I don't feel so good, and haven't for what seems like a very long time. I have been more sick in the last 4 years than at any other period of time in my life. I'm exhausted all the time, and lately I haven't been able to sleep worth a damn. it's running me down, and to be honest I don't know how much longer I can keep this up.

Worse still are the gross physiological problems I'm having which include extreme thirst, dehydration, shrinking appetite, urinary issues, and poor lower body circulation. I won't go into any more gross details, but these problems are real and happening all at once. My father believes they are stress related and I am inclined to agree with him.

I need a change, a large change. Work, money, housing, it all needs to change or I think I will fall apart physically. I know I'm already in pieces mentally ;)

Anyways, in closing:

(F) Bahka the Tauran Hunter:        78
(M) Morridi the undead deathknight: 61
(F) Amaraikwa the Blood Elf Rogue:  61
(F) Lindri the Blood Elf Paladin:   24
(F) Kaego the Tauran Druid:         18
(F) Baruu the Orcish Warrior:        8
(F) Ryzaki the Troll Priestess:      2

As I approach my 4 year anniversary working at Brighthouse, I have to sit back and wonder about it all. I both love and hate this job. I loathe going in every night to do the same shit over and over again, and yet once there, I generally have some fun because I work with a great group of people with whom I can talk with on just about any topic. Its a fucking conundrum...

So 4 years its been; 5 since I was fired at AT&T. That was another job I loathed every minute of the day, and yet had so much fun while actually there. had a lot of stuff happen while I was there. Met Heather, and though I still love and miss her terribly to this day, I feel that I would have been much better off for never have met her at all. Had a brief fling with Angela while I worked there. That wasn't a good idea at all. Not sure what I was thinking then, or why I did some of the outrageous things I did back then.

These days I am concentrating more on my own situation rather than trying to fill my life with someone else. I finally got my credit back on track after destroying it at age 18. I bought my first brand new car, and am currently shopping for a house. Got over 5k in my first 401k and at the start of my 5th year with BHN, I'll be in vested in the pension plan, so things are, for the most part, looking up for my financially.

Once I get past these baby steps, as I think of them, it'll be time to work on my personal issues. getting myself back into the dating game, looking for someone to spend the rest of my life with. Things are looking up, but in true form for me, I'm always looking out for the other shoe to drop...

I know that not a lot of people read my journal. I don't have that many close friends, so I know this won't be widely read, at least from this journal. But I felt that I needed to put this up here. Please, take a moment to read the article linked below, and try to see beyond the sarcasm and satire to see the undeniable truth.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks18-2008sep18,0,7282720.column

Rosa Brooks
September 18, 2008

Dear United States, Welcome to the Third World!

It's not every day that a superpower makes a bid to transform itself into a Third World nation, and we here at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund want to be among the first to welcome you to the community of states in desperate need of international economic assistance. As you spiral into a catastrophic financial meltdown, we are delighted to respond to your Treasury Department's request that we undertake a joint stability assessment of your financial sector. In these turbulent times, we can provide services ranging from subsidized loans to expert advisors willing to perform an emergency overhaul of your entire government.

As you know, some outside intervention in your economy is overdue. Last week -- even before Wall Street's latest collapse -- 13 former finance ministers convened at the University of Virginia and agreed that you must fix your "broken financial system." Australia's Peter Costello noted that lately you've been "exporting instability" in world markets, and Yashwant Sinha, former finance minister of India, concluded, "The time has come. The U.S. should accept some monitoring by the IMF."

We hope you won't feel embarrassed as we assess the stability of your economy and suggest needed changes. Remember, many other countries have been in your shoes. We've bailed out the economies of Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea. But whether our work is in Sudan, Bangladesh or now the United States, our experts are committed to intervening in national economies with care and sensitivity.

We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.

Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.

Take John McCain, your Republican presidential nominee, whose senior staff includes half a dozen prominent former lobbyists. As he recently put it, "I was chairman of the [Senate] Commerce Committee that oversights every part of the economy." No question about it: Your leaders' failure to notice the damage done by irresponsible deregulation was indeed an oversight of epic proportions.

Now you are facing the consequences. Income inequality has increased, as the rich have gotten windfalls while the middle class has seen incomes stagnate. Fewer and fewer of your citizens have access to affordable housing, healthcare or security in retirement. Even life expectancy has dropped. And when your economic woes went from chronic to acute, you responded -- like so many Third World states have -- with an extensive program of nationalizing private companies and assets. Your mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now state owned and controlled, and this week your reinsurance giant AIG was effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve Board seizing an 80% equity stake in the flailing company.

