Journal - Friday, 26Oct2018
Mom isn't doing so well. She forgets things. She's having a harder time moving around. We'll see.
One of my biggest frustrations is sex. One companion passed and the other moved. I try to avoid casual sex these days and I don't do the pickup scene at all. The younger women aren't interested in an older guy, especially the kind that makes them think. The older available ladies, well, many are into the victimhood thing. Some of the others want a bad boy. When they find out I am pagan, they think danger and blood and risk. Usually that's not me. I used to have sex six or seven times a week and now it's once or twice on a good week. I'm horny in an age of #MeToo and regret equalling rape accusations. I'm not sure how to fix that.
Truth is winning in a small way. I've been finding people that I agree with online. Of course it will never be a massive or even an impressive number, but there's hope for Isaiah's Job yet. I serve veritas, that has it's own rewards. Widespread recognition for my, um, obvious insights and grand wisdom is not one of them. I'm pretty good, but it won't bring fame and money. Still, it's nice to stumble across some like minded folk here and there. Wisdom is where you find it.
It dawned on me that I can save time by copy-pasting the source code from the quotes & thinkums blog entries in my comments. I'll have to eliminate the <div class="offset"> and the following </div>, but the rest shows up in Disqus just fine. Not with all the bells and whistles, true, but with enough to show it's a blockquote. I sill may have to toss in some <em> and </em>, but it works.
Time for a shower. Then I'll greet the sunrise while sharing breakfast with my raven friend. Then over to check on Mom.
Remember Granpa's old Royal
About a month after my second birthday, Mom married the only man I would call Father. And later, much later, Dad. I was very precocious. A father was a big thing to me and I didn't have one. So I called him Father. It took me years to adjust. It took him years to accept that I was trying to honor him.
Along with Dad, I got three step-sibs, an uncle, some aunts, and another grandfather. Paternal step grandfather. Grandad.
Granpa.
I already had Grandpa and Grandma on my mother's side. But I saw them often. My new Granpa lived in Arkansas. That's a fair distance from Arizona. So I didn't see him as often.
Granpa was a letter writer. He had a well-used old Royal and he would write letters all the time. Getting a letter from him was special. It just felt wonderful. Every time I got one I could just picture him at his typewriter hunting and pecking out the letters.So of course when it came time to design my sites, I wanted a typewriter font. American Typewriter was my first choice, but the licensing is a little much. Courier worked but not as well. So I used Special Elite from Google Fonts.
I really wanted to use it in my lexicon, but it doesn't play well with other fonts. So I use Courier for the lexicon.
But the quotes from me, the NeoNotes, and now the Taproots entries, all those use Special Elite.
It helps me remember Granpa when I read those. And I want to pass those good feelings on to you..
Journal 09Mar2018
A little sketching. A lot of reading. Listening to music.
I've been so wrapped up in politics, paganism, and taking care of Mom that I didn't let my wheels spin for me.
I'm feeling more of myself.
Splitting focus really helps. But it helps even more indulging in both fiction and non-fiction. Even if the fiction is old favorites I've not read in a while.
Reading is a dying art, especially the way I do it.
I've been thinking about many things in the last few days. But I don't think I'll share them. More stuff for the private journal.
Jounal 04Aug2017
My companion pointed out to me last night that I've never shown a a picture of my raven pendant on the site.
Read More...Journal 21Jul2017
≠ ✰ pagan festival season AZ monsoon season ☯ waning crescent moon
I had a bit of a scare this week. My blogging program developed a bit of glitch for a while. The idea of having to rebuild five websites and all the connections did not thrill me. This is the fourth major version of the site and it has been tweaked and tweaked again.
When I first started Technopagan Yearnings, I was coding things by hand and I loved arranging HTML modularly. I started using Lifli’s iBlog when I gave TPY and Pagan Vigil their own domains. Since then, Lifli went out of business and I started using RealMac RapidWeaver. I've upgraded from version 5 to version 6 and apparently I should have upgraded to 7.
Things change. As something suitable for the ages, the websites work as they are. As something that I can update and tweak, I need programs to manage. Using something dynamically is different from an unchanging text set in stone. Things change. A good lesson, but I wasn't ready to hear it at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night after a day of frustration trying to fix the program. I had just gotten my new rhythm in blogging. I didn't want to spend months reconstructing the sites.
I managed a quick trip to Gallup on Wednesday. If you've never been, Gallup is sometimes called the "Heart of Indian Country." There's a lot to see and do there. I was meeting a friend that I hadn't seen in years. He had made a small necklace with red coral. I'm giving it to my companion tomorrow. The red will look excellent on her skin tone.
Speaking of changes, for the first time since the new cable company came to town, I've no cable TV signal and no internet. So as I type this I can't preview and I've no idea when I will be able to post. Hopefully today.
