It is a funny world in which we reside, where we are creatures capable of such sublime beauty, and cruelties both subtle and gross. None of it surprises. They are things that just are. Yet when it comes down to the crunch, our little weaknesses fall away, and we rise up and fight with more than tooth and nail, and show our strengths, our beliefs, our true natures. We do not give ourselves enough credit; we don't give enough credit to each other, either. There is more to what we are, and can be, than we allow ourselves to believe.

Oh I am a battleground; you must fight history and habit to know me. So much is laid bare before the world, unfettered and free of deceit; yet so much remains elusive, hidden under rugs, shoeboxes in the closet, between the lines. Who I am is somewhere in between the known and unknowable, between the open and the shrouded. I do not hesitate to speak, yet I am not capable of speaking. I will trust with my life, but not my spirit. Who I am is this continued battle of figuring, exploration, investigation, and questions. I am like you, human.

When asked what I would change of the past, it is impossible for me to answer. Regardless of the rights or wrongs, all the past creates the sum of who I am now; to alter any of it would be like cutting off a limb, slicing out parts of the brain, and not being who I am. If forced to an answer, what I would change of the past is not what I have done, but what I have not done. I would change my inaction; I would combat laziness, take opportunities that weren't taken, see things that weren't seen.

I know it's a couple of days after the fact, but I forgot to see what the groundhog predicted this year - either of them. There's that Phil in the United States, and in Canada we have Wiarton Willie. To be quite honest, I could never remember which way the prediction indicated: Does seeing the shadow mean there's more winter or less? Or does not seeing the shadow mean more winter or less? All I know is that last night it was warm enough to turn the snow to slush, and this morning it was cold. Seems like winter to me.

In many walks of life there exists a measuring stick by which a person's fitness is judged. In some ways this extends beyond necessity and sense into the laudable. After all, would you want a surgeon who failed most of his courses on surgery operating on the delicate parts of your person? I know I'd be wary of it. But that line of fitness is sometimes more like a fence or a noose than a point of demarcation. In a world where we assume that equality and fairness are one's due, and that barriers are crumbling, hard barriers still exist.

There's a writing exercise whereby you open a dictionary at random, and without looking, you pick a word and freewrite about it. Freewriting is writing whatever comes into your head, a "stream of consciousness" deal, using a particular word or phrase, etc., as a base. I have an Oxford English Dictionary which I adore; it is the source of all that is holy and good about defining words, but I like to involve others in my writing when I'm having a dry spell and need some inspiration. So what did I get for a suggestion: antidisestablishmentarianism. Ha ha, very funny.

At a certain point in life we sometimes stop going forward musically. We don't just get stuck in a now, we backslide to a point when music meant the most to us. So now I look back on the newwave and punk of the 80's, the grunge and British invasion of the 90's, in many ways they are the places I feel most comfortable. Others look back to the innocence of the 50's, the rebellion of the 60's, and feel similarly. In twenty years time, are kids going to look back on Britney Spears that way? I can't see it. She offers no innovation.

A friend, today, picked up her grandmother's remains; she had been cremated and sealed in a grey metal box. There is one thing about this activity that most people do not realise, and that is the weight. Though they be ashes, and we think of ashes as light, airy, the human body weighs quite a bit more than we think it does. It is a strange weight, a strange feeling, to know that in so small a space as something no larger than a shoebox, a human body resides. It is a weight I understand. I have carried it too.

One who obfuscates truth for unethical reasons, one who is deceptive, is not a person I'd care to share my time with; especially when the deceptiveness comes from weakness of faith (in oneself, and in the one being deceived). I hate being cheated of the truth. Exactly whom does it serve when you fail to tell truths, when you indulge in secrecies? What favours do you believe you do for the one whom you deceive? The one deceiving? There are rare times when white lies serve, but not when you leave someone in an ignorance that fails to serve them.

I took a bottle of Coke out of the fridge. I know I did. Just now I went to take a sip, and I see that I can't see it. It's not here, where I need it, at my right hand. This wouldn't be the first time I've misplaced beverages, I used to make cups of tea and forget them all the time. I'd find them hours after, all over the apartment; in the bedroom, bathroom, dining area, and wonder how the hell they got there, because I sure as hell didn't remember going near the places I'd find things.

