Still Grieving...

...over the loss of LOST. Take a look at this pic though and you tell me...

Is it me or is Kate, um...straddling Jack's shoulder?


Sure looks like it to me.

You be the judge.

Mmmm...Kaaaaaaaaaaaaate.....

OUT.

And You Thought I Wasn't Going to Post Today

Neither did I, actually. Well, I sort of did, but also I knew that if a window opened I'd hit it with a quickie. Had no idea what that quickie was gonna be, until one of my SN Sisters sent me a link to a very interesting video.



So I watched it. Not sure what to make of it, but what is most important about the video itself is the person giving the talk drives the point home that in order to fully understand neurological diagnoses like 'Autism' and other such things, you cannot just use behavioral analysis, you have to use more sophisticated EEG methods.

Makes sense.

You know what really struck me?


That 1 in 6 number. 1 in 6. That's really remarkable. Shitty, SHITTY odds. We are really fucking up our kids with the way we have manipulated this planet and it's resources and our chemically dependent existence is catching up to us through our kids.

Sucks.

How do you live a chemical free life though? How do you remove all harmful shit in the world? Is it even possible anymore? Is so much crap embedded so deeply in our lives, our bodies, our DNA that we are looking at an evolutionary change in humanity itself?


Big questions, huh? No you know why I am so fucked in the head. This is the kind of stuff I think about, but then DO NOTHING ABOUT. Maybe I think I can't change the world. Maybe I am just a shitty parent. Feel that way a lot. More often than not.

But that's the way it is.

Anyway...I need to find out more about that EEG Helmet those kids were wearing. Looked much less invasive. I am also VERY interested to see what EEG results we get in August at the (gulp) ONE YEAR FOLLOW-UP to the Brain Surgery.

Dammit...I set out to do a quickie and it always turns into a longie. I gotta learn to be brief, concise and know when to shut the fuck up.


OUT.

P.S.
I'm a complete asshole. I kept focusing on that doc's last name of Shankardass and the fact that she was kind of hot.

Best Laid Plans

I was hoping to get into some meat today, regarding the last five weeks.

Alas, the main course will have to wait, as Bennett, who had a temperature yesterday and was home from school, has a temperature today and is home from school. SO...there really isn't time to do the stuff I GOTTA do and also work in the stuff I WANNA do.

Know what I mean?

In the meantime, how about some recent photos of the kids? That's always cool, yeah? Gonna upload a bunch on to Facebook, but here's a few for those that do not do the whole Facebook thing.




OUT...

Lostingitis

If you ever plan to watch the show LOST, or are in the middle of doing so (Mom and Richard) and have not gotten to the last couple of seasons, you MUST stop reading now and just move on to something else.

There. I warned you.

I miss the show LOST. A lot.

In fact, believe it or not, it was one of the dozen or so reasons that this blog went dark for five weeks. I was in mourning, seriously. I know that sounds incredibly dumb, but it is the truth. Not having LOST as a part of my week, without any new season to look forward to, was very difficult to actually get over.


When the Series Finale was over, at first I was angry. I was shocked. I was sad. I was moved. I was pissed that certain things did not go the way I wanted. I found myself wanting more. More in the way of answers, more in the way of story.

I was really angry about the Purgatory Universe. It made no sense to me. I was especially mad that Jack had to die. I had this vision in my head of Jack living on as Island protector, with Hurley assuming the Ricardo role.


But, I can't have all my cake and eat it too. And a lot of my anger and frustration soon gave way to questions in my head, scenarios played out and re-played. I realized even today that, despite the fact that the show ended five weeks ago, I am still thinking about it.


THAT'S why, I think, it worked. It has me thinking about it. That means it was good. When Battlestar Galactica ended, I very quickly stopped thinking about it. Same with a lot of other shows. When The Shield ended, I pondered it for weeks. Months. I still think about it. It resonated.

So did this final arc of LOST, all nitpicking aside, accomplish its mission? Yeah...I suppose it did. It made me think as much as it ALWAYS made me think. And ponder. And postulate. And wonder. It stayed true to itself and didn't have everyone in jail at the end of the series.


