In checking the news this morning, I see that there is really very little news.  This of course is partially due to the fact that today is a holiday.  Meaning it is a holiday for government offices and banks and the mail service.  And that is because New Year’s day actually took place on Sunday.  So in reality, the major news activity is not going to kick into high gear until tomorrow.  But because tomorrow is the third and that is when I get my check, I will most likely be spending most of the morning making sure I get all the bills paid and doing the shopping for the month.

But I am planning on getting back to doing news stories.  And I very well may do a news story later today.  This morning I am still rather reflective on everything that has taken place over the last 2 1/2 weeks.  I did not really know what I expected inside of myself to happen once bereavement for my darling Aileen was completed.  I did not expect any kind of magic to suddenly take place that would relieve me from how badly I feel because she died.  But because I actually took that entire year to work through my grief and to confront my grief in so many different ways that really was a cleansing process.  And it really does take a solid year to get through something like that.  However just because the year.  And this does not mean that the sadness goes away or that suddenly things are fantastic.  Because that is not the case.

The year after someone dear to you guys is really for you to go through all of those extremely deep and very difficult emotions inside of yourself at having had so much time with the one you love.  And then suddenly finding that they are no longer there.  And dealing with those feelings is huge.  In point of fact, during the 18 years Aileen and I were deliriously happy in our marriage, there were many, many days and weeks or series of days where Aileen would be tremendously sad.  As a result of the loss of her children.  So some of the grief will never go away no matter what.  Because we are not talking simply about a friend.  We are talking about someone who is deeply loved and where there was a huge relationship going on between the individual and the one who has died.

And because one of my best skills for survival has always been to be very methodical and to move very slowly when I am moving through uncharted waters, that is what I am doing now.  The knee-jerk tendency is of course for me to rush in and start doing news articles and cranking them out every day.  But at the same time I have to be aware that during the holiday season.  I actually had a couple of days where the grief literally overtook me.  I even had an anxiety attack on Christmas Day.  And that was something that I was just not used to.  A couple of my neighbors actually thought I was experiencing a possible heart attack.  But of course, later it was determined to be nothing more than simply an anxiety attack.  Still and all, from the fact that I did have an anxiety attack that showed the very clearly that there are still sections of my grief that are lingering and are going to continue to be a challenge in my life regardless of how much longer I live.  Because there is going to be that part of me said is always going to long for the arms of my darling Aileen.  There is always going to be that part of me that is going to miss Aileen so terribly that I would do just about anything to simply hold her in my arms again.

So this time of the calendar year is not so much about rushing forward to get back into the harness of doing news stories as much as it is about me slowly beginning to walk forward, alone.  Knowing that Aileen is here and that she really is inside of me.  And in everything I am doing.  But the reality is I will never again physically hear her voice other than the few recordings I have of her.  And I will never see her again physically.  Metaphysically is another story.  But physically she is gone.  It is over.

So I owe it to her to not only continue to live.  But to live in exactly the same way that I did while she was physically here with me.  And to continue every single thing we did together during those 18 years.  Meaning my work with regard to human rights.  And that is another reason why I moved away from Facebook.  I do not like distractions.  And what are distractions from most people are not distractions to me.  My desktop.  For example has over 20 different modules of information.  20 different gadgets.  And as a result, I am able to watch just about every aspect of what is going on in the world.  And those are not distractions.  Because I have adjusted my desktop so that none of the modules except for the clock are visible all the time.  So as I am working on an article or doing research I can focus on exactly that.  Being part of Facebook really became counterproductive.  As I said, no one ever really wanted to respond to anything I wrote unless I was talking about Aileen.  And that seemed to irritate me.  Because it almost suggested that people were more interested in Aileen and my relationship with Aileen.  Then they were interested in me.  Granted, I am probably not one of the most interesting people around.  But people also tell me that I am extremely interesting.

And so, as a result I have gone through a lot of organizational work with my computer system over the last two weeks in order to put everything in place so that I can move forward during this next year with as much organization and dedication and deliberation as possible.  You are my readers.  All of you know a great deal more about me.  And I know about any of you.  So you know that there are only really three reasons for me doing this Journal, which I have always talked about.  There is the fact that I am doing this Journal because it is the one Journal Aileen wanted to do with me but never got the chance to do so.  Then there is the reason where I am actually trying to make a clean breast of things before whatever energy.  There is beyond this world that religion calls God.  And then finally, which is just as important as every thing else is the reason where I am doing this Journal.  Because Aileen and I were both dedicated to being a voice in this world.  However small or insignificant, for the greater good.  With regard to human rights.

