Is There Life on Mars?

I am cold. Frozen to the bone cold. It's a wee MS-initiated drop in temperature brought on by a dicky thermostat. My left leg isn't chilly though, it's nice and toasty down there. Even wrapped up in my warm waterbed with loads of blankets, I still feel cold to the bone. But it's heaps colder on Pluto. If you come back into the solar system a bit more towards Earth, you will strike Mars. Mars is cold too. It is also presently at its closest point in its orbit of the sun to the Earth that it has been for 60,000 years. That's a lot of Christmas presents. Speaking time wise, it will be even closer to us relatively soon - a mere 284 years in the future. Who knows, we might all be here together again to watch it, but I wouldn't wait to exhale over it. I haven't even been out to have a look at Mars yet, but that's because I'm so cold. But I'm sure the Martians are lazing about on their sandy beaches sipping their Margaritas and watching all these silly Earthlings scurrying around with binoculars and telescopes watching the Martians whizz past like they never have before. Well, not for 60,000 years, anyway. Of course, Mars' year is a bit longer than ours, 1.881 Earth years to be precise. That means that 60,000 Earth years is approximately 31897.92 Martian years, so I guess they haven't been awaiting this exciting occasion as long as we have. And besides, they have two moons instead of one, so they have had more moonlit evenings to stroll hand in tentacle and bump proboscises on the lovely red Martian sands together as well. They probably didn't even notice the eons passing.

I hope they had some decent music to keep them occupied while they were waiting. Maybe they have Space Waltz and Bowie on Mars as well.

60,000 years ago, modern man as we theoretically know him was already well on the way to evolving. He didn't know it, but he was. Neanderthal Man had his marching orders and was on his way out and Archaic Homo Sapiens had made serious inroads into becoming real people, now called Homo sapiens and only a few Homo Erectus still remained in one small corner of South East Asia. They had some crude tools made of stone, but no technological sophistication. The majority hadn't yet learnt to make spears, draw pictures on cave walls or carve pornographic images of big breasted women, but it wasn't far away.

Venus statues with big bums and bigger boobs - some things really don't ever change, do they? They also hadn't discovered carrying matches in their pockets yet. They didn't have pockets. I guess the original aboriginals of Australia had pockets though, every marsupial pelt came with one free pouch, didn't it?

I was always fascinated by space and stars and planets and all that astronomical stuff. I guess that's why I still love sci-fi, sleep in the moonlight, watch the stars, still hop in the car and go drive to a better viewpoint anytime there is some interesting celestial occurrence and do things like get my kids up at night to watch Mir as her orbit brought her closer to earth and made of her a big shining golden disc as she passed overhead. And I love The Blue Danube by Strauss (2001 - a Space Odyssey, bloody brilliant).

Life is full of things you only see once and sometimes you have to peer really hard to find them. We, as individuals and societies and cultures really are only a blip in time, just a mere nanosecond in humanity's history. We don't matter at all, we just have the arrogance to think we do. Our individual trials, successes and failures are less than nothing.

As Richard O'Brien wrote in his lyrics in Rocky Horror Picture Show;
And crawling on the planets face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time
And lost in space
And meaning.

Space is empty, space is big and I could run away in space forever and no one could ever find me. Space is also very cold - I would need a few extra blankets. And something to heat up my wheat sack.



~~ It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him. - Arthur C. Clarke ~~

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Suffragette.

Equality is just an eight letter word. Those intrepid ladies in the late 19th Century Suffrage movement knew all about that. They fought tooth and nail, ruined their clothes and their reputations, lost their husbands and families and sometimes their lives in an attempt to achieve an equality that would allow women dominion over their own lives. They wanted balance. Newton's third Law of Physics said; "Every Action has an Equal and Opposite Reaction". Resistance is futile if you remove the friction that holds an object in place cos the bigger the push, the bigger the push back. It all balances out in the end. Witness a Newton's Cradle working; aren't they neat? We balance the books, we look for an ecological balance to save the Planet, we balance a load to walk straight and use balance to stand and walk and stay upright and not fall over. Well, some of us do.

So, having established that balance is desirable, if push comes to shove perhaps I can balance the books here at home and find solutions to some common problems in my day. It's time to shove back.

