It's always interesting to see my counter go up, since this is all basically just my stream of consciousness naked journal of things I'm thinking about at the moment. I know a few of the people plopping in here, but I can't see how I can know every visit. Face it, a blog is the ass end of nowhere as far as the internet goes. I get more traffic in my secondary email boxes. Still, it is an interesting experiment.

I haven't gone to sleep yet tonight (today) since I spent all of that time after leaving T's writing my in-depth psycho-babble analysis of people I'd been around during the weekend and after that I decided that I just couldn't wait to finish the newest Jennifer Roberson book I bought on Friday. The problem was that I had to finish reading the book that came before this one first, but logistics were never my greatest selling point.

I guess the dreaded tropical storm that was supposed to call off returns to Mississippi might have been the cause of all the rain as the sun rose. Unless you're on the top of a building or planning a picnic or boating I've never seen the big deal about the tropical storm thing. Sure, the tornado thing is a big pain but somehow I can't bring myself to consider driving around in the ole' Taurus to be while a tornado or two are dipping down might be more dangerous than lounging around asleep in bed or on the crapper. The worst thing about driving in the rain is that everyone ELSE seems to drive like a complete idiot. Hurricanes are another story, but I wouldn't call the 5 mph pace of most evacuation route travel anything like driving.

I think that I would have been a better person if I had had a little sister instead of a brother. People want to take care of baby sisters, probably my best concession to having a younger brother was when I provided him with a a safer place to drink when he was too young to and let him pass out on my couches even when I was having a really big party. It even shows up in my terminology, I'm forever referring to my best and closest female friends as sisters. When I put it like that it sort of sounds like some lesbian/gay thing, and when I occassionally remind myself that some of those women are ones I've slept with there's the whole gruesome incest issue. All in all, it's pretty uncomfortable. Guys can't refer to his girl friends in mixed company properly without getting things confused or miscommunicated with girlfriends.

On a related note, it's really nice that Shannon is back in town. Besides my stepsister, whom I really only know from exasperated tales from my mother, Shannon is the closest thing I've had to a real sister - if only vicariously. After 12 years I've heard so many Shannon stories it's not funny, had mail read to me from halfway across the world, and one of the most painful snapshots from "the breakup" was on one of Trina's birthdays. It was already an awful day for me, the jewelry I'd bought was broken and lost and forgotten almost before Trina had gotten it out of the package, I'd watched with morbid fascination as Blix gave Trina the gift that I'd intended to buy her but he'd talked me out of, I was surrounded by people who screamed bad news at me in the whole party and then somehow for some reason I'd gotten exiled into a car going up to Crestview with Shannon and Sid. If I'd been shot with bullets at the party, Shannon took a pillow and smothered what was left of my ego on the way back. I'm not sure what she said, or even if she said anything. Just that the little kid sister who was always so happy to see me wasn't anymore. That was a blow, Trina's mother was happy to see me sometimes but it was sometimes a scary sort of happy to see me. Trina's dad made no bones about disliking me day one, and to this day he's hardly ever progressed past comfortably-willing-to-ignore-me. Even the animals pretty much didn't want this round white guy around, but for whatever reason Shannon was happy enough to chat with me when Trina wasn't around once she'd gotten past the "who are you sitting with us in front Delchamps" point. I guess I've lived past demonization finally, now when she's over at the house and it's full with neighbors Shannon sometimes can be the only familiar person to talk with. I'm not sure what Larry thinks of it, maybe a little annoyed and wary at worst. That's what's cool about Larry that I think I can tell, he might be the only guy I know laid back to live with on a continual basis with the only blonde-at-heart 1/2 Thai lady I know.

Larry: It's Joe!
Shannon: Joe? Joe who?
Larry: Joe-mama!
Shannon: ! LARRY!!!
(repeated at least THREE times in my presence last night)

Maybe some time this week I'll start digging into my old disks for the sound blurbs to make that Space Ghost song people started talking about last night.

Going along with the whole messiah theme today, I've also just taken the Autism-Spectrum Quotient test and scored a 24. In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4, and eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher so clearly I'm probably NOT autistic. Pretty good omen for a messiah, don't you think? I did score fairly high though with my 24, showing my superiority to merely non-divine mortals with my excellent powers of observation and attention to detail.