So a lot of the organizational work I have been doing.  And a lot of the Journal entries I have been composing over the last three weeks have been designed specifically to organize my thoughts and at the same time to communicate to all of you, my readers, that I am moving forward.  And I am getting back to a point where I am going to feel comfortable doing news articles.  Because in my mind and in my heart, you deserve that.  You deserve my best effort.  And that is exactly what I am going to give to all of you.  My best effort.

So with tomorrow being the third and my DSI check arriving I of course in going to be engaged most of the day and getting the supplies for the house and paying the bills.  Which means I will probably be rather weary by the time I finally have done which usually is at about 2 PM.  But because I have gotten all of the other organizational things done my system now is so automatic that I can really focus on doing the news Journal entries I want to much more effectively than I have been able to before.  So where I said I would do Journal entries starting today that is really what I was thinking.  But with it being a holiday, so to speak, the markets are of course closed.  And a lot of the news stories that are coming forward are basically what I call vanilla news stories.  This is because there is not a lot of discussion going on regarding economics or political dynamics.  But again, I expect that to change starting tomorrow.  Because there is a lot of undercurrent going on in the culture right now, meaning the United States.  So I expect that tomorrow.  The newswire services are going to begin cranking again at high gear.  So I very probably will do a news story later tomorrow in the late afternoon or evening.  And then, my plan is to do between two and three news stories per day.

Each news story will center on one particular news item.  But in addition I will of course be listing off almost all the news stories that I have collected and that I am collecting pertinent to that one news story.  And in that way each one of my Journal entries will be like a miniature newspaper for you, the readers.  And this will then of course help you in your own lives to have more information provided to you in order to ask yourselves better questions.  Because that is really the value of doing human rights.  Human rights is not about providing people with answers.  Human rights is about asking people.  The toughest questions possible.  And to do so in order to attempt to facilitate in those who read what human writers are writing, the process of the individual asking those very tough questions of themselves and their families and their friends and those who they interact with.  Because it is those tough questions whether humanity likes it or not that never go away.

While the new services might focus on one type of news or another or single out a particular news story vs. another fact remains that regardless of what news comes across the wires on any given day the major questions facing humanity those questions that humanity generally does not like to think about or ask still exist.  And that is my job.  As a human rights advocate that is exactly what my job is.  To ask those hard questions.

As I have explained.  I have gone back to using the desktop microphone.  And I have done so because it is extremely accurate.  And because the headset is so uncomfortable on my neck.  And while I like the accuracy of the headset microphone.  It cannot really compare at all to the desktop microphone as far as ease of use.

So I guess what I am saying is that I want all of you not to lose faith.  I will get back to doing news stories.  I might even do one later today.  But I doubt it.  I think tomorrow afternoon is going to be the earliest time when I can creatively and intelligently sit down and begin to compile the news articles like I used to.  There is just so much going on at the beginning of the month that I generally do not have much time or energy to think about anything other than simply getting all the work done.  Like I said, paying the bills and doing the shopping for the month.

Boring stuff.  But when you are human living in any culture in the world there are always those cyclical of violence that take place every month it simply have to be done.  In the United States with the way that things are the first of the month is always literally jammed with my rushing around to make sure everything gets done so that I can then have the rest of the month to focus on doing my work.

