I’ve been so happy with the quality of the pictures my new point-and-shoot Cannon SD1200 takes, and had such a good time photographing my trip in Europe, that I decided to start doing Photo Walks.  Having lived nearly my entire life in Lansing, I was wondering what might catch my eye if I was intentionally looking for it.

buddy can go say hi to squirrel, plz?

After a particularly long and rough week, I came home from work around 6:30 this morning, and decided to take a long walk with my (7 y.o.) puppy, buddy.  He’s 1/2 Rottweiler and 1/2 Black Lab.  Pretty much the coolest, most chill dog I’ve ever met.  So house broken that I’m pretty sure he’d actually burst his bladder before he peed in the house.  As long as you hug him, feed him, and give him walks and bones, you are his best friend.

Buddy and I made slow, but steady progress away from the house.  We had an agreement: I’d let him chase the occasional chipmunk, and he’d wait patiently as I stopped every 20 feet, to find the right angle.

Walnut street, not quite alive yet.

You can’t really tell with these pictures, but it’s still barely dawn.  The streetlights are only just beginning to lose ground to the sunlight, and you can see the ground starting to wake up.   It’s nearly impossible to see, but on any other day of the week this street is already packed with busy people in their busy cars going to their busy jobs.  It takes until far later on a Saturday to start getting traffic.

Our walk took us into the heart of Downtown Lansing, where there are churches and official buildings galore.  The Baptist Church sits next to the Methodist, sits around the corner from the Cathedral (or at least what passes for one in the US).  They’re absolutely gorgeous churches, with amazing windows, that have nearly all been built in the last 200 years.

Lansing Church, downtown.

Ah well.  Really, the churches, as pretty as they are, aren’t my favorite downtown building.  The capitol building is absolutely stunning, nearly any time of the day.

Lansing Capitol building.

The dome is light every night, and the lights generally are off during the day.  Since we were walking about so close to dawn, the lights were still on, during the cloudy early morning.  I’ll have to see if I can get down there to get a picture on a clear night.  If I can, you’ll agree.  It’s an absolutely stunning building.

I really should go on a tour again.  I haven’t been since grade school.  I wonder if I’d still think it as huge.

Apparently I forgot to post this:
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Our hotel is on South Lake Shore Drive. Lake shore Dr. / US41 is so beautiful. It’s a road that runs along the coast of Lake Michigan. There are boats parked in the water (“How do they know where to park without a dock?” Mom says). It takes you right by the Museum for Science and Industry, which I will have to make a plan to come to this winter to see it.

I spent more time sleeping than I intended this trip, but my body is pushing me to sleep because I’m getting sick, I think.
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Mom and I were in chicago for July 12th – 14th. She was there for a conference, and I decided to tag along. I got to see some friends, and see some beautiful days, and it was awesome. I think I have some pictures around here somewhere. If I find them, I’ll put them up.

I get to road trip today. I’m excited. It’s only to Gaylord, there won’t be much time for red roads, but I do miss the day trips to Gaylord. Hopefully I’ve set upblog picture uploading right, and I might be able to actually post from the road.

We shall see!

for me, many of my old friends are linked, nearly directly, to fall. I’ve met a lot of my friends, or at least had a

spring on walnut

large number of memories made, in the fall months. Some people, though, are completely summer. or completely spring. Today’s spring morning, spring rains, and spring evening? They’re filled with old friends. Very old friends. People I’ve known for lifetimes. I wish them well, and hope they’re happy. This time of year, though, I long for them, and want them close. even if being close to them, is like standing too close to the fire.

И если бы небо было бумагою, море чернилами, а звезды на небесах бесчисленными перьями… то и тогда бы представилось невозможным описать все злохищрения женского лукавия, самолюбия, и вероломства.
(Иоанн Златоуст, 4й век)

And if the sky were paper, ink of the sea, and the stars in heaven countless feathers … and then it would have been impossible to describe all zlohischreniya female cunning, pride, and perfidy.
(John Chrysostom, 4th century)

me: what’s zlohischreniya?
him: um… zlo = evil
him: hischreniya = acts of slyness ?