One of the most satisfying feelings in the world, is receiving a fatted cheque for gainful employment that one has actually enjoyed doing. One can now take said fatted cheque and purchase desired items, food, clothing, martinis; you know, the necessities, thus improving one's morale and life conditions. One can also pay off debts, thus decreasing stress, which is another excellent way to improve morale. I'm going to allow myself one treat from this stack of cash, but I haven't yet decided what. It'll likely be something frivolous, as doing otherwise might not incur proper "having got a treat" feelings.

I went down to the mall today, after doing my bank business, and, yes, I shopped; not til I dropped, but I treated myself to two Cosmopolitans - which, I must say, were possibly the weakest I've ever had. Refreshing, but not much beyond that. I am of the opinion that the over-sweetness of some martini style drinks is not laudable; if you can't taste the vodka burn, it's just not good enough. Sadly, I have left myself with too little cash to go somewhere I know I can get something with the power to knock me on my ass. Damn.

Advertising, which a wise man once said was the science of arresting the human intellect long enough to gain money from it, is a big business that has led to such odd results as the Swiffer folks using a song about male masturbation in their commercials; particularly amusing and strange when you see women goofily dancing through their homes dusting like it's better than a week full of multiple orgasms on a cocaine high. I realise that there is a certain generation of women who would likely be cleaning house to "Whip It", I hardly think it's anywhere near universal.

If you, like me, are a devotee of the highlighter pen, you already know the many benefits of their use. I'm a big fan of the yellow, because it's the easiest colour to read through. However, if you got yourself another colour of highlighter, say orange or green or even that fabulous purple one, you could use it to highlight things like names, references to other books, chapter and verse numbers for religious texts, et cetera, just to separate them out from the other information you're marking. I've found this tremendously useful in religious studies, English literature and philosophy courses.

Students spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to take notes, especially when it comes to notes and comments on what's in your texts. One solution is using Post-It notes (or some variant thereof). You can keep notes on those, and stick them into your text right at the spot you're taking notes about. This means that a) your books don't need to be marked up (unless you like them that way), so you can sell or give them away later, and b) you don't have to keep a separate notebook just for comments on your texts.

I'm a liberal person, and a socialist. I don't believe in censorship, the abuse of freedom of speech, or institutions for the sake thereof. I believe in the decriminalisation of pot (even though I'll never touch the stuff), and that anyone who wants should be allowed to perform any sot of marriage rite they please. I believe in freedom of belief, the right to choose, that everyone should be educated beyond substandard levels. tolerance, acceptance, patience, and that humanity would be better off if people would accept the concept that being their brother's keeper doesn't mean controlling their brother's life.

The thing about the Internet, something all of us know but sometimes forget, is that no one knows whether or not you're a dog. I bring this up because for the past couple of weeks I've been making an assumption about someone that today got clarified. See, I've been assuming this person I know is female. For the first time today I saw a photo of this person, and for a woman she looks awfully bald, bearded, and masculine. The weirdest part? My initial reaction was not one of mistaken identity, but, "Oh, I guess they had a sex change."

In my capacity as an apartment building dweller I've had cause to wonder many things; why the owners hired that creepy, skulking man to do cleanup; why people leave their cats out in the hallways; why that woman down the hall feels the need to have her kids out in the hallway only when they're screaming; and, the most recent ponderance - why the people upstairs have suddenly taken to walking much in the manner of pachyderms. Perhaps an elephant tired of the zoo and moved in above me? Perhaps this person is auditioning for Stomp? At any rate, please desist.

I was thinking about what I'm not bothered seeing, which reminded me that a woman's breast made an appearance on national TV recently. A breast, and the world turns upside down with cries about vulgarity, and protecting the children. One of the first things any kid knows, is its mother's breast. The human body is not a dirty thing, it's what people do with the body that can sometimes be taken as dirty. People themselves make things dirty; this uproar made things dirty, not the breast, It's just skin, and if you're that bothered by a breast, you need therapy.

