In the Service of Her Majesty The Queen

Yes you will! I (we fanboys) insist! :hug:

Mine always seem to be :chairshot s.

 

I hope you had a good day and the night goes well.

The body blows just keep coming.

Now, I've been around long enough to have some idea of what to expect when things fall apart in my life, but intellectual awareness does not seem to mitigate the punching. Neither does any amount of prep work.

I have really strong nails. And some resources, although not as many as I should have. When you don't listen to your friends, they tend to back away.

Ok. Done with the whining.


To all who will sleep tonight on this side of the still bright earth,

The Nightly Mission:

First Rule: Take care of yourself
first, so you have the strength
for others.

And sleep. Sleeping is when the
body heals and so does the mind.

Wake up...and don't forget the 1st rule.

May the Lady smile
on you and me, too.

G'Night.

 

Thankies. I am grateful for my fanboys. Very. :yes:

Mine are right in the gut. Makes me double over, no kidding.

 

As a person who takes a few literal body blows from time to time, I can say you get good at fighting in an impaired state. Thank God for adrenaline (norepenephrine, I know). It's good to know you got it in you. And it's good to know NOT to quit.

Listen to your friends. Show them you care about what they think. Show them you love them for caring. But be sure to do a few stupid things now and then to keep them entertained.

Sometimes it's good go ahead and get into something, even though you know it might not go well. Logic and objectivity are better at telling us what is going on than it is at telling us what to do. But don't let "failure" drag you down for too long.

 

Somewhere I read that life is a constant struggle, so enjoy the struggle.

Others say it shouldn't be that way, that life is only a struggle when you make it one.

All I can say is that if you observe the grass growing in your yard, one of the simplest things easily observable, you will notice that the grass is in constant struggle.

 

Why I don't go in the water in Florida.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CQ1N1mAi9s&feature=player_embedded

 

I hope you had a good day and the night went well.

Another body blow, this one prolonged. And over. Residual effects coming and going. I think, I hope this is the last one.

And now on to the repair work...


To all who sleep tonight on this side of the earth,

The Nightly Mission:

Sleep gets rid of more emotional
pain than any other behavior. So
sleep.

Wake up a little better...maybe.
And get on with the repairs.

May the Lady smile
on you and me too.

G'Night.

 

I hope you had a good day and the night goes well.

I am apparently not able to take my own advice. Sleep is definitely not on the agenda. Two hours last night, another 2 this afternoon. Mayhap I will turn into a zombie, give the squirrels a run for their money, and dispense with sleep altogether.

Sleeping pills tonight. Work tomorrow.

I'm whining again.


To all who will sleep tonight on this side of the earth,

The Nightly Mission:

Sleep if you can
when you can't
play solitaire.

In the morning
blink your gritty
eyes at the light.

May the Lady smile
on you and me too.

G'Night.

 

The best cure for insommnia I've ever found is a series of audiobooks.

The Cat who....
Written by Lilian Jackson Braun read by George Guidell ( not sure of the spelling)
The stories are very good she understands the mind of a man of a certain age very well.
If you listen to them in the day they are good stories well read.

At night in bed the narrator's voice takes on a soothing quality that sends you off to sleep.
My girlfriend and I used to wake up in the morning and say how much did you hear last night. It was invariably about 30 seconds to a couple of minutes.

Also valerium tea is supposed to help you sleep with out the side effects of sleeping pills.

Hope you feel better soon.

It's always darkest before the dawn and time heals all wounds are a couple of adages which have sustained me through bad times.

 

Better than that: "Time wounds all heels."

The best revenge is to to occasionally glance over indifferently as the worst of them demolish their lives.

Another method is to read a tortuous and difficult book that requires constant attention, pondering and rereading. Your mind gets tired and you go to sleep thinking about something other than your personal problems.

 

Thank you guys, all of you. :hug:

I did sleep last night, minus the sleeping pills, for about 6 hours, which is about normal for me. I think maybe from sheer exhaustion.

Now I get the blessing of continuous anxiety attacks. Aren't those fun. The sooner those get over with, the better. I work tonight, so that will be interesting, indeed.

I'm alive. Focus on that. Things could be worse.

And yes, time does heal all wounds that it does not bury in the darkest basements and leaky attics of our minds. This one isn't getting buried, so I should consider myself lucky. Queen of Spades luck. Mad Hatter luck.

Valerian helps with anxiety, too. I ought to get some.

 

I hope you had a good day and the night is going well.

Thank the Lady for crazy drivers. I had to focus closely enough on what the idiots on the road were doing to where this more or less continuous anxiety attack did not interfere much with my own driving.

