Surprise Makeover!
Okay, so I was looking at the site, and decided that the main page was just way too busy. So I moved a lot of the counter stuff and the links to surround the initial flash intro, which wasn’t using up all that space anyway. So now I have a much simpler main page that I think people may like a lot.
Check it out here!
littlest tears
Lil had a doctor’s appointment today. She is healthy. This is good. She had shots. It always makes my heart feel poisoned. I know that babies need shots. When they look up at me with those big tears rolling down their soft little cheeks, I feel like I am betraying them. I feel mean. Her tears have long since dried, and she is back to being my snuggly little bit of softness, and I am grateful. She was so sad.
Site updates
Added a new page here. Basically it’s the starter ritual for all of the rest of the Kadmon workings. This one and the Husking ritual are the only rites that have their own pages for the moment, but as I work out the details, they’ll all eventually get one. For now the rest are all on the Practices page. Same thing for the Partzufim, although that may be a larger work. I think that in the future, I’ll need an FAQ or maybe a Wiki to keep the whole thing organized. I suppose we shall see. Enjoy!
walking on emptiness
I burned myself twice trying to make pancakes this afternoon. Once I overcompensated for P who was reaching for a batter bubble, once after I put her down. She decided to climb my leg and clawed a sensitive spot, I jerked and clipped the skillet with my side. I shouted angrily for help. The mood of the house, a fragile thing sometimes, shattered. The pancakes went uneaten. I am left feeling that fake emptiness that too much sudden anger leaves. It really isn’t empty it is just numb. Feeling will come back later.
The ground was just gone. This is one of my areas of difficulty. The anger has lessened, and the outbursts have become less destructive and less frequent. It still feels like I have lost ground. So I retreat, deep into the darkness of my inner soul to try to put the calm together again. Even when it feels like everything is lost, I know that progress is still progress, even when you make a mistake.
It probably wouldn’t have been so harsh had I not already been feeling fragile. I was, and situations, like life are rarely ideal. The real world is where the proof is found.
Dream of Mist
I dreamed that we were having a party at my dad’s parents house. Many people from my synagogue were there, and other friends and family as well. All of a sudden, a cloud descended upon the area. It seemed to be causing people to fall asleep immediately. Many slumped to the floor and I had to fight the urge by running to the car. A couple of other people were with me although I don’t remember who. I drove my dad’s truck over to my parents’ house. At their house, it was raining very hard and lightning was striking all around us, but we weren’t sleepy. We weren’t hit by the lightning either, but we had a few close calls. We realized that this was an effect connected to the cloud that was causing people to sleep. So we figured that if we went back over there now, we might be able to wake some of them up and bring them out of the cloud. We headed back, but the cloud had changed. Now it was causing the people to become wake up in a daze of sorts. One man had taken his children out to the car and went to sleep. When we got to them, their lips were blue, and we had to drag them all back inside, while they protested loudly. My last thought was that soon the cloud would change again, so we needed to be prepared.
Dinner
Dinner is fast becoming one of my favorite things. Generally, I like to cook, but this has become the way of togetherness in a healthy way for my family. My in-laws come and we eat together twice a month or so, and this has become a very positive relationship, where it was not always. My sister has made our house her regular Tuesday night dinner spot and has begun bringing her roommate regularly. This pleases me greatly. Tonight, I really just found that simple place of peace while making soup.
I also invited my mother over to eat. I am still uncertain whether this evening went well or not, but there were no fights or harsh angry words. I am a bit discouraged, mostly in that she mostly wants to buy the kids stuff, or be catty. I am finding it harder and harder to deal with this as it makes me increasingly uncomfortable. Partly I am trying to break the gossip habit as it is hurtful, also I figure it isn’t changing anything to sit and bitch. So I am glad that there was no explosion, I am hoping it becomes a bit more positive. I am trying to recognize that my mother is going through some rather difficult health issues, and has decreasing support. I want to be supportive of her recovery and mental health without supporting the unhealthy behaviors and I find this to be a difficult balancing act.
