February 2004 Archives

Going to be out of town for a wedding for several days. I'll be back with more entries on the 8th of March. Happy Leap Day!

Recent studies from cosmology are presenting strange views of the universe. Could these new studies create a scientific theory of divinity?

Thanks for your comments, Kurt. I've always been in support of more dialogue and less "faking it". Of course, I'm very good at "faking it" myself, so it's ultimately a hypocritical opinion.

I'm going to get back to posting this week. It was just too much. I'd already posted up about Emily, and I haven't really been able to think about anything else for a while. But hopefully I'll get things back running again this week.

The service was nice. It was also horrible. Just a room filled with people who don't understand and feel so empty they can't find a way out of it.

There was a luncheon afterwards for people to get together. As we left, I said good-bye to Emily's dad, and thanked him (I'd spoken to her mother the day before). And it was awful, because he was trying to be a good host and gracious, and was doing a good job of it, but I looked in his eyes, and I could see it. And I realized that I felt horrible, sickened and awful and had felt that way for days, but I could approach 1% of what he felt and it wasn't even over yet. It almost knocked me down it was so palpable. I wish there was something I could do for them.

The whole weekend I kept feeling like we (The Troupe) had failed her. I still feel that way, and I hope that as a group and as individual people we can improve to not let that happen again. Because I, for one, can't take it. It was great to see everyone, but I dont want to meet like that again. Ever.

I'm taking the day off. If you haven't gotten it from somewhere else, I will post all necessary details on services for emily at this location.

I still feel awful. And mostly, its just been a feeling like I'm going to be sick, all day. But I never get sick, just continue to feel awful. She's gone.

Emily killed herself last Friday, and I can't even make up my mind how to feel about it. It's so hard to decide between angry, upset, depressed, guilty, exhausted, disappointed, crazy, and just plain red-hot pissed.

Troupe (the improvisation group I was in at MTU) has always been like family for me, and it always will be. I don't think I'm alone in this, I think most of us feel the same way. Even when I meet Troupers that I've never met before, it's like meeting your 2nd cousin Naomi or your great uncle Greg, there's an incredible bond that is just there because of the shared experience. And I know I would do anything to help another Trouper that needed me. Even years now after leaving, I'm still very close to many of the people I was in Troupe with, talking regularly and getting together.

But it had been many months since the last I'd spoken to Emily, and even that was too short. A friend of mine once said that it's never too late to write. That there's always a chance to catch up again, and you should just keep trying. But that's not true, because now it is too late. I won't get a chance to talk to her again, to hug her again, to cast her in a play to talk dirty because I knew she couldn't get embarrassed.

Emily was a lot of fun. She had an energy that was contagious, and to be honest, some days a lack of energy that was contagious too. She was fiercely honest and independent and demanding, and she expected no less from herself than she did from others. She loved music (especially the Beatles) and troupe and being incredibly silly. She was very good at all of them. In Troupe and out, I was glad for the time I had with her. Some days she made me laugh, some days she made me think, and some days she pissed me off. But she has never made me as angry as I feel right now. We were all out here, and we would have loved to hear from her and we wanted to tell her how much she was loved, how much she was wanted. Dammit, Kerby! Pick up the phone, write an email, something!

But she didn't, couldn't maybe. And I didn't either. And I don't know at all if it would have made a difference, but God how I wish I would have tried anyway. Maybe a short note from a friend was what she needed at a vulnerable time. I was shocked this morning, but maybe not surprised. Emily had never been completely stable, always on one edge or another, but always bouncing back. When I wrote my play, "Thunder Only Happens..." she helped me to critique it, and offered her perspective on how suicidal people feel. We talked about it a bit, but not enough. There is a universe of pain, built out of things left unsaid.

So, you, I'm talking to you reader. Listen to me. Say it. Tell the people you love, make them feel it. Maybe it won't make a difference, maybe we can't stop the road from ending, maybe its just words, but say it, say it, say it.

I love you, Em. I wish I'd said it more often. I wish so many things, and they're all useless now. "The only Emperor is the Emperor of ice cream." I love you, Em, and I miss you.

Evolution is no longer a dirty word in Georgia. But this case wasn't about teaching creationism, and even with the word, religious forces are weakening an understanding of science with a politically-correct approach to fact.

I visited the website for John Hutchinson, who was featured on Tech TV. Laura pointed him out to me (in the comments of this article).

Just to express again how much of a cookie cutter philosophy these people have, John Hutchinson uses crystals to create his free energy machines, which is different from some of the designs that are out there. but guess where his ideas came from... Secret research from Nikola Tesla, utilizing zero-point energy.

Dr. Atkins created a diet intended for elite athelets and sold his soul to make money. The result is an incredible threat to public health, which will likely only rear it's head a decade from now, after it's too late.

Comcast bids to buy Disney

Any hope of Disney reforming can likely be dashed by recent news that Comcast intends to take over the media company. Comcast is not known as a "creativity first" company, but they smell blood and see an opening.

In the spirit of many great philathropists, I hereby offer my own endowment: I will buy lunch for anyone who can reliably demonstrate a free energy device. However, I'm not real worried about having to pay out, since, as Heinlein observed, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", and free energy follows right behind.

Safari Online Books has potential to change the way people get reference information on technical issues.

This is the first entry in what will be semi-regular recommendations for interesting movies, music, books, and assorted other things. I'm going to start this month with the film Chuck and Buck.

The Passion of Jesus has been a contentious subject in drama for centuries. But how can one assign blame for something that is the central foundation of Christianity?

I've been in love with The Magic of Disney from a young age. Which only makes it more painful to see what has become of the company that helped to form me at a young age.

As I prepare to cast my vote in the Michigan Democratic Caucus, I'm struck by how similar the situation is to choosing your favorite venereal disease. I think at this point I'm choosing John Edwards and chlamydia, respectively.

I suppose it's only proper that I explain myself. Its true: I am becoming a blogger. I'm not certain how to feel about it or what it means, but for some reason the universe has put me here, and I do my best to obey.

I'm not certain what it is I expect to accomplish, or even if I expect to accomplish anything. I've already been struck by the overwhelming apathy associated with writing anything. The mountains of text that modern publishing and our fair Internet have unleashed make the prospect of breaking through the noise quite daunting. And, certainly, weblogs are perhaps the worst path to being noticed even within this avalanche. So, ultimately, if I want to do this, it's for myself. And that's the best answer I have. I'm writing here because I have to, because something tells me to write, and when its published, even for less than a dozen to eventually read, it changes the bargain. If I write only for my own private pages, laziness slips in. There is a rigor that publishing (in any medium) forces from the author, and which I'm sure I can benefit from.

What do I want to say? I don't know yet. I suspect this will be a blog about ideas, whether on politics, society, poetry, science, spirit, language, music, or drinks with umbrellas in them. This at least has something to offer. The "personal" blog has a degree of self-absorbtion that makes me uncomfortable. I want to avoid the daily "Today I ate some soup" and inside-joke amalgamations I have seen. True, there is an arrogance associated with sharing my "ideas" as well, but they at least offer something, in a way that describing my lunch last Tuesday cannot. Even if you think I'm full of crap, at least I can make you consider why.

The writing will likely shadow my own obsessions, listed above, with many others to accompany them. I'll also share the experiences in my quixotic quest to create a global media empire without access to money or influence. Think of that: You can watch me fail in "real-time"!

In any case, I thank you for bothering to read this, and thank you if you bother to come back and continue reading. I'll do my best to make it interesting. My intent is to update "mostly daily", which means you get to watch me fail at that, too!

Yours,
-ish