One of the things I love about Oklahoma the most is summer rain storms.

I love the lightning and thunder.

I love the winds.

i love the cooling off of the hot summer heat.

I love the grey, blue and black clouds all mixed in with some resolute white virgins.

I love the ozone smell — the rain smell.

I love the fresh washed smell of the town when the oil slick has run down the drains off the streets.

I love the fresh air smell when the dust has been toppled into the storm drains.

I love the fun of dashing to the car, getting pelted by raindrops, dodging the loafer deep puddles.

Last night, I cut off the air conditioner and opened up the house to air it out.  Turned on all the fans to get the smoke out and the good smell inside.

Although I tried to be careful and prevent this, Sinatra wormed his way through one of the outlets and got outside.

It wasn’t long before a very waterlogged kitten was outside the kitchen door whining to get back in.  He was a very funny looking cat with his pelt all spiked from the wet.

When I tried to towel him off, it pissed him and he tried to bite my hands as if they were the cause of his discomfort.

This is about the way I sometimes treat God.  Give me what I want and I’m still not pleased and get pissed when the solution to the new problem doesn’t suit me.

Ah, well, no harm done.  Sinatra’s fine and dry now.

Myself, I’ve been in a bit of a financial rainstorm lately.

I cut up and paid off my credit cards, using my home equity to lower the interest rate and extend the payments so that my monthly payments went way down.

I’ve never felt so broke.

I have a budget, to be sure.  It’s nice and orderly and complete and a good, hard, honest look at my monthly spending.

The only problem is that I’m only earning on average 3/5ths of the budget.

I’ve been going in the hole a little to a lot every month for a couple of years now and putting it on those cards.

That’s over.

I can sure feel the squeeze.

No more eating out, Wednesday Paseo dinner and movie excepted.  I just couldn’t give that up.

I’m rolling my own cigarets since that cuts my vice expense in half.

I’m eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at home and there’s lots more cold cereal and Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches in my diet now.

There’s a real question in my mind whether I will be able to kick in at work and be earning what I must in order to finance my debts.

There will be no more CDs, DVDs or movies in my near future.

I’m also resolved to have something in savings before I start making such purchases.

There’s no budget for clothes until my taxes get paid.

What?  No new clothes?!?

Yep.  NO NEW CLOTHES.

This is serious.

I have several thousand dollars of medical bills from June’s car wreck and annual checkup to pay before I have the next night out of the house.

My social life just became Wednesdays and the Tuesday-Thursday night AA meetings.

So, don’t look for me at Flip’s, VZDs, bin 73, Rococo, or even Sidecar and Blue Moon.  I won’t be there.

Even more shocking:  I’m giving up my $100/mo. Starbucks habit.  Don’t look for me there, either.

It’s my financial rainy day and I wanted out from under the umbrella of credit cards.  Now my hair is all wet and spikey and if you try and dry me off, I’ll try to bite your hands.

************************************

John X has done a very nice little film from some footage he and George took of me awhile back and has posted it on his webpage.  It’s pretty cool.  The link follows:

http://possibilityx.com/video%20files/echo.wmv

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/142618.php

 Jesse, my son in law, is on the Tucson front page for his work to preserve an important archeological site in Iraq.  Please go look at the story.  There’s more to it than in the story, but I’m very very proud of him and he’s a great guy and this is good stuff.  Norman kid goes global.

I’m not sure, but I think RebL is pretty proud of her husband.  Ya think?  What are the odds? 

I’m vain.

It’s not like I don’t admit to that character fault.

One of the things I’m most vain about is my hair.

I got it cut today.

Daria styled me in her new salon at the Chardonnay on Paseo.

O.M.G!

She did SUCH a great job!!!

i LOVE IT!!!

I had permission from the lovely Juliet, she’s seen the cut and gives it unqualified approval. 

So, you know it has to be good since the lovely Juliet was the big obstacle to getting it cut and the instigator for growing it long Long LONG in the first place.

