Peace Declaration

from a psych unit:
globalized, applicable to the planet-

"(Anywhere, your place here ______) is a safe place to heal.  Everyone in this community, no matter what our role, plays a part in creating a safe place to heal.  We all work with peacefulness to heal and recover our lives.

We will always treat each other in a nonviolent way- free from harmful actions and words or threats of harm toward ourselves and others.

We will seek ways to peacefully communicate to resolve disagreement.

We will always treat each other with respect and dignity, to honor each other's individual uniqueness, and to be aware of the power each of us has to enhance another's hope, security and trust for the recovery journey."

xmas gifts

cheers!

I gave:
-3 bathroom readers (each different), from the ashby flea market,
to Hernan, LGBT, and SPAM
-a toy wooden train, to Benjamin (from Marshalls)
(it's categorized as an age 2+ toy, is it a bad gift for any reason for a 7mo old? -slightly worried)
-a set of cards/stationery (pictures of Yosemite), from a Bkly used bookstore, to mom
-another (4th!) jokebook, from Barnes and Noble, for dad
-I forgot to get a gift for Erin + Dan (!).   It was just Erin's birthday, too.  missed both.
-I also need to get something for uncle/aunt Tom+Jeannine, who I will see on Saturday.
-a ritter chocolate, for Rose Marie

I got:
5 gift cards, 2 books, and 1 game.
-$30 regal cinemas -from J+V,
-$25 amc movies -LGBT
-$20 starbucks  -M+D
-(2) $25 Trader Joe's -M+D

-National Geographic's 1000 Events that Shaped the World
(about 400pp, lots of pictures, like a coffee table book, history) -M+D
-Lost in Translation, an illustrated compendium of untranslatable words from around the world, by Ella Frances Sanders -D+E

-IQ Twist (multi-level logic game, 1 player, 120 challenges) -M+D

-and of course, a delicious dinner, and fresh oranges to take home.
-last night, x-mas eve, I went to Holly's chinese restaurant, in Oakland (on Piedmont) with SPA and Pierre's dad, Peter, a retired math professor (5 dishes, family style, brown rice, tea, fortune cookies, i ordered spicy eggplant).  They gave me a bag of homemade cookies, too, to take home with me.

thank you, everybody, for the thoughtful gifts!
The 12 of us who came to 801 for dinner were:
(Larry, Peg, Greg, Liz, Ben, Jesse, Jim, Vicki, Erin, Dan, Hernan, and David)

hope everybody had a nice holiday.
I have an invitation to a nearby kwanzaa celebration, tomorrow.
my new year's resolution is to Floss!
Vote Vicki Hennessy for San Francisco Sheriff!

things i want to buy:
air purifier, chess set, aletheon (book by Adi Da), camping stove, canteen, water filter/purifier, binoculars, umbrella, aikido lessons, speed reading lessons, tesla automobile, gun, cirque tickets, comedy club tickets, babadook movie, apps for my ipad (SpeakorTreat, SpeakaLegend), winning lottery ticket!

i would also be interested in tech (smartphone? apple watch? google glass?), if I could get one question (answer) at a time from the J! archive site.  that would be really cool.

Ideally, I want to raise a family, travel, and have a home/house.  Not sure if that's in the cards for me.  Hope so!

psych jokes

psyc ha logy
happy Ha! nukkah:

1.those blue diamond truckers really drive me nuts!

2.i fell into a french river, and now I'm in-seine

3.a guy wearing nothing but saran wrap walks into his psychiatrist's office:
she says, "I can clearly see your nuts" (you're)

4.how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
only one, but it has to really want to change.

5.a crazy person walks into a dentist's office.
he says, doctor doctor you've gotta help me, I think I'm a moth!
The dentist says, you need a psychiatrist, I'm a dentist, why did you come in here?
to which he replies, The light was on!

6. (riddle) what mental illness does the entire planet have?
well, there's a north pole and a south pole: so, it's bipolar.