We accept superstitions so readily, believing almost automatically without a need to investigate the origins for ourselves. It tells me this: Despite all our paranoia and lack of trust, despite a trend towards atheism and the meeting of physical needs as more preferrable than spiritual ones, we still have a desire for faith, despite how much we balk at the idea; despite how suspicious we say we are of others. We will believe outrageous lies, accepting them without a backward glance, still shying away from the personal. We still have faith, we're just so hesitant to call it that anymore.

Sometimes I do stupid things, or at least things that could outwardly be described as stupid. I do things and forget I've done them; move things and forget I've moved them. In this way I am no different than other humans. So, while puttering about, I realise that my mouth is dry, and that it is time for a cup of tea. So it's off I go to the kitchen to put the kettle on. As soon as I get up, what do I hear but the steam escaping from the kettle. Apparently I'd already set the water to boil.

A friend recently posted in his journal asking people to respond with what they think everyone should know. Should we all know how to render first aid, care for infants, tend gardens, be polite, use the language well? It took me a couple of days to come up with a list, which is definitely a work in progress. It's very difficult to figure out what it is you believe all humans should know. And it's not just practical skills either, it's inner skills, spiritual ones, ones that deal with human behaviour. More than just the practical is important to survival.

I am going to admit to something petty and juvenile, something that, at my age, I should have better control over. I've got a habit of introducing people to each other who then go on to become friends, or at least to admire each other a great deal, and I feel left out of that equation. In some philosophies I should be content with having done what is ultimately a good deed, but I still feel a little forgotten at times, a little less worthy. I like to think I'm self-sufficient, but even I have needs for acknowledgement, I suppose.

I keep logs for my website, and these logs tell me things like where a person is using the Internet from, how they got to my site, what they looked at when they got there, and when they looked. This means that I'm fully aware just how many people click on the link to a page called "Breast", and nothing else. One wonders if they are expecting to see a breast, and nothing else. Your quickie obsession with that particular page amuses, and I'm sure that upon perusal, it fails to provide, what you expected it was going to provide.

There are times and places to mention certain things, and I'm fairly convinced that a decidedly far too large portion of the population has absolutely no sense of that type of ettiquette whatever. One person I know of, for example, will try to squeeze mentions of his hypochondria in at every opportunity - no doubt done so in order to wrest a pity-me party from the current audience. I find this less than subtle machination nauseating. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to thump this person with a rolled up newspaper and tell him to get over himself.

I've had this chronic case of Athlete's Foot for some time now, which, stranglely enough, doesn't actually bother me much - although my foot looks scaley and dry. What I do find odd, is that it didn't really start to itch until after I started using the cream that's supposed to get rid of it. When you've got a cut, it'll itch when it starts to heal, that's normal, but I don't think that's the case for my current fungal friend. The other thing that's really odd, is that it's always on my left foot. MY LEFT FOOT OF FUNGAL FURY!

In the land of soft drinks, CocaCola is king, or queen, or high priestess, or supreme being, or grand poobah. I'm not the sort who gets into cola wars; I honestly don't give a fuck about that sort of penis war. If people want to like something, they are welcome to it. I personally don't prefer Pepsi, although I'll drink it if I have to, because I find it too sweet, and it always tastes like there's booze in it. Booze not being a bad thing, in and of itself, but booze with pop tastes like shit. Pepsi tastes... thin.

I've discovered something. I hate it when people say, "Want to be let in on a secret?" My curiosity always gets the better of me, and I say yes, but that question always fills me with dread. Most of the time it's never good news, and when it is, I invariably feel envious of it. I've been lucky to have friends do amazing things for me, insanely lucky. But as the years go by, I find less and less happens that fills me with any sense of that same sort of simple joy; my solitaryness is highlighted, my loneliness compounded.

Once every four years we get what we think of as an estra day. We call this Leap Day, the year it comes in a Leap Year, and we stick it at the end of February to pad out our smallest month. Each year we worry about children born on this day, because they would have no birthdays but every four years. We don't really celebrate the day, but we do think about it, it does occupy an odd place in popular culture. And now we wait for the next odd holiday, April Fool's. More people should celebrate Pi Day.