And that is the other thing I want to make sure everyone understands.  Just because I am on disability does not mean I do not work.  Because I do.  I have never taken my disability payments that I get from the government lightly.  I have always felt totally and completely that it is by the virtue of the goodness and the compassion of the people of the United States and the compassion of the United States government that those payments are processed.  And even though I have paid into the system which is why I am getting those payments.  It actually has been the people of these United States who have made and voted for the laws that allow those payments to go forward.  And so in that I am always extremely grateful.  So consequently, I tried to give back to this country and to the people of this country, in every way possible.  But because I am not able to physically work.  What I do instead is I work from home trying to do the best work I possibly can with my time.  Which is to use every single talent and every single thing I ever learned in my life to always try and be a voice for the greater good.  Because I believe in doing that I am actually doing in my mind and honest days work.  And honest days work, where I spend my time trying to be as productive and to contribute to the American culture and to my brothers and sisters meaning all other Americans to the best of my ability.  And because I am a good writer.  I know that the best of my ability means writing these articles.  Writing these articles that will actually help the reader to ask better questions of themselves and their families and their friends and those who they interact with.  And that by presenting those questions.  I am actually doing the best job I can, to be supportive of this great country and of the wonderful people in this country and also the millions and millions of brilliant men and women and children throughout the world who so very often do not ever get any of their stories ever told.  And who are not very noticeable or are not noticed very often.

So it is not over until the fat lady sings.  And that basically means that I will be getting back to doing news stories and I will get back to maintaining a more rigorous schedule.  But I him alone and I am 61.  Which means I have to be a little bit mindful of my energy and I have to maintain this house.  And this morning I just learned that Cleveland’s not going to get a few inches of snow.  But in fact the weather service is saying that Cleveland is going to get over a foot of snow.  So naturally that means that this next week is going to be rather dicey as far as the weather is concerned.

And all that means is that I may have to get out and shovel the front walk.  But I also have to do some home maintenance things.  And there are calls to make.  So I will of course be rather busy over the next couple of days.  And if the snow fall actually comes anywhere close to what they are predicting then we are talking about a lot more work.

One thing I have done is that I have decided to go back and to subscribe to Weather Underground.  That is, the weather service that is on the Internet.  And for $10, per year, you get no advertisements and all the weather data that you could possibly want that is updated continuously on the Weather Underground website.  It is really a great service.  And I have used it before.  And because I have been trying to get things positioned where my system will be more office oriented and so that I have everything in place to be able to do the work I want, again, this is giving me the opportunity to be more organized and to I guess the more professional about maintaining this Journal.

It is important that people understand that I have not been responding to comments.  So much in the past.  Because I have not ever really had the time.  But that is going to change.  And I will begin to respond to comments more often.  I am actually going to spend more time doing that, then I have in the past so that none of you will feel like your comments are going unanswered.  But I had to do some other things.  First of the system to make sure that I could get to that point, which is where I am now.  I will later today.  Go through the pending comments and authorize some of those and of course answer some of the other pending comments as well.

But that is about all for right now.  As I said, I will try to write later today.

Thanks very much for listening.

 

See Also:

My Significant Journal Entries:

  1. My Biographical Profile
  2. Distractions
  3. My Spinal Injuries
  4. Now We’re Having Fun, Right?
  5. My Complete Medical Record Of My Caregiving For Aileen
  6. Connections
  7. Finding Neverland
  8. I Never Want To Stop Crying For My Darling Aileen
  9. How Do I love thee. The First Anniversary Of Aileen’s Rosebush
  10. Oh There You Are
  11. My Philosophy of Life
  12. Second Gear, My discussion of my Pro-Life, and Pro-Choice Position
  13. The Time I was hired to photograph and met President-elect Ronald Reagan
  14. My 250 Million Variable Characteristic Hieroglyphic Language
  15. My Global Warming Research
  16. Quantum Mechanics And Newtonian Metaphysics, Originally Dictated On Friday March 19, 2010 (two days before Aileen collapsed and was told she only had 2 months left to live
  17. Magnitude 2.6 Earthquake In Central California
  18. Earth Preaching
  19. When Cancer Meets City Code
  20. Religion 101
  21. I Am An Iconoclastic Human Rights Advocate
  22. The Dark Lord
  23. Sand On The Floor
  24. ACLU Court Challenge Religious Restrictions Government Funded Trafficking Victims Program
  25. Penelope Cruz even looks good in menswear
  26. An Update On How Mike DeWine Is Trying To Take My Home Away From Me
  27. The Truth Game
  28. The Tortoise And The Hare
  29. A Human Comedy
  30. Fear: One of Life’s Great Motivators
  31. Give Me That Old Time Religion
  32. The Shadow People
  33. Also To Be Noted
  34. At Last
  35. Midnight Madness
  36. The Miracle of Synchronicity
  37. A Speck Of Dust On A Dirty Beach