It’s gonna hurt like a sonofabitch when…

So I finally did it today.

Anybody that’s been following me on my blog or on twitter knows that I’ve been struggling with a recent break up. What’s been hardest about the breakup is the abruptness and the finality of it. Not even a post break up “hey let’s get together for coffee and talk about this” sort of thing, just a “go the fuck away” e-mail and then pretty much nothing.

Well, not completely nothing, that’s not fair, but a fair amount of surfacy shit. Frankly that kind of crap pisses me off. If we’re going to try to be friends afterwards, be my friend. Don’t give me small talk. I hate that shit. If you want to talk surfacy bullshit, find someone else to talk to.

But that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve been trying for weeks, nay, nearly two months now, to try to get a little time to talk about things. She seems dead set against that. Having dropped the meds that seemed to have been giving me extreme anxiety and obsessive tendencies, I’ve returned to a slightly more normal frame of mind. It’s a good thing, but there’s been a few side effects I wasn’t happy with. Like the good memories starting to fade. I wanted to keep those, but… well, what the fuck. I think trying to keep them was making things harder for me to handle.

I had a bizarre dream about her last week as the meds were starting to fade. It was very strange. I don’t often remember my dreams, so when I do, you know it was somehow kind of jarring. In this dream, we were actually having the post-break up talk. We were in a house, for some reason, I think this was a house we were going to move in to. Don’t ask me, I had no plans or intentions to move in with her, but there it is. In the dream, she told me she had been pregnant, and she had an abortion. Within the context of the dream, this hurt. In fairness, I had mixed feelings, but the strongest one was that she had kept this from me. It’s the sort of thing I would have wanted to know, know what I mean? She was a little harsh about telling me this too, like there was some kind of simmering anger just under the surface. It wasn’t apologetic or caring at all. I’ve kind of come to see her this way somewhat. Side effect of the last couple of months, I suppose.

So as little as a few weeks ago, I would have woken from this dream and immediately felt despair. That was me from a few weeks ago under the meds and obsessing and anxious. When I woke up, I was a little sad, but mostly annoyed that I had had another dream about her. I kind of want that shit to stop already. I’m ready to move on now. Would my subconscious please fucking cooperate now thank you very much?

So I’ve written a couple of notes to her, but I never sent them. I waited, then deleted it later. I wrote several of these. Each successive one a little less crazy than the last. Finally I lost all desire to do this at all. Until today. In my therapy session today I told the therapist about the dream. Basically what he said was that everything in a dream is some kind of metaphor for what’s going on with us. His best guess was that the pregnancy and abortion was the relationship. It started suddenly, and just as suddenly she ended it. Yeah, I can see that.

At the same time, I’ve been starting to see how me-on-the-meds must have seemed to her. In a way I can’t really blame her for freaking out and cutting me out of her life. I was probably a little…. ahem… intense. That’s not me so much on a normal basis, so at the same time I kind of feel like I didn’t really get a fair shake, but who the fuck said life was fair, eh? I had my shot, I blew it, it’s over. Too bad, so sad, get the fuck out.

So I wrote one last note today, basically saying that I get how I must have made her feel, and apologized for it. Sent it, and now, well, I think I’m done. That’s as close to closure as I’m going to get. I doubt she even read it, but that wasn’t really the point. I had my say finally, and she’s free to respond if she wants to. I always make time for people who are important to me. The opposite isn’t always true though.

What’s most surprising about the last week or so is how my attitude has basically turned to “Meh”. It’s over, I know it’s over, and it doesn’t really bug me all that much anymore. I’m finally starting to move on with my life, do a few hobbies, actually get work done at work. Somewhat. The open office bullshit at work is fucking killing me. I need a little privacy to get anything done, but that’s a whole nother rant.

The “Meh” attitude is cropping up in other places too. Without going into too many details for various reasons, someone else did something that just a few weeks ago would have hurt me severely. This last week, it bothered me for a little bit then I pretty much said “meh, fuck it” and moved on. Another potential relationship was shut down I was ok with it. Well, not ok, I just feel sort of numb to it all now. Sort of like watching this shit happen to someone else in a movie.

I’m still suffering depression, but it’s just depression now. More of a general malaise. The meds I was on increase dopamine, which might be good for me a little later down the road, but I need heal now, so I’m going to stay off of them a little longer.

So, I suppose that was my good-bye letter. I’m ok with this relationship ending as much as I can be, and I wish her well. I hope she finds that right guy she’s hoping for, but I think she’s got her own issues to deal with first. I would have been happy standing by her side as she did so, but she didn’t want me there. What’cha gonna do?