7. doctor, doctor I keep having the same dream: first I'm a wigwam, then i'm a teepee.
well, it's clear what your problem is: you're two tents! (too tense)

8. The motor city madman beds a lunachick, which crazy Jay-z thinks is 'insane in the membrane' and Dr. Dre considers to be a symptom of schizophrenic insanity.  Ted Nugent demands a second opinion!  The doctor replies, "Okay, you're ugly, too!"

if you know any others, please submit my omissions!
(skittles-o-phrenia?)(nuttiest phone company, mci -mad crazy insane?)
(sanity of a manatee?) (gone fishing? out to lunch? outsane?)
(toys in the attic? lost his marbles?)
that's all i've got! help me out here.

Prayers

We could all use God's presence

Love could come from anywhere, so prayer is accessing this anonymous font of assistance.
(even strangers!) .
for example,

in my life, healing would be helpful for my aunt RM, uncle Jim, cousin Patrick..
(and me)

and senescence creeps up on everyone...alcohol can be problematic...so can money...

death and suffering is universal, unless maybe if you're a buddha.
(and thereby extinguish suffering through absolute acceptance of reality (literal: all right?)
no craving of life, no aversion to death

simple sitting

cravings: food, sex, warmth, comfort, safety, kindness...
happiness, money, drugs, music, stimulus.
karma (justice?) good for good, bad for bad: suffering for victimization
aversion: (negative craving) death, suffering, old age, disease

I just read a collection of jokes by Isaac Asimov:
no. 704 (pg. 327)
"Personally, I think it's the great god Hypocrisy that rules the human race.
      I heard a speech recently in which the speaker explained that when the United States nuclear-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those acts ended the war and saved countless lives, which made it quite obvious that using the nuclear bomb was right.
      I raised my hand and said, "Suppose the Japanese had discovered the nuclear bomb first and had bombed New York and Washington.  Would not that have ended the war and saved countless lives?  And would that be right?
       The speaker hesitated a moment, then said, "It depends on which side you're on.
Exactly, I said.  So don't be sure of what is right and what is wrong."

(not exactly a joke, is it?)
I was thinking, recently: who cares if we would all be speaking German if the nazis won ww2.  I have nothing against speaking/being German.  We value being mellow, easygoing, laid back, going with the flow- so why fight?  Anything can be changed from the inside, right?  War is just plain stupid, and I believe always will be so.  I imagine I'm in the minority on this one.  I don't care.  Go ahead and die for whatever cause you're willing to die for.   I don't care about that, either.

Merry Xmas

or Christmas, if you prefer

'Tis the season to be jolly!

mini-streams of consciousness/word-association:
Jelly bellies, jolly Bollywood, jello pudding
rape rope, let 'er rip, ripe for reaping, riposte...the rap rep rips rupert
giles, gilberto, gilchrist, kathy gill-t, guilty, cagey, kg
walls, walmart, walgreens, wall-e, wales, whales, wails
law, jack, chad, lawton, ley, lay, le, frito, france, ellen, ln, french
frog-men, navy seals, cpt. phillips, tom, toronto ottawa, montreal
jail, prison, jl, person, purr sun, kat starr,  cat, catholic catechism
covington, coveting, willie mccovey, covert, cove, coven, cover me
covalent bonds, barry bonds, bondage, hostage, host, eucharist
cannibalism, is-m?  mmm, mcdonalds.  mickey d's.  mouse,
mickey's, beer, root beer, alcohol, al gore, al madrigal, al rahim

anyway,
today is the first day of winter!
and I'm in berkeley- brrchilly

Stormy

Stormy Weather

What's up? Lots and lots of water.

And any direction you choose: there is no up.

Unless you define it as the opposite direction of gravity.

Anyway!

Rain, precipitation, snow, sleet, hail, clouds, sky

fog, drizzle

hurricane

thirsty crops, drought relief, aquifer replenishment, flooding!

rain ads (msgb):

Stormy temper, under the weather, or right as rain?
(mad, sad, glad)
idiom: "you're all wet" (mistaken, wrongheaded, on the wrong track)
(a form of bad) (anagram of 'wallet'!)

