HereI Am Again On my Own

The title comes from a Poison song. I've been listening to a lot of heavy metal lately. I discovered that the perfect thing to block out Stephen's incessant political programming is Norwegian black metal. It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything here, so I’ll try to bring you all up to date. I was offline for awhile, because of a dispute with AT&T. You know what AT&T stands for, don’t you? It stands for A**holes Through & Through. For that little nugget of wisdom, we have to thank my friend Mary Sole. Anyway, my friend, Len McQueed, sent me a brand new router so that I could get back on the Internet by splitting Stephen’s Clear account. Sometime in December, we got me on the Internet. There was a problem, but with the help of a very helpful tech support person Mec, (I hope I got her name right) we figured out how to hook up the Seshat 5 (my desktop computer) to the router and the router to the modem. Stephen’s laptop gets wifi in his room from the router.

We have been working on the book we’re writing and have gotten to Chapter 5, which deals with the first few cards of the Major Arcana, or Trumps. I have also been sending “packages” to various occult and Pagan book publishers in the hopes that one will accept our book proposal.

My health has been improving after a rather serious setback in December. I went to the Yule ritual on December 18th, came home, and watched the season finale. Then I started to get sick. It’s amazing just how much the stomach will hold. Ever the alarmist, Stephen called 911, but when I went to go to the gurney, I fainted on the porch, and didn’t think he was such an alarmist then. To make sure I didn’t pass out again, I was helped to the gurney. When I got there, from my blood tests they took, the doctor determined that I had a disease called pancreatitis and admitted me to the hospital. When I got on the Internet, I discovered that I could have died from it. It was kind of weird though because it usually happens only to heavy drinkers, and I am just barely this side of a teetotaler. For the first day, I had nothing but a few ice chips. They gave me morphine by IV. Did I ever tell you how much I hate opiates? They are not my DOC (Drug Of Choice. I’ll take it while I have to, to take away the pain, because I hate pain too. I didn’t even have exciting dreams behind it. When they took away the morphine, and I could take Norco, I felt so much better. Opiates make me stupid, irritable, and constipated. That was Monday. Tuesday, December 20th, I had clear liquids and lots of Jello. I love Jello. When I got home on Wednesday the 21st, I went into a cooking frenzy and made my own Jello for the three of us. Wednesday they decided I could have solids, but everything was white except the apple juice. White bread and white rice. I found the broth more interesting. At least it had flavor, which white bread and white rice don’t have. The reason I prefer whole wheat and multi-grain breads to white bread is not that it’s good for me. No, the reason I like them is I like the flavor. Later that same week, I made Saturnalia dinner for David and me, ham, whipped sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and vegetable casserole. I had made chocolate crinkle cookies for dessert. It was very good. Stephen was off with Lizet. I spent the weekend on the computer.

Early in the morning on the 25th, I made an offering to Saturn by the fig tree in the backyard. I gave Him what I had, which was corn meal and rum. I petitioned Him to have me win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. I plan to make this a tradition every year on December 25th. When I win the Sweepstakes, I’ll be able to afford better sacrifices. Then I watched the Hellraiser series of movies and my Netflix. I had a very good weekend. I chatted online with various people. Then Wednesday I had a very pleasant surprise. Andy, Barb, Nadia, and Maddie stopped by, gave me presents, and took me out for dinner. I had veggies and noodles, since they were the most fat free thing we could think of. I made sure to have mushrooms.

New Year’s Eve we watched movies, had ham left over from the past weekend, and toasted with Martinelli’s. I made corn chowder out of the ham bone, and Andy suggested an alternative to lima beans that I don’t know why I didn’t think of. Potatoes. Less work and time than lima beans, easier to find, and easier to digest. From now on that’s what I’ll use.

Llewellyn turned us down, so we’re sending our book proposal package to other publishers. I found thirty, and I’m sending the package to all of them shotgun style. Fortunately most, if not all of them have special email addresses I can send packages to. Doing it in email form electronically means I just either copy and paste the material into the body of the cover emails, or I attach the material, or both.

Now that I’m online, I can get organized. To do that, I’ll use the five year plan that I stole from the Communists. When I was young, during the height of the Cold War, either the Soviets or the Red Chinese were always launching glorious Five Year Plans. I interpreted these to mean they would focus their energy and resources for five years towards a certain goal. Well, I didn’t think I could plan ahead five years. Things were always happening to me to throw a monkey wrench into those plans, but maybe I could plan ahead five months, or fifteen months, or five weeks, or fifteen days, or five days, that’s a work week, or one day, fifteen hours, or five hours. So my fifteen hour plan for tomorrow is to get up, make tea, do the Rune, Ogham few, and Tarot card of the day, do my emails, eat lunch, start Chapter 5, send a package, and work on my book, taking time out for supper, and either work on my book or do emails. In there, I have to feed the cats, vacuum the living room and hall, and put the dishes away.

On the romance score, I’m undecided. There are a lot of guys I’m chatting with online, but I can’t help comparing them with Doc, and what gets me is that they’re all in such a rush to get serious. It seems to me that they regard having a woman in their lives is a bit like acquiring a new car, or a boat, or a new computer. I don’t want to be just another man-toy. Sure Doc had his work, his lodge, and his Renaissance, but he also had Paganism, and I was a big part of all of that. There’s a guy in the Army in Afghanistan who wants to come home to a wife. He’s even willing to “convert” to Paganism for me, but I don’t buy it. I told him that nobody ever converts to Paganism, that we realize we always were Pagan, and simply come home to it, but I don’t think he heard me. Well, if he doesn’t respect me enough to listen to me, and take it to heart, that’s the end of the relationship. It’s bad enough that Stephen has no respect for me, and doesn’t listen to what I tell him. I am not going to have a Significant Other who doesn’t respect me.

Today is the day Christians devote to love and romance. Tomorrow is the day that Pagans devote to romance, the Roman holiday of Lupercalia, names after Luperca, the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, the twins who founded Rome. Wolves, as we know, mate for life. If I could afford it, I would mark the day by making a donation to Robert Redford’s foundation for the protection of wolves.