Some might deride this as socialism. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Admittedly, your transition to Third World status is far from over, and it won't be painless. At first, for instance, you may find it hard to get used to the shantytowns that will replace the exurban sprawl of McMansions that helped fuel the real estate speculation bubble. But in time, such shantytowns will simply become part of the landscape. Similarly, as unemployment rates continue to rise, you will initially struggle to find a use for the expanding pool of angry, jobless young men. But you will gradually realize that you can recruit them to fight in a ceaseless round of armed conflicts, a solution that has been utilized by many other Third World states before you. Indeed, with your wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are off to an excellent start.

Perhaps this letter comes as a surprise to you, and you feel you're not fully ready to join the Third World. Don't let this feeling concern you. Though you may never have realized it, you've been preparing for this moment for years.

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com

Been really loopy the last couple of days. Extreme highs at work for no apparent reason, and miserable lows while at home for even less apparent reasons.

Been doing a lot of introspection today, and I think I hit on something profound: Maybe I'm so miserable all the time because I am not being true to my nature? Seems plausible.

I wear a mask constantly, I never act like I want to; do the things I plan out in my mind. I'm always too damned busy conforming. I play the game; I go to work, because it's expected. I pay my bills, and I try to be the good little citizen because thats how we are taught. Never once did I ask myself is this want I want? I do it because I feel it's expected of me.

I play everything safe. I plan, I analyze, and I work hard to remove myself from anything that could cause me to feel something. I think the result of 32 years of that is that I never let anything happen to me. My life has been, with the exception of the few, and I mean few, times I broke out of my shell, devoid of any life experiences. I have lived so long, hiding away from feelings that I no longer feel anything, I think. I have trained myself to be this way because it's safe.

Does any of this make sense? Am I just playing the part? Would acting on my impulses and desires, my thoughts and plans bring a measure of peace and serenity to me? I know that I am tired of usbeing the good little boy who does as he's told, of being afraid that I might be doing something others would see and disapprove of. I'm tired of all the games and complexity we weave into our lives. I want things to be simple again, and yet at the same time I want to feel things again. To have friends and a life, and enjoy all the wonderful complexity these things bring.

I'm really not in the right frame of mind here.... I should know better than to post when I'm this down.

So yeah, I haven't posted here in quite a while. Thats partly because they have just about out-right banned internet surfing at work, and LJ is blocked anyways unless you can get a version of firefox working. I'm not putting my job in jeopardy over using the freaking internet.

Anyways, work is degenerating into another AT&T. While its no where near as bad as AT&T was, I see the signs that say it will get there in time. How much time, I don't know. I'm just going to ride my write-ups out until I can qualify for a transfer to another department. The trouble is department management, not the company as a whole. I think I would be much happier as a PC tech in the field; we'll just have to wait and see.

In life news, it seems like the girl I was flirting with probably isn't interested in me like I thought she was. At least, she seems to be otherwise occupied with a boyfriend I just learned about on Friday while I was in the process of asking her out. Seems hes long distance, though I don't know the whole story of it. All I know is he isn't local and wont be back till August. That could mean out-of-town school, military, jail, or any number of things.

Kinda sad, cause I really thought with all her flirting and attention that she was interested romantically; for all I know she might be with her boyfriend being away another 9 months. But do I want to put myself back in the position of being the other guy? Been there, done that with Carissa and Heather. In my experience, it just makes it that much easier for them to leave when another guy comes along.

Worse yet is the possibility that she just wants to be friends. Can't deal with that! I get way too attached too easily and it always leads to trouble, like with Michelle and Cindy... wierd, her Name is Michelle; coincidence? Or karma/fate taking a hand?

Yeah, I'm a tad sad about it, but I am alright in all other ways, so I guess I will see where the road takes me. Keep flirting with her, maybe try again to ask her out; this time just to hang, friend like and see how she reacts.

The Chinese calender says that year was the year of the Rabbit, and the element for the year was Fire. The date places that day in Scorpio, a Water element. Both signs are prideful, stubborn, competitive, and extremely loyal and compassionate.

Water tends to work in opposition to fire, making for a feeling of polar opposites, and some other details of my full horoscope are in opposition to my nature, but all that inconsistency, all the struggle, and all traits, *are* part of me.

