One cell at a time.

Or least I hope to hell that is what is going on. I sincerely hope that all this time spent in deep and potent sleep is leading up to something. That it’s a painful process, but a process nonetheless, one that will lead to a brighter happier stronger shinier me.

It certainly feels like I am moving heavy furniture inside myself these days. The prep work is over, the small stuff has been thrown out or moved, and now the big stuff can be tackled because there is room to move things around now.

And I am eager to do so. In fact, I wish I could just get it all done at once in one enormous effort, and then deal with the consequences after. But no, as tempting as the idea of burning the house down rather than cleaning it might be sometimes, the truth is, these things have to happen slowly and gradually in order to maintain stability and not drive oneself crazy in the name of sanity.

So as tempting as it can be to just release my grip and fling myself into the void, I am too damn sensible to actually do it. Instead, I will slowly and painfully make my way down the mountain via the smart and wise method of finding toeholds and handholds and suffer all the way down.

Sometimes it sucks to be sensible, ya know that?

For one thing, it means that even if the crazy solution is the best one, you will never recognize it, or if you do, you will never have the guts to actually do it. You will instead cling to what seems smart and sensible and safe to do, all the while patting yourself on the back for not doing crazy irrational things like some people do. You know, those irrational types who cannot control their emotions and just do whatever foolish thing their hearts tell them to do.

Yeah, well, if we’re so smart, me and I, how come we are not happy? Could living a more spontaneous and emotion based existence really be all that much worse? Impulsive people can be happy people too. How long can you go on thinking you are better off than them because you are so sensible and clever when you are miserably depressed and the “stupid” people are happier and more productive and fulfilled?

I think of myself as a rational pragmatist, and if that is true, then I am forced to admit that the evidence clearly shows that my current methodology is producing extremely poor results.

And I am all about the results. Right? Results are all that matters. Not doctrine or dogma or form or aesthetics or any other irrelevant distractions. Just results. It works, or it does not.

Well, my life sure as fuck does not work right now, not on any parameter above mere subsistence.

SO by those sensible and rational and oh so reasonable grounds alone, I should be wide open to the idea that my methodology is deeply flawed, my basic assumptions are incorrect, and large quantities of error and useless data have corrupted the entire experiment. This leaves no choice but to star the experiment over from scratch, incorporating lessons learned from the failures (and successes) of the first one.

Unfortunately, there is no reset button on life, no just starting the game over again with the idea that you will do a lot better this time because you will make smarter choices and avoid the mistakes you made the first time through.

There are no do-overs in life. No margin for error either. And I am not good in situations where there is no margin for error.

I mean, one little mistake can mean so much. Like this, for example :

To be honest, it was probably both.

Um, whoops. What a difference a single letter can make, huh? Makes me wonder if the proofreader fell asleep at the switch, or if the writer was thinking about something else, or if they made the fetal error of trusting the spell checker to do their proofreading for them.

Spell checkers only flag non-words, not the WRONG words, people!

Makes me want to read the original, though. “And this band has Orinoco Jones on lead vocals, Tim McBluth on lead guitar, Boby Smith on bass, and Eric Lyday on drugs. ”

It would look like it was the first time a band actually included their dealer as part of the band. A touching tribute to someone who means so much to them, but probably a tad inappropriate.

And hey, I might have had a lousy day, but at least I did not have the cool looking rocks I picked up on the beach explode in my pockets.

That is what happened to a 43 year old Orange Country woman. Her kids picked up some perfectly harmless looking rocks on the beach, and she stuck them in a pocket and went home, and then they… ignited.

Here is what they looked like :

There they sit. Quietly. Patiently. Waiting.

I do not see what the kids saw in the big one on top. That just looks gross and ugly to me. But the little green one on the bottom is COOL! It’s like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Green! It looks like it could be a hunk of something that fell from space.

And given what happened to their mother later, maybe that is not so silly an idea. The woman is severely burned, with second and third degree burns between her right hip and her right knee, as well as second degree burns on her right hand.

I am assuming those are from when she was frantically trying to get the rocks out of her pocket, or trying to slap out the flames.

Gee, and I always thought amateur geology would boring.

I feel bad for the woman, and especially bad for the kids. Those kids probably feel horrible about what the rocks they picked up did to their mother. And what a bizarre occurrence. What could seem more harmless than rocks on a beach?

I hope she recovers fully and everyone puts the whole weird thing behind them.

I mean wow. Fortean happens.