Ah yes. Autumn rains make an early attack, and helicopters are in the air. I'm speaking of course about fall in the Pacific North West, and the attack on the fall outdoor cannabis crops. I've mooned the DIE (Drug Interdiction and Eradication) 'copters twice now. I can't believe at how angry it makes me still. Every time I see them, all I see is money and resources vaporizing in the air. We could feed a whole lot of people with that money. Imagine how many people we'd be able to provide cannabis-based end-of-life palliative care for with the money it costs to operate just one flight? At times, it literally makes me ill...

I'm in a bit of a pinch as far as my own crops go. My medical community has stepped up again, and I have plants going. 11 strains, and still well below my legal limit. But because the rooms aren't yet fully done and running, I've been using the great big bulb in the sky, and while the plants are rather happy about that (the sun always trumps an HID lamp), I'n not quite ready to bring them in, and the weather the past four days has been my enemy. I have them successfully covered for now, but there's lots to be done, and I don't have all my poop in a pile. They need to be sprayed with avermectin to protect them from the dreaded two-spotted spider mite (one egg to 20,000 mites in less time than it takes to skin up, and that's a very weak exaggeration). Trouble is, they're already starting to flower at this latitude, and spraying something like AVID on flowering plants is something I always advise people against doing. "Never spray anything on flowering plants!" is the mantra, and here I am having to do so. Again. Sometimes I wish I was a better student to my own teachings.

Tomorrow we head to the coast for a bit to pick up two donated plants; one a small clone, and the other a 2' ready-to-flower parent of the clone. The medicine was great for Ellen, so I'm looking forward to growing it out. Frankly, I'm looking forward to having and being around flowering plants again. Being in a room with that much oxygen being pushed out of the plants as they do their photosynthesis magic combined with the scent of the resinous flowers is nearly magical, and is absolutely a high onto itself. Combine that with the intensity of the lights, and there's no better treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder on Earth. Seriously, I'd love to see a study on that.

I have ducting and air-conditioning work to do. No big deal, save that I've been busy injuring myself quite a bit recently. I rammed some sliver of something into the bottom of my right foot last week, and couldn't get it out of my paw. I went to Urgent Care and they think they dug it out fully. f course, all the digging they did now mad it feel ten times worse than the sliver-object itself. To top that off, I of course had to get a tetanus shot, which I'm pretty sure I'm reacting to. I've had a body-ache sinc eabout an hour after the shot, and had the chills most of the night. Bleh. The cherry on top? I think the shot may be waking my on-going shingles (oh flippin' joy!) as my back has ached "in that way" since last night.

So I'm sitting at my new favorite coffee house, and a date/friend/sweet hippie chick just showed up. Ah the joys of poly. More as it develops.

-zt

So I'm "officially" gone from Suicide Girls. I'll say "hey" to all my SG friends from there popping in here to see me. Thanks.

And thanks to all the cool folks there why have taken time to tell me that they'll miss me and my input there. It's nice to hear and appreciated. It won't keep me there, though; SG is dying on the vine. The management is unresponsive to its users, the snark level has gotten out of hand, and it's generally no fun there anymore. Actually, it hasn't been "fun" for about a year. I stayed because of the people, not the "SG experience". The slide really started when they let go of people like Wil Wheaton and Martin Attkins--decent columnists. Then D.R. Epstein died. Sad, but moreover, their best feature writer was gone. They should have aggressively expanded their features at that time, but instead, they stalled. A number of us members tried to encourage them in the right direction, but were summarily ignored. Well, at that point, what's the use in staying?

And honestly, I'm 40 years old. The nekkid chicks are, well, cute and all, but you can only look at the babes for so long before you go "Dude, you could easily be her FATHER..." Not that that makes me sad in and of itself. More than that, it just makes me go "Ehh... another nekkid chick... over there... where I'm not. Big whip..." Porn-erotica-whathaveyou just really doesn't do it for me much anymore. I need to focus my life on the reality, the 3D of things. I was one of the first gen of folks to help build the tubes that make the InterWeb run. I started a web design company before the dot-com craze blew. I helped spread porn far and wide across the world.

Yippie. It's old. I need to figure out a way to be active again, and it sure as hell isn't the 'net, or social networks that actually encourage a person to sit on their asses typing all day to somebody somewhere else that doesn't really matter. Worse, become a game addict again.

I want--need--reality. Real people. Real bodies. Real relationships. Real reality.

"I don't believe in Heaven, but I still believe in ghosts.
I've put away childish things..."


-James McMurtry