this is a mundane test

I got that new super sexy Droid phone and am posting from it because it's awesome like that. This is really a test and bragging combined.

My week and weekend were fantastic and I hope yours was as well.

i've got the cure. i've got the cure for you.

Yay!

oh. no.

I sometimes just don't know. This is neither a good or bad thing, this not knowing. It's just a state of being in between. While I undoubtedly find it frustrating, I have to trust that there is a plan. There is a purpose and a point to the waiting. I have a definitive path that I am on and while I am not sure exactly what happens along the way, at least my end destination is clear. Because it is. Of this I have no doubt.

I was having a conversation with friends about the here and now (sort of). It was a conversation pertaining to religion and theology, specifically, but I think I can broaden the scope of the points made to fit the secular. The argument was that previous generations were more concerned with the future - the when, the where, and the how of events and what needed to be accomplished to reach that end goal. My generation, specifically, is mostly concerned with today - the instant, the relevant, the present time. There are a couple of reasons why that may be; I think that maybe on one end it's a result of easy access to information. Being constantly and pervasively informed of current events has a tendency to effect your scope of thinking to the present. I also think a direct byproduct of this media saturation is that my generation as a whole is vastly more cynical than those that have come before us. We are told a multitude of things in a multitude of different ways and each way has been structured to appeal to us on an individual and selfish level - by experiencing this over and over, we immediately doubt the motivations behind each and every appeal made to us. This is the case with politics, with consumerism, and yes, with religion. We are told that this will be good for us, this will make us more appealing, this will make us happier and most often it does not. My generation is that of the fast food, the 48 hour detox diet, the purity ring. Each is presented as a fad and easily dismissed with the next New Thing. It makes us tired, and when the New Thing comes along, we may fall for it a time or two, but honestly we're more apt to dismiss it as an advertisement than as something that may really potentially hold some truth.

I am concerned with the now. Specifically and spiritually, I am fixated on living for the day - I am not concerned with eschatology or discussing the euthanasia of morality in the unknowable distant future. Contemplating this, while it makes for an interesting and sometimes fun conversation, does nothing for me today. As it as been so eloquently stated by my church, my goal is to experience life and experience all that my God has to offer me abundantly. It's not my purpose to debate the unknowable and convoluted details about the future. I know the end result. Why can that not be enough? And why, accepting that my purpose is to live specifically for today without worrying about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34), is that questioned as an anomaly of my generation?

I segued from secular to spiritual here. Sorry about that. I was trying to keep it broad but 'eh.

To go back to the original point, this current generation has been accused of having a transitory nature. I'll have to disagree and argue that we're fortunate enough to be presented with a larger amount of knowledge than previous generations, and as such we are more selective about how and what we believe. Things we find genuine are much more likely to make an impact in our day to day lives because we've selected them to be real out of a multitude of options. And I refuse all of the above to be a negative or a point of contention. I am happy with the way I am in my day to day operations and am, out of everything presented to me, secure in my end result. I don't know the why or the how I'll get there. But I know I'll get there. And that is enough for me.

It's time for bed now.

open along edge, plz

I had a pretty awesome weekend.

My stomach really really hurts on my one day to not have to study or work. Grrrrr.

I'm learning how to spin and dye my own yarn soon, within the next two months or so. I have too much on my plate at the moment to pick up this particular new hobby as quickly as I'd like but I am, as always, exceedingly excited. I refuse to be bad at this craft as well. I went shopping today at thrift stores to see if I could pick up some recycled yarn as well or old sweaters to unravel and reuse the thread. I've lately been into the thought of becoming more personal and intimate with the craft of knitting. It's cool to make something for someone, sure, but I think it may be even cooler to have made the yarn that you made it out of be handspun and dyed and/or personally modified to make unique. I'll stop here before I start to sound sickeningly hipster.

My typical artist optimism cup overfloweth.

This small bit of insight to my life is being cut short by the pervasive pain in my abdomen. I'm going to go lay down now.

remember, remember the 5th of november

I am low on time today and cold.

I bought my Tegan & Sara tickets - February is a long time off in the distance but I am already looking forward to the impending road trip; I am often fond of leaving town that time of the year and I have an exceptionally good excuse this time around to leave it and traverse across Texas with some exceptionally good people.

Someone managed to make me mad within the first 10 minutes of me being awake earlier this morning; outside of me being called into work back when I was employed at the mental institution after attempting to sleep off an 18 hour shift, this may be a new record. I blame social networking for the ease at which extremely casual acquaintances of mine can be judgmental asshats in passing.

I have a temper to rival the force of Krakatoa. It may (or may not be, depending on how long you've known me) surprising to know that my immediate base reaction to things that make me mad or upset me is to start breaking things. Of course, I have not done this since my very early twenties. Self-control has set in under a thin veneer of maturity I've managed to build up over time.

