9/18/24
9/16/24
9/14/24
CARLOS CASTANEDA QUOTE from THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY
"I began my story, telling don Juan that the circumstances of my life have never permitted me to be introspective. As far back in my past as I can remember, my daily life has been filled to the brim with pragmatic problems that have clamored for immediate resolution. I remember my favorite uncle telling me that he was appalled at having found out that I had never received a gift for Christmas or my birthday.
I had come to live in my father's family home not too long before he made that statement. He (Don Juan) commiserated with me about the unfairness of my situation. He even apologized, although it had nothing to do with him.
.... He (my uncle) insisted over and over that I had to forgive the people who had wronged me. From what he said, I formed the impression that he wanted me to confront my father with his finding and accuse him of indolence and neglect, and then, of course, forgive him. He failed to see that I didn't feel wronged at all. Asking me to do required an introspective nature that would make me respond to the barbs of psychological mistreatment once they were pointed out to me....
I never had the opportunity to think about it, but my uncle must have talked to my father, because I got a gift from him, a package neatly wrapped up, with a ribbon and all, and a little card that said "Sorry."
I curiously and eagerly ripped the wrappings. There was a cardboard box, and inside it there was a beautiful toy, a tiny boat with a a winding key attached to the steam pipe. It could be used by children to play with while they took baths in the bathtub. My father had thoroughly forgotten that I was already fifteen years old and for all practical purposes, a man."
9/11/24
9/9/24
IMMINENT by LUIS ELIZONDO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW and COMMENTARY
I listened to this excellent book as an audiobook, after listening to a number of interviews of author Luis Elizondo via YouTube versions of radio programs. I always like it when an author reads their own work, which he did. I got a sense of the man's values and personality from all of this, and so I decided to hear the details not given on programs by listening to the book. Though he, as most UAP researchers, investigators, and experiencers do, experiences criticism, censure, retaliation and even revenge, Elizondo is entirely believable about his experience working for the Pentagon and the defense of the United States of America, after being in the military and participating in war. When he says thousands of reports by pilots have been made of unexplainable Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and that our Navy has evidence of Unidentified Phenomena that enters and is in the oceans, I believe it. I also believe our Presidents have since the mid 1950's been given some idea we are not alone in the universe. I believe it is possible that we have evidence of physical air ships and actual alien bodies, that some inventions are "reverse engineered." I can say that in this moment I doubt any of this will have a profound effect on my own life.
9/6/24
9/3/24
ROMANTIC : EXPERIENCE FORTY-FOUR : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
ROMANTIC
What's the most romantic thing you ever did?
Christine Trzyna
This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
8/29/24
8/27/24
UKRAINE AND RUSSIA : WHAT WE DON'T GET ABOUT RUSSIA
RUSSIA is so huge that it expands through ELEVEN TIME ZONES. All that land, all that space, but it wants Ukraine, which is the size (square miles not shape) of our state of TEXAS.
Why not use the billions of dollars dedicated to destroying UKRAINE and UKRAINIANS to build a new city within Russia, improve infrastructure, and so on? (Pick a good spot and build an all new city!)
Why do Russians have no apparent concern about a generation (or two) of young men being wiped out, leaving Russian women with fewer men to partner and mate with?
***
What seems "good" about Ukraine actually going into Russia to advance their cause?
We do not believe that the Russian people actually realize what is going on. We think the information they are being given is not honest and many of them may not understand what's been happening. Hard to believe, we know, but that's what we think. As Ukraine goes after bridges and military targets, never the less the strikes within Russia INFORM the Russian people, YES THIS IS A WAR.
Are the Russian people without an opinion?
***
We hope for an end to the violence, the ecological disaster, and a comfortable peace between the two countries.
8/6/24
RAY BRADBURY said
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
- Ray Bradbury
8/2/24
WHAT'S REALLY STINKY ABOUT LA?
The smell of skunk marijuana is everywhere, seeping through user's pores, tainting their clothes and backpacks. Everywhere - on the street, on the bus, in buildings, and at events. It's nauseating and alienating.
So many people who self medicate with pot... on a daily basis...
As I said to a friend, who has a pot plant growing on his apartment porch, "Remember when you would encounter some person who spoke to you, and you were almost knocked out by the alcohol on their breath - pure dragon's breath. And you would think badly of them, because here was a true alcoholic who could not make their way through life without it? Same thing with these people who have the smell of skunk saturating their very being..."
