Is this beer? It’s so much better than wine!
My family is working on the assumption that making alcohol not a big deal, it will make my sister (now 13) uninterested in overindulging. I guess we’ll see if it works in a few years.
So, my friend and I have come up with a goal. Goals are good. But this one is particularly good: we intend to try all the ice cream places in the city. (Ignoring things like Baskin Robbins or — ugh — Dairy Queen.) We found an article listing lots of ice cream places[1], and today we started with the Gelati Comme Il Faut one (my choice), which had good coconut (a little sweet for me), very disappointing chocolate, and the best hazelnut ever. (Note: I love hazelnut more than almost any other flavour.) And reasonably priced!
They left off lots of other artisanal ice cream places, but this should probably do us for the summer anyhow. It is a plan, a plan which has a specific goal. Updates as I eat more ice cream.
[1] We’re skipping Bilboquet, since we’ve both been there before. Their sorbets are great; their ice creams are not so much. I have — somehow — never been to Ripples.
The new person on the bottom floor (other side) of my building is a smoker and there is constantly the faint scent of cigarette smoke wafting into my bedroom. I wish it were reasonable for us to write a bylaw banning smoking on the balconies.
Today I did something smart.
Today I opened my fan. It is now blowing lovely cool air onto me. Why did I not do this before?
(And I know some people would call this an upside.)
The smell of pot, wafting in through my bedroom window.
Two chances (because the first one is sort of a cheat):
volume by a package the dancer to pay attention quickly which the unknown ones with slightly fast follows it is not something of confidantes confidantes of courage, my word which it did not come, did not make him
sleepwalk, so quickly sleeping in a motel which has, did not come the situation from the house and of Piss on the entireties your background and Piss on your entirety of courage to besiege, my word him, courage, your word constitutes him, came to him not, constitutes to him courage, my word, came him not, constitutes to him courage, to a bad weather gives him, thus
no the simple explanation of all, could not come in one way or another by us and yea the human tragedy cannot important being made exists in the need living with the consequences under the pressure, under the courage of pressure, my word, came, constitutes not, to courage, your word, came not, constitutes courage, my word, came not, constitutes courage which it could not come to worse
or
I think that I do not have best ego in my head with anybody competed with with me to me thinks than I am large receipt weginnere spirit put me know than those rôder the angel remarks to very embrace which me sings, part of this one is received honey swept on my lips me knows that I know that I know that I know if you can name this chance if you can name this chance if you can miss this wanting much to say dust to eat you insensitive Bumsen to want to say dust to eat you insensitive Bumsen to want to say dust to eat
(I am a big fan of the second song.)
via q
Remember when Hartz almost killed my cat[1]? Good news! The product is no longer being sold (for cats — it’s still available for dogs and you should not use it, and it seems to be exportable and therefore available in other countries).
[1] Like me, today, when she *fell from the balcony*. She seems to be fine now.
Do people not realise it is the epitome of rude to chat on the phone while you’re paying for stuff? Or — worse yet — having a conversation on the phone right under a “please do not use cell phones here” sign? Or — my least favourite — answering the phone while in the middle of an important conversation? There’s a reason you have voice mail.
The reason I find quantum physics (at least, the elementary concepts I can understand from What the Bleep) so fascinating is that it explains the phenomenon of manifestation. For so many years of my life I was the biggest skeptic, an ardent atheist, a person who demanded that if it was to be believed there must be a proven and demonstratable logic. It was a very empty time. Believing in only what you can see before you–when what you see are a series of negative circumstances–makes for little vibrance.
I’m not totally sure what vibrance is in this context. Vibrancy, maybe? I won’t nitpick about all the things I believe that I can’t see, because that’s petty. But seriously, if the world as it is isn’t enough, you’re missing something. The world is full of amazing and wonderful things, and I don’t miss out on them because I’m an atheist. Yes, I have empty times: this is because I get depressed, and for various reasons, antidepressants do not work. It is not because I have a universe-shaped hole in my life.
I’m not really a physicist, but what I do know from quantum physics is that it doesn’t explain “manifestation”. If you want to believe it works, believe it works. If you want to figure out why, then study something, don’t read pop science books or watch movies and think that this explains stuff. I read The Celestine Prophecy, all about vibrations and energy levels and sure, they’re related, but not in the way that it makes us more or less evolved.
But I have learned to trust, after many years of things happening that cannot be waved away as happenstance. Finding out that quantum physics suggests a scientific basis for manifestation makes me positively giddy.
See, coincidence does happen. A lot. It’s not even surprising, when looked at from the big picture. Why does no one learn proper probability & statistics?
First, the book absolutely says that you create your own reality–good, bad, and in-between. “Most often people reject the ‘I Create Reality’ idea when something occurs in their life that they would absolutely never, ever create…That’s true; they–the personality–never would. But as all spiritual traditions maintain, there is more than one “you.” This divine schizophrenia goes by many labels: ego/true self, personality/divinity, son of man/son of god, mortal body/immortal soul, but in essence it says there are different levels from which you are creating” (p. 110).
See, I super duper secretly want bad stuff to happen. So do all of you who’ve had bad things happen, which is pretty much everyone in the world. I’ve complained about this before. If you think things happen to *you* for a reason, go right ahead and believe it. But don’t you tell me that it’s true for me.
“The dualistic model of karma says: I hit Bob, so someone will hit me. It’s a very cause / effect (a.k.a. Newtonian) way to deal view this phenomena. But from the non-dualistic, entangled [quantum] model, it’s different. It says that action or thought (which are the same “thing”) arises in a piece of my consciousness. There is a certain frequency or vibration associated with that. By taking the action, I endorse that reality so that I am not connected to the Universe by that frequency or vibration. Everything “out there” of the same frequency will respond to it, and they will then be reflected in your reality. By this notion, everything in your life–people, places, things, times and events–are nothing but reflections of your signature vibration” (p. 110-111).
Oh, it is just like the Celestine Prophecy. Magic Science Words are not truth.
“Perceiving one’s self as a victim is possibly the strongest rejection of ‘I create my reality.’ And it happens all of the time. The victim says: ‘This situation happened to me. It is unfair and unwarranted.’” [Um, that sounds like the tune I’ve been singing about my foot.] “The corollaries of this are: ‘Poor me. The Universe is unjust. Karma is a part-time, fickle operation.’ The upside of this attitude is: You get sympathy, get to feel good about yourself because it’s not you, and can blow off the experience and not deal with your part in it. The downside is: you just endorsed the idea that you don’t create your reality (and thus are disempowered to do so) and you will get the lesson again and again…It also is a fragmentation from reality. It removes the Creator from the Creation” (p. 111-112).”
Oh, that’s so harsh. But I love it. Let’s just be real: sure, it can be said that ’shit happens.’ But the only thing shittier than expecting that ’shit happens’ is when the shit does happen and then we throw up our hands and wallow in it instead of believing there is an empowered way to create a new reality.
There’s a balance, really. You don’t need to take *all* the responsibility for something or *none* of it. You can figure out what you did wrong and change that without figuring that it was all you trying to punish yourself or teach yourself some lesson. And even if you don’t have responsibility for something, you can always learn from it, because we are animals who learn, occasionally.
Maybe she does this so I won’t leave the house. But now Til has taken to sleeping under my chin — she crawls right up there when I lie down, then flops herself down (on my neck! it hurts!) and purrs and purrs. It’s sort of sweet, and also sort of annoying, especially when she leans back and sticks her fluffy fur up my nose and has her ears in my eyes.