I want to tell my mother. I wish I could talk to her about all of this. I feel like she would make me feel better. She's always who we turn to when we need emotional and spiritual support. But what can I say to her? That "our friend" is avoiding us, and that's why we're crying? That we feel distant and less of an equal from a person that we theoretically shouldn't be equals with?

And if I told her, could she get past the shock to comfort us? Could she understand well enough to be there for us?

And how can I put it? That this is right, that I know it's right, that this makes us happy and we need this in our life.... but it's also why we've been so depressed lately? Why we're sad, why we're crying?

Can I expect to be told that it'll work out, and not that we we're making a mistake? How can she see how sad we are while seeing how this really does make us happy?

I don' t know. I don't know what to do. I know she would normally be the person I would turn to, and she would normally make me feel better. And I can't tell her. I never could, in the past.

And here I am, at the same point in my life I always find myself. Cut off, alone, rejected, avoided, unable to explain how this life that so many people consider wrong really is right for me, even though it causes me so much pain.

 Gotta start writing or animating soon.  Or both.

I feel a lot better.  Spent a long time kind of letting negative thoughts and emotions fester until I finally actually spent time with God, and felt better.  Having gone through work, and had more time to think about God and all those crazy lessons He's always teaching me, I feel significantly better.

I think that's one of the biggest things everyone gets wrong about God.  Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of big things everyone gets wrong.  But one of them is about the result of having God in your life.

And don't misunderstand.  All the sides get it wrong.  People who believe in Him, people who don't, etc.

The benefit.. the result of knowing God?  It's not having your soul "saved", or entering Heaven, or any such thing.  You don't go to Hell or get damned or any such nonsense for disbelieving in God, or not having certain beliefs or not getting to know Him or whatever.  That's just fear-mongering and ignorant nonsense.

No, no, the thing you miss out on not knowing God is just the peace, and the comfort, and the love.  The lessons, the wisdom, the knowledge.  You don't get "saved", or earn some sort of afterlife.  You just have a better existence.

Not easier, either.  More difficult, because there's a tremendous amount of growth.  And growth is always excessively difficult.  Stagnation and regression are easy.  Growth is incredibly hard.  So, not easier.  But better.  A lot better.

Even then, much of the growth and better existence is only when you're in good contact with God.  Neglect your relationship, and it's just like a human relationship.  The closeness, the comfort, the love, the intimacy, the deep communication just slips away.  Foster that relationship, and it's there in abundance.  A husband who ignores his wife is likely not to have great conversations, great sex, sweet considerate acts of kindness, emotional support, or any such thing.  Same sort of thing with God.  That peace is gone when you're just focused on yourself, and not close enough to God to lean on Him and feel supported by Him.

So, no, not knowing God will not send you to Hell, or keep you out of Heaven, or any such thing.  The paradise, the "Heaven", that one enters through knowing God is a real, present, current state of being.

In fact, that's a pretty good explanation of what the afterlife is all about, but that's another topic for another rambling writing.  The gist here is that the cries of "accepting Jesus into your heart" so you can be "saved" is ludicrous.  The salvation one receives from God is not a binary function of the soul which dictates post-death destination, but a state of being that raises a person from the values and perceptions of this world into the values and perceptions of the next.

And, to further clarify, though the clarification should probably be kept terse right now, the peace.. the strength... the wisdom... they're not magic.  They don't just come out of nowhere.  Well, okay, they can, and sometimes do.  But most of the time, the benefits of a relationship with God comes from consistent denial of self-motivated thoughts and emotions and acceptance of God's values.  An example would be looking at someone who you have every reason to despise or dislike or hate, and trying to live past that selfish perspective by viewing the person in a positive light, understanding where they come from, empathizing with them, and learning to love them despite their actions, words, patterns, or attitudes.

Really really tough stuff, and stuff you never master or "finish".  I still would love to despise plenty of people.  But... whatever.  It's another lesson to learn over time, and grow into, until the point where I don't understand how I could have ever thought otherwise.


And that's my rant for now.  Though, I honestly don't know how much of any of this makes sense to anyone, as I have the toughest time relating this topic to people who have a different world view.

 Should totally be doing progress notes right now.  Eeeeeh.... in a bit.  Gonna update right now, apparently.

Things are going swimmingly.  Except for the lack of motivation to do the bjillion things I feel like I want and/or need to do.  I haven't even read any more of my Actionscript book in a long, long time.  Let alone working on animation/Flash/art.  Let alone doing much cleaning, except very small basics.

We did the ultrasound yesterday.  It was really, really fucking awesome.  Everyone said we'd barely see the baby, since it's so early and is mainly done to get a heartbeat and check basic well-being/development.  But it was a baby-looking baby.  Arms and legs and all.  It was really happy and special and such.  Even as happy as I was seeing the ultrasound, I did feel a bit like I should feel stronger or more vibrant emotions.  But, it was only an ultrasound, and I'm sure all this will process more as time goes on.

I probably need to work on progress notes, now.  And stuff.

I went into the kitchen to cut myself a piece of the delicious, delicious Sara Lee pound cake, and I started thinking about Kimo.  I guess I haven't eaten it since Kimo died, so I just remembered how much he loved to beg for it, and how he'd eat as much of it as I'd give him.

I miss him.  I wish he were here. 

 We went to see a silent movie last night, showing at OU.  It had its own organist, who seemed good enough, at least, to play an entire movie's piece with seemingly perfect timing, using skills that are about 80 years extinct.

It was called "Metropolis", and was a really, suprisingly good story.  I'd love to see it modernized, and there's a chance, apparently, that there's an anime version of it, at least somewhat.  Watching it made me imagine and fantasize a little story in my head, which is something I haven't been doing in months, now.  I really need to use my creativity and imagination more.