For the record, I was and am all for legal medical grade marijuana. I've met the cancer patients who say it makes all the difference. I've had the professor who lamented that her mother's eyesight could have been saved. But some people are addicts and I don't think anyone should or can trust street drugs. My friend who grows his plant says he has chronic pain and smoking makes him forget that pain. I say to him "Don't you want to rid yourself of the pain so you don't have to forget about it?" He's with the VA and the VA is federal and the doctors there are not at all comfortable about anyone's use of marijuana, home-grown and legal. I realize pain-killers by prescription can be addictive too... I do... But then we get into what smoke (and second-hand smoke) do to the lungs... Or what prescription pain killers do to the internal organs...
Ugh. It's all bad.
I hate the smell of skunk.
C 2024 Christine Trzyna
7/31/24
I WOULD HAVE STAYED IN THE PRIMORDIAL SOUP
7/27/24
THE FORTYISH BOY GENIUS and THE PLIGHT OF THROWN AWAY CAREGIVERS
THE FORTYISH BOY GENIUS and THE PLIGHT OF THROWN AWAY CAREGIVERS
In recent times, I met a most interesting and unusual person, for when he was sixteen he quit school to give care to his very ill mother, and she died when he was thirty eight, and he was there for her that entire time. And no his siblings were not.
And now he's alone, uneducated formally - not even a GED - and regularly pontificates on a great number of subjects. I imagine this is like Jesus in the temple, teaching the older and established rabbis, though religion is of the least interest to him. His world view is honed and he will tell you, authentically, that he's a Republican and why. He's detail oriented to a fault.
History, biochemistry, medicine, and so much else, he studied book by book for all those years while he remained at home as the one who cared for his mother and the others in the family went on their way - into mental illness, drug addiction, whoring, or some other less virtuous life.
So much we don't want to ask, such as where his siblings are now.
He's one of several people I've met in recent times who fit a profile. The child who sacrificed and then got thrown out of the family and/or thrown out of the estate/will. It's disgusting. It makes you suspicions when you meet someone new who says their sibling is caring for their parent.
So he's near forty and he's a genius no doubt, and the other thing about all those years at home and reading the equivalent of college level books, enough to be worthy of a Ph.D. in something, is that in conversation he needs to be always right. He takes over and dominates just about any conversation on any subject, and you imagine all those years when it was just him and his mom, not much social, not too many to talk to. He's making up for time.
And then you wonder, was his mother selfish? Why didn't she submit herself to another caregiver or a series of them, an assisted living, a nursing home - and free him to have a normal life, to finish high school and go on to college? Why didn't they leave the apartment? Was it financial?
She's dead. He's dead broke.
She hasn't been dead long, so I ask: "Have you had any signs from her? Any visitation dreams?"
He says no and doesn't believe he will.
He says he's trying to bulk up after not having enough to eat for some time.
Also, he's going to test out of the GED. Take a certificate course somewhere and become a techie first. Then he donates plasma for money. He says he'll get rid of storage as well as quit smoking. (He smokes though he has all sorts of advice about which vitamins and minerals are best for what ails you.)
What will he encounter in college?
I imagine him making it through many classes with ease but also being frustrated because he's going to think - or know - AND HE COULD BE RIGHT - that his knowledge is in conflict with what is being taught. It would probably take the PhD to actually be able to further an original thought. College is a whole lot about conformity in order to excel.
But we all think he will go far. Especially if his mother is there for him while on the Other Side.
C 2024 Christine Trzyna
7/21/24
PRIVACY or NONDISCLOSURE ?
I met someone several weeks ago, someone who is profoundly hard of hearing, which isn't the same as deaf. He walked over to me and gave me a note that said "I'm a punk rocker and a skateboarder but I have a good heart." He and I interacted with notes and then texts, as there was no way I was going to learn American Sign Language fast enough... We had a lot of laughs as we both made errors in understanding. He showed me his art; I understood what he was doing even if it wasn't so appealing to me.
But what really did he want with me?
So one day I said, "My girlfriends are teasing me that I have a boytoy."
He said, "Hearing that excites me."
"Well, I'm not Madonna or Cher. I can't have a boytoy."
We laughed.
On June 19th, he joked. "Don't fall in love with ME."
So I began to wonder about him.
I decided he was too young for me in general. That had a lot to do with his boyish appearance. Shorts - tennis shoes - a cap on his head.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"No comment," he said.