I like myself, though just as most others, there are aspects of myself I would like to change. But of the whole, I *like* who I am, and I do not want to become someone else.

Today I turned 32 years of age, and I am good with that :)

"It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain."

I'm so emotional at the moment, that I can barely see through my tears to type. I literally worshiped at the altar of this mans creative genius, and eagerly awaited the each and every fragment of his vivid dream of a far off place and time. Robert Jordan, you will be missed by your family, friends, and millions of fans. I think I speak for many when I say:

"The light shine on you, Lord Robert of House Jordan. May you shelter in the palm of the Creator's hand and the last embrace of the Mother welcome you home."

My dreams are always weird, and to me at least, seem to defy common explanation.

Some of my dreams reflect current trends, and while those are a bit easier to understand, do they really mean what I think they mean? Like when hungry, I tend to dream about buffets; this seems normal, but the location, situation, and people around me in these dreams are bizarre! Others of my ex girlfriend seem somewhat normal, but again there is always some strange element or situation going on that defies understanding.

Take one of my reoccurring dreams for example. Unlike most peoples recurring dreams, mine are never ever same in setting or circumstance, but the overall theme is the same. In tonights case, the plummeting elevator dream is what i'm going to be exploring.

In these elevator dreams the common theme is an elevator out of control, or under the control of a mad man. We can be going up at horrific speeds, or falling so fast that we are thrown around the car like rag dolls. The elevator car, the building, the other people (or lack of people) is always different between the dreams, but the out-of-control-ness and the fact that no harm ever comes to us; we are always able to get out of the car safely at some point remains the same dream to dream.

I looked up elevator dream imagery online and found this:

Elevator

To dream that you are ascending in an elevator, signifies that you will quickly rise to status and wealth. You may have risen to a higher level of consciousness and are looking at the world from an elevated viewpoint. Descending in an elevator, denotes that misfortunes will crush and discourage you. The up and down action of the elevator may represent the ups and downs of your life go emerging out of and submerging into your subconscious.

To dream that the elevator is out of order or that it is not letting you off, symbolizes that your emotions have gotten out of control.

Seems like a lot of BS to me, like they just thought about what the image could be and went with that. I don't think this holds true for my dreams, but I have no idea what they do mean. Its very disconcerting knowing that your mind is trying to tell you something, and you have no idea what its trying to say :/

... of the role I am going to end taking in the fandom anymore. I never aspired to be famous, or have loads of furs talking to me or hanging out at my place; I'm just too much of a solitary kat for that kind of thing.

But I want a fur suit, and I'm not really sure why...

I know it wont make me a fur, literally or figuratively. It wont change who I am, though it may provide the mask I need to be something other than my predictable, solitary self once in a while, but who knows? I don't know myself well enough to know how it will go. Will owning a suit see me attending more cons or even just being slightly more social than I am now? Awful lot of money to to waste if it doesn't get me out there with the rest of you furs.

I keep thinking about why I want a suit, and I can only come up with 2 answers: Either I think it will allow me to be someone else while I wear it, someone who can have fun for once in his life, or I think it'll bring my a bit of fame, or at least recognition in a part of the fandom. What it all comes down to is, do I want to be known and liked in the Fandom, or continue being myself, hidden away in a prison of my own making?

Though choice....

So I have a friend at work that sculpts things (in clay, or other more unconventional mediums) while on the phone with customers; he says its an outlet for his frustrations in dealing with those pig headed, idiotic customers.

It got me to thinking, and suddenly I realized that I haven't worked in clay in 16 years! I had really forgotten that I even used to do artistic things like that. I haven't picked up a paint brush in an even longer time.

Is it weird to 'rediscover' parts of your life? Things that until you grab onto them firmly in your mind, seem to be no more real than a television show you used to watch? Is it weird that I forgot an entire part of my life that gave me joy? Anyone else have moments like this?

Mayhap, I will take up the other forms of art I have been neglecting, and work them again. Purrhaps it will help channel some of the manic-ness I exhibit. Maybe I can be expressive and happy again if I do the things I had long since forgotten?

Its worth a shot! I'm looking forward to painting again, and already have a good idea for a sculpture I want to do. but I fear as with so much else in my life, I'll get half way into and get depressed, and toss it all away wonder whats the use in it. Like i did with my paper RPGs, and like my furry stories, and miniature gaming...