I don't get mad easily, actually. It takes a lot to make me mad, if we're being completely honest - I can think of very specific moments in the history of me where I have sat in calm silence while all that life was proceeded to deteriorate around me at an alarming speed. There are a few quick triggers though. Being unreasonably hateful to perfectly nice people is one way to do it. My father refusing to admit that he's wrong OR say that he's sorry and becoming an even larger and angrier jerk to compensate for it when he actually does realize he's wrong is another (I have a very good relationship with my dad, by the way - but after a lifetime of this one particular juvenile quirk of his, it starts to get old). The third and probably most personal is assuming things about me - I think I touched on this earlier as a fear of mine, but at the root of it, I think I just get really pissed off when people heap their own concept of reason or meaning on me and then try to paint reality with their own brand of logic to make their reasoning rationale. In short, self-righteous "I know what is right and you are completely wrong" people make me mad. Really really freakin' mad.

Guy Fawkes day is a wonderfully violent holiday. How appropriate for this morning.

this is a recap of life

And I think if I could just get her to take half of my sandwich, it would be okay.

She mutters that she’s not hungry and suddenly neither am I. I have this tendency to equate mundane instances like this one to huge emotional connections. If she would just take half of my damn sandwich, then I’d know she wasn’t mad at me anymore. I’d know things would be okay.

But she doesn’t, and I didn’t figure she would, and I find myself at a loss of both appetite and words.

hello, darling

Again, this all may be confusing because it's not true.

Prologue

I don't know if you've ever been in a fight. If you haven't, I suggest that you do not, and if for some reason you choose not to heed my advice, I suggest that you always carry a nail in your pocket. Yes, a nail. We'll get to that later.

There are times in cliched literature where people are described as going "white as a ghost" - this is a result of loss of nutrients the body, particular the extremities. The fancy word for this is hypoperfusion - hypo, meaning "low" + perfusion "process of nutritive delivery of arterial blood to vessels in the body." Ischemia is a specific term to denote an absolute or very significant lack of blood flow; chronic diseases, such as heart disease and sickle cell anemia can fall into this category. It is from the Greek ισχαιμία; isch = restriction, hema = blood. Again, we'll get to that later.

Shock is the non-fancy term for all of the above.

shock
n.
1.

• a. A violent collision or impact; a heavy blow. See Synonyms at collision.
• b. The effect of such a collision or blow.

2.

• a. Something that jars the mind or emotions as if with a violent unexpected blow.
• b. The disturbance of function, equilibrium, or mental faculties caused by such a blow; violent agitation.

3. A severe offense to one's sense of propriety or decency; an outrage.

There are four different categories of shock - hypovolemic, obstructive, distributive, and cardiogenic. While they all have specific and distinct reasons for occurring, they all result in essentially the same thing. What we're concerned about here is hypovolemic. The type of shock people get from trauma, usually; it's the result of blood loss. The adult human body has about 4 to 6 quarts of blood in it. That comes out to approx 1 to 1.5 gallons. Remember that kids have even less.

Hypovolemic shock is the result of there not being enough blood to move around oxygen everywhere (hypoperfusion) because a good portion of your 1 to 1.5 gallons is now splattered across the bedroom floor; thus, the body is not getting the nutrients it needs to function. The result of the skin being white and clammy is that the body - in an amazing display of self-preservation - has rerouted all blood to vital organs in order to try to keep working. The heart rate has maybe doubled because it's attempting to move less blood around that vast desert void of your viscera. You feel anxious and cold. You're thirsty because of how much fluid you've lost in this whole ordeal and so you drink water. You then throw it up. The first semi-essential organ to shut down is your digestive system and you've just found this out the hard way, because now you have a large amount of stomach acid interrupting your blood pH balance and it's not like you have a lot of leeway room in that area at the moment. Things are starting to get confusing.

You have approx 45 minutes to an hour to get this sorted out before your kidneys go. Once they go, you're done. And that, my friend, is not the most dignified way to die. At all. No, not in the least.

Take my advice. Never get into a fight. And if you're one of those stubborn, prideful idiots - the kind that would rather lose a battle so that their war comprised mostly of ideals (outside of this one particularly bloody and unfortunate incident) can continue on - remember that this all could have been avoided had you just carried that nail in your pocket.

you hate the tender-hearted torch song

Hello, November. I've missed you and I resent you all at the same time. You're like that one pervasively present ex that everyone almost always has. You know the kind I'm talking about. The sort that you'd never want to be with again, but you find yourself most often thinking about when you're lonely or it's late at night and you're cold.

I have a purpose and plan this month. I refuse to let you beat me. I don't understand how come we have such a contentious relationship; I thought I was always pretty nice to you. I always remember your birthday on the 1st and I celebrate it, like I'm doing now. I appreciate how you take the trouble and time to make the leaves on the trees change color fully and fall down on me as I walk around campus. I've always said thank you for that.

Sometimes you are unreasonable cold. You freeze me out in the morning and in the evening and I'm generally at my worst at those times, so you doing so does nothing to help my ego. You often end the days too quickly, like you're tired of dealing with me and just want to get it over with. I don't understand where this comes from, but it wears on me at times.

I make a good companion, for the most part. I'm not perfect by any means. I talk too much and too loudly when I'm excited and sometimes I'm annoyingly silent when I'm actually content with the world. I run hot and cold. I can be distant at times and needy in the next second.

Maybe sometimes I ask too much of you. If I do, I'm sorry. I really am. You're faithful and consistent. I'll give you that much. You are always here for me at the start of the holidays and you're always pretty much the same, so I know what to expect.

Today, you're warm.

Maybe we're off to a good start.