Chocolate & Inspiration

I, like many, am a chocolate fiend. I don't just love chocolate, I have a profound, personal relationship with it. We once bandied about which was better; sex or chocolate in the AU. I suppose I'm still torn about it myself - both are highly sensual and satisfying experiences.

Anyway, yesterday I was sitting in front of the computer, staring at a blank Word document and trying to produce something readable. I was also snacking on some chocolate; nothing fancy, just little Hershey bars. In the middle of one of these little bits of heaven melting in my mouth, I just started typing; sort of like automatic writing, I suppose. I wasn't looking at the screen anymore, I was looking at the keyboard, but not really seeing what I was typing. What came out was quite good, but incomplete; I will probably mess with it some more tonight.

It was quite wonderful. Never experienced that before, just sort of flowed.....I attribute it to a Zen-like state induced by chocolate. You may scoff, and maybe I am full of shit. I may put on a lot of weight. eek.

More chocolate tonight.

Hypersensitivity

Insecurity - that's what it is. That's what makes me the hypersensitive fret freak that I am.

My Nose! My Nose!

We have ferrets, four of them. Gadget, the first and eldest, Penny (you figure out who they're named after!) Boris and Natasha. They spend most of their time in an enormous cage in a spare bedroom, but get play time each evening out in the living room. Night before last, I was down on the floor playing with the "kids" and Boris bit me. He's done this before, but never drawn blood.

I was playing with them with a squeeky toy (a shark) and Boris was getting very excited, as he often does. Lying on my side on the floor, my face was just inches from the floor and Boris suddenly lunged at me (he moves far faster than I) and sunk his canines into my proboscus. Ferrets can play very rough, and they bite on each other quit a lot; their skin, however, is like iron and is rarely penetrated.

Upon surveying the damage, I'll probably keep a small scar as a reminder to keep a bit of distance between an excited Boris and my nose. Ouch.

Parenthood

Our son, Eric, is a good kid. He's not perfect, but he's a good kid. Eric is almost nineteen and is a senior in high school. He should have graduated last year, but he enjoyed ninth grade so much he wanted to do it twice. He attended private schools through that first pass at ninth grade, at which point his mother and I decided not to continue footing the bill for private school. He still didn't do very well, but he managed to pass. Last year, he very nearly flunked again, and had to go to summer school. This year, I think he has finally figured out that he doesn't have to like school, but he does have to pass. He's GPA this year is running about 3.5; amazing.

Other than having almost no interest in education, he really is a good kid. He runs with a good crowd, doesn't drink, smoke or do drugs, and gets into almost no trouble.

Did we waste all that money sending him to private schools all those years? I don't think so. They were church-run schools, and he got very grounded in them. His sense of right and wrong is imperturbable, and he (for the most part) understands the parent-child relationship very well. When his mother or I ask him to do something, it gets done with a minimum of "ah mom's." I'm not sure he'd be that way if he'd gone to public schools from the beginning.

Some folks may think that in sending him to church school he got indoctrinated. Well, he did; but he would also have been so in public schools. The difference being in what he would have been indoctrinated in. In church schools, he got right and wrong, self discipline and personal responsibility, in a public school he would have gotten moral ambiguity, virtually no discipline and the doctrine of victimhood. He is a little ostrasized by some in the public school because he's different, but he seems to revel in it.

He has no interest in college. This is bad for him, but good for me, in that I don't have to pay for it. I'm trying to convince him to join the Navy upon graduation, for a number of reasons; foremost of which is that I have no doubt that there is going to be a reinstatement of a draft in this country. On a ship at sea, he will be far safer than chasing terrorists around Bahgdad. He can also see a bit of the world, learn a skill or two, and even earn some money for education, should he decide at some point that more of that is a good idea. He has other plans, though. He framed houses last summer for a builder who is the father of one of his friends, and seems to enjoy that a lot. He's also interested in becoming a fireman. Between those two things he can probably make a pretty decent living just about anywhere in the country. I just hope and pray that that bastard Uncle Sam doesn't snag him; he's our only child.

Blog - what does it mean, really?


I dunno.

Seems to be just a personnal webpage with no commercial purpose wherein one can prattle on about the events or lack thereof in one's life.

Or, perhaps it's a place where some talented soul can display their fruits.

Maybe it's a vent, a cathartic or a therapuetic exercise.....

A lot of folks I know seem to have them, and one in particular actually got me to read theirs. I would have read it a lot sooner if I'd known it was there.

But here it is, Thanksgiving Day 2005. We've done the feast and get together - I'm quite miserable in the aftereffects of my gluttony. Now I have three whole days of weekend - this is a very good thing. I've been working six days a week for most of the year and so it's been a while since I've had even the "normal" two day weekend. So, thanks to my friend, I shall use some of this time to start one of these blog things.

Don't know how dedicated I'll be; right now a blog is pretty far down my list of things to do; so, we shall see.....