Sometimes I wish I could go back. The old folks have always told me I’d get here, wishing for what I couldn’t have anymore, wishing for the simpler days, wishing for old friendships. I like who I am today, but ohgod.

The level of devoted we were to each other, naively, serenely, blindly devoted. We didn’t know it, though.  Thought ourselves better than that, believed that we thought our actions through before we took them, knew that together, there was nothing in our way, and nothing to fear. Ohno, we had no idea what it was like to think something through so long that it no longer was even an option, let alone relevant.

I’m glad my livejournal hasn’t disappeared or been lost, but sometimes I wonder if it doesn’t do more damage to my mental health, than good.

While cleaning today, I had to move one of my book shelves.  It’s the one that holds most of my reference material, and some of my fiction.  I couldn’t help but think, as I counted the number of bibles on my shelf, “You know, for a self-proclaimed non-christian, I sure do have a lot of bibles.”  Then I heard my grandmother’s voice in the back of my head.  I started replaying the only real discussion we ever had about religion.  It was when I told her that I was pretty sure my religious views followed something not christian, and were actually closer to this new thing I was learning about:  Paganism.  I explained that, from what I could tell, the Catholics had a rather screwed, and close minded view of things.

The Book, Youth Walk, The Rainbow Bible, New Oxford, The Parrallel bible, and The Answer

(From left to right, all links to new editions)
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (non bible)

The Book

Youth Walk

The Rainbow Bible

The New Oxford Annotated Bible

Today’s Parallel Bible

The Answer

At this point in my life, I no longer fight to prove my point, or to feel right.  I have my views, and I can’t fault you for having a different opinion than mine.  As long as you aren’t using your views to justify, or directly cause harm to other people, you aren’t likely to get me to say you’re wrong.  It’s been a long time since I actually wrote out all of my ideas, especially in anything resembling a public place, but I’m feeling an urge.

When I wake up every morning, I want to be pleased with what I find.  I am generally healthy, I am genuinely happy, I am financially stable.  Those things alone don’t decide my happiness, however.  Every day, or every week, or ever month, however often is needed, I run my recent deeds by my internal compass.  Am I continuing to do as little harm as I can?  Am I loving the people I love, with all my might, and do they know how much I love them?  Have I hurt people unnecessarily recently?  If so, how did I get there?  What can I do to prevent it in the future?  Am I okay with the person I am today?  Will I be okay with who I am, tomorrow?

I think, really, most of the world does that.  It’s how our internal compass is tuned that makes the difference.

We all start tuning as soon as we’re born.  At a very young age, I was exposed to things that were horrible, and awful, and no good.  When I found myself arrived out the other end of that awful, I was already 21, and fully formed.  I hadn’t taken the time, though, in that 10 or 15 years, to look at what I was doing, or what I was becoming.  I didn’t have a good comparison of where I should be, emotionally or spiritually, at that point.  I found myself shocked that, unlike when I was 9, I was no longer the most emotionally mature in my group of friends, and set about figuring out what I thought about things.

It took nearly two years for me to form a solid opinion on anything (if pressed, I might argue that the very nature of the opinions prevent them from being solid, but, I digress), and those opinions have been challenged more than once since then.  But, really, where I arrived in terms of faith and religion can be simply stated:

I believe in the power of belief.

If you believe that your good deeds and your bad deeds will be weighed in the end, and if the bad outweigh the good, you will go to someplace that smells like sulfur and is red and hot all the time… Then that’s what will happen, and you’d better live your life accordingly.

If you believe that this is one life, on a cycle of many, eventually (hopefully) leading to true peace, knowing, and nirvana?  Then I hope, in your next life, you are born a Brahmin, and that you are able to reach that knowlege, and free youself of samsara.

I have seen and experienced the power of belief.  In a Christian sense, I’ve seen belief in the love and strength of God pull people through some of the most heinous situations imaginable, and have them come out the other side normal and functional, instead of broken and neurotic.  I’ve also seen a low self-esteem manifest lower test scores, and lower performance, not from lack of effort, but from belief in the lack of ability.  The brain was told it couldn’t do x, y, and z, so it didn’t.  Belief alone was enough in both situations.