I also know Debster will like it since she volunteered to whack back the curls weeks ago.

LOL

I’ll be stylin’ in my new “do” at a CD release party in Bricktown tonight for those interested.  By the lovely Juliet’s decree, I’ll be wearing low slung jeans, boots and a great shirt she picked.  Be there or Be L7.

I’m doing it, but begrudgingly.

My capacity for delayed gratification is inversely porportional to my vast ability to go for the impulse and the quick fix for the short term gain.

I’m really trying to be grown up.

I’m eating breakfast.  Huh?, you say.  I never have had breakfast as a regular feature of my diet.  I’m a cigarets and coffee kinda guy.  I think that’s maybe a vestigial drinking behavior, but I’m not sure and haven’t really been able to think about when I stopped eating breakfast and why, blahblahblahblogblah.

I’m eating lunch at home, making it myself and grocery shopping accordingly.  In fact, I’m eating almost all my meals at home, the Paseo Wednesday group excepted.

I’m walking around the block every morning as a way of getting exercise into my life.  I just can’t believe it.  I hate exercise and I hate sweat and I don’t think athletic garb is a good look for me.  It’s not like I’m overweight or got bad reports from the doctors in my annual checkup — au contraire!  It’s not even a f’n New Years’ Resolution.

I did not concoct some silly reason to break up with the lovely Juliet this week.  We have fun, we really care about each other and it ain’t broke, so why would I try to fix it?

There are those of you who might shake their heads about this, but I’m also back to daily prayers.  My son in law Jesse sent me some beads on a string — “worry beads”, if you will — from Iraq.  There are 65 beads.  Each night and each morning, I express my gratitude to my AA higher power for 65 blessings in my life.  If you are reading this, your name may be wearing out a bead. 

In my last post, I recorded the fact that on Monday, I cut up my credit cards.  All of them.  I haven’t had the gumption to throw away the shards, but they are cut up and in my desk.  Gulp.  I’ve been living the high life on credit for a LONG time.  I’m not even sure what will happen or how I will survive on a cash basis, but, by gum, I’m going to give it the honest try.

I go to a minimum of two AA meetings a week.  That was a New Year Resolution I’ve kept.  There’s a difference, however, in going to meetings and being sober.  While I have not had a drink, neither have I lived my life according to the principles of “The Program.”  I resist it for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the arrogance to believe that my life cannot be reduced to a series of a dozen bumper stickers.  That whole Free Will argument with the committee in my head.  Rigorous honesty, “Easy Does It” and remembering that I’m here to help others are not my strong points ALL the time.  I’d like to be able to show some progress, knowing perfection is out of reach.

I’m doing my dead level best to act my way into a new way of thinking, Dr. Max.  I’m giving a shot at the rational life.

However, to be rigorously honest, I’m not really liking it all that much.  So far, it was more fun to dance than to pay the piper.

Well, nice talking to you folks.  Gotta go to bed now.  My new bedtime is 11 p.m. and the alarm goes off before 7 a.m. so nighty night!

When we were paying attention to Lebanon …

July became the most deadly month since the U.S. entered Iraq: 3,800+ people died.

The U.N. announced that Afghanistan will have its largest opium crop IN HISTORY.

President Bush expressed his disappointment that there wasn’t more widespread support for U.S. efforts in Baghdad and Kabul.

10,000 Iraqis demonstrated in favor of Hezbullah and opposed to the U.S. and Israel in downtown Baghdad.

President Bush says he thinks the Israelis “won” in Lebanon and that the Lebanese will soon come to their senses and recognize it’s all Hezbullah’s fault.

**************

A personal note:  I cut up my credit cards Monday.  Gulp.

Erika West has posted on Karmic Ironies.

Film at 11.

(she says she thinks that maybe the poets on Wednesday night at Galileo’s tend to be annoying drama queens who hog the spotlight with their singsong stuff.  What are the odds?)