But women, one parting piece of advice. If you’re going to break up with a guy, for whatever reason, fucking talk to him. Don’t break up over e-mail then refuse to talk in any form with him other than text. That’s fucking bullshit, and it’s chickenshit.

Sure, Let Me Debase Myself And Lie Down In This Puddle So You Can Walk Over Me My Dear.

This is going to be another post about my relationship issues. If you don’t like those kind of posts, feel free to go somewhere else. You know what, fuck you. This is my fucking blog, and I’ll blog whatever the fuck I want.

So basically I had a really shitty day today. I found out that not only had the short sale on my house fallen through, but that today was auction day. In other words, I found out exactly too late to do anything about it. Even if I could have done anything about it. So I am no longer a home owner. In fairness, I hadn’t lived there in two years anyway. The worst part about it is the major hit my credit rating is going to take. Foreclosures stay on for ten years, not seven. My ex wife fucked me pretty good on this one. She did it intentionally, I’m sure, but the best part of the whole thing is where she says it’s my fault. No, I’m not kidding. She refused to find any kind of work whatsoever, or to support herself or her children in any way whatsoever, stopped paying the mortgage, and made sure the house went to foreclosure. And it’s my fault. You seriously can’t make this shit up.

Add to that the fact that she wants to move out of district so that she can move somewhere she can afford to. The unbelievable injustice of the fact that a father who wanted his children and was perfectly capable of supporting them and could have easily kept them in the good school district in which they live lost them to a mother who refuses to support herself or her children in any way shape or form and cannot afford to keep them in the school district, but wants to move them to a poorer school district. Somehow she has been determined to be the better parent. Again, you can’t make this shit up. If somebody put this in a book it would be deemed implausible. But yet, it happened.

And just for good measure, I found out my copay for my therapist is so high that I can’t afford it. So not only am I dealing with a ridiculous divorce, an insane financial situation as a result, and a difficult breakup with my ex girlfriend, but I can’t even afford therapy anymore. At times like this I start to wonder if there is a god, because if there is, she hates me. It seems implausible that all of this could happen to one, basically good person. Yet, it did.

So moving on, my ex girlfriend and I are occasionally talking again. Yesterday she had some crap happen, so being the good friend that I am, I stopped what I was doing and made time to listen. Because that’s what I do. It actually wasn’t all that convenient for me to do so, but I did anyway. And not just because some part of me still hopes that I can salvage a relationship out of this. I would do this for pretty much any friend.

Then today all of this happens, and I need someone to talk to. Guess how many people were available for me? Yep. Nobody. Not even my therapist, because… well… fuck you republicans and your fucked up privatized health care. This system only works for the wealthy. Fuck you. And if you’re not wealthy and support these fuckers, fuck you too. You’re fucking me as well as yourself, and that makes you a fucking moron. Fuck you.

So I’m thinking tonight, because, well, the only person I have to talk to is myself. So if you say I’m crazy for talking to myself, fuck you. You weren’t here for me either, fuck wad. And I realize something: that was my whole relationship with her. She would get frequent headaches, I would rush over there and give her a long backrub. Number of backrubs received: 0. Even my ex wife had a better record than that. Every time she had something going on, I would patiently sit there and listen to her. When I felt the need to unload about  something, I got some variation of “shit or get off the pot”. If I got irritated about that, her feelings got hurt.

And then I think “Exactly what about this relationship am I missing?” It was a little one sided. Actually it was a lot one sided. Yet, I still miss her and would probably go back if I could. Fucking why? What about this woman am I missing? Why am I so drawn to her? These are questions I can’t answer. My only guess is that there was more to it than that for me. She was at least an intellectual equal, and probably an intellectual superior. She had her own career and life. She was independent and strong. She made a difference in peoples lives. She was good at what she does. And something about her is magic. Her voice, her mannerisms, everything. I can’t explain it. Basically it’s not a good relationship for me. I know this intellectually. My heart will catch up eventually, I just have to be strong for now. That’s the real trick though. I’m not strong.

Anyway, just random thoughts. I had nobody to share this with, so of course it goes out to the world  on my blog. I suppose it’s all part of learning to be alone. Being alone sucks ass, by the way.

The Question I Never Got A Chance To Ask.

I was despondent for days, weeks, months. I was alternately angry, dejected, and confused. I believed every lie you told me wholeheartedly. I trusted you and gave you my heart unconditionally and without reserve, and you tossed it aside like a dirty rag without looking back. And up until about 20 minutes ago, at the slightest word, the merest mention that you would want to start again, to spend even the smallest amount of time with me, I would have gladly thrown my pride to the wind and followed you around like a stupid puppy. Because I’m just that fucking pathetic.

