Friday, April 21, 2006
Can you imagine the amazing implications it would have if you could create a set of stimuli that would evoke exactly the same feeling in each person exposed to it?
You could have a sense of communion with friends as you knew that you were all actually feeling the same thing at the same time.
You could communicate your state of being by searching through the library of stimuli until you found one closest to or matching how you feel and then you could let them feel it as well. How that would help therapy.
I guess you could also use it in conditioning behaviour by causing known pleasure responses to become associated with particular behaviours. That could be good or bad.
It'd sure make some highs safer since they'd be from a controlled stimulus.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
While I was in Texas, my mom was lamenting the fact that we don't live closer to her and was using as evidence for her point the idea that having family close to you makes life easier for you by providing a support system. I noted that friends could provide many of the same benefits but I conceded that in Athens I have neither. My brother said that he can't imagine how I do it and that he'd go crazy if he was in that situation. I replied quite succinctly that I am crazy.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
So I went to my mother's house in Texas this weekend for what was supposed to be a relaxing weekend in which I would get my military id so that I can have health insurance. It turned out that neither happened. After school and work on Friday, I began to prepare myself and the apartment for my absence and finally got to bed at about 12:30 AM. After that much rushing around and with so much on my mind, sleep did not come quickly and so I did not fall asleep until about 1:30 AM. I had to get up at 3:30 AM and so the night before I went and bought a $20 coffee machine at Kroger and set it to make 4 cups of coffee at 3:30 AM. I don't like coffee and I don't drink it much, but when I do drink it, it usually works pretty well for me so I figured that I might as well have the machine for the times when I need it. So, I woke up at 3:30 AM, ate a quick breakfast, put the coffee in a mug, and left by 3:50 AM. I had to drive a little over an hour to the MARTA (Atlanta's public transit system) station to park. On the way, it rained very hard but only for a few minutes. With the dark and the rain, I had to slow to about 30 mph in the fast lane and even then I could not see the lines most of the time. One time I ended up about 3 feet out of my lane onto the margin of the road and almost into the grass before I realized that I wasn't even in my lane anymore. Luckily there was little traffic due to the hour and the rain only lasted about 5-10 minutes. I was, of course, very tired and so my memory and cognitive functions were quite impaired. If I had hit someone or something then a minute later I would have honestly been questioning whether it had happened or not and how I got into the situation. Luckily, I arrived safely and after a 40 minute train ride I was at the airport. Due to the coffee, I couldn't sleep until that night, but I functioned sufficiently. We went to a zoo after I arrived which was fun. I discovered that giraffes are terribly clumsy animals and that rhinoceros flatulence sounds just like that of humans, just louder.
The following day was spent trying to fix the problems on my mom's computers. One was a simple fix and the other should have been, but the computer took issue to a relatively straightforward and standard procedure and it took me the rest of the day and obtaining several CDs from other people to resolve the issue.
The last day was packed as well. I had to go to the eye doctor and get a new prescription followed by a reluctant trip to pick new glasses (I felt too stressed to be able to make a decision I would be satisfied with later) and I basically let my mom and the employee pick a frame that they felt looked good. My only issues with how they looked are, I believe, actually issues with the symmetry of my facial features and not of the frames.
Our next stop was the dentist's office. Due to having the braces, I've been extra vigilant in brushing my teeth and using fluoride mouth washes to avoid having white spots from the braces. Unfortunately, neither of those take care of the space between the teeth and the procedure for flossing with braces was far too bothersome to mess with. I had expected to get a clean report and move on, but instead I heard the dentist talking in code to the helper and when I asked what it meant, she said a cavity. She talked some more and I asked her if that meant another cavity, and it did. I was shocked and had to restrain myself from literally, not figuratively, throwing up due to the news. Every time I get a cavity (these new 2 will make 4 total), it really upsets me because it makes me very aware of my own mortality and realization that as time passes the body only decays, becomes less perfect, and inches toward an eventual death that I can't come to grips with acknowledging as inevitable. It really bothers me that I don't have control over that and that no matter how hard I try, no matter what my life choices, no matter what I do to try to stop or slow it, I cannot stop this natural decay.
