a new life, I swear I started to scream, “I’m NOT LIKE YOU.” And it showed.

I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t stand up against something immoral that it counted as if I was for it. BUT — then started to see that simplifying anything into little nuggets of morality was impossible. I just was Rene Descartes all messed up in the head. No dichotomy thinking.

But then the nation was swept over by propaganda techniques perfected by Edward Bernays. Holy Goats if no one was using their heads. At last I just have to give it up that smarter people will in a very precise way point out all the who, what, why, how that it’s not a good idea to buy into spin — but that person isn’t me. Maybe when people just won’t ask…uh, why couldn’t we find a big mansion? Why did we kill Hussein? Why did we go to Afghanistan again? Why are we allied with the Saudis when most of them were the hijackers? Why would a big family like Bin Laden’s want him tossed off a boat? Why would a guy with renal failure go hide in a desert? Where did he get his money? Why is his death good – did the war end then? No more terrorist again right? No…then we sent x number of people to die to catch this one guy…and nothing changes? Really? hu. Okay I don’t get that. Tangent.

I want a world that makes sense and it does make sense – but human society is screwy and ultimately very diverse. If you just look for ‘dummy green’ you stop seeing the people actually thinking. And if you can see people actually thinking it makes the dummy green folks less appalling.

So this made me think about God and Church — I know, this is too long right? Well it’s my blog. Aryas always chaffed a bit about my inability to remove myself from a certain narcissistic need to relate everything back to personal story experience (and he was accurate – but there you go, explanation in hand) where was I?

What if church wasn’t that bad? What if it gave people a community that acted like Aflac insurance. You get really sick, well five people from the church will help you out by bringing you a newspaper and some 7Up. Feel lonely? Choir to sing in and some clapping to get done. Throw in some noble purpose for life and is it that bad?

Back where I’m from people only had negativity to bind them together – was EvilDoerGuild getting any better? Hmm, not recently no, since I write a lot of rosy sugar coated stuff anymore, I only rant here. So it hasn’t really benefited from any injection of sunlight for awhile. Also the spambots got ahold of it, someone tried to hack it and Google refused to google it. (They’re owned by the NWO btw.)

But up here at least, and other churches people seemed to be bound together by a sense of safety in community, feeling of belonging, purpose in life, social needs, and extended spiritual experiences.

In my brain spiritual happens pretty easily. I’m the dreamer, so they always will, but what if some people need church to imagine divinity? I don’t know – just thinking, what if I’ve been really myopic because my only exposure to church life came out of wrecked homes and alcoholics, crazy small town housewives and lying cheating country music quoting red necks?

Why did I never stop to question this before, go to various churches, talk to people about their faith and find out? I have a real need to know – what is the world made out of, yet kinda in a frightening way figure I have almost zero survival skills for real world navigation. Maybe that’s what church is about too – keeping that world small enough to know what to expect no matter where you go. A new lens to see the world, to see God.

I’m reminded pretty quickly about what all I hate about church, three hours out of a Sunday? And darn if it doesn’t start at 10 – so that’s a BIG slice of Sunday just gone out of the middle – couldn’t they put it at the beginning or end of Sunday?

But that’s the thing. I always hated saying the pledge of allegiance. Hated the propaganda and bs of school – oi’ cheerleading and sports – but loved recess. I loved art class. So….if you rage against the machine – can you keep the cogs? But darn it, other people love those cogs. What would those rednecks do without that football game? I DON’T KNOW.

So maybe church is like that. Possibly people sit in church and don’t just swallow it all down like a pickled egg. Maybe they give a, ‘eh, it’s probably figuratively – I wonder if Bill wants to go fishing this week?’

Maybe they wouldn’t appreciate if I attended and yelled at a solemn moment, “contagious meme!” Could happen.

So let me know what you think in the comment section if you think anything about this deeply girlish random vomit of things that make me go hmmmmmmm

So Evil Doers – write me comments, send me messages and e-mails and Facebook me but I’m done with forums. Sorry – just moved on and all that.