But I’m not stupid. I won’t vie with your other ex for your attention. He wins. Congratulate him for me. I no longer want to see you. I no longer want to hear your voice lie to me. I no longer want to know about the trivial interactions between you and your cats. Why, you wonder, the sudden change? I’ll tell you. Because fuck you.

It’s Wabbit Season!

I started therapy yesterday.

Let’s face it, I’m fucknuts. I was watching Looney Toons with my kids earlier, and we watched Rabbit Fire. That’s the one where Daffy and Bugs go back and forth with the “rabbit season” “duck season” bit. It’s hilarious, and I’m reminded of the time during an improv group when I basically did that scene by myself. There was one guy who ended up playing Elmer Fudd, and my spastic self played both Daffy and Bugs. He was a bit shy, and didn’t seem to know what the fuck to make of me. I think I scared him a little, but the end result is it was fucking hilarious. I was awesome.

Was.

I remember the guy who did that. The guy I was back then. 17 years of bad marriage will fuck you up, and that guy is gone now, and I can’t get him back. I know, I would be a different person now even if I hadn’t married the batshit crazy church lady, but I think there would be more of that guy left.

I’ve thoroughly trashed three relationships since the end of my marriage. Well, in fairness to myself I had a little help trashing them, but still… I can’t seem to pull off a successful relationship. Maybe I’m not dating the right people, but I was absolutely sure the last one was right. I’m still having trouble reconciling it a month later. I should be past it by now, one would think. But I have a fuckload of baggage, and I think I didn’t realize just how much until yesterday.

The therapist seemed to catch on immediately just how much the cult fucked me up. This is something that I don’t think anybody else ever has understood about me. These people did more damage in the couple of years they had me than my wife did in 17. I’m still dealing with it in many ways. On the other hand, had it not been for the cult I might have never examined my own belief systems, and realized that the whole thing is bullshit. I suppose I should thank them for that. But fuck if I will.

Most people seem to blow the whole cult experience off as trivial, except for one or two other people I know who went through the same thing. It’s not like we talk about it though. Former cult members don’t have conventions. We don’t chat on facebook about it. “Hey, remember that time that the one kid crashed his car because he was so tired from sleep deprivation and almost died? Yeah, good times!” There are exactly 0 people that I’ve been able to talk to about this over the last decade. My ex didn’t go through the exit conversion the same way I did. In fact, I’m not sure she ever went through it at all. She’s been looking for a replacement for the cult for the last decade, and I’m pretty sure she finally found one.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is I think this is going to be good for me in the long term. I may not be able to save my last relationship, but maybe I can make the next one not crash so badly. I’ve already realized about myself that my dating experience pretty much consists of my teenage years, a couple of years in my 20s, and the last year. I haven’t had a lot of time to figure this shit out. My marriage was pretty much fucking awful for most of it, so I don’t have a lot of experience in how a good relationship works. I do know that I really wanted the last one to. But first I have to straighten out some shit in my head.

I may not be that guy from 20 years ago anymore, but maybe I can be someone else just as good.

Well, shit…

I think I’ve been found out.

Web anonymity is a relative concept

As I’m going though the obligatory post-WTF-Just-happened breakup retrospective, It occurred to me that the Dr. Cowboy persona has a few too many tracks back to me. It’s just a little too intertwined with my real identity. When your girlfriend who just dumped you has a close family member who works for a rather high profile web company which happens to know a lot of information about, well, pretty much everybody, you realize that it’s possible that may have been a factor.

Soooo…. I’ve made a few changes to put a little more separation between the Dr. Cowboy persona and my real life. They need to remain separate for various reasons, not the least of which is I bitch a lot about my life here, and it’s not necessarily a good idea for those close to me to know about it. Anonymity is a good thing. It protects my professional career from my private ranting, and protects those close to me from being hurt. Well, except for the handful of people who know me in real life who also know about this blog. That can’t be helped.

At any rate, the number of touch points between my personal/professional life and the Dr. Cowboy persona has been significantly reduced. It’s still possible to track me down, but it’s a lot harder now. There’s a few side effects to that. The most notable being that past posts are still tied to a blogger profile that I’ve shut down as much as possible. Future posts will occur under this profile, but it’s still me. 

Well, I effed *that* up.

Sooo… Cowboy is free again. Come get some sugar, ladies!
Apparently standing up for myself (something I’m not very good at to begin with) was the wrong thing to do in this situation. On the other hand, if standing up for myself and setting ground rules was a problem for her, I think she probably wasn’t for me after all. So, moving on…

Dr. Cowboy on Facebook (again…)

So on a whim I created a Facebook page (again). As much as people who go “like me on Facebook puhleez!” annoy me, I would sort of like to get at least one like.

http://www.facebook.com/DrCowboyBlog

The Great Big Gig in the Sky

And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes…

I look out of my window, and everything is in grey. I look for things I once I once enjoyed and I’m not interested. I wander around looking for something to fill the void, but there’s nothing, I just walk back and forth. Eventually I just sit down, and stare. Everything went sideways, everything I had made was destroyed. Everything I had hoped for was dashed. Everything I loved was taken.

