Warning. It's late I can't sleep and I'm not doing much editing for spelling, content, factual errors or reasoning. Enjoy!

A friend got me thinking about memories. I thought of how it's usually imposible to know, what is really a memory and what is just remembering the story. It's part of the computer code, it saves the data but just like how text takes less space than video. Anyway she talked about specific things, like colors, stand out for her. My memory is pretty vague. I just remember some basic rough draft type info and a feeling, maybe an image or two. It's the feelings though that really stand out. Feelings, they're so primal and simple. I can't always tell you why I like something, wine and movies come to mind. I can't always explain why one stupid comedy is hillarious and another is just stupid. But there is a difference. My dad has a great method for judging a live singing of the star spangled banner. Side note for all the shit I give our country for not living up to our own ideals I must say we have a pretty bad ass national anthem, done right it's impressive. You can tell a good rendition of it because the hair on your arms and neck stand up. Which is my fathers test. Feelings, they're strange things, sometimes they're a real pain in the ass. But sometimes they're great. Didn't mean to sound emo there, most of my life is reasonably happy, some things are great. And because as I already said most of my memories are just vague images attached to feelings it's really easy to sort the ones to keep, the good days, from the less important ones, the bad days. Then again that means I could have a pretty terrible life and barely even know it. Nah my life doesn't seem terrible, Oh no! Trapped in my own pointless lodgic.

I was about to say that I lost track of the point of this a while ago, but I'm not sure this post ever really had a point. I think I'm just confused as to why I'm not asleep.

Well thank you to the person who made me think about the past. You know who you are.

And thank you to ABC for being mostly awesome.
Or was it amazing?

So I've got a new job. Just part time at the bike shop. I like it. It's nice going to work and actually having work to do. Plus I get a discount on bike stuff.

The complicated situation I talked about before has changed, we got in a huge fight over the douche bag, then we were cool again for a little bit. Then she said we couldn't talk for a while. Her life was getting too complicated and stressful. So she wanted to kick both of us out of her life, at least for a while. I thought that was pretty fucked up, yet understandable. Part of me just wanted to show up on her doorstep, if she really wanted to say goodbye I felt like I at least deserved a goodbye in person, not a text. But I said fuck that, if I mean so little to her that she can just be done with me like that then fine it is better to just walk away. So then after a week she started talking to me again. Apparently she saw this blog and said I should update it because my feelings have probably changed. It's true they have. Even within a couple days of writing that things had changed. I really care about her a lot and thats all i know with any certainty. I hope we can stay friends, it's nice to have friends with differing views.

Ok I haven't posted anything in a long time. Sorry bout that. I'm now unemployed so I don't spend hours staring at a computer screen. That probably sounds kinda backwards but I had a really boring job. Plus last time I wrote something from my phone in never posted which sucks cause i put some effort into it. I'm so far behind with what's going on in the world I can't really say much as far as that goes.

On the other hand part of why I'm so detached from the world is because I've been spending a lot of time with a beautiful woman. She's fun, she's crazy, a really great person. So of course it can't be quite that simple. Ok she's a mom but that's not the issue. The real hold up is she is very religious. We met about a year ago at school. I'd been checking out the selection in the room and there isn't much other than ones I later described to a friend as, "really cute little girls."
"little girls?" she says.
"yeah, so you see the problem."
Then just as the class is supposed to begin in walks this gorgeous tall thin redhead. My curiousity was piqued. A few weeks later were get put into a group to make up a little psych study, no big deal stupid little classroom project. But most of my group was fucking idiots. I basically had the project done as I read what we had to do. So I'm fighting with the stupid and gorgeous is making it he'll. It was weird because the others seemed genuinely stupid, she just confused me. The ideas that this person I've never spoken to before is just fucking with me to get me riled up didn't occure to me but that is in fact exactly what was going on. You can see why I like her so much.

We got to be pretty good friends but she made it very clear from the start that there was no possibility of it going beyond friendship because I wasn't a Christian. We still had fun, a lot of flirty and even quite dirty conversations but all just joking around, well mostly joking. Then she started dating this douche canoe. She said he was great but everything she told me just threw up one giant red flag after another that he was going to use her. I told her this repeatedly, but to no avail. Then we fooled around a bit one night and she decided she couldn't have a long distance relationship with the douche and be flirtatious friends with me. Unfortunatle for both of us she dropped me instead of him. We didn't talk for many months. Eventually she realized that he was just using her and dumped his ass. Then oh a month or so ago she starts talking to me again.

