Wooo.

What if all products were required by law to have plain packaging bearing *only* these things:

• Nutrition information (if it's edible)
• Accurate, detailed list of ingredients (no matter what it is)
• A warning (if it's poisonous)
  
• A clear, straightforward photo of the product itself, if it's not visible through the packaging

Most products depend on gimmicky, manipulative, colorful packaging, characters, slogans and contests to boost sales to impulse buyers and people who won't read labels (which is most people, sadly).

I wonder how many of these companies would stay in business if they had to depend on their product alone to grab and hold the buyer's interest?

========================================================

When someone displays a phenomenal (or even just good) talent, the first thing they'll hear is, "You should do that for a living!"

Why? Why take something I enjoy immensely and turn it into a commodity? I heard this about my artwork, my writing, my singing, and some other things I can't recall at the moment (not my piano playing - that sucked).

Two or three times during my school years, my parents were called in and told that the school wanted to skip me ahead a grade or two because of my language skills and my test scores on those annoying "fill in the dots with pencil" tests. My parents always refused, because they wanted to keep me with my own age group. I was happy about this, because it meant I didn't have to deal with all those older kids picking on me.

The schools were all up in the air about how advantageous this could be for me later. It was all about getting into the "right" college, so I could make lots and lots of money with my shiny new diploma. I pretended it meant something to me only because it appeared to mean a lot to my parents (and because I didn't want to get my butt kicked).

I dropped out of high school my senior year, and then community college years later. I stayed long enough to finish all the classes directly related to my major, and then took off. I stayed in my chosen career for thirteen years, until I burned out and quit. Not a bad run for a dropout.

Frankly, I don't care for money. It's useful to a point for everyday physical needs, but beyond that it becomes a burden. Few things can cause more trouble in your life. I don't like thinking about it, talking about it, or working for it. That doesn't mean I refuse to ever hold a paying job again - if I find the right place, I definitely will. It just means that I refuse to to subject myself to a situation that's detrimental to my health or well-being (physical or otherwise) just to receive a piece of paper with numbers on it. When I do hold a job again, it may not be high-paying, but it will be on *my* terms.

Money doesn't even really exist! Sure, you can see the paper and the coins, those are real enough - but that's all they are. They're "worth" something because someone, somewhere decided they were, and convinced everyone else to believe it too.

Now look at us trample each other to get the biggest numbers on our little pieces of company-issued paper. Look at us strut around arrogantly, so proud of those numbers. Look at us find wasteful, ostentatious ways to display our so-called wealth. Many people actually believe that this is the point of human existence. How stupid is that?

This is NOT how the world was meant to work.

Your nick truly fits - you've been steadfast and loyal, even when I was lost in pain and anger and despair and didn't know what to do with myself. You never backed away, even when I was at my worst. Your unique perspective kept my head on straighter than it was possible to do on my own at the time. You never let me lose sight of my path, even when my self-inflicted blindness obscured it. Your kindness and patience and crazy sense of humor lifted me up when nothing else could.

All this is possible because you traveled this path long before I was consciously aware of it. You know the pitfalls it holds for people like me, and you know how easy it is to screw up when attention wanders to non-relevant things. I'm making a real effort to maintain balance and keep my focus where it should be.

Your advice about the shoulder blockage was right on, too. Breathing is easier, and I can sit up almost completely straight. Following your suggestions, I should be able to dissolve it completely before long.

I'm watching millions of brilliant white geese fill the sky on the Planet Earth series. Simply awesome.

I love geese :)

Although I'm capable of producing them, I'm not in the habit of using flowery words and sentiments when communicating with people. It's never been my style, and I suck at it. Badly. It makes me feel like a fake. And I don't see the point of regurgitating something every other person you know has already said to you a billion gajillion times. It starts to lose its meaning, at least to me. I try and try to find a new way of saying what they said, but there just isn't one. It keeps coming back to the same tired list of overused words and phrases.

What you do get from me will be simple, concise, relevant, straightforward and very often unique. Sometimes I come across as cold or harsh without meaning to. I'm not going to bother feeling bad about that, because my words, though sometimes perceived negatively, are given sincerely. If I say something, it's because it's exactly what I want to say. Sometimes I say it very poorly and end up being misunderstood. I don't feel bad about that, either, because everyone does it sometime. I'm no different. Those who know me best understand all this.

When I'm in any kind of pain or distress, I tend to anger easily. Unfortunately, this happens more than I'd like. (Well, I'd *like* it to not happen at all, but my bod seems to have other ideas on the subject.) When it gets so bad I can't think straight, all bets are off. I try not to talk to people when I get like that, but it happens - usually with bad results.

To all those whose feelings I've hurt due to anything listed above - I'm sorry. I have no effusive words to offer you. All I can say is I'm sincerely sorry. If I'm on your shit list, there's not a lot I can do about it but wait until you see fit to remove me. If you decide to leave me there, so be it. Again - nothing I can do. That's the straight poop, and I might as well face it head-on.

It's not that I don't care. I do, very much. But what can possibly be gained by me sitting around mentally and emotionally beating the crap out of myself over something I can't take back? I do that too much as it is, even *without* offending anyone.

I've said everything I can think to say on this issue. Let those who understand take my words in the spirit in which they're offered. Peace.

Maybe I was wrong about boring posts. I didn't think I'd have anything new to say, but here I am again.

On my mind today is how I tortured myself most of my life trying to decipher, interpret and act upon the multitude of words and behaviors from the people around me. I felt like a foreigner everywhere I went. No one spoke my "language", and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't learn the intricacies of theirs. None of it made any sense, and none of it seemed to apply to anything I perceived as real. Still, everyone kept stressing the importance of all the stuff they tried to shove down my throat disguised as "worldly knowledge", "cultural awareness", "social niceties", and all the other names they have for it.