Sure wish BookMDano would get on the stick and win us a jackpot.  I could use a few million this month.  In fact, would one of y’all come by the office with a few grand — $50K would be nice — and loan it to me to be paid back when Danny does his job?

Paseo dinner at Earl’s last night was strangely quiet.  Don’t know why.  There were some long silences at the table, odd for a dozen of us rachetjaws.

Just three of us enjoyed the Pierce Brosnan-Greg Kinnear movie “Matador”.  OK.  Amusing.  Not great.

Talked briefly to Veronique Mist yesterday.  she’s on vacation out west and seems to be having a good time.  Miss her.

the lovely Juliet has a new ride, courtesy of Chris S.  Juliet’s AstroVan threw a front tire across I-35 at 65 m.p.h. and she was lucky not to roll that beast.  It’s become even more difficult to fix because the bolts on the tires are cross threaded, meaning it’s not just new tires or new lugnuts, it’s new hubs.  Meanwhile, she’s busy casting models for a new casino commercial and as busy as a one legged midget* in an ass kickin’ contest.  (*midget reference for the benefit of John X).

the political chattering class is still busy chewing over the CT defeat of Joe Lieberman.  I still think it’s less important than they make it out to be and that their conclusions about antiwar sentiment, anti-incumbent sentiment, etc., is just too much extrapolation over too little data.

Heard Robin Williams blew 20 years of sobriety and is back in rehab.  wonder if he’s at the same spa as Mel Gibson?  Wouldn’t you like to be in that group session?  Isn’t Robin W. Jewish?  That might spice things up a little.

I want to give some “props” to some fellow bloggers:  MCARP has started some really interesting threads lately about the nature of humans; John X at MindTurds started out blogging at a blazing pace; my sis, Mary E., has a thread about secrets and lies and telling the truth when it hurts that interests me; and now if I could just get Erika West at Karmic Ironies and RJ at Diatribe 101 back on their game, my days could be entirely wasted by reading the web instead of working.

Does anyone but me remember that the Israeli “offensive” started out as an effort to get some kidnapped soldiers returned?  We don’t hear much about the hostages lately.  Now, Israel seems intent on capturing and holding the southernmost 15 miles of Lebanon between the border and the Litani River.  However, they are having trouble getting three miles of territory under control.  If the fighting stopped today, Hizbullah could legitimately claim victory because they still exist and they still hold key military objectives and they still hold the hostages.  Same for Hamas in Gaza, where they are in power despite Israeli tanks and rockets.

In Afghanistan, Osama bin Laudin is still walking around and issuing videos to Al Jazeera.  He’s the big winner out of the war in Iraq so far:  his Al Qaeda ranks have swelled from about 1,000 three years ago to 10,000 today.  In Afghanistan itself, the Karzai government is barely holding Kabul while the Taliban can put together massed assaults on cities and outposts in the south and west of that country.

In England, authorities arrested 21 people who planned to blow up planes flying from Heathrow to the U.S. using liquid explosives in innocuous containers.  We are now in a “red” terror alert.  Bush uses such things for political advantage, duh.

In Iraq, authorities have a new security plan.  Turns out the “plan” is a re-run of a failure from last year: taking on Mahdi al-Sadr’s Shiite militias, this time in Baghdad instead of in smaller southern towns.  Is there any miscalculation or mistake that this administration hasn’t made in Iraq?

Personally, I’m thinking about putting together a web contest to decide who is more incompetent:  Condi Rice or Don Rumsfeld.  Dead heat at this point, if you ask me.

The GOP in OKC is in a quandary.  Mary Fallin and Mick Cornett have to pander to the farthest right to win the Aug. 25 runoff, but that’s not necessarily a good look in Nov.  Those extreme positions on abortion and stem cells and gays and that last refuge of scoundrals, patriotism, have a way of backfiring in the general election.  God help Dr. Hunter raise enough money to say effectively these emperors have no clothes.

