Someone told me Mercury has been in retrograde for a long time. someone else 2 weeks ago said Scorpio was in retrograde, and that was even worse than Mercury. I don't usually believe in astrology but the Merucry in Retrograde thing always seems to be be pretty right on. everything has been going wrong. people, friends of friends, dying, getting really sick, and other personal stuff, communication stuff, just getting completely fucked up. i wish it would stop. of course there's pain and suffering everywhere all the time, maybe the curse of our information overloaded age is that we now can know really soon when something bad happens, anywhere to anyone.

The good news is I had a really nice afternoon yesterday having a long bike ride with a new friend and then getting ice cream. We rode along the Rio Rillito bike trail, which i haven't done in awhile, and we we had some really great conversations, talking the entire time about really interesting stuff. life stuff, relationship stuff. it was really good, just what i needed.

Then I went to an early party and that was fun but by 830 i was falling asleep, because i've been only getting 2 to 4 hours of sleep for the last few nights. I was literally nodding off in a chair while people were trying to talk to me about Joe Strummer and reggae. So I went home and went to bed at about 10. ended up getting about 4 1/2 hours last night. I just can't stop thinking about... about this bullshit i'm going through that I can't write about here. I need some sedatives. I need a therapist. Argh...

Mercury, please start going forward again. please.

I went to see Jello Biafra live last night. I've been wanting to see him for like 15 years, and it ended up being an almost total disappointment.

He was so boring! I couldn't believe it. And he just sounded like any other activist wingnut ranter. If it wasn't for his history as god of punk rawk, he'd be a homeless guy in Oakland yelling at pigeons at the BART station. There was just nothing unique or compelling, much less remotely entertaining. I was falling asleep after about 30 minutes, left after another 10. oh man.

Why is it that when someone causes you emotional suffering, even if unintentional, the reflex is to respond, perhaps after initial grief, with anger?

Well, it's actually pretty easy to answer that, I think. It's just a simple defense mechanism, like with physical pain. You look around to see what caused it, like for instance, a car running over your foot, and your adrenalin rushes, fight or flight, and you respond, with rage. whether it's accidental or not, it's a matter of survival.

And anger turns to hate and hate turns to rash actions, evil things that people shouldn't do to each other.

I have been fighting that. The urge to respond, to intense feelings of sadness and loss and loneliness, with spite and vindictiveness and vengance is so strong in me this past 3 days. I have never ever felt so.... like on the verge of becoming an evil man. Like I am on a knife edge of ethical judgement, and I could fall that way and become a bad person, or the other way and remain good, like I have always considered myself to be. The past faith in goodness and compassion and giving people the benefit of the doubt is the only thing that pulls me back from the abyss.

But I realized today that it feels better to be nice to someone, to care for someone, to do them a favor, than to be vindicative and hateful and damaging.

I'm trying to use my novel for catharsis, having the characters act out the alternate worlds where I go out and do the wrong thing. It seems to be helping.

Sigh. Wish me luck.

Ohmigod, check out this horrible border militarization conference, all for defense contractors who want to make money building hi-tech "virtual border walls." Is this actually real?

Warning, Personal stuff alert!

Something bad and sad has happened in my life. Again. No more detail than that. Sorry.

But, I refuse to let it get to me as it has before. Because it's now just going to become grist for the rest of my novel! I have seen the overall metaplot of my novel now, because of this sad thing i've found out today, I know where the novel is really going now, and it is going to KICK ASS. It's already been going really really well. In fact this new idea just fits perfectly into the novel as it is so far already. As you can see from the meter over at the right side, I'm almost up to 17,000 words! only 33k to go... I just hope the sadness doesn't overwhelm my creative jolt and make me just stop writing the thing. Wish me luck. I'll need it. This novel may be the only thing that keeps me sane now.

FWIW, I really hate it when people call documentaries and other films "videos." It bothers me for some reason.

That's all.

This review in the LA Weekly mentions a possibly interesting play with the Juarez femicide as a backdrop:

IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART (A RAVE FABLE) Loosely based on Euripides

• steev's blog

sometimes when i'm working on computer stuff i feel like this:

G-Rated (edited by me to protect the wholesome)

(it's gruesome, but if you want, check out the original.)

Josh Breitbart writes eloquently and persuasively in his blog about the divide between activism and journlism that apparently is unique to Gringolandia, and about a previous-to-Brad-Will indymedia participant killed in Ecuador.

Beyond our colleague and fellow gringo, we can do a better job supporting all journalists under attack, including those who are being beaten and jailed right now in Oaxaca, according to Reporters Without Borders:

Mario Mosqueda Hern

• steev's blog

Caught a cold last week but had been successfully fighting it, but it came on in full force while I was in Las Vegas this weekend. Have felt like crap from midday Saturday on.

However, it was a great conference. The national war tax resistance conferences always leave me re-inspired and re-invigorated. There is more and more interest and committment to the idea of using video more, to outreach about the movement. So that's promising. I also did go out and see The Strip, and was predictably repulsed by it, though in a way more just blah about the whole thing. It was almost disappointingly banal and boring despite the surreal excess of it. Vegas is like the USA times 100. It was interesting to hear from residents and others in the know that were at the conference that Vegas has given up on their efforts to make the place more family-friendly. Now the motto is "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," and it's drifting back to being meant for adults - and very high income adults.

Vegas was segregated till 1968, and even star black performers like Lena Horne and Sammy Davis Jr. were required to enter through the back doors of clubs they were performing at, and then go to the west side afterward to sleep. The conference was held in this area, at the Catholic Worker compound, in a neighborhood that was like an urban ghost town. This is because after segregation ended, those that could moved out. Just a 5 minute drive from the glitz of the Strip, this neighborhood was deserted and filled with boarded up storefronts and churches. Amazing.

Despite being sick I have been keeeping on task with the novel, and am up to 10,000 words. We'll see if I can continue the pace and get healthy again this week.