“But what do you believe in?  What do you worship?”  My grandmother was insitent that there had to be something, or someone, to which I held myself accountable.  “If we actually knew a name for the true divine, we wouldn’t be fighting all over the world, in that name.  To presume, if there is a power great enough to create a universe, life, and all the laws that govern it, that you would know and be able to speak its name?  To know its intentions?  To understand and communicate to others what it expects you to do, all the way down to not cursing or masturbating or spitting?  That’s a level of hubris I hope never to reach.  You call the divine, God.  I call it Eris.  Draconis. Thor.  Elli.  Ra. Mother earth.”

Something close to the Mother Mary that my grandmother had on her nightstand.

“So you worship idols,” she said, content with her summation of my rant.  “So do you,” I said, frustrated beyond all abilty to remain rational and calm.  “If you’re praying to Mary, and anything not God or Jesus is an idol, then you, too, worship an idol.”  I took a deep breath, immediately feeling bad for yelling at her.  She was one of my favorite people, and was actually trying to understand what I believed, inside her framework.  “I never once said you were wrong,” she said with a grin, sensing my frustrations.  “Just.  Make sure you consider all of the options before you decide on any one thing.”

I took that to heart, and have done so.  There is no label that actually fits my belief anymore.  Nearly every religion in the world has good intentions.  People that live by those good intensions are my kind of people.  People who are conviced that their way is the only way?  The presumption isn’t something I can understand, I think.

Unlike many people who claim to not believe in a divine, I don’t fear death.  If anything, I almost anticipate it.  Today, in this life, I can only know a limited number of things, in a limited number of ways, for a limited amount of time.  Who knows what the next part, if there is a next part, will bring.  If the christians are right, and I’m doomed to eternal hell because I sin and don’t apologize for it?  Well.  I guess I’ll just have to express my frustrations to Elli when I get there.

trees in full bloom, on walnut st.

I walk my puppy two or three times daily.  This time of year, the trees on Walnut St. are in full bloom, and gorgeous.  Every time Buddy bumps them, and gets showered in petals, he stops moving, as if his movement is what attracted them in the first place.  I’ve never lived on a street with flowering trees before.  The smell alone is wonderful.

I’ve been messing extremely technical this week.  I’ve been learning all I can about different aspects of one of the programs we use at work.  I’m amazed at how powerful it is, and how little we use it for.  Today I’ve been playing around with different CMS’s.  A potential client isn’t too technically saavy, and I’m thinking it’s a good idea to set him up with something that he’ll be able to maintain, rather than having to go through me, necessarily.

My Aunt called me this morning, for advise on my cousin.  We worked through the problem, and I gave her the only thing I can give anyone: how I think I’d act in that situation.  Here’s hoping it was the right choice.

And now, because I like trains:

No idea where I was. I tried to find this spot on a map later, and failed.

Feeling restless, I went for a drive early last fall.  I drove west, all the way to Lake Michigan, and then north.  I wound my way back, driving only on red roads.  I have no idea, now, where these photos were taking, but I love what that day did to me.  I will drive on as many red roads as I can, between now and when I die.

This building, which I believe was a church at one time, stands at a ‘T’ intersection of two roads.  There was no street sign that I could find, so I can’t tell you how to get there.  The idea that Jesus, pure and loved, could be forgotten in this sparsely populated area was enough to make me call my best friend, and send her this photo.  ‘Crooked Jesus’ I called it, because I could think of no othe way to put it.

The Stix Bar was definitely in the stix.  If it hadn’t been sunday morning, I’m certain I would have had far more interesting things to say about this place.

The plan is to make this place a celebration of all things me.  The things I forget to talk about, with my head buried in code or emails.  The things I want to remember in 50 years.  The things you miss, taking the interstates.  The interstates definitely have their place, but slowing down and noticing the odd things can go very well, too.

This place is hope for me.  I hope you enjoy it.