There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.

The voice in my head tells me the hard truth. It’s not the world, it’s not them, it’s not her, it’s not him, it’s not supernatural. It’s me. It was always me.

Got amazing powers of observation…

Slowly I realize the lies I’ve been told. Lies I’ve told myself. Lies others have told me. Lies woven into the very fabric of society. Lies built into the nature of reality. In a brittle, desperate moment of clarity, I see through them all. No darling, I’m not. I can’t do anything. I can’t even do something. I break everything. That’s what I do. I think it might be what we all do. But I do have a talent: I fuck things up.

You shout and no one seems to hear.

I feel that desperate feeling deep down inside, that feeling “I need someone to know me. I need someone to understand me. I need someone to see all the way to the bottom of this cesspit of a psyche I have and know and understand what’s driven me my whole life, and what I truly need at the end of it all.”

And I got a strong urge to fly, but I got nowhere to fly to…

This is the danger moment. This is that moment when some turn to religion to fill this desperate emptiness inside. There’s a ready made solution to an age old human weakness, an imaginary friend who loves you, understands you, is always there for you, protects you, and will never hurt you.

The Lunatic is my head…

But no thanks darling, I’ve already got an imaginary friend. The difference between me and you is that I know he’s imaginary. Mine says some mean things, but not as mean as yours my dear. Mine doesn’t take those I love from me, but he will smack me out of my rut sometimes and set me straight. Fix me. It hurts sometimes, but he knows how to fix me, darling. He’s the only one who does.

I don’t need no arms around me…

I’m not alone in my weakness, the need to have someone understand me. The fact that I know when I’m gone, that this consciousness, this being whom I know more closely than any other, will someday be irretrievably lost wears on me. It makes me desperate for someone else to know what it’s like to be me. But you hurt me darling, you have to go now. You won’t make it to the bottom. Nobody has yet, only me.

And I don’t need no drugs to calm me.

So close… so close… so close… but it’s gone now. Floating away on a spring breeze, into the sky, never to be found again. I was so close…

Don’t think I need anything at all…

And now it turns out I was laying here the whole time, staring at the ceiling. Was it real? Was it all my head? Did any of that really happen to me at all, or was it someone else? Was there someone else driving the bus while rode shotgun? What is here and now is painfully clear, but what was and what could have been grows fuzzy and dim. I reach for the bottle in the drawer.

You rearrange me ‘till I’m sane…

And finally he comes again. He shouts this time. You idiot. You fucking moron. What did you think would happen? Why do you do this to yourself over and over and over? Did you really not see it coming? That was not for you. This is, darling, this is. My head leans back, and the pain begins. Such lovely, deep pain. I finally feel real, and the clarity returns.

Dear ex,

Suck it, bitch!

Because I Can

Fuckin bitch fuckin goddamn how the fuckin fuck fuck what? Seriously, what? FUCK! I mean, what the fuck? Seriously. Did I really fuckin FUCK! I really did not fuckin realize how fucking sick fucking humans could fucking be. I mean, FUCK! I fucking married that? FUCK! What the fuck was I fucking thinking? I’m fucking sick! That’s fucking sick. Fuckin’ seriously. I mean, who the fuck fuckin’ stays married to a fucking fuck like that for fucking HOW many fuckin’ years? Fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

It’s like a parasite that you can’t remove. That’s it’s name now. The fuckin’ parasite. What a waste of oxygen.

Aw fuck.

End rant.

Multi-Level Marketing (or “I’ll never need math in real life”)

In my life I’ve run across a few multi-level marketing schemes organizations. I’ve never become heavily invested in one, mostly because there’s a little voice in my head that always screams “somethin’ ain’t right here” every time I look into one. Since the cult, I’ve noticed that some of the ones I’ve been approached by (Yeah, I’m talking about you, Primerica) exhibit some traits that reminded me of the practices of cults. I’m not saying they’re cults, but they sure smelled like one.

One thing that never occurred to me until recently is to do the math. When you’re entertaining the thought of joining one of these groups, they spend a lot of time and money wooing you. You see people a few levels up who are simply rolling in cash. Giant conventions in Texas where stadiums of people are cheering a couple who “went diamond”.  A guy who just bought a $200,000 car. Your desire for success and wealth kick in and drive out any kind of rational or critical thought. I sort of figure that the voice in my head that’s kept me out of these all these years are those parts of my brain desperately trying to reassert themselves when I go all googly-eyed at the thought of wealth.