As of now, I hope to establish boundaries that allow for my mother to participate in my family’s life while not damaging it. I hope that in having a healthy relationship with her, and creating a format that allows for positive interaction with her, that it can help heal the damage that has been done to our relationship and perhaps help to ease some of the stress of dealing with her health issues. As of yesterday, her doctors found a dark mass in her left breast. She doesn’t go back to the doctor for another test till the end of the month and she fears it is cancerous. I am not sure if there is any basis for this fear, or if it is just the fear of the unknown growing to fear of the worst. Since she has just returned to work after having had heart surgery and is facing more cardiovascular work being done, this is all a bit much for her. Without her sisters and living apart from her husband, she is finding that she doesn’t have any secondary coping mechanism for the stress. I love her and wish to help. I also know that falling back into a co-dependant relationship with her now will not facilitate her learning the healthy coping skills that she desperately needs.
Selfishly, it has all made me realize how far down that road I walked, and how glad I am I left it. I do not want to be 60 and alone. I do not want to have so many walls around my self that I live in a feedback loop of fear and insanity. It scares me to think that there are only choices between that and life, and sometimes I make bad ones.
The soup was good. I have learned a lot. I still have much to do and many things to think on. I pray that she is well, in body and mind tonight.
The alchemical LCD
“As is Corning, which has announced an “extra green” LCD, which the company says will be the first such display free of antimony, arsenic and barium. Didn’t know these substances were in your LCD? They’re used to reduce air bubbles in glass, and Corning says they’ve found a way to produce glass for displays without using them.”
Site updates and general news
I’ve updated my autobiographical essay, if you’re interested.
I would also encourage anyone with interest in WordPress to come check out my blog’s Hemingway theme. Extremely cool theme created by Kyle Neath. It’s so cool that it persuaded me to upgrade to WordPress 2.0.1, even though I had to beg people for a Live+Press plugin update (the plugin that lets me post on WordPress and LJ at the same time). On my side, it’s still a bit rough around the edges, but it works well enough that K and I can both use it.
I suppose it’s silly of me to keep procrastinating on the conversion essay. I’m supposed to put in some more personal details, as it had too much philosophy in it for the taste of others. Argh. I take the personal mysticism stuff out to please my rational Reform rabbis and now they want me to put it back in. It’s funny, because when I mention dreams and whatnot to the student rabbi, she gets a bit uncomfortable. Ah well, I’m doing this for me, not her.
Ripping my movies to the AV700 is paying off. In the interim between taxes and my next check, we were coming up short, but were able to take in all of the movies we’d already ripped and sell them for cash. We actually came up with a good amount, although it wasn’t because of Gamestop’s generous prices, but rather because of the shear amount that we took in. Much more of this, and I’ll need a bigger Firewire drive though.
Comic book people, please go find Miracleman. It’s done by Alan Moore (yeah, the V for Vendetta guy) and later in the series Neil Gaiman; it’s sooooooooo worth the time.
Now I must sleep.
RAW on Iraq
from an interview with Robert Anton Wilson
“1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?
No. I loathe invasions and occupations and all violence against non-invasive individuals.
2. Have you changed your position?
Yes. I oppose the invasion even more vehemently, since Bush has used it as an excuse to destroy the last few tattered remnants of the Bill of Rights.
3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?
Stop killing people, bring the troops home, and rebuild Katrina damage. (But they never listen to me.)”
Excerpted from http://www.reason.com/hod/iraqthreeyears.shtml
I’ve found it after several years of looking. It’s been so long that I don’t remember if it was Mark Armstrong or the Mila Yomit series (done by R. Yitzchak Marmorstein) that tipped me off to its existence (although I suspect it was the former). In the end, it all boiled down to spelling it correctly. Having never seen the name spelled in Hebrew, I was uncertain as to its correct transliteration, hence I originally called it Rosh Millin (2 L’s) while I found it elsewhere as Rosh Milim also. I did a search on all of the spellings back in 2002 and found only a sparse few hits, but this time I hit paydirt. Books International had it, along with the Lights of Teshuvah (translated in another book I have) and Lights of the Torah.
And the final hurdle? Now I have to translate it.