Challenge: One side of my body is hot; the other is cold.
Solution: Somewhere near the middle there has to be a place where Hot meets Cold. So that spot has to be the right temperature, right? I need to focus on my navel.

Challenge: I had some chocolate that I put somewhere nice and safe; now I can't find it.
Solution: I need a little sniffer gadget, like a pocket geiger counter for chocolate, accurate to with 30 feet and three layers of airtight packaging. I need it NOW.

Challenge: The flowering cherry tree covers my car in pink petals like measles all the time. I have to keep hosing it off.
Solution: Bugger the tuis, I'm going to get the mother cut down. And tear out those ugly agapanthus. I hate agapanthus.

Challenge: My leg is hurting badly when I walk.
Solution: Don't walk. Not realistic? OK, don't walk if you don't have to. Hurts more? Have another cigar, I'll put some Pink Floyd on and we can mull out.

Challenge: The kids don't know how to change a toilet roll. I know this isn't limited to our house, but how hard can it be??
Solution: Put the toilet rolls back in the cupboard, at least I won't be tripping over the kitten playing with them any more.

Not funny, huh. It wasn't supposed to be.

If I look at the stupid little crap like that up there, I'm not focusing on what I'm really feeling. Some of the crap I have every day I could not have coped with 10 years ago. I look back and think; "What a wuss". But I wasn't really a wuss, just rather stupid and rather trapped. And I'm trapped again now, but this time it's inside my increasing ability to shut the world out whilst shutting in how bad I really feel. I've had to change my priorities, what is now important, bearable and above all do-able. MS is a problem, not a challenge. There is no solution to MS. But dealing with it symptomatically every day is a challenge. It's really hard to find some balance in it all. How can I balance a life that is spent alternately sleeping, burning or hurting? Or any combination of those three things.

If it wasn't for reading the MS Newsgroup and seeing what others also live with, I would think I'd completely lost the plot. But I read of people who feel what I feel, burn like I burn and have pain like I have. And a lot have worse. That's the really scary bit. I don't know what to say any more when people ask how I am. If I say how I feel, I'm whining, I become the quintessential hypochondriac. If I say I feel fine, not only am I indulging in dirty little social lies, I am also giving people permission to ignore the deeper issues because on the outside I said I was fine. And if they don't ask me, I know that my answer wouldn't have mattered anyway because they don't really care how I feel.

I have become soft (no, not just in the head) in the way I view my own place in the world. The acceptance of those around me has become far too important; I lost my emotional independence. I got hard in all the wrong places, I became selfish of my resources, the value of my contribution. I became demanding. Even my silences are demanding, apparently. And it is silent here. The silence frustrates me and the deeper issues are never addressed.

My latest challenge is to somehow change all that back. I'm just not sure it's worth the pain.

I don't like this Karma bullshit...


The Recipe

Weed out Love's broken pieces
Then Grind them into dust
Mix with a little water
Shaping with a little trust
Bake in an oven of acceptance
Cool it on a rack of care
Ice thickly with compassion
A cake for all to share
Place it on a doilied tray
Cut it with a silver knife
And offer it to all who want
To taste a slice of Life

~~ Most people rust out due to lack of challenge. Few people rust out due to overuse - Unknown ~~

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Home

I was always a home body. Oh, I liked the idea of going somewhere but the destination was what counted, I didn't want to waste time on the journey and then the actual experience always let me down. Maybe I'm just hard to please. And I really don't sleep well out of my own bed; about the only place I can recall really feeling comfortable away from home was Jon's. It was nice, there. But I can't feel comfortable in my friends' homes and I never feel I belong, always feel odd and out of place. So, considering the combination of health issues and the kids leave me few opportunities to be anywhere but at home anyway, it's very seldom I go anywhere for more than an hour at a time let alone for a night or a weekend. These days, I hardly ever leave the house except to run errands. It's very seldom I am required to "socialise" any more and I long since gave up trying to socialise at home. Besides, the Hermit's arse has been hermetically sealed to her computer chair and she doesn't like to walk. Especially not with an audience. Except to hunt for chocolate. And get coffee. That's one of the hardest things about having to rely on appliances to get me where I want to go - I cannot be invisible with a crutch under my arm, it makes me doubly obvious, twice as likely to be noticed.