So many people argue the Heaven/Hell/Purgatory thing. But in the end, the show is not about God or the Devil. Or Gods or Goddesses. Hell or even Cain & Abel or Jacob & Esau. It's about ORDINARY, FLAWED men and women and what they do when confronted with those things that they cannot fully comprehend (faith, science) and they choose to respond to those things and how they treat and interact with the people around them.

I'll always love this show. It was my 2nd favorite show. OF ALL TIME.

And at 42 years, I've watched a lot of television. I think the only thing that would have bumped it from #2 to #1 (over The Shield) is if the show was consistent from the first episode, simply called 'Pilot' all the way through to 'The End'.

There were some stumbles along the way.

Though they were all good, not every episode was great.


The Shield has a distinction for me as being the most consistently written show in the Universe. There was not a season I didn't like, there was not a SINGLE episode that I would not watch again and again and again.

There are a few LOST episodes I would skip when re-watching the series. That's what keeps it out of the #1 spot.

But that's about it.


Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. I have about 7 episodes on the DVR of '24', and so I'll hit all of those and then that's it...no more shows that I currently watch.

Though I did just pick up the first 2 seasons of Breaking Bad because a friend I trust recommended it. I've watched four episodes. It is very, very good, but also very, very slow.

But I am into it enough to keep going. And the lead, Bryan Cranston, is fantastic. What a great actor.

OK, NOW I'm really done.

OUT...

Shit, I Lost a Follower.

Went from 81 to 80. I hate that. I want that number to go in the OPPOSITE direction, not down. But I gotta take the heat on that. You go five weeks without posting a bloody thing and you gotta expect some repercussions.

Goes with the territory.

I broke major Blog Etiquette guidelines by having that long of a silent gap.

I don't know why the number even matters to me.

Shouldn't.

Does.

Weird.

Maybe it is some kind of validation thingamabob? If so it's only a product of what is inside my own head, because ultimately the amount of followers on the Blogger counter does not necessarily relate at all to the amount of readers there actually are.

There could be more. (Yay.)

There could be less. (Shudder.)

And it certainly doesn't have a THING to do with quality of readership or closeness of said readership or how much said readership actually gives two shits.

It is just a number. And that's all.


Anyway...just something I noticed this morning while reading some of the comments from yesterday. I only remembered the number 81 because it was one less than 82, and I only remember the number 82 because of the movie Rain Man and the fact that the movie is about an Autistic dude and I watched it within the past couple of months.

OK, this has officially become one of my weirder posts. Let's quit while I'm ahead.

But hey...two days in a row. That was the goal.

OUT...

First Steps? Difficult, Indeed.

You know how something stands before you in your life, an obstacle that keeps you from moving from Point A to that always attractive but often elusive Point B?

Maybe its an argument unresolved between you and a good friend, maybe its that room that you have let so much shit pile up in that it seems there is barely room to breathe, maybe its living your life recklessly, with little regard for your body and then realizing that you have a long way to go to repair the damage you have done to it.

No matter what the obstacle is, the very first step you take towards it is the most difficult one. Well, maybe not THE most difficult, but certainly one of the most difficult. I often wonder if the last ones are the toughest, because that is often when you are at your weakest.

For weeks I have left this blog, um, well, how do I say it?

Un-blogged upon.

For weeks I have wondered how I can get back to it. For weeks I have let many people who care about me in the world exist in the dark, many fearing for me so much that they reached out personally.

To those folks I say thanks. While I would not say I was at Rock Bottom, I certainly was very close to it and just so you know it's really fucking dark down there. Stay up near the surface where the light shines through and the water stays warm.


But what would I say if I started blogging again? How could I just pick it back up again after so many weeks? How do I explain that long absence?

The answer? I'm not worrying about it.

I'm back, and I'll get to the particulars later. The key was taking the first step, which I have just done. And that's all I need worry about this afternoon.

Anyway...I'm back. I'm OK. I have much to write about.

And that's that.