In all truth I think the real reason I failed to score a Rainman score on the test was the fact that my father scared the shit out of me in mathematics with his flash card mania growing up, so numbers frighten me more than intrigue me. Also, while I find relating to the general public on a personal level, I'm not so socially misaligned that I can't understand them objectively. I might not like what goes on in the majority of people's little skulls, but on some level I can get where they're coming from. That's just not tongue-lolling attention to detail replete with number crunching...on some level I've always suspected that I pay very close attention to other people because I'm afraid of what other people are like.

I know I've got my fair share of hate, unbudgable motive and attitude, and violent temper but I know. For every one person out there I've met that knows that somewhere in their heart they have the capacity to be a truly bad person, I've met a hundred or more who might guilelessly and confidently declare that they could NEVER do something like this or that. Rubbish.

Even as the people of Israel proudly proclaim their moral superiority and "Never Forget!" they carry out assassination raids against their political and religious foes. As the people of the United States retaliate in fury against the foes of liberty, they blithely pass laws restricting that liberty. As preachers around the world teach the words of mercy and love, they also hand down histories of persecution and hate. All because most of the world is beyond self-examination.

Sometimes I have to check even myself, because sometimes it's just too easy to find the evil or selfish motive in a person's actions or words. I wonder if occassionally that isn't my dark side reaching out for some sort of companionship. It's a pretty sure thing that I'm not going to become a monster unless for some reason I suddenly found myself in a pretty stressful situation with no normal restraint, but I don't know anyone else who's dreamed of killing themselves as another person slowly with a knife. Boundaries are something I'm uncomfortable with holding inside myself, boundaries are for the outside.

Conversely, I think too many people hold their boundaries for the inside of themselves and then show less restraint while on the outside. People lie to themselves as easily as they do each other, pat themselves on the back for other people's successes, and attach their unseen personal demons to people who are different from themselves. My father told me the other day that he thought I should get into sales, but I can't do that. Selling things is all about lying, and the only way I know how to do that is to lying all the way through to the inside. Sure I could do it, but I think I would lose my soul like everyone else.

Lately I've been listening to "My Immortal" by Evanescence a lot lately, and even some 50 cent - who I didn't think I would like but I do. Coupled with my recent watchings of Indian movies, my as-of-yet unsuccessful attempts to isolate some belly-dancing rifs into something usable in a trance song, recent discovery of Liam Lynch, and the fact that I'm one of the few people I know that can actually sit down and read an entire book soley on my monitor screen, I've come to a rather frightening conclusion. Yes, it's true. I am the messiah!

Really, the resemblances are frightening:

1. He’ll battle with Satan (the serpent)
Not only have I wrestled with personal demons, I've ACTUALLY PLAYED WITH SNAKES!
2. The messiah will be rejected by some of his own people
My cousin once entrusted to my entire family his thoughts on me being a HOMOSEXUAL, EVEN THOUGH I'VE NEVER SLEPT WITH A MAN!
3. The divine messiah will become incarnate, born of a virgin (or a young woman)
My mother was a YOUNG WOMAN!
4. He will be proceeded by a messenger (Elijah, according to Micah)
I have and USE MSN MESSENGER!
5. He will come up out of Egypt
Tuscaloosa, my home town, is often referred to as BFE....or BUM FUCK EGYPT!!!!
6. The messiah is God’s son; the messiah is divine
My father, Mike, has often told me to obey him AS I WOULD THE WORD OF GOD!
7. He will perform miracles
After slacking off my original stint into college and sequestering a 2.11 GPA, I now possess a 3.8. MIRACLE!!!

As you can see, the similarities are legion. Heck, Jesus was the son of a carpenter and I am the grandson of a carpenter! Donations to my cause will be much appreciated, as would be oaths of allegiance for my second coming and maybe some canned goods. Thanks!

Unstoppable: Liceland

Nothing much new to report from blogland lately, I've been spending a lot of time at Trina and Josh's thanks to his ex not telling everyone that their kids were around another kid with lice over the weekend. Since Phoenix's lice ordeal gave Trina and I some serious training, I was there till late at night helping everyone treat and delouse their hair. I went to visit Phoenix on Saturday, but she neglected to tell me that her stepsister's b-day so I ended up going to Olive Garden and doing the b-day thing. It was slightly uncomfortable, especially enduring a certain female present's interrogations. Sunday was Father's Day of course, which I had no money for because I'd spent that money the night before at Olive Garden. So instead Phoenix and I picked up a burger and hung out at the park.