Our final stop prior to the airport was Ft. Hood to get the military identification. Unfortunately, we were not aware of all of the procedure and so, due to my mom not having a power of attorney, and her husband being off doing funeral duty, they were unable to process our IDs. It turns out, however, that we didn't even have to go out there to do it afterall. Her husband, or her with a power of attorney, needs to submit the paperwork to get us into the system and then once that is done we can go to any military base without our sponsor present and get the ID. The old navy school in Athens will be quite convenient for me to obtain the ID from once the paperwork is taken care of.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
So, I haven't posted a dream in a little while, but last night I had a rather vivid but disturbing one that I figured I'd shared:
It started off with me at my paternal grandparents' house, although it was neither their real life house nor their real life town. The first thing to occur was that I got happily married to a beautiful, brunette girl. On our wedding night, we started off intimacy slowly
and she showed me how to rub her vulva to pleasure her. Just as soon as I started to do so to her, she suddenly decided that this marriage wasn't going to work and we each went home to our own houses. I couldn't fathom what had just happened or why she had left me so suddenly. Afterall I had done nothing to provoke it and I had barely touched her so I couldn't have messed up her instructions. Prior to this change, we'd both been perfectly happy and blissful about our marriage so I was incredibly distraught at this change of events. A few days later, after not hearing from her at all, she came over to the house I was staying at. I was talking to her brother about something completely unrelated and when I saw her, I thought maybe she had changed her mind and wanted me afterall so I ran to her crying and hugged her and just held on feeling grateful that she came back to me. I told her I loved her and she told me she liked holding me, but then she made me let go and she went and talked to her brother making it clear that she had come to see him and not me. After she delivered her message to him, she left not saying another word to me or even acknowledging that I was still there.
Then we heard news that my dad had died but we didn't know any information or have confirmation of it. As we stood outside waving goodbye to my grandparents, ready to leave, news arrived to confirm the death but still providing no other information. I couldn't believe I could suffer two blows like that in so short of succession and I felt blown away.
A year later, I went back to the town with a friend. We went to the little historic building where my wedding had taken place. It was called Abyssinia. As I showed my friend the building taking note to point out the high ceiling, we met a worker who was going through old dried flowers to discard them. Each was affixed with a white tape tag noting the date of the ceremony they had been used fresh at. Most of the flowers were browned, worn, and ragged. As I glanced over them, I spied a tag with my wedding date on it and I picked up the flower it was attached to. It was not worn at all, but instead was perfectly preserved. It was a dark, rich, velvety, purple-red rose with a purple-green stem. Its surreal qualities made it look like a piece of a painting made real. I stood overwhelmed with unnamed emotions as if the flower and I were the only things that existed at all. The worker let me keep the flower.
An interesting note is that before today, I had no idea what Abyssinia and I'm not even sure where I've heard the word before. A quick google search explains that it is the old name of Ethiopia. Bizarre.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
I am so pissed. It turns out that once more I am being screwed over by work. My boss kind of neglected to inform me that as a self-employed contract worker, I have to pay the self-employment tax, half of which is usually covered by the company for payroll workers. The raise that I received when I transitioned between payroll and contract work is a raise that I would have received anyway and so does not compensate for the extra taxes that I have to pay now in any way. It turns out actually, that the company may be paying the same or perhaps less for me now at my "raised" wages compared to when I was a pre-raise payroll employee. I knew that as a contract worker I would have to pay the taxes of my work myself at tax time since they weren't being withdrawn, but since I didn't know about the self-employment tax, I had no idea it would be this high. As it stands right now, with some questionable deductions tossed in, I owe the government around $1300 in taxes.