FNORDS

I was about to head out the door on my way to Nashville. HOLY SHIT I'm doing something spontaneous.... Anyway, I'm not normal, I admit it, I took a lawn dart to the brain at 5, so I have some brain damage I think...

I love to discuss politics. Religion. Philosophy. I routinely cause eye sprain amongst my FB friends with all my brain damaged rants. (eyes rolling) It's just me. I ain't right. I have several friends, some personal, some former teachers from my first life, as I think of it. Some I've just met along the way for no other reason that his mom had a hot FB picture, and then I got so see some of his mental ramblings... It's a chain of friend finding that was once impossible.

It makes for a very fast exchange of mental DNA if you will, a new evolutionary step in free thinking. We are on the verge of a new 21st Century Enlightenment I belive.

Back to my post. Fnords. I read an article today about how our brains grow new brain cells. In school I was taught that you had as many brain cells as you were born with, and from there on they died off. If you drank alcohol or smoked pot, or took drugs, even pain pills, you were killing them off faster than they would if you took care of them. Biblically, I was taught that my body was the temple of my mind, and if I wanted to have my mind when I was old I damn well better take care of it.

As a result, I rarely drank as a teen. After drinking some Purple Jesus, I once betrayed an entire group of my friends because I couldn't handle the collective pressure of being pasted AND lying.

I smoked weed once when I was 19, and just because it was in the balance of whether or not I was going to get laid.

I smoked it again once at a medieval combat war in Arizona. I had a motorcycle wreck at 9, and have no ankle in my left foot, you wouldn't know it if you saw me on the street. I refuse to be handicapped. However, my left ankle is fused at a fixed angle, and it's designed for walking on solid ground. At the beach I walk like a zombie.

This War, Estrella War 98, or something, (help me out SCA ppl). Arizona, 90 pounds of armor on me, was kinda hot. I was wielding a 9' spear and had two sword and shield men in front of me. The California team was outnumbered 3 to one as I remember.

We had 1200 men and women on the field that day. When the armies moved, the ground rumbled. I'm not kidding, it was intimidating if you have a vivid imagination, and could literally throw yourself back in time, and imagine the stakes were lethal and the loser would be decimated, raped and occupied. (I've been reading the Old Testament lately, that was commonplace in the first 5 books)

It was all sand. Me and my zombie foot. The lines met and we held for about 5 seconds before it descended into chaos. My unit of 3 found it'self faced with two spear men and two sword and shields. My confidence level was about 2 on a one to 10. And then suddenly, my brain ceased producing words. It fell silent.

I don't have great combat skills. I was a mediocre, but fun to be around heavy (armored fighter) and by then I had learned how to drink my ass off....

( shudder. there was this one time, at an SCA Event, and there was this Jalapeno liqueur and these people with a funny cigarette)

My 2nd joint my whole life and I was pre-drunk off my ass when they smoked me out. I left the van because they started getting a little more romantic in front of me than I was comfortable with. I remember, right before bed talking to someone, seated on one side of a picnic table. I closed my eyes, just a blink is seemed, and then there was an oak tree when I opened my eyes. I'd fallen off the picknic table, onto the ground, looking up into the tree canopy. "Whoa!" I thought, or said. I realized it was time to go to bed. And I woke up feeling great. My back didn't hurt, my foot wasn't bothering me, no hangover! What the hell!

Didn't dawn on me then that it was the weed.

Back to Arizona. I turned into some kind of rattan-fu maniac. I popped the spear man on the right with a thrust he wasn't expecting. He was expecting a timid poke to cause an opening. I had already seen the opening. I stepped full broadside between my two men. My side touched against their shields. My spear was about 4 feet longer due to the daring lunge. I flung my full faith on my shields, and they kept me unscathed.

The odds were even now. The whole thing is like a blur, and it would take a chapter just to draw it all out I wound up backed into a tree with only a sword and shield guy and one spear man. The others fell one by one, it was a dramatic experience. Kind of like my own little mini 300. I'll never forget thinking, whew, I'm still alive, when they blew the whistle because our flag went down.

And then I felt the pain. It hit like a sledge hammer dropped on the top of my left foot. I had just fought for my life, for 4 or 5 minutes, in SAND. My nemesis!

It took me half an hour to hobble back to camp, a trip that had taken only 5 minutes to walk to. In the end my comrades wound up hauling my spear an helm, and one stalwart chap hefted my arm over his shoulders and we hobbled into camp like something out of a Monte Python set after the shot. I proceeded to drink my pain away, but it wasn't working, and someone said to me, pssst, hey buddy you wanna try some pot, it's great for pain....