I guess I have spent years racing through life, trampling the roses and banging into pedestrians (and vice versa) whilst hiding in the shadows in case the emptiness inside might catch up with me. I was looking ahead to the hazy and unformed goals that were out of range of my short-sighted vision and trying to ignore the bruises I found in the potholes that lurked in the rocky road between. I always got it wrong. I should have been smelling the roses, talking to people and looking at the scenery instead, but I was too scared to look and talk in case the real world was too demanding and I was found wanting.

I never said I was brave, I'm really chicken-shit on the inside.

Now, as those of you who follow astrology would know, we Sagittarians are supposedly prone to wanderlust in a big way. It's something Sagis just do; well maybe all of 'em except me. I've never been anywhere outside of NZ and only been across the Cook Strait once, when I was four. What a sheltered life I've led. Mind you, poverty, laziness and stupidity will do that to ya :-) So, I never got around to going anywhere until and then it was too late; mortgage, kids, sickness, it all demanded a price and doing the things I wanted to do was the price I paid.

I've been thinking of the places I always wanted to go and never got my shit together; countries I wanted to see, things I wanted to touch, odours I wanted to smell and foods I wanted to taste but I never had the merest twitch of ambition to actually achieve it while I could. It was always Mañana. Well, tomorrow is here and all the money and time in the world wouldn't get me to where I want to go, nor give me the experiences I want to have and there is no one to travel with anyway. It takes me all my time just to drive into town these days. It's slumberlust, not wanderlust. Maybe I should concentrate on fine tuning my "OOBE" skills and take up flying instead. No luggage, no passports, no queues and no crowds and heaps cheaper, too.

What a fucking waste it all is. All of it.

I guess I'll just stay home and mind the shop. I'm good like that.

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I have become a troglodyte
A dweller in the rock
A hermit hidden safe behind
A door no one can find to knock

They know I'm there, a glowing's splashed
Through the window, on my wall
And so take ease from my existence
Though they don't have time to call

They trumpet out when their need is near
They're banging to come in
And once the problem's all been solved
Company's looking pretty thin

Everywhere I go I'm odd
In number, speech and gait
So if I'm to be the odd one out
I'll stay home and toke up, mate

I'm like a tool, they pick me up
And put me down at whim
Then run and play, and run away
And leave me stuck out on a limb

Some hurt me when they promise things
That they don't intend to do
And cast aside the pledge they made
Like a smelly worn out shoe

Born alone, we die alone
And some live alone as well
Maybe sometime you'll remember
The troglodyte who went to Hell

I want to go home, this lonely wilderness isn't home any more.

~~ Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter - Martin Luther King Jr. ~~

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INTERMISSION AGAIN
Grab ya chocolate, here is something really deep and meaningful...


Wise Sayings:

· The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt or a leaky tyre.

· It's always darkest before dawn. So, if you're going to steal the neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

· No one is listening until you make a mistake.

· Always remember you're unique -- just like everyone else.

· Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

· If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

· Remember, when someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, BUT, it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and smack that jerk upside the head.

· The things that come to those who wait are what's left behind by those who got there first.

· Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

· Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield.

· If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

· Don't squat with your spurs on.

· Timing has an awful lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

· A closed mouth gathers no foot.

· I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame you.

· Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

· There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

· Never miss a good chance to shut up.

· Anything worth taking seriously is worth making fun of.

· Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and, you have their shoes.

· If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

· Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

· How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hands.

· You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.

~~Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid.~~

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The Five Minute Friendship

Everyone insists that I ask them for help when I need something. I used to hear it a lot; "Tell me what you need, let me help you". They say "Don't shut yourself away, don't isolate yourself from me". I didn't realise that most were only offering objects, tangible forms of aid, things. I was naive enough to think it meant support, validation, acknowledgement of what I feel and share with them; support as a cuddle, a smile, a stroke or a pat on the shoulder, a little bit of their precious time. What they really mean to say is "Let me help you if it's convenient for me at the time".