I stuff my foot far enough into my mouth that I'm licking the back of my knee, then she pisses me off. Somehow that brought us even closer together. So my feelings waiver as to if i could date her, could it possibly work? We continue to spend a lot of time together and have just become closer and closer. I don't think she is quite ready to date an atheist, but I know the wall has been severely damaged. It's a weird spot. We both really like each other and care about one another. Were comfortable and honest which is huge to me. But the fact that we have such opposite world views is clearly a problem. I did go to church with her last weekend. That should tell you how much I like her considering I have the big scarlet "A" on this website and this post will be posted on planet atheism. Oh but it should be noted that I'm not the kind of asshole who's going to pretend to convert just to get with a girl. But I will sit through some crap I don't like to get this girl. Even without dating she makes me a better person, Ive hardly drank at all since we started hanging out. I'm not sure what's going to happen but I really like her and she likes me too. Oh and I've even met her family at her sons birthday party, her mom apparently really liked me and said that if I was a christian I'd be a keeper. We know each others flaws, and we accept them so maybe there is more than just friendship in our future.

I've got some ranting to do so before I get there I want to start with something cool. So here's a link to a living bridge.

Beyond that I'm closing one chapter in my life and hopefully starting a new one. This week is my last with the non-profit I've been working for these last 4+ years. It's been a great place to work but as anyone who knows me is well aware it was always a dead end job and I should have left about 3 years ago. So thats the chapter thats closing.
The new one (hopefully) is that I'll be going back to school full time at Elmira College. I say hopefully because I'm actually still in the process of applying, the transcripts should be in by now or very soon and so I'm hoping to hear if I'm in by the end of this week. Luckily the school starts a little later than most so I've still got a couple weeks.

So thats my news, I'll also warn that I'm going to have much less time to waste online so expect my posts to get even less frequent, although I can now blog from my phone so maybe I'll keep it up to date.

I should play this for my former, and possibly future, history teacher. I can't say the lyrics entirely make sense but at least they are trying. Also one of few female singers in a punk band I like, of course she doesn't have a very feminine voice.

If there's an afterlife, and I really really don't think there is, then the founding fathers would be haunting the shit out of some motherfuckers. Thomas Jefferson was given an rough draft of the Constitution, he immediately criticized the lack of a Bill of Rights and then listed some important ones such as freedom of religion, speech and the press. Those probably sound familiar, wanna know another one? He wanted to make sure the Government could not create a standing army. Think how that would change this country....

Oh and James Madison wanted to make a set of laws limiting luxury and conspicuous consumption. Again think how that would change this country. Protection of property had already come to be an major part of our idea of freedom at this point so it probably wouldn't have tried to prevent individuals from owning large amounts of land or large companies (although what constituted a large company at that time was a very very different thing) but would have prevented unnecessary luxury in keeping with the way americans lived simply during the revolution in order to free themselves of the binds of europe. I'm not opposed to international trade, but I'm hugely in favor of living more simply.

This is an interesting case, the issue of the actual case is fairly humdrum, a muslim charter school funded with taxpayer is in violation of the establishment clause. The interesting part is the fact that it's usually not possible to sue the government for spending your money in an unconstitutional manner. There is a loophole allowing lawsuits for violations of the establishment clause but only if the money was directly allocated by the Legislative branch. So if the president or you governor spend your money illegally there isn't shit you can do about it. That seems reasonable.... or not. I'm assuming that the theory is that if these lawsuits were permitted then people would be suing every time their money was spent on something they didn't like. I can just picture the teabaggers trying to sue of their money being used to save lives. So I'm kinda torn on this, I think it's terrible that an individual is barred from suing the government for breaking the highest law in our land. Thats fucked. But I can understand how big of a pain in the ass that would be. Then again if the government didn't break the law their would be no lawsuits. If they do break the law they need to be held accountable and thats the point of the judiciary branch, ya know the whole checks and balances thing. But the judiciary can't just strike down an illegal law, someone must bring the case, if were aren't allowed to start the case then how can the judiciary do their job? I guess I'm not as torn about this as I thought I was.

And the fact that the loophole only applies to the legislative branch and not the executive seems particularly odd to me. Why should the executive branch get a free pass to spend my money illegally? The article sites the Hein case where the Freedom from Religion Foundation sued the white house over things related to the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, but seeing as the White House spent it's own General Funds (which are still our dollars) and wasn't appropriated by Congress the FFRF couldn't sue. WTF? How does that make sense in any way? Grrr... That seems like the most egregious violation of the Establishment Clause which they didn't claim was legal, the simply said there is nothing you can do about it. Fuck that shit.

Illegal is illegal, no one is above the law. At least thats the theory...