It’s a new week, and soon it will be a new month.  Isn’t it exciting?  I know that I, at least, can barely contain myself‒and I try to do so using lead shielding and straitjackets and trenches filled with spikes and gasoline.

Of course, the ones I use are metaphorical and/or imaginary, so they only work‒if they work at all‒to contain metaphorical or imaginary things.  And though it is subjective, excitement is not imaginary or metaphorical.  Indeed, in some senses at least, it can be objective.  After all, one can measure heart rate, blood pressure, pupil dilation, circulating epinephrine and cortisol, and even brain and brainstem activity.  So, no, it’s not imaginary or metaphorical.

On the other hand, I’m not actually excited about the start of the week.  I’m a bit anxious/tense, because every interaction with other people and their world is stressful and feels unsafe.  But though that technically counts as “excitement” from a neurohumoral point of view, it’s not excitement like that expressed in the old song, I’m So Excited.

June 29th, which is today, is a prominent date for me.  It would have been my 35th wedding anniversary‒I mean, really, it still is my anniversary, but no one is celebrating it.  It’s weird to think that it’s been 35 years since I was married.  Soon it will have been two thirds of my life since then.  I’ve also been divorced longer than I was married, which is really weird to me, partly because the years since have felt distinctly less real than the years during or before.  You’d think I would be over it by now, but it seems to be otherwise.

Speaking of “the years during or before”, my sister recently sent me some old stuff that my Mom had apparently kept, and some of it is interesting and amusing, at least to me.  In addition to some paperwork and such, I received some bits of nostalgia, including a large print of my high school senior picture (from 1987), which I will share here:

I think you can all agree that, apparently, I was the type model for Draco Malfoy.  I’m not sure what to think about that.  He’s definitely not the type of “villainous” character I’ve ever admired (probably because he and his family are more realistic, banal bad people‒just bigoted, entitled assholes, not misguided geniuses or philosophically interesting nihilists or such like).  I certainly would never have written an edition of My Heroes Have Always Been Villains about Draco or even his father.

Speaking of villains and also of heroes, there was a 7 x 9 ish drawing pad there as well that must’ve been from no later than sixth grade.  In it were some very early, very crude comic book pages of Helios (among others), the superhero I made up that I’ve mentioned here before, and about which I started writing a novel, though I have not gotten far at all.  My attention seems more erratic than it used to be.

Also there are various drawings and designs of things like space ships and secret bases, and my attempts to work out how to make a tractor beam and powered armor and even my “Eu-ray”.  That, at least, was not a completely stupid notion, even if the name is stupid.  I remember learning about how CRTs worked and thinking, hey, if you had a bunch of those cathodes inside a chamber and channeled it with magnetic and electric fields, you could make a ray gun*.

In real life, it really would make a particle beam, though maintaining a vacuum within the device while projecting electrons out of it always seemed like it would be a bit of trouble.  I think I remember imagining that the electrostatic (or whatever) pressure within would ensure that nothing in the air would be able to sneak back.  Maybe there was also some kind of electronic valve thing, I think I thought about that.

That bit probably wouldn’t have worked, and even if it did, there’s no way it would have been a very useful weapon‒electrons cannot travel very far through the air, and certainly not very accurately‒though it might have been useful in particle physics.  There are much better accelerators now, though, for physics.  And it’s so far been hard to improve on things that hurl kinetic projectiles at high speeds if you’re looking for ranged weapons.

If only phasers (a la Star Trek) actually existed, but alas, they do not and almost certainly cannot.  But think about it:  if you shot yourself with a phaser on full power, there would be no chance of a failure leading to a crippling injury, leaving you in a worse state than before and making you a burden on those around you; you would be disintegrated, which also would nicely leave no mess for other people to clean up.

I wonder how one would play Russian Roulette with a phaser.

Anyway, that’s about all the personal news I have for this morning.  I hope you all feel better than I do today.  That’s not a low bar to clear.  Though, come to think of it, while a low bar is easier in hurdles, it’s actually quite difficult if you’re doing the limbo.  In this case, though, it’s like a steeplechase jump that’s a few inches off the ground, or even embedded in the surface like a tiny speed bump.

The point I’m making is that I don’t feel very well, mentally at least, and I am only at the office because the AC is partly down at the house, and it’s boiling out around here.  I have no desire to sweat myself into the risk of another kidney stone, so it’s better, in that sense, to be at the office.  Or to be nowhere.

*Why did my thoughts go straight to “ray gun”?  Well, I could make the excuse that I had read the term “electron gun” when learning about cathode ray tubes, and that had triggered the thought, but that wasn’t the real reason.  It just seems to be my nature to think of ways to make weapons or otherwise destructive things.  I’m not a very good person by nature, it seems.  I guess that’s part of why I have so many rules.

This is that audio I mentioned this morning (and yesterday morning).  I didn’t do a LOT of editing, just truncated the silences, reduced noise, and added a bit of reverb since after all the noise reduction it felt a bit dead.  I honestly don’t remember exactly what I said, though I remember the gist, and I don’t know whether I was coherent.  This is a bit of an experiment, just uploading without listening.  Enjoy.  Or don’t, if it’s not enjoyable, I won’t try to dictate your reaction.

I’m trying to write something for this blog on the app, just to see how it works, and since I have nothing better to do.  This is it, there isn’t anything deep to it.

This is just a very brief follow-up post to note to those following that my Instagram account has been deleted due to supposed violations of “community standards”, though I’m dipped if I know how that could be.  I hardly post anything “new” to Instagram; I share other peoples’ stuff a fair amount and I comment occasionally, and I look at other accounts, but I don’t know what I might have done to violate such supposed “Standards”.  Also, my Facebook and Threads accounts are “suspended” because of the association, but I have no information on what the basis for this is.  If any of you know how to contact actual humans through meta and/or Facebook or what have you, I would be delighted to know.

If I cannot sort this out, I may need to make a new Facebook account and consider a new possible Instagram account, but though I enjoy scrolling through it, I have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing.  Still, that’s right now.  I may change my mind over time (see my post from this morning).

I’m feeling quite frustrated and stressed out.  It’s not quite as bad as being arrested and charged and threatened with long prison time to get me to accept a plea deal for shorter prison time, but it definitely calls up emotions and stress related to that truly horrible series of events that is still crippling my life.

I’m very tired of all this.  But I have no other regular, frequent connections except through those venues and this one, to some extent.

If anyone has any helpful information, I would welcome it.

There were too many people who would be absent for various reasons, so the office was not open today.  So, there will be no official blog post, other than this one, which doesn’t really count.

Or does it?

Hello and good morning.

[Insert some random nonsense that suits your fancy here, possibly regurgitating the idiocy of previous posts, as I usually do.  Knock yourself out.  It couldn’t be worse than anything I could do.]

TTFN

“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”