I contacted Daria last night to get a hair appointment.  I can’t stand it any more.  The lovely Juliet finally acquiesced as long as it doesn’t get any shorter than it was last winter.

Stay tuned.

QUANTUM PHYSICIST TO OFFER NEW VIEW OF
EVOLUTION
Where: Old Trinity Church Gallery
3000 N Lee, Paseo Arts District, OKC
When: Saturday, August 19, 6pm
Contact: Skip Largent / 405-557-1369
[email protected] – also see www.paseoart.com
or – Lothar Schafer –  [email protected]

As debate grows between hardliners of religion and
science about how this world and its creatures came
into existence, a quantum physicist from the
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has sparked
worldwide interest in his new view of evolution.

” I have developed an argument of moderation, which
can bring reasonable minds from both sides together,”
says Lothar Schäfer, who is the Edgar Wertheim
Distinguished Professor of Physical Chemistry at the
university, and the author of “In Search of Divine
Reality.” Schäfer will present his ideas in Oklahoma
City at a special event Saturday, August 19, sponsored
by the Ziusudra Project at the Old Trinity Church
Gallery in the Paseo Arts District.

“Darwinians generally are materialists and do not like
the non-material, hidden principles of quantum
systems,” Schäfer says. “In Classical Physics, there
is no room for the Spiritual and for God. In the world
of Quantum Mechanics, the foundations of physical
reality have revealed all the aspects of a
transcendent reality.” Schäfer’s research has provided
evidence that the Genetic Code, the foundation of
Darwinians’ argument for evolution, is itself born out
of nonmaterial quantum processes.

“Various religious groups do not like a scientific
system that explains the emergence of life in a
natural way, because they think that it takes away
from God. But why should it?”

Schäfer asks. “After all, it is not impossible to
believe that the quantum structure of the universe out
of which life unfolds had a creator.”

The free event begins at 6pm, Saturday, August 19th,
at Old Trinity, 3000 N Lee on the Paseo.

Following Schäfer’s presentation, the Ziusudra Project
will host an afterparty, featuring experimental
multi-art performance. Bring a picnic basket and join
the fun. More information is available at the Ziusudra
website, www.paseoart.com, or by calling Skip Largent
at 405-557-1369.

Talk about overanalysing!

the national press is pissing their pants trying to make national the results of elections last night.

to me, it’s tempest in a teapot and then trying to read the tea leaves in the wake of the swirling tsunami you create in your own cup.

Is it really all that big a surprise that Conn. voters would choose an anti-war whack job?

Conn., after all, is nothing more than an affluent far north suburb of New York City.

So, it’s like being surprised if North Edmond and rural south Guthrie picks a right wing whack job.

And, has about the same national significance.

Same for the defeat of Rep. Cynthia McKinney.  She was elected in 2000, defeated in 2002, elected in ’04 and defeated again following a fistfight with a capitol guard. 

This is an anti-incumbent mood that’s sweeping the nation?

No, it’s media analysts scrambling to keep their f’ng jobs.

Club for Growth bought a couple of GOP primaries in the West, notably one in Colorado.  They are libertarian right wing whackos who want to starve the federal government into submission by cutting taxes to a flat tax or some such.  They had a candidate in OKC’s fifth district GOP race, Calvey, but he couldn’t compete with the right wing whacko money already being spent by Mick Cornett and Mary Fallin.  By the way, the Cornett money was basically anti-Fallin money.  The GOP insiders don’t like Mary for some reason.  One suspects because she’s an unguided missle and they aren’t real sure who she will hurt when she inevitably explodes.  I’m guessing that when Aug. 25 comes around, the honorable mayor of OKC will be the winner.  The former Lt. Gov. spent a lot of money to see her poll numbers steadily decline.  I’ll vote for Dr. Hunter in all events so I don’t much care.

The best thing that came out of last night’s elections is that the results were pretty early and there wasn’t any staying up late for nail-biting.