I've come to understand in the recent past that all that crap I was so busy trying to figure out doesn't matter, and has absolutely no bearing on my life. It's very freeing to know that.

But there's a catch - once you figure out that you didn't need to bother with all that stuff, you get a whole NEW set of things of figure out. That's what I'm in the process of doing right now. It seems that the new sets of things correspond to one's level of awareness. Mine should be much better than it is now, but various things over the years have made that a huge struggle, and I'm not where I personally think I should be. That's just my own sense of human inferiority, though.

I know that, in the larger scheme, I'm exactly where I should be. Indicators in my life are telling me every day that I'm finally getting it right. As usual, that's being challenged left and right, but I should expect that. It's part of the process.
Although people are involved, the process itself is impersonal. The people are only the players. Like me, even they don't always know the entire scope of their role. It's unfolded over time, as it should be. That's what time was made for in the first place anyway, to allow this gradual unfolding, and even the occasional epiphany.

The gradual unfolding part frustrates me sometimes, but I the epiphanies (more frequent now) are well worth the work and the wait.

I just reread my previous post, and it came out more sarcastic than I realized at the time. I guess it doesn't matter, as it was just letting off steam anyway - getting that final bit of pressure out of the pipes. Now that's done, I can get on with the stuff I have to do. My life is about to change in a pretty big way, I'm just not sure how. Things are supposed to be made clear to me at some point, so I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

My journal entries from now on will probably be pretty boring, so you might not want to bother reading them anymore.

I finally got my thyroid meds refilled, and I feel much better than I have the past few days - but there are things I need to get of fmy chest before I shut up and go back into the requisite "Freakin' Ray o' Sunshine" mode.

It's true - I produce little to no tangible evidence of the things I do to help people. There is no "product" to display. I can't hand you something and say, "Here, see? Proof!" That's simply the nature of what I do.

Even in the hospital, I acted like a happyass all the time so family and friends would calm down, and hospital staff would quit pushing anti-depressants and anti-psychotics on me. I couldn't even relax and let myself be taken care of. I felt obligated to make sure the people around me were ok. I'm not sure whether that was truly altruistic, or just my way of getting freaked out people the frap off my back. Frankly, I found all the careful, delicate fluttering about very annoying. It made me want to slap people.

I may not wipe asses or spoon-feed anyone on a regular basis (which I've already done, countless times), but I'm always taking care of people. ALWAYS. It never stops. If I don't go to them, they come to me. I can't get away from it, even if I want to. As I said the other day to my husband: "I feel like I have 10,000 titties full of milk, and 20,000 starving babies with teeth coming in." And man, those 10,000 nipples are cracked, raw and bleeding.

Because what I do is normally not physically visible, it looks like I'm doing nothing. If folks want to believe that, fine. It's become clear that I can't make anyone believe otherwise, so I'm not even going to try anymore. Perhaps when I can produce a handful of cash, or a certificate, or a diploma, or some grandiose public speech - perhaps then someone will say, "Hey, maybe she's not such a total loss after all."

I'm no longer angry, but I am sad and resigned. I don't feel I should have to prove myself to anyone. But I'll do this thing I'm about to do anyway, because I'm worn down to the point where I don't feel like struggling and fighting anymore. It's just not worth it. And I'm tired of being made to feel like a huge blank useless disappointment. I'm quite unhappy with the environment I'll find myself in, but apparently, the whole point is to do things I don't want to do in order to make me a better person. (If that's really true, then I should *already* be made of solid effing gold.)

All that being vented, I pledge forthwith to be happy, content, hard-working, productive, money-making and so in-yo-face positive people will need barf bags from all the cloying sweetness. You'll see a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. You'll hear no more complaints from me, because seriously ... who listens?

Things were going so well for a while. Now all this bullcrap. I feel like such a loser.

I'm trying my best to be patient. Ok, I'm not, really. I'm too impatient to even try. I want resolution now, not later, after some long, mysterious, topsy-turvy journey. I want answers, and I'm not getting them. I keep guessing at things, because I don't know what else to do. I'm tired of being told I'm wrong, even when my gut tells me otherwise.

Is it all a test? Did I pass? Does it matter? I'm so effing tired of trying to figure it all out. I'm tired of waiting. Just tired, tired, tired.

Of everyone I know, you're the only one who really understands.

I don't know how else to put this, but I am supremely pissed off right now. The main reason is because I feel very misunderstood. I should be used to that by now - it's been happening all my life. But it gets tiring, you know? Especially when the people who should understand me best have no idea what's actually going on inside me. I can't adequately explain most of it, which doesn't help.

So I got the damned application. I fill it out and send it in, they call for an interview. That's the procedure.

Honestly, I hope they don't take me. I definitely qualify, but the last thing I want is to be back in a hospital full of bitchy, whiny sick people. And I cannot STAND the stupid, counter-intuitive policies and red tape. But whatever. If they take me, I'll give it a shot. If not, I guess I'll try another hospital.

Fair warning - I suck at bullshitting and asskissing. I don't intend to hide that fact during the interview. If they take me, they take me as is, or not at all.

• 5" wide (like the picture).
• Made of titanium. I want the metal as dark as it can be made without using any kind of coating that can peel or chip off, and the metal has to stay smooth and shiny. (I'd prefer genuine black titanium, but that doesn't seem possible.)
• All rings welded shut.
• Seamless, so it slips on snugly over a folded hand (the one in the picture is made to do this).
  

I don't know what ring size or gauge to ask for, as I know next to nothing about chainmaille. I do know no one seems to like working with titanium. Sorry, but it *has* to be titanium.

I guess what I need is a workaholic chainmaille artist who works with titanium, has a lot of patience and a payment plan.

If you fit this description, or know someone who does, please get in touch.