"Are you married? Have you been married?"
"No comment."
"Do you have children?"
"No comment."
And so it went. There was nothing he was easily willing to admit, and, as my girlfriends pointed out, he had not asked me the same questions.
"I respect women." he said.
"If or when you're my girlfriend, I will tell you those things."
The girlfriend posse agreed with me. No woman in her right mind circa 2024 becomes a man's girlfriend without knowing these basics before she gives it consideration.
The girlfriend posse also got into the act of trying to trick him into revealing some information.
You know this game. "What's your zodiac sign?" "What high school did you go to?" "What year did you graduate?"
"What was your favorite superhero when you were growing up?" he asked me.
"I don't think I ever cared about superhero's" I said.
"When I was growing up, the Green Hornet was my favorite."
I pulled out my cell phone and looked up Green Hornet. It was only on the air for one year, 1966. (But it might have been in reruns.)
"Were you born between 1950 and 1955? 1956 - 1962..." I asked.
He laughed.
He texted me, even after we spent some time together, and it went like this.
A 5 - buzz, a 4-buzz, a 3 an the a H e L L O. Then "Can I ask you a question?" It seemed to me that this was all like an alarm clock. Even when I put the phone on silent, so I could go to sleep. I started to feel pestered.
Then one night the question was "That ex-boyfriend of yours that you had coffee with the other day, how long ago did you break up with him?"
"He's still a friend. None of your business," I said. No, I didn't just say, I retorted.
I was started to loose interest in all this. The fun of the game was over. I became suspicious of his unwillingness to disclose. Was he hiding something?
I'm a private person myself, actually. And I understand that we need to protect our privacy because we are in a world in which Identity Theft is rampant.
There was also the guessing game of what his surname was. As this man is Hispanic and his surname begins with a K, I had guess Kastaneda and Kardashian, which he said made him LOL.... The icon with the tears pouring out of his eyes had been selected.
Then one day I tried one more time. I asked him how old he was, if he was or had been married, and if he had children, and he said No Comment each time.
Our friendship could go no further. I respected his boundaries. I told him "I respect your privacy and I think we have spent too much time with each other lately and should just see each other around."
He didn't get it. He didn't take it well.
It was then I decided that how many years old he was didn't matter. He was simply too immature...
C 2024 Christine Trzyna
7/17/24
I'M NOT SWAYED
I've been reading Daily Mail UK (though it is irksome) since Edward Snowden was mysteriously stuck in the airport... The headlines and "reportage" is heavily slanted against Biden and Democrats.... (Daily Mail is the second most read news publication in the world.)
I'm not swayed. I'm still a Democrat. I read with the saying "Take It With A Grain Of Salt" in mind.
I've managed to avoid buying anything from Amazon, supporting retail employees and small businesses, for years on end. Tried six different stores recently for a product that used to be on the shelves. Three of them offer me to buy it on line.... I hate to admit it but after the final visit - to a Walmart - I'm letting a friend who has Amazon Prime buy it for me - I'll pay him back.
I'm not swayed. I'm still supporting retail workers and small businesses.
My cell phone keeps prompting me to use voice, to use assistant, to use AI, and damn it but recently on the Internet I got a prompt from google to use a FINGERPRINT or facial recognition to get into the g-mail I was forced to associate with that phone in order to get updates. I will not knowingly allow my phone to record, I will not use assistant or AI.
I hope I die before we are all forced to get chipped.
I'm not swayed. I still think privacy is something that is our right as humans and something worth protecting.
Recently I experienced a barrage of Fundamentalist Christianity.
I'm not swayed.
I still think Roman Catholics are Christians, I still think the Bible cannot be taken literally, I still vote with as much intelligence and research as I can muster, and I still think LGBTG people are not condemned to eternal hell.
I attended two Juneteenth events.
I'm not swayed.
I still think the national anthem is God Bless America and that Lincoln set forth the Freeing of the Slaves (even if he was assassinated by the time Slavery was ended.) And Racism, horrible, is not always going in one direction from White to Black.
C 2024 Christine Trzyna
Note on July 17, 2024 Sorry, because the Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem, but since so many people cannot sing it - and singing it becomes spectacle - I think of God Bless America as the one most of us retreat to. My point it, at Juneteeth celebrations (I attended TWO) it was suggested that Americans with historical slavery ancestry have a separate nation because they have their OWN NATIONAL ANTHEM.... divisive!