One of my issues with this site and P•V has been providing enough content. That's why I've scaled back the original content and moved this site more to "a slice of life." P•V is now mostly headlines and news clippings. I can't give daily original articles, not and maintain some kind of sanity. Paganism on the web is getting more and more wrapped up with politics and the Great Anti-Trump Crusade. I'm seeing first hand just how poisonous and destructive that is. Not that I support Trump, but removing a legally elected president for no credible reason. This obsession isn't healthy, and it's making some of my pagan friends unravel.
My garden is producing well. Like I've said before, they aren't really your vegetables until you give them away.
Mom is still getting along. She and I are having our disagreements. The other day when I checked on her, we got into discussion on if she should leave things on the stove cooking while she is in the other room. She has ruined one skillet. Bless her heart, when she doesn't see something, she's more likely to forget about it. I want her to be independent for as long as she can, but there are some things I don't think will ever really come back.
Well how about that. I just put in the tag for "Mom" and I thought I would double check the other entries because it came up "mom" instead of "Mom." It seems I use the word "moment" a lot. I didn't realize how much I did.
I suppose I should go do a fast pass through the kitchen and load the dishwasher. Then maybe some breakfast. Then a shower and shave. And then maybe I'll have internet.
Journal 07Jul2017
Journal 30Jun2017
≠ ✰ pagan festival season AZ monsoon season 🌛 waxing half moon
I spent some time this week with the man that handles Mom's yard work. That's no easy thing. Mom hasn't been able to work in the yard since the accident, but her yard is still amazing. There's no doubt this lady is the daughter of the Gardner, even if she doesn't grown vegetables.Way back when the folks first bought their house, there were fruit trees. What Mom didn't know at the time is that you have to spray fruit trees several times a year to keep them from getting infested. So we had a few glorious months with apples plucked fresh from the tree. And then they got wormy.
Ah well. Mom's yard now is just full of flowerbeds and it feeds her soul.
Mine is much more utilitarian. I don't have her gift with flowers.
Yesterday I made time for the full greet the sun ritual. I'm sure my grandfather wouldn't approved of me doing the nekkid pagan guy thing facing the sunrise, but he is the one who taught me about summer sunrises.
I'm typing this on my patio and one of my neighbor's pigeons is giving me the eye. He thinks I owe him food. He's not one of my raven friends, he doesn't get any.
I think I need some breakfast.
Journal 28Apr2017
Journal 21Apr2017
☿ Mercury retrograde ☯ waning crescent moon breezy early morning
I've got my tree-planting spot picked out for next Friday. It's a good one this year and less than half a day's drive.It's pretty obvious that sex has been on my mind this week. Part of it is me missing my companion who moved (yes, even though the other one is still here), but a bigger part of it is dealing with the fallout from the Klein verdict. It happens every time there's a sex scandal with pagans. I didn't plan to become a pagan sex advisor on ethics, but looking at my writings on sex, that's exactly what I have become.
I wonder if I could take the trade out in actual sex.
It looks like I'm going to be looking closely at the "in your face" paganism again. I'm not exactly comfortable with that, but I suspect that Someone has nudged again. We'll see how it works out.
Speaking of companions, my local one called me early Thursday morning laughing. "He has your mustache!" She was talking about Adam The Woo, a video blogger we sometimes enjoy with a morning cuddle. He got a haircut.
A very nice lady asked me about the "slice of life" thing again. This blog is more personal than anything else. Yes, I talk about the pagan stuff, but that is only part of who I am. That came up in an online converstation the other day too.
❝I’m not the pagan guy who lives down the lane, I’m a man who happens to be pagan. Also libertarian, straight, a bit of a mutt, and a passionate bibliophile. Those things are aspects of me, but they don’t define the face I show the World. Mostly those things don’t come into play unless someone demands their beliefs trump mine.❞
I didn't talk about masks. Maybe I should have. Sometimes it's still hard for me to know when to filter, espeically when I am not looking at their face.
Today I mail out the invites to my Welcome to Summer feast. It's looking like shish-kabobs this year. And of course the highlight is my bi-annual Hair of the Bear.
Wednesday I was checking on Mom and we got to talking about my malichite bear. She's the one who gave it to me although she doesn't understand what my pendants mean to me. I know she doesn't understand what my relationship with Bear, Coyote & Raven, but she knows I like bears and bear art.
Speaking of Coyote, my current bathroom book is Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores and I am really enjoying it.
Clean
It's the last bright moon before Summergate, the Lady Moon is entering the Court of Stars and I am ready.
For what I am not sure.
Read More...Journal 07Apr2017
❝Freedom of religion does not mean deferring to Christianity.❞— NeoWayland
Journal 31Mar2017
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”— Frank Lloyd Wright