They all operate similarly, it doesn’t matter if they’re selling soap or supplemental life insurance. It goes something like this: you sell X amount of product, on which you make N commission (which isn’t usually very much), but the real way you make money is by bringing in people under you. You build your own “network”. You bring in something like 5 people under you, and on all of their sales you make Y commission, which is not much either. But then they each bring in 5 more people, and by the time you have 4 or 5 levels below you, you’re super mega rich and you don’t have to do a thing to earn it anymore! Woot!

Now, let’s run some actual numbers. At the top of the pyramid is one guy. We’ll call him N₀. The count of this tier (0) is 1. This can also be expressed as 5^0.

The next tier will have 5 people, because N₀ brought in 5 people. This can be expressed as 5¹.

The next tier will have 5² people.  Each member brought in 5 more, so this tier has 5+5+5+5+5 or 5x5 or 5² which is 25.

Tier 4 will have 5³ or 125. You should be able to see the pattern by now. Each tier will have 5^(N-1) people in it. It’s important to note at this point though, that the total number of people required by tier 4 is 156.  This is 125 + 25 + 5 + 1 or (If I remember my sigma notation correctly). Nobody is making any money yet though.

Let’s jump down to level 13. If you’re joining a MLM, you’re probably down the ladder a bit, right? This tier requires 305,175,781 member in the organization. 304,687,500 of these do not have enough people under them to make any money. They’re in the bottom 4 tiers. This leaves 488,281 of the members actually making money, or about 0.1%. As a side note, the U.S. population as of the last census was 311,933.344. Let’s go just one level deeper so that some of these people at the bottom can start making some money.

Tier 14 has 1,220,703,125 people, bringing the total number of people in the organization to 1,525,878,906. Wow. The number of people in the bottom 4 tiers is now 1,523,437,500, with 2,441,406 people actually making money now. Wow that’s a lot! It’s also 0.1%. Let’s go another level to get those numbers up, shall we?

At Tier 15, the number of people in the organization number 7,629,394,531. Roughly 854 million more people than actually exist, according to the estimate of world population. Whoops, I think we’ve passed a logic barrier here. Let’s ignore that and run the numbers again. 7,617,187,500 people constitute the bottom 4 tiers leaving a mere 12,207,031 in the range that makes money, or 0.1%. I’m detecting another pattern here.

If we roll this back to more reasonable levels, say 8, Then the organization requires 97,656 people. The bottom 4 tiers have 97,500 people with the remaining 156 actually making money. Only 156 people in an organization of around 100k actually making money sounds abysmal. It’s also about 0.1%.

Basically, no matter how you roll the numbers, 99.9% of all members of the organization lose money, while 0.1% of them actually do make money (in varying degrees).

By way of comparison, roulette contains 36 possible numbers, so the odds of winning by betting on a single number of roulette is just below 3%. You’re actually more likely to get rich by placing your entire life savings on a single number of roulette than you are by joining a MLM.

Thank you, little voice in the back of my head. And thank you Skeptoid.

Occasionally I wish there were a God

So I could flip the fucker off. 

It would be so easy.  Blame all of this shit on God.  Everything in my life that's going wrong, wrong job, wrong wife, God's fault.  Losing my son to the fringe fundamentalists; watching him heading down a path that will waste all the talent and brains he has until it's too late… so much like me… why would God do this to me?  To him?

Spent the best years of my life trying to be somebody I'm not.  Spent my few healthy years living somebody else's dream while my own slipped away… why God why?  Why would you let this happen to me? 

But alas, the answer is all too clear.  I did it to myself.  My rage and anger is properly placed on myself.  I saw the direction things were going at work over a year ago.  I did nothing.  I saw my wife's penchant for fringe fundamentalists over a decade ago when she involved me in a cult.  I let it go.  I saw the increasing insanity of her new fringe religion over a year ago, maybe more.  I've done nothing.  I objected to homeschooling five years ago but she did it anyway.  I let it happen. 

I've completely and utterly failed myself and my children.  The crushing weight of this guilt would be so easy to schluff off on an imaginary supernatural being who was supposed to watch out for me.

Oh how easy it would be to weasel out of my guilt that way.  I suppose that's the last of the God Virus in me, like that cough you have for a week or so after a bad cold.  I find myself wanting to blame somebody else for my own failures, and a God would be such an easy target.  After all, he wouldn't fight back now, would he?

So I sigh and resign myself to the fact if anybody is to blame, it's myself.  I take a deep breath and set about fixing all the things I've let fall to shit.  Here we go.