Plus, it was our first date together, the three of us, since Valentine's Day, and one of our only dates together ever.  There will, however, be many more in the future.

Class is over, and we just have to write the papers due about a month from now.  And we work tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, and on the weekend.  So we feel like we haven't had time for much of anything, lately.  But we're happy.

 There's quite a lot I haven't been talking about lately.  I'm not sure how much I'm going to go into right now, though.

I'm not entirely sure what I want to say, right now. Feeling pretty sad.

( Pita Pit Pt. 2: Memory's Vengeance )

~Cloud Cult
~Washed Your Car


Heh, yeah...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090723/sc_nm/us_stemcells_china


( Mice cloned from skin cells )




"It would not be ethical to attempt to use iPS cells in human reproduction. It is important for science to have ethical boundaries," she said, adding that their study was "in no way meant as a first step in that direction."

Eh? Why would it not be ethical? You can't just say it's not ethical.

I just had to make this an icon. It's the Calvin Klein ad that's apparently causing a fuss lately.

My brother is reaaaaaaaaaally fucking lucky he lives in another state. What a colossal asshole. I've decided to stop speaking to him for a few months. He kind of realized he shouldn't have said that, but didn't really get why. I didn't think it was worth the effort to yell at him when he's just going to forget it by tomorrow, so I just got off the phone.

Kimo is very sick and the vet thinks he only has a few weeks left to live. If you want to say goodbye to him let us know.

I am amused at having an active and largely photo-based community where the primary language is Russian on our friends list. It's a good time. Some of the cardboard stuff is really cool, too.

We were going to work today, but the kids couldn't make it.

I slept for 12 hours last night, but I'm still tired.

So, this was an exciting update.

We've been walking around a lot to enjoy the new spring-time.  Walked around OU tonight with Kimo.  75 degrees.  Really, really nice.  There's almost no one on campus because of Spring Break, so it was even more private than usual at night.  We've been walking around the Duck Pond, and other parks and things.  Really pretty weather.

We are hoping Natasha gets pregnant soonish.  That's one of the big things missing from our life, right now.

Been doing a little light art, recently.  Gonna start making the fairy tale again, soon.

I still want a lab coat to go with my steam-punk goggles.  Only, I don't want some throw-away lab-coat that's made of crap.  I want something durable and attractive.  Like my goggles.  WWII Swiss motorcycle goggles, baby.  Prescription, too.  None of that bull-shit Hot Topic crap made of plastic.  I usually cringe when I see those.  Well, cringe and roll my eyes.  I mean, I guess it's fine if you're going for that commercialized "Everything I own is plastic, has skulls, grave-stones, and Hot-Topic logos all over it" look.

Basically, I want to have a subtle steampunk mad-scientist ensemble, not a cWaAaZy Mad Scientist Halloween outfit you buy for 20 bucks at your local costume outlet.

Been looking at dating sites and such.  No luck so far, but we've also only been sort-of-looking, rather than actually reaching out and talking to anyone.  We keep getting busy and distracted.  We'll see how that goes.

I want to play some Fable 2.  And Oblivion.  Maybe eventually Fallout 3.  We'll see how that goes as well.

And I got me a Twitter.  Yup.  Not sure what it's all about, yet, but it seems like it's Facebook without the bullshit.  Which is, you know, almost all of Facebook.

Just as a mini-rant, in case you aren't into graphic design, web design, coding, programming, or any of that jazz... MySpace and Facebook suck.  Big-time.  Horribly.  Facebook is actually considerably better than MySpace, but that's not saying a lot for Facebook.  I felt pretty sick when I found out how much the fucker who created MySpace sold it for.  I wished that I had, in college, created some shitty website in 5 minutes that offered zero qualities of a well-designed site that I could sell for billions of dollars a few years later.  All I needed was some small-faced Asian slut named after an alcoholic drink to get 3 million friends, and everyone else to follow suit.  And to trick them all into thinking they were on a site worth a damn.  Then I'd be a billionaire.  Right now.

Anyhow, yes, they both suck.  LiveJournal always seemed pretty respectable.  It was also always open-source, which is awesome.  Which also begs the question why the fucktards who made Facebook and MySpace didn't just use LJ code.  Ugh.  Twitter seems pretty minimalistic, which is great (and what the aforementioned horrible sites aren't).

Elegance, man.  Coding is about elegance.  Not creating a clusterfuck of random bullshit and ads.

Don't even get me started on the nightmare that is craigslist.  MySpace is a work of genius comparitively.  I'm pretty sure that the act of creating craigslist is, in fact, a felony, and an act of treason.  Against mankind as a whole.  I can only imagine that the sentence is some sort of horrible, painful, and slow torture.  For example, having to use craigslist.


I love me.

US endorses UN gay rights text

I'm feeling great.  We finished everything but our final paper for our class, it's pretty interesting, and cute girls look at me.  Ah, yeah.

I did an assignment about a really interesting community project called Kartonija/Cardboardia.  A cardboard town involving active participation by the visitors that encouraged artistic expression and all that jazz.  Really awesome idea, and I'd love to see something like that in Norman.  And, yes, in theory I could actually try to start such a project, but that would require ridiculous amounts of motivation I just don't have at the moment.  Maybe later in life.


Battlestar Gallactica has one episode left.  This season has been meh, but I'm still in love with Gaius Baltar.  He's my hero.

He was a genius programmer, he was an atheist that received visions from an angel of God in a pagan society, he became President, sought constantly for redemption and a higher purpose, and finally became the leader of a nymph cult.

And he's apparently going to be the father of the new humanity.  =P  Delicious.  See why he's the best character in the universe?  If you don't, pity yourself, then slap yourself, then look again.