From the QPB Dictionary of ideas: Friendship- mutual benelovence that is independent of sexual or fmaily love. Ancient Greek philospher Aristotle distinguishes three levels of friendship; the useful (friendship as a common enterprise), the pleasant (Friendship as entertaining companionship), and the good or virtuous (friendship as mutual esteem).
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Yeah. Mutual esteem. Entertaining companionship. No matter how hard I try to wrap my brain around this, I still can't see a....a...uhmm...contraindication? contradiction? (something like that) here.

Human interactions leave me baffled, bewildered, and, too often, deeply hurt. I don't think I'll ever really understand the way 'normal people' "just get over it" and sever ties with friends (or aquaintances or whatever). And see, this is why, if I have an ounce of sense in my head, I won't even try to make a real friend with a 'normal person' again. They can't be deep and true and faithful as a friend. They can write a person off without a second thought and not even be faintly sorry for it. It's happened to me since I was a kid...I should start learning from now on. Whatever distance and alienation from people I don't really know might occur, whatever the loss of a potential for a true friendship (and I think that is remote), it can't possibly equal the pain of rejection from someone who's turned on you for either no reason at all, or they don't tell you, or they deny they ever were one(hey, that's a handy way to elude an explanation), or because they don't like your hair or religion or whatever. From now on, they can go find someone else to screw over. :-/

Ack, my hips are burning and just generally making me miserable lately. If I needed motivation to go out and buy some coral calcium, I now have it. :-P The girl I worked with tonight was lazy and left almost all the work to me (whilst I half limped around the deli wincing), and then to add insult to injury, she acted high and mighty and as though I'd ticked her off. :shrug: Yeah, I got irritable, but I do, when I'm in pain, and she did VERY little work.

What else: oh, yeah. I quit the other job. I got uhmmm, trying to think of a strong enough word here, so burned out that it wasn't funny. A series of events occrrued that brought me to my utmost limits of patience...but basically, my issue was that I wanted less stress, and to work with people I could related to: autistics. The stress continued, and I was assigned almost exclusively to clients with MR (mental retardation). Don't get me wrong, I liked my clients. I enjoyed working with them. I simply couldn't relate to them as I wanted to, and so working with them was stressful to me. Also-I hesitate to bring this up- I felt uncomfortable in that workplace, as though I didn't belong there, as though I were an outcast, unwelcome. And the thing is, it mostly began after I disclosed the results of my diagnosis. But it wasn't blatant enough for me to call them on the carpet about it. Or maybe they weren't that way at all, maybe I imagined it. I feel like I have failed my clients by quitting. :-(

The very bright side: I can see my children more. BUT, financial issues will come into play. I was comfortably making ends meet by working seven days a week, even if it did drive me out of my mind (or more deeply into it, actually). But my children come first. I have an obligation to them first. Yes. This is right.

Most Admired Men (a short list, which does _not_ include personal figures, for the sake of tact and diplomacy): Albert Einstein, Luther Burbank, Donald Smith.

And why:
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Einstein- Obviously there are a lot of things to admire about Einstein, and I'm not suffieciently educated to go into it all. But, here is what the great mind had to say about religion and the concept of god: "The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events-provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causation really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A god who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object can be responsible fot the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

Burbank- a dedicated plant breeder of exceptional honesty and integrity of character. A lifetime of his work has influenced our lives in more ways than we can even conceive of.

Smith- Alpine dairy goat breeder. I never had the privilege of meeting him, but his bloodlines are in virtually all my animals; I simply will not use a buck, except under exceptional circumstances, unless it has a strong Sodium Oaks background. The way I see it, this guy showed up the snobby straight wolrd of French Alpine breeders and showed them that yes, a gay man can beat them in the showring with grade and American animals. I love that.

I heard a blip on the radio a few days ago that really pissed me off: according to a recent poll of americans, the Most Admired Man in this country is George W.Bush. (23%). Now, that annoys me to no end.

• First of all, where the heck am I whenever they have these polls that supposedly are inclusive of all Americans?
• Secondly, I'd like to know a little more about this poll, because that doesn't sound objective to me at all. Was it multiple choice? (ala, check a. Sadaam Hussein, b.Bin Laden, or c. Good old W...)Or some similar collection of celebrities and political figures? How many choices were there, anyway? See, I am not a huge Bill Gates fan, but I'd vote him over George any day, especially if those were basically the only choices aside from a few other people I'd never heard of.
• Were the choices limited to men who were still alive? Otherwise, Jesus or Gandhi didn't make the cut? Hmmmm??? See, I would like to know what te criteria were if it was a multiple choice list.
• It *should* be fill in the blank. Then people could list: "my dad, the greatest, sure loved him" or, "Granpaw", or,"a teacher who mentored me and changed my life", etc etc. Then the choices could be _true_ and _meaningful_ , not mere public heads whom we see on a T.V. screen but whom have little direct personal impact on our lives (well, unless you're headed to Iraq.....or someone you love is...)
• Barring personal figures:our dads, uncles, lovers, teachers, and so forth, if the poll were a simple fill-in-the-blank, is that really what 23% of ostensibly thinking American adults woudl voluntarily choose?
• I mean, what about scientists, doctors who've made medical advances, humanitarian figures, etc? What about artists, musicians, writers, great minds, people who've beat the odds and managed to succeed in the face of adversity? OUt of all the great choices at our disposal, would 23% of us be mindless enough to select the current president? What about past presidents? Jimmy Carter, for example. Nice man.
• My whole point here is that I think the poll was far from objective. If they're gonna blurt it all over the radio, across the country, I'd much rather hear an honest answer. And my guess, at least if it were on a personal level, is that what we'd hear is "Dad".
• I can think of a lot of most admired men on a wider (as opposed to personal) range. Next time, I'll talk about that.