MS often has me crying in pain in an emotional limbo with no end in sight, episodes that leave me almost screaming in agony at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, like I was a few weeks ago, sitting on the side of my bed for hours, rocking back and forward in some primal, unconscious effort to just make my head stop hurting. The sort that make taking that whole box of sleeping pills I have squirreled away look like a really viable option. There is nothing lonelier than enduring a night like that, panic-stricken with fear and helplessness, wondering if it will ever stop. Now, I have codeine tablets squirreled away, as well.

When I reached meltdown a while back, I sent an email, a plea for help if you like to someone who had promised to help. But they didn't mail me back, they never mailed me back. Jesus, I wonder why I feel so invisible, hmmm?? It wouldn't have anything to do with being ignored, would it? There is no point telling me to let people help if no one is going to bother to give me a measly five minutes of their time to reply when I do ask, is there? If I'm not worth a short "hello, I know you are hurting, I love you, here is a cyber hug", then I'm not worth a pinch of shit.

It doesn't really matter whether I am having a nervous breakdown, have fallen over and hurt myself, have crushing pains in my head, have a Witch Burning going on down below or just need someone to talk to like a real human being; it's all the same, and if they aren't there for me for one, they won't be there for me for anything else, either. I'm the one determines the severity of my need, aren't I?

There are lots of different kinds of rejection to be faced in Life and none of them are something you would seek on purpose. A friend who is sick like I am seems to become an "inconvenience" and as such encounter a form of rejection when we stop being an integral part of everyone's daily consciousness like we once were, and when the extraordinary effort we expend on attempting, let alone completing a once ordinary task goes unrecognised, we just become invisible. Our individual needs simply fade into insignificance. And that hurts far more than anything the MonSter can throw at me.

I'm not a cat to be picked up and stroked when you feel like it, and I won't prostitute myself for a few kind words and a pat on the head just because you've remembered I exist a few days or weeks down the line. Please don't make me invisible because you don't have the time to see, or render me mute because you don't have time to listen. I remember when you hurt me, I get more practice than you know.

Like I said a post or two back, something sort of broke. I think maybe it's called "trust". I don't know how to fix it.

~~ You stayed for drama though you paid for a comedy - Verve Pipe ~~

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Keeping your powder dry

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, someone discovered that bashing one flint rock against another caused a spark that could create fire. Some other budding entrepreneur discovered that rubbing sticks together accomplished the same thing. Someone else discovered that a beast that had been struck by lightning tasted better than one in it's natural, freshly slaughtered state. But seeing as how carrying rocks, sticks and bolts of lightning in your pocket wasn't necessarily a convenient method of storage and transportation (especially if you didn't have pockets in the first place), someone else eventually discoved how to make matches.

In 1810 something resembling the match, as we know it today was introduced. This was the "instantaneous Light Box" which consisted of a box containing a tiny bottle of sulphuric acid and some matches. The match heads had been dipped in a compound of chlorate of potash and sulphide of antimony, and they came from France.

1832 Richard Bell established the first British match factory in London and started producing the new phosphorus match that had been invented a Frenchman named Charles Sauria. That same year, two other types of matches were invented; Fuzee and the Wax Vesta. The wax vesta was made like a small wax taper and was exactly like the wax vestas of today, a friction match but using a wax or wax braided stem instead of wood. These were very popular and are still made in some countries today.

Somewhere here, lost in the jumble of sentimental antiquity that is my china cabinet, I have a packet of old-fashioned matches, some Wax Vestas. There is even an old cylindrical metal match box that the matches were struck against to make them light. As I have gradually found the world less and less to my liking, I have found I like my treasures in the china cabinet more and more - at least they only whisper of the past, not shriek aloud the deficiencies of the present and the hugeness of the future. Their longevity and endurance comfort me in a very unendurable world.

I think I have found my match in MS and I don't particularly like it. My constant shadow, it lives in the cactus spines that stab me in the heart, in the ice pick buried in my head and in the molten wax flowing down my left leg.

Something sort of "broke" inside me that night a few weeks ago when I went off the deep end. Deep down inside, I feel colder, darker, less hopeful, more cynical and more isolated from the "real world". I also can't cope with happy couples any more, I found that out today.

I always did hate odd numbers.

~~ 'nil illegittemi carborundum' (Don't let the bastards grind you down) ~~

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