The Evolution of the Cowboy

As I write this, I’m sitting here watching Cosmos on Netflix on my XBox.  Coolest XBox feature EVAR.  I’m reminded of this video I watched the other night.

I know what he’s talking about.  It’s the oddest feeling when you’ve learned enough science that suddenly everything starts to fit together.  I’m reminded of the common Christian claim that Atheism or Science is a religion.  The stupidity of that claim aside, I’ve realized something: These kinds of moments are not unique to religion.  Religion has these kinds of epiphany moments.  So does music.  I remember my first musical “Moment” during a performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.  It was amazing.  I think I’d like to call it a Musicgasm.  You simply can’t imagine it until you’ve had one, it’s unreal.  They’re far too few and far between. 

Religion can have the same kind of moments.  I had one in the cult.  A Godgasm, if you will.  I know the allure of it.  People believe they’re feeling the presence of God.   It can be very hard to reason with someone who has had a Godgasm.

This is a Sciencegasm.  It’s totally unique, yet familiar.  I’ve had one.  Apparently that’s all you get.  It’s that moment when you realize that the Universe is glorious and amazing, awe inspiring if you will.  Everything clicks, and you realize just how awesome it is to be a part of the Universe and to understand it as we do, and it doesn’t require a supernatural being to appreciate it. 

What’s cool is that it only gets better.  We actually understand very little about our Universe, but we learn more every day.  A hundred, a thousand years from now, we’ll know so much more, but still not everything.  There’s always another amazing, awe-inspiring discovery to make. 

I can’t explain the unbelievable feeling of understanding how the pieces fit together, how we fit into our world, our Universe, and how even though we’re a small seemingly insignificant part of it, we’re still a part of it.  Atheism is just as, no, more gratifying than Religion.  I wish everybody could see this, but Atheists don’t proselytize.  I’m not recruiting for the Atheist cause.  None of us do.  The only reason we’re in a fight with Religion is frankly because they started it.  At some point teaching science became blasphemy.  At some point realizing that we don’t need a god to be good became a threat.   At some point no longer needing an imaginary Master became an affront.  When we fight back we have reason and science on our side, but facts are meaningless to people who have already made up their minds. 

It seems every Fall I undergo some kind of mental change.  I evolve into a newer, better being.  Well, sometimes it’s better.  This blog has chronicled my evolution over the past few years.  It’s time for another change. 

On this blog I’ve made some friends.  I’ve realized that conservatives, or at least Republicans, do not represent my values as a human being.  I’ve advocated Henry Rollins for President.  I’ve argued against voting party lines, and I’ve voted straight Democratic tickets.  I’ve espoused the virtues of Taoism, and I’ve abandoned it because of the value it places on ignorance.  I’ve ranted.  A lot.  I’ve geeked out.  I’ve complained about religious intolerance, I’ve been intolerant of religion, and I’ve abandoned religion altogether, although I’m pretty sure that actually happened a very long time ago.  I’ve really only just recently admitted it to myself.  I’ve cussed, and blasphemed, I’ve hoped, and I’ve wondered.  I’ve deleted the whole thing in a moment of anger, and I’ve painstakingly restored it after regretting my actions.  I’ve had spiritual epiphanies, and I’ve despaired for the entire human race.  I’ve grown as a human being, and it wasn’t always pretty.

I’ve discovered a lot about myself over the past few years.  Anybody who reads this blog regularly probably has too. 

I’ve been thinking about a new direction for several days now, and I think I’m going to do it.  Hopefully I don’t lose what little audience I may have acquired spewing vitriol over the interwebs for the past few years.  I’m absolutely in love with science right now, and I think I’m going to begin posting about this.  For one, just so that I’m not just bitching all the time.  For two, hopefully somebody will begin to see just what is so amazing about all of this.  For three, it’s a nice convenient place to keep track of the things I’ve learned.  Crap I wish I’d paid more attention in school!

With any luck the tone here will change.  With any luck I’ll open a few minds.  Mostly, I just don’t want to forget this stuff.  I would love nothing more than to return to college right now and rack up several doctorate degrees in various fields of science, but that’s simply not reality given the cost of living and the cost of college.  I’m also desperately trying to save for my children’s college, and sending myself back to school doesn’t help that cause. 

Well, here we go…

Help! My Wife is a Religious Nutjob and She's Teaching my Children Creationism

This'll be a short one.  I just found the Google results for that sentence entertaining. 

Help! my wife is a religious nutjob and she's teaching my children creationism

Results 1, 2, 3, and 5 pertain to Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell.  If you vote Tea Party, this is what you're voting for.  Welcome to the new America.

