Category: The Voices in My Head

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Well, THAT Is Certainly NOT Right

Reading a novel. Ran across (sub-sub-sub-plot) “I need to earn her love.”

Whatever comes of the effort, it wouldn’t be a “love” that endures. A love that endures embodies the Rogerian translation of agape: unconditional positive regard. It’s the “unconditional” that is most important. Now, that unconditional positive regard may not result in the actions the one so loved desires, if their actions are negative, because actions have consequences, and love is sometimes tough. Lovingly tough.

Not that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Attempting to earn the love of another, and thinking that being worthy of their love is a prerequisite can result in a relationship built on sand. As I remind my own Wonder Woman: it’s not my fault she loves me (since I could never really be worthy of her love but only attempt to demonstrate my own and my appreciation for hers). *heh*

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Po’ Baby

Old Guy tomcat draped across my lap, purring (lap massage? *heh*). . . and griping about getting what he wants.

I know the feeling. *sigh*

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Marketing Fluff = BS

Saw some bedding (sheets and pillow cases) touted as “literally the stuff dreams are made of.” Queen size: $240/ Ah! But they are made from organic cotton!

*pfui* I’m throwing the BS flag on the whole concept. ALL cotton is made up of hydrocarbon chains and is therefore organic. A premium price for BS? Nah. I’ll pass.

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Guy’s got Pinoochis*

Overheard recently: “Don’t you hate it when you see an old person, then realize you went to high school with them?” Yeh, well, that only happens to me when I see my sibs. . . and they wonder why they don’t see me often at all, at all. *heh*

*”pinoochis” is a neologism I sometimes use instead of “brains.”

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Social Contract

Exploring the idea that a contract that is effected by deceit and coercion is invalid,

Do We Really Consent to Be Governed?

For the record, I can state in complete candor that I do not approve of the manner in which I am being treated by the liars, thieves, and murderers who style themselves the Government of the United States of America or by those who constitute the tyrannical pyramid of state, local, and hybrid governments with which this country is massively infested. My sincere wish is that all of these individuals would, for once in their lives, do the honorable thing. In this regard, I suggest that they resign their positions immediately and seek honest employment.

Join the club, bub. Romans 13 outlines the ideal civil government: protects citizens’ rights (such as life, property, etc.); punishes those who violate those rights. If our government(s) were truly legitimate in function, perhaps as many as 10% of its employees would be in the process of arresting, charging, prosecuting, and imprisoning the other 90%. (I say “as many as” hopefully, not reasonably. *sigh*)

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Affliction Becomes Benefit

Some folks are more prone than others to vertical ridges in fingernails as they age. Oh, anyone can experience them because of nutritional deficits or some physical malady, but mine are apparently age and genetics related. I can recall as a young boy times spent with my maternal grandfather’s mother. Spending time with Great Grandmother was an enriching experience for me in many ways, but one lil thing has remained fascinating to me over the years: her hands. She was always doing interesting things with her hands: needlework, paging down pages in her Bible as she read (sometimes aloud for me, though I was close and reading along), sharpening her always-at-hand pen knife, and even trimming her nails with that very sharp pen knife.

And then there were her nails. Yep. Ridged just like mine are now, like Dad-Dad’s (maternal grandfather) were, like my older sister’s are. I have dealt with mine by checking my nutrition (no problems there), by making them less brittle with applications of different kinds, and. . . by trimming them as short as possible in order to minimize the real problem with ridged nails: frequent splitting and chipping.

And how has this become a benefit in recent days? Ease of keeping things really clean under my fingernails (because there’s hardly any “under my fingernails” to clean, for one thing).

So, a lil piece of heritage coming around to being a benefit.

Sweet!

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Sometimes Too Much of a Good Thing. . .

. . . is just too much.

Semi-sorta-annual checkup yesterday (my “permission slip” visit for a lisinopril scrip). My BP and pulse were up a tad, probably due to both recent disruptions of sleep pattern (exigencies calling for me to be up ~0300-0430, at the least, for example) and pain from dislocated knee (it’s getting better w/o physician intervention, but OTC pain meds are ineffective). But still, PA thought it’d be a good idea to try some metoprolol to at least moderate the pulse rate.

I’m not sanguine with metoprolol use, in gweneral. The first warning is “Do not stop taking this drug all of a sudden. If you do. . . in some cases heart attack may occur.” Yeh, I told him it brought about a dependency. . . Oh, well. I know how to taper it off if I have to.

Added 25mg (HALF the dosage prescribed) to my regimen today, and. . . my heart rate is now so low I can barely keep my eyes open. We’ll see how that goes.

“If I should die before I wake. . . ”

*heh*

Oh, good night’s rest last night (before I began the new drug regimen), no 0300 call on my time today, and my heart rate and BP had already fallen into an acceptable range, despite the continued knee “discomfort.”

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Spreading Disinformation?

Some folks are touting the virucidal action of plain old soap and water, “Soap and water kills viruses!” Yeh, but not unless agitated for up to SIX MINUTES (OK, depending on variables in the environment where they are found, from two to six minutes). (Yeh, the much ballyhooed paper on soap and water killing HIV doesn’t see that lil factoid make the press. Yeh, I read the paper.) Count on the finger of one hand how many folks you know who are going to spend two minutes, let alone six, vigorously washing their hands with soap and water. Is it less than one? (The key is the physical action slowly working to help the soap break down a secondary, minor component–lipids–of virus capsids, since virus capsids are primarily protein, unlike bacteria cell walls, which are heavily linked with lipids enabling killing of some bacteria easier by similar vigorous and time-consuming application of soap and water).

This is why THE key benefit of proper hand washing is washing microbial materials OFF and rinsing them away.

(BTW, that infamous paper demonstrating that HIV can be “inactivated” by soap and water showed even longer times to effectiveness when some variables were changed, and agitating the solutions was still key. That’s because physics and chemistry–fill in the blank. Go ahead. Look it up. *heh*)

Oh, BTW, I use the term “kill” above referring to viruses, but of course I do not mean “kill” since one either “deactivates” or “destroys” viruses, because (OK, admittedly some controversy/gray area) viruses are not really alive to begin with. so cannot be “killed.”