notageek

The Three Laws of Al Gore:

1. Al Gore may not harm a human being, or allow a human being to be harmed.
2. Al Gore must obey the orders given by the human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. Al Gore must protect his own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict the First or Second Law.

From the very, very long list of material that regrettably had to be moved out of “official” entries in Wikipedia.

As an industry professional-in-training, I have grave concerns about the appropriate marketing and use of Civilization IV. Instructions for use do not include appropriate safety measures, overdose warnings or other information required for safe self-administration. The packaging includes no mention of Good Manufacturing Procedures used in the production of the product, and is designed to appeal to the lay consumer with no mention of consulting a professional for appropriate use. Most confusingly, there are no syringes, needles, alcohol swabs, or any of the other acoutrements to be expected for inclusion with a product labelled for IV use. Moreover, there is some confusion as to whether Civilization can be effectively instilled in the target population by this route.

Part I

i find from the morning
what i once found before, i think
and what once trod my echoey brainways
pads them all again
tracing dust that once held meaning
setting quests to lands that no longer exist‹
learning is not so much discovery as recovery:
repossessing what i knew before in a long sleep
before i woke and came wet and naked
into this cruel cold world
warm summer world
sweetviciousterrifyingshiningprizewon world
that i can just touch as i fall through again
to the winter of night.

I was once young, you know. In my endeavour to not be young, I have no idea what I threw away. I thus have no idea if I miss it now.

Part II
Sometimes when I am mightily upset about Situations, I consider improbable methods of death as options. They are invariably too hard to accomplish, and lead to consideration of the Consequences, which leaves me in the frustrating situation of actually having to face Situations and Deal With Them.

Part III
I think I know the following:

• that I will die alone
• that everything I love will probably be ripped from me
• that pain is highly probable
• that trying to beat these sorts of odds is exhausting and something close to futile.

I think I know several of these things because of that dream I had where I opened my cold eyes to see a green zig-zag of solar probability floating far above.

That, and I know that time crawls when I am miserable, and slips through my fingers when I am happy. I am much happier these days, so my cold alone day, however metaphorical, approaches that much faster. Because I am happy, the reduced time that I do have is that much more precious. With each new relationship, however joyful, there is the realisation of the weight of responsibility and the consequences of loss, yet I cling to these because I hope that they will bring my comfort in that chill water.

Part IV
Actually, it’s like this: I love my boyfriend so much that it hurts, like stretching. I thought I knew the limits before I fell in with him, and yet I continue to get lumps in my throat, and not of the lymphatic sort. I love him as fiercely as I have ever done anything, and woe to that which stands between us.

This is, in part, why I quit my job.

Last time I let Boy stick a chicken in the slow cooker—which was a fairly bad move, as he didn’t know my favourite farm leaves several key giblets in the cavity, or that chickens give off a fair bit of liquid in a cooker. Also it fell to pieces as we tried to take it out and he got spooked by all the bones and skin bits and things that come inside an animal. My husband, he likes his meat to be like tofu, except meatier.
So this time, I simmered it long and gentle, and let the whole deal cool before pulling the carcass out and easing all that tissue off the bones, and then I simmered those bones long to pull out all that left-helical collagen.
The first time I ever cooked a chicken was when my mom got her fractured wisdom teeth pulled at the age of 52, and not only did I forget to take that little absorbent tray-liner off the bottom, I was too squeamish to cut it up, peel the skin off, or pull out the giblet bag. The chicken came apart in the broth as I ladled some softened vegetables out for my mom, and as I tweezed skin pieces out later, I found small, tragic vertebrae in the bottom of the pot.
These days I am more likely to fish out the vertebrae and toss them in vinegar for another days-long boil, because rather than retreat from the minor horror that is killing edible animals, I have progressed further down the small-tragic-vertebrae path. While I was steadily turning anaemic, protein-deficient and insulin-resistant on my lacto-ovo vegeterian diet, I have no great relish for most meat. Meat is powerful medicine, and I am bound and determined not only to get over my squeam, but to bloody well use every bit of those organic free-range pastured chickens I can. This is why taking apart a chicken entails not only getting all the meat, but also picking out the cartilege, long-boiling the bones, and rendering the chicken skin for the schmaltz. It would be a waste of not only food, but a chicken’s life, if I didn’t.