My Writing These Days

  So much has been going on in our lives lately I haven't had much time to write.  I've been donating my plasma at CSL twice a week, calling a billion organizations and churches all over Tucson for rent and utility assistance to avoid getting our electricity shut off or getting evicted.  We've enlisted the assistance of the offices of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in our attempts to get our SSI, Disability, VA benefits or GI Bill to come through.  We always run out of food stamps before the end of the month and, without income, that is not a good thing.  We have a yard sale every week and still we struggle.  My psychiatrist just doubled my anti-depressant dosage and will be getting me into therapy soon.
  Good news is that we're still writing plenty of music.  We have several new songs in the works.  Our productivity with our creativity helps to keep us sane.  I've decided to put 'The Nocent part 3: Revenant War' on hiatus for a little while after Monday's debut of Chapter 19.  I have also put 'The Nidus Initiative' on hold indefinitely.  I plan, however, to start writing 'The Greater Number 2: Devoid of Souls' soon.

New Things

  Kayla and I have been writing a lot of music lately.  If you go to our MySpace page you can hear our new songs, 'Ariah', an instrumental, and '4N6 of Life'.  Also, I've uploaded my zombie movie, 'The Smell of Fear', to Film Demic and it's also on YouTube and our MySpace page.

Books for the Homeless

  Last night, as I was lying down to sleep, an idea came to me.  If amazon.com made a deal with Good Will of some company like that, they could have a win-win-win-win situation.  Here's my idea: people who donate their paperback books, get credits toward electronic books for their Kindle.  The homeless will have access to literature at discount prices, Good Will will make some money off the books, the donator gets ebooks and amazon.com gets people buying Kindles and shopping at amazon.com.

Blogging From My Kindle

  It's quite cool what I'm able to do on my Kindle.  I can hook it up to my car and have my own book read to me while I drive.  I can update our Netflix queue, check emails and even blog.  Now we have a way to do all those things even if we lose our Internet and cable because they have free wi-fi at the plasma lab.  It's a good thing my mother-in-law won this Kindle in a sweepstakes and gave it to us. Oh, and we finally got our food stamp card yesterday.

Never, Never There

  Chief Loh has been in the studio working hard.  http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000070591345  Here's a link to Chief Loh's brand new song, 'Never, Never There'.  We have several more songs in the works to be out soon!

Slow-Time

  Through a really long conversation with Kayla, we came to a startling revelation about me.  All my life, I've had periods of time during which time seemed to go by really slowly.  When I was in the second grade, I figured out a quick fix for that phenomenon.  I used the stop watch function on my wrist watch to stare at the milliseconds.  When the world around me was moving slowly, this forced my mind to register time as moving quickly.  It would get me out of that dream-like dull hazy fogginess.
  In college, before any exams, while everyone else was doing some last minute cramming, I would be doing a crossword puzzle.  It calmed me down so that I could take the test as unstressed as possible.  We realized that I do better when I'm not stressed.  I shut down under duress.  Some people fight, I fold.  What we figured out is that the haziness is connected to me shutting down under stress.
  Previously, I thought that I was learning disabled or slow to develop.  Kayla always told me that she thinks I'm actually a smart person.  I think that what actually was going on in school was that I was stressed.  I always got bad grades, but could do good homework.  That's because at home, I wasn't stressed.  When I'm not stressed, I really am kinda smart in my own little ways, if I must say so myself.  That's probably also why I'm so socially inept.  Some people would describe me as a quiet person while others would swear up and down that I'm a jokester and quite verbose.  It all depended on how comfortable I was around any given person (no offense to anyone out there who thinks I'm quiet).
  There are all kinds of things I'm re-evaluating about my life.  I'm examining various situations and my behavior to analyze how I might have been feeling at the time.  Up until now I've had no recollection of any feelings throughout most of my life.  My memories just involve images, sounds and maybe thoughts.  Now at least, I have some frame of reference to extrapolate an emotion tied to a memory.  Most people feel things as they come.  I shut down and can only guess later on what I might have been feeling according to how I reacted and what I did.
  I think that everything boils down to fear.  In each of those situations, there were outcomes that I preferred to happen and ones that I feared would happen.  Ironically, with my way of dealing with fear, I dealt with it in a way that brought about the very outcome that I feared.  It's all about misplaced desires.  If I learn not to want anything so badly that I fear not having it, then I will always go about getting it with all my wits about me.  I guess, in a way, that's what faith is.  Believing that you will have what you need instead of fearing that you will not have what you want. 

Food Stamps and Plasma

  Lately we've been struggling financially since I got out of the Navy.  I've applied for VA benefits, joined the DAV, applied for the Post-911 GI Bill, applied for SSI, Disability and unemployment benefits.  The problem is that most of those things take time to process.  I've been going to all my appointments at the VA office.  The unemployment office has been giving me grief.  I haven't been able to get any help from them so far.  I've started donating my plasma regularly, which provides some income.  We've also sold several items on Craigslist.  We plan on having a yard sale.
  Earlier this month, I applied for food stamps, spending hours at DES.  I got approved yesterday and was told that my card was sent in the mail.  The problem is that my benefits have started, but the card hasn't come in the mail yet.  There's something very wrong with the system when we've got money set aside for us, but have no access to it.  Has anyone else been through this out there?