see ya later, crock-a-gator

one more for some random numbered year!

other blogs i read seem to think they should have a special entry for their last 2009 post. my reaction: "huh?" i still think it's october AND i don't care. i'll be leaving the gnomal environs soon, back to the doghouse, to read and drink warm irish drinks. this, to me, is a regular weekend.

i got the greatest hug ever today, from a will-be shaman. just thought i'd mention. then i had a nap with my buddy c-light. it's interesting how differently physical contact feels when one is not in a physically intimate relationship. it's all "whoa. are you really touching part of my shoulder near my armpit? that feels really awesome." i find relationships often leave me feeling physically drained. i'm not going to analyze that statement, as tempting as it is.

i visited my sweet kitten today. she smells awesome, and looks adorable, and still loves me. can you hear the small church boy calling from the steeple tower? "allll's we-ellllll!" in my world, anyway.

i am thinking about trauma, and trauma in the lives of others. do we help just because we can? i always helped, my ability to do so being the only prerequisite. then i added "they are already, in some way, helping themselves" to that list of necessary conditions. now, having just finished another short story, i wonder. maybe there should not be a list of defining occasions in which i shall help others. maybe i should just leave it up to the decision of the moment.

i think the moment is, in a way, the only time and place we can actually make a decision. so why steal that choice from myself, by enforcing a set of behaviours? i hate the dogma of others. why create my own?

one might say "well, this isn't dogma, it's my values." indeed. and what is the difference? values are guidelines, open to interpretation, whereas dogma is concrete and unbending, an extreme and rigid application of values. there is a difference. still, i now see values as a gateway drug. i think they can get in the way of being honest about what we need in the moment. i think people use 'values' as an excuse to be self-effacing, and to give themselves nightmarish realities.

most people i know don't err on the side of 'not enough values'. maybe not enough understanding of others, but mostly, not enough listening to themselves. there. one last judgment for 2009. listen!!!