Hats, hoods

homeless, hungry

sleeping well, thunder and lightning

raindrops keep falling on my head

freshman stripe, and a friend named "Stormy"

On Racism: Black and White

skin, thinking, and color

Caucasians aren't white, and African-Americans aren't black.  Blacks are brown. Whites are, well, I don't think there's a word for it. But we're not white. Caucasians aren't (necessarily) from the caucusus, either. Some africans are white. And lots of white people are black, morally. Just as there are white blacks, if you get my meaning. White evokes purity, morality, cleanliness, the Pope. And black evokes shadow, darkness, evil, death. So whites are Jesus, while blacks lurk in their lairs in Mordor, where the shadow lies, and Sauron plots to rule over a planet of slaves.

White and black are opposites, facing each other as enemies on the chess board. Chess is war, if you're serious about it, and racial language thus leads to, or at least contributes to, antagonism, isolation, discrimination, racism, gangs, hatred, and a prison environment of terror, the opposite of the American dream of the melting pot, more like a salad dressing of separation between the oil and vinegar, to which you may now start arguing over which is on top.  Funny thought: If a white and a black produce a baby, you might think he or she would turn out gray... A type of space-alien is called 'the grays', I think.  As if she was giving birth to an alien.  Ridiculous.

White light has all the colors in it, as revealed by the rainbow spectrum emerging from a beam of light diffracted through a prism. Well, not all colors: there's no brown, grey, tan -which is probably why these colors are so sartorially popular.  However, black paint is the color that you get if you mix all the colors, I think.  Black clothing is good in cold weather if you want to absorb all the heat from the sun's light on you.  Everybody, I think it is interesting to note, has both black and white, in their eyes, no matter what skin or hair color you have.  Everybody is white in their bones; and everyone's true (inner) colors are red and black.  Rainbow colors are part of the hippy-dippy pot-smokers tie-dye culture, or the pride flag of homosexuals, or gang colors.  Colorful clothing makes us feel happier, and so other countries have more colorful attire than we Americans do, with our hang-ups and exclusionary racial identities, and of course unwillingness to break ranks with social conformity.

Darkness also implies ignorance, while light is a metaphor for truth, knowledge, wisdom. If you're in the dark, you be ignant. If you is a white devil, you're an oppressor. I have a white devil in my head: a black attorney in my head, who presumably seeks historical justice by making me his white slave, because he won't shut up and leave me alone. He's evicted, but is squatting in my brain, spitting his shit into my goddamn schizophrenic brain. And, of course, God supposedly said let there be light (and it was good).  It's up to you to infer whether that means darkness is bad or not... 

Shit is brown, and evil is black, so black becomes the moniker of race because it has the patina of menace and power, in a world where death is oblivion, and even if you go into the light when you die, you still end up dead.  Shit just stinks. Omnipotence is the divine power to kill anyone, anytime. Death personified is God. Even priests wear black. Time kills all. We are all dying. Premature death is tragic, because life is beautiful, even for the ugly. Gratitude keeps you positive. Anger against injustice (a gr- attitude!) is the fire in the belly that fuels the chess war of life, in the first place.

Cops drive around in black and white cars, with Republican and Democrat lights spinning on top. Blacks kill whites, whites kill blacks, blacks kill blacks, and whites kill whites. It's a big mess, and none of it is good. Some say, “it's all good” or “all right”, but the truth is no one is perfect, and life is riddled with imperfection, error, failure, stupidity, ignorance, cruelty, sin, crime, injustice, unfairness, and conflict. We may have equal rights, but some are more equal than others. You have to fight for your right to party. Sometimes you have to fight to survive. Everybody has a dark side. The dark side of the force can be interpreted as Darth Vader in the role of a corrupt cop. May the force be with you, ha. Don't fight the police, unless you're Neo (ha, again).

I overheard someone saying the endgame of this racial chess war is to put the country into martial law, which I'm fairly sure isn't gonna happen, but I spose it's possible, if the psychopaths among us go all buggy and start offing people who happen to have different color epidermises than they do. The devil hates everybody, though, and racism just happens to be the weakest link in society, the window of opportunity to cause the most damage, in a world of global disappointment at the disparity between what is and what could be.