And work is structured, so that helped too. But it's not gone, I can feel it hovering, just waiting until I get home or rising full blown on the dark long road I take to get there.

Life goes on. This is life. Cling to that.


To all who will sleep tonight on this side of the dark earth,

The Nightly Mission:

Thank the Lady for blessings, small
as they may be before chasing after
sleep, such things as fat furry cats
curled around the top of your head,
purring nosily, another at your back,
and crazy drivers on the road to work.

Wake up and take on another day,
mark it on the calendar.

May the Lady smile
on you and me too.

G'Night.

 

I hope you had a good day and the night goes well.

Friday night again. I think I hate Fridays.

Things are marginally better. Mainly because I have buried myself in tasks that require much attention to detail. However, tonight will be difficult. Fridays always seem to be difficult for me, for whatever reason. So I bought comfort food...ice cream. I am going to sugar myself asleep tonight (not to mention loading up my veins and arteries).

Oh. My wii came back from the warranty people, hopefully repaired, today. Perhaps there is hope for my veins and arteries afterall.


To all who will sleep tonight on this side of the earth,

The Nightly Mission:

Use whatever method you prefer
to slide off into sleep...and hope
you stay there until morning.

Wake up again and trudge
through another day.

May the Lady smile
on you and me too.

G'Night.

 

Falling

​

On the edge of a meadow, nearly blanketed by the immense live oaks that grow on three sides, stands a gray weathered barn. Where it is not shaded by the trees, the planks of the barn glow with a silvery sheen, caught by the sun's sloping rays late in the afternoon when the heat is starting to leach out of the day, urging the cicadas to ratchet up their collective racket another notch.

Shy and hesitant, a doe steps out from the surrounding forest into the meadow, her hooves dainty in the tall grass. High in the spreading limbs of the oaks, the squirrels chase each other, now circling around the branches, now flinging themselves from the ends of one branch to another, their tails jerking, soon on their way to their nests.

Despite the shrill sound of the cicadas and the chattering of the squirrels, it is remarkably quiet around the barn. Her ears turned forward, nose inhaling the air, the doe finds nothing to alarm her. Trailed closely by a skittish fawn, she moves farther into the meadow, to nibble on the bushes growing in short and straggly clumps, cropped by previous inroads of both deer and squirrel.

Roused from sleep by the cicadas, a barn owl perched on a beam opens her yellow eyes and turns her saucered face smoothly around to scan the far reaches of the barn, then fluffs her feathers, sinking back into slumber. Under her on the ground, a shadow among shadows, a lean and lithe black cat freezes, one foot poised in the air, feeling the owl wake up as only a cat can, the sound of fluffing feathers soon reaching his ears, pricked, alert, shortly after the incoming message that all is not what it was.

The bats in the barn sleep on, feet clutching the underside of the roof.

Rays of light slant through the cracks between the planks, making iridescent rainbow swirls out of the dust motes moving lazily through the nearly still air, leaving bars of light, transitory footprints, on the beaten earth flooring.

One such ray of light reaches to a boxers body bag, hanging by a rusty chain from the same beam the owl has settled down on again, its two other chains eaten through by rust, one dangling down on the bag, the other still attached to the eye at the beam, loose, unconnected at its other end.

The bag looks well used. Taped around its sadly misshapen girth, once solid, firm, filled with sand, the bag now hangs half empty, its upper half held together only by the peeling shell of tape. Faint ghostly images, perhaps only the illuminated dust motes stirred by an errant breeze, seem to dance around the bag, seem to lean toward it, seem still set in the ritual of punch, duck and weave.

Silently, the cat winds sinuously to the end of the barn, scouting, the only thing moving save the ghosts. He stays cautiously within the shadows, mindful of the owl, though large enough, strong enough to win an attack. Nosing through the debris left from earlier times, he casually hunts for tidbits to nourish him through the oncoming night, already knowing there is nothing of great interest, driven by his nature, prowling.

Blushed pink, as the sun falls toward the horizon, for a few scant moments the barn seems to shimmer and dance under the slowly swaying branches of the trees as the wind, herald of the night, soughing softly among the leaves, caresses the mighty oaks.

Soon the night stretches its fingers across the land, settles inside the barn, waking the bats, the owl on the beam, banishing the ghosts. Riding the last of the wind, the bats and the owl flit and soar into the darkening night. An early moon, swollen, rises fast, cupped in night's hands, calls the cat out to hunt. The doe and her fawn move back into the surrounding forest.

In the black night, the barn is lost among the trees, emptied of life.

Hanging from its single chain in the middle of the barn, pricked and scored near the bottom by the black cat's claws, the battered body bag turns slowly, trickles of sand falling down beneath it, falling, falling, falling.