I wonder if this is how homosexuals feel

I hate labels.  I hate labeling myself, but it’s usually the easiest way for people to get pretty close to my views, so for the sake of argument, we’ll call me a liberal atheist.  This is, for all practical purposes, my current location on a long road I started down about ten years ago.  I doubt this journey is done yet.  The truth is, I’m pretty sure I’ve always been this way, I just didn’t admit it to myself for a long time.  Being liberal or atheist is somewhat of a frowned upon thing here in the middle of Jesus central. 

So it’s a little lonely out here.  My wife is a bit of an over-zealous Christian (it’s the source of most of my daily drama), all my friends, most of whom are smart people, deny the fact of evolution, worship a non-existent god, and vote Republican. 

After years of denying who I really am, I did a lot of soul searching over the past 2-3 years, and finally just admitted it. 

Now I don’t seem to have a lot of friends.  Just today, the one friend who seemed to more or less share my views told me that she found Jesus.  In fairness, she’s had some rather harsh personal problems lately, and skepticism doesn’t offer much in the way of comfort during times of emotional distress. 

I suppose if the opposite were true, if I were a Christian in a land of Atheists, I could spend this time pretending God was here with me and telling him all my problems.  I suppose I could just construct an invisible friend too.

So I started wondering, when somebody realizes they’re gay, they probably have a hard time finding someone to share this with.  Parents and friends aren’t usually very receptive to that kind of news.  It’s probably pretty lonely.  I find it hard to believe that anybody chooses to be gay.  Seriously, who would consciously choose the pain that comes along with it?  The only choice is the one to stop lying to yourself and be honest about who you are.

That’s what I did.  Yea me!  The rewards of being true to myself are a little underwhelming.  Thanks for listening, my five or so readers.  I appreciate the sympathetic ear.

WTF?

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not…

Racism

A couple of days ago I created a fake twitter account for the purpose of poking fun at the Tea Party.  I think I may have to stop.  In just a couple of days of poking around for links I found evidence of the most extreme racism I've ever seen.  I mean, stuff you might expect from the 50s (or more likely the 1850s), but it's all recent.  Here's the most extreme example I've found yet (warning, not for the faint at heart):

 http://www.ep.tc/tea-party-comix/

I actually started to feel sick.  Pretending to be a stupid racist Teabagger while mocking them is taking it's toll on me after just a day or two.  What I've found, the evidence of such extreme racism from the Tea Party, from Fox News, from bungholes like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, I can't handle it.  It's too much.  Maybe I've grown up sheltered, but I didn't know people were still like that.  Sure, I knew some people were still racist, but not like THAT.  They're intentionally stoking a fear of black people in white people in exchange for political capital.  It's sick.

I'm profoundly disturbed by this.  I do what I do because I know the human race can be better than we are.  We can evolve into something better.  We can do it sooner rather than later.  We can be a world of wonderful people, and we can do it within my lifetime.  We can, but we won't.  Perhaps I'm naive. 

I have moments like this where I just want to give up.  Just go back to my white middle class home in the suburbs good paying job with a wife and two kids life and forget about all of this, just like everybody else.  But that's how they win.  When those of us who would oppose these things, when those of us who would stand up for what's right, when those of us who would strive to see the human species become worth saving just give up and shut up.  They're wearing us down.  I heard it in Michael Moore's voice at the end of his most recent movie, he's wearing down.  So am I.  So is Obama.  So are a lot of people.  

Perhaps we'll mature someday.  Perhaps we'll become a species that we can be proud of.  Perhaps we'll get past all the stupidity, small-mindedness and pettiness of our current age.  But not today.  Maybe tomorrow.

I'm going to bed.

The Top 5 things about being a non-smoker that suck

I've had a few ideas for posts that ran along the lines of top 10 lists, however, I couldn't come up with 10 for all of them, so we'll go with 5.

The Top 5 things about being a non-smoker that suck

Oh, that's right.  I may have forgotten to mention that to you guys, I used to smoke.  In fact, I smoked for a very long time.  As I moved to Minnesota, decided that it seemed as good a time as any to quit.  That was fuckin' brilliant.  On the other hand, I've made it some 10 weeks now with only a few cheats.  Oh, and by the way

I WANT TO FUCKIN' KILL SOMEBODY!!!!

Perhaps I should start with Tobacco Executives.

It's not easy.  However, as my body goes through the rather painful detoxification process from some twenty odd years of injecting myself with some of the worst poisons known to man, I've noticed a few side effects that suck.

