That's the good news - I have a job. However, it's perfectly possible that I could turn up on site at 8.00am to start work only to be told that no one knows anything about me, no job of the kind described in the contract exists, and if it did, and if I were supposed to be working it, they'd fire me anyway. That sort of thing does actually happen. Not, so far, to me - but to people I have known. The joys and satisfactions of working as an independent contractor. But supposing all goes well....

All my successes, those things I regard as highpoints in my existence to date, have been metaphysical in nature. As cactoblasta points out in his response on the linked article, the truly traumatic events of my existence (being stoned through the streets as a child, emotional and physical abandonment, the decades during which I withdrew further and further from the world) occurred in my childhood and youth. And the successes that I have had, my eventual return to the world, the completion of fir...

I don't like what has happened to JU. I think I've made that abundantly plain. But I do like the community. Therefore I have nothing further to say concerning my disappointment in JU2. No doubt I'll get over it. One thing only I will suggest - that the number of possible blog categories be reduced to three: thought, life, blogging. Anything else is over-provision. I am 48 years old. I feel that I am sixteen. Both my chronological age and my existential estimation of my age are facts of my exi...

Yes, I know it's free. Yes, I know it's our Local God's house and he can do anything he likes, to anyone he likes, whenever he likes. Are you listening, Our Little God? I know all that. And? Your redecoration sucks. Yes, it's your house. But why paint the walls a yellow-green whose only known equivalent is babyshit? Your reorganization sucks. What before was relatively clear is now pointlessly complex. What before could be readily undersood is now hopelessly obscure. The front pag...

We don't know. We don't even know what we think we know. That wasn't always the case. There was an era in human history when we knew what we knew, and we knew that we knew it. But that knowing was anchored in the unquestioned certainty that the gods were real, and like us. In contrast, our own era has the motto 'God is Dead'. Each statement is perfectly true at the same instant that it's perfectly false: what counts is not the 'truth' or 'falsity' of each statement but the consequences of ...

This is a rant. It's not a rational argument, it's not a reasoned statement of opinion. It claims no substantiation and is indifferent to justification. It's a rant. You have been warned. I hate doctors. Let me reiterate, explain and intensify. I hate the medical profession. If I had a daughter I would rather she married a N*gger Pimp than a doctor. The Pimp is honest - the medic is a hypocrite. The Pimp provides a service - the medic tells you he or she can't help you, or leaves a surgi...

Deja Vu is sometimes defined as a 'disagreeable similarity' to something else. Whether that definition applies in this case remains to be seen. HCC stands for Hull Community Church. XCC stands for X Community Church. HCC was the church in England that I was most committed to, and attended for more than four years - before leaving to "Wander in the Outer Darkness", as the wife of my then Congregational Leader told me I was about to do. X Community Church is the most promising religious comm...

( Link ) Bush is a bit like an unhinged iconoclast who has arbitrarily decided he doesn't believe in cows, and loudly and repeatedly denies their existence until you get so annoyed you drive him to a farm and show him a cow, and he shakes his head and continues to insist there's no such thing. At which point it moos indignantly, but he claims not to hear it, so in exasperation you drag him into the field and force him to touch the cow, and milk the cow, and ride around on the cow's bac...

America is the last great hope of the world, because in America a person can be free. Free, but not absolutely free. The constraints upon their freedom under which Americans live are unique in the history of the world. They are not the arbitrary dictats of a hereditary Monarch. They are not the equally arbitrary, but historically far bloodier and more destructive, dictats of an ideologically driven elite (though the Democrats, and never was there a more bitter irony than the naming of that pa...

I got the letter I'd been waiting for today. The first paragraph reads: "Congratulations! Your request for the removal of the conditional basis of your permanent resident status has been approved. You are deemed to be a Lawful Permanent Resident of the United States as of the date of your original admission or adjustment of status." The rest tells me when to expect my new Green Card (within 60 days) and various other bits of useful trivia. But the above is the paragraph that counts. ...

Something that has impressed me in the worst possible way is this nation's preoccupation with what can only be called 'getalongness'. So long as everyone likes each other, so long as everyone gets along with each other, so long as everyone feels part of the team (no matter how utterly incompetent any given part of the team is), American employers would rather hire the getalong guy rather than the guy who knows how to get the job done. "Despite a labor shortage in many sectors, some employe...

James River City. There’s something old here, old and bloody. And it’s so stinking hot most of the time that you Fail to notice the white chill of the air The kind of white that’s best seen Stained with blood. There are houses in England that are older than America But there’s nothing in England that’s older than what’s here. This is a place accustomed to hate, and those of us that Live here know how to manage it. We hate each other Discreetly. Joyously killing our own kin...

Boredom. No word more laconically conveys anguish. And I suffer it in its most extreme form at work. Every job I've ever had has bored me to tears, and beyond, within a month or two. Except one. But that's another blog for another day. From my observation of the rest of you, boredom seems, for most people, to be a minor annoyance. Something you take in your stride, with which you cope admirably if not always easily. Not so for me. It's a torment that poisons my life. I leave work feelin...

Renaissance - when not referring to a revival of the arts and learning the word means, generally: a renewal of life, vigor, interest, etc.; rebirth. A major factor in my recent rejuvenation has to do with the fact that I'm no longer addicted to Vicodin, as I have been for the last several months. This isn't the first time I've come close to losing myself to that wonderful, pernicious drug. This is my second go-round with it. And I'm now completely certain that taking even one pill, ever...

A warning in advance. This article deals with issues of deviant sex and deviant sexuality and discusses them graphically, with no consideration (other than this warning) given to the more tender sensibilities of some among us. If you're offended or disturbed by such things - read no further. Since I've recently had cause and inspiration (I wish the two always came together so easily, but they rarely do), I've been writing on the topic of Sado-Masochism. I've never really liked the ...