1. Everything stinks.  When I was smoking, I had a diminished sense of smell.  Before I started smoking I had a rather strong sense of smell.  Now that I've quit, the sense of smell is starting to return, and it sucks.  Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING stinks.  Especially my apartment building.  And it's not just one stink, oh no.   That would be too easy, I could get used to it.  No there's one bad smell in the garage, another bad smell in the lobby (made worse by the fact that they're painting this week), yet another god awful smell in the elevator that smells a lot like people that don't bathe, and just for good measure, a horrid death-like stench in the hallway outside my apartment.  Probably from the guy hanging leaves over his fucking door. 

2. I'm hungry all the damn time.  And I'm gaining weight like crazy.    Last night I ate an entire box of Honey Nut Cheerios.  Not one of them ever saw milk.  Nicotine is an appetite suppressant.  Guess what happens when you go off your appetite suppressant you've been on for twenty years?

3. I'm sleepy all the damn time.  I suppose spending 20 years on a stimulant might tend to cause you to develop a certain tolerance to it.  During the day I can't stay awake, and at night I can't sleep (note the time this was posted). 

4. Stress.  Cigarettes are a coping mechanism, and Nicotine reduces stress.  Today is my first day off the patch, and I'm feeling some heightened stress.

5. I've got nothing to do after meals.  I have to say, that was my favorite cigarette, the one that came after meals.  When I've just eaten, that's when it's the hardest.

I don't know how tobacco companies managed to come up with such an insidious product.  Even more surprising is how they seem quite sincere when stating that it isn't addictive or dangerous.  I've heard cigarette addiction compared to heroin addiction.  I can't attest to how hard it is to quit heroin, but this is by far the hardest thing I've ever done.  Now I've got struggling with this for the rest of my life to deal with, because you never get over it.  I'm still waiting for that magic payoff when I magically feel better and enjoy the smell of everything around me.  Still waiting....

Stranger in a Strange Land

The voting on my last post was a bit sparse, but the one vote I did get was to not delete this blog.  Alrighty then.  (Thanks, Celes). 

This post runs the risk of being one of those sad, depressed entries I so despise.  I'm in my second week in Minnesota, and I'm starting to wonder if this is all worth it.  It's true that earlier tonight I attended my first XNA user's group meeting ever (KC doesn't have one that I'm aware of), and sat next to one of the most well known people in the history of software development.  In fact, I was supposed to talk to him afterwards, but I bolted because I didn't want to miss the nightly phone call I have with my kids.  I haven't seen them in nearly two weeks. 

In short, this place is starting to wear on me. 

I've never been a consultant before.  It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but the lifestyle seems a bit lonely.  Especially when you come home to an empty apartment.  You get switched around to different projects alot.  So far I've been on two different projects in my two weeks there.  Tomorrow I go to interview for my third.  This is the part of consulting I didn't expect.  You have to actually go interview for each gig.  It's like constantly applying for a job.  And if you don't get it, you're not making your employers any money.  When you become overhead, you run the risk of unemployment.  E.g. you had probably better get that gig. 

I find interviewing depressing.  It's probably why I stayed at my last job for two years, and the one before that for five.  I made lots of friends at both places, and I miss all of them.  Most of all I miss my family, especially my kids, and yes, my wife too.  I'm feeling a little bit socially deprived.

I had cable and Internet hooked up two days ago.  So far only Internet works.  That wouldn't be such a big deal if I could figure out how to stream Dr. Who.  I need my Doctor Who.  BSG is on hiatus, and one can only watch The Matrix so many times.  Wow, yet again Neo is the "One".  Shocker.  I can watch streaming news, but my laptop is pathetically old, and the video is choppy and difficult to watch.  Forget about full screen viewing.  It just ain't happening. 

I do have my XBox.  That helps, but I've only got so many games, and they get old too.  I left my violin in Kansas City, because I thought I'd be traveling right off the bat. 

Add to all this the stress of realizing that I probably can't sell my house, and I'll have to give up on this whole endeavor and move back to KC, and I'm feeling just a little down at the moment. 

A thought occurred to me the other day.  Some of you may remember SaveToby.com.  I don't know who did this, but he was a freaking genius.  Basically he put up a web site where he threatened to kill a cute bunny unless people sent him money.  He made a killing.  Finally some company came in and bought him out to put a stop to it.  Who knows if he really would have killed the bunny.  It doesn't matter.  He made the money. 

I need money. 

I can make websites.

When you put those two facts together, it's almost like there's some kind of idea just out of reach that might save me from my impending financial ruin. 

Anyway, I wanted my legions of loyal fans to know that I hadn't forgotten about them, and I'll continue to blog here in the near future.  Expect some boring technical content as I try to establish myself as an expert in compooters along with the self aggrandizing political and general rants you've come to know and love me for.  Tootles.