And it almost went away. But, I was able to ignore it and have a great time! I didn't get to participate in day two of the fighting, I could barely walk. That's when I had my vivid and hair raising imagination about Bible Days, and how it must have looked when the 12 tribes were descending upon yet another town God "gave" to them. How mighty God seemed to me that day. And at that time in my life, I was so embroiled in shit at home, I failed to appreciate it, or see the fnord in my Bible.

So what is a fnord? There were a series of freaky books written called the Illuminatus Trilogy And a kinda science fiction revolutionary pamphlet called Principia Discordia. It was Anarchy stuff, I didn't see the relevance of a lot of it at the time, but I didn't really understand metaphor yet either. In these books, there's a government conspiracy where children are brainwashed to not see the word "fnord" but rather than see it, they would suddenly be overcome with a sense of fear and anxiety. They would put the Fnords into newspapers, magazines and books but not in advertisements (or TV shows). Of course "fnord" wasn't the actual word, if I were typing the actual word, you'd leave this page feeling afraid and anxious, unless you were the Elite. They saw the fnords and weren't affected by them.

In the article about new nerve cell growth they said that in fact we have stem cells in our brains, and we grow new neurons all the time. Which means I could have been smoking pot all those years and having fun dammit!I only refrained because I didn't want to loose my brain cells!

mostly kidding.

I don't like to go to work high, or drive high, or be "stoned". Marijuana is the best medicine for my chronic (pun intended) pain that I have due to my fused ankle. Most modern pain pills are not only expensive, but they make you groggy, if you take enough to end the pain.

could easily get a prescription for anything I wanted. Lucky me, I'm allergic to opiates. Codine makes be break out in hives! I work. I can't be affected that way, and work, or drive. It's not safe to drive on pain pills, or work around dangerous equipment while taking pills. Just as dangerous as going to work high on weed, or alcohol.

However, to get an effective pain remediation with marijuana, one does not need to smoke enough to get high. In fact, getting high on pot really only lasts from 1 to 4 hours, depending on your tolerance levels and the potency of what you get. Since all the weed I've seen in the last 10 years comes in via Mexican suppliers, you never know what you're going to get for your ounce of weed. It's usually half stems and seeds, and the rest is poorly cured, moldy marijuana. You get ripped off 50% by volume usually, you can't smoke stems and seeds. However, the pain relieving effects last for several days, with a slow tapering off of effects. It takes me about 2 weeks before I have to start using ice packs and ibuprofen in the evenings. I won't work on pain meds, and I take as few asprin type junk as possible, because I want it to work when I take it, and I don't want my liver gone when I'm 50. I have been smoking weed since I met my current X wife. And most of it was relatively free of physical pain, don't get me started on the emotional pain, she's psycho.

I quit 3 weeks ago. I have begun a custody battle for my children and I need to test clean when the shit hits the fan. My children mean far more to me than my marijuana. I can deal with the pain to get them back. I may have to move to a medical marijuana state though. I don't want to work and HOLY JESUS my oldness is setting in on me. I have been stove up for two weeks. I feel 60. (coming from a 44 yr old that means something!)

Cleaning up today I found this tiny nugget of weed. I mean tiny. 3 weeks ago I would have scoffed. It would have had no effect as my tolerance was so high. I broke down and smoked some. Not even half of it. And my back feels fine. Is it psychosomatic, I don't know. I'll find out in a few days. And I'm going to pay particular attention to it, I'm curious to see how long it will be before I break down and take two more puffs. It's a science experiment.

I'm not worried about getting in trouble, even by Tennessee's Draconian Nazi Pot Laws, it wouldn't get me jail time it's so little.

So I sat down to check my FB and a friend of mine had commented on the Neurgenesis article. The article says that 3 things were shown to help grow brain cells. 1. Exercise, 2. Calorie Restriction, and 3. a chemical found in Turmeric.

My friend had replied, "I need to get some of that Curcumin", the chemical in turmeric.

I had had the same exact thought, but when I read it posted there, I realized that I had "fnorded" the exercise and the calorie-restriction parts. As if they weren't even an option. I wondered for a moment why that was....

I like junk food and I'm lazy!

My reading list has recently had a book on it called Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyen. It's basically the Science version of the first 5 books of the Bible. I highly recommend it, they have an enchanting writing style. It's simple to understand, and you'll feel better about yourself, your life, and the world when you get done.

My lower mind wants no part o the exercise, or cutting down on food.

With most things these days, my thoughts turned back to the Old Testament. And all those cities the Hebrews killed man woman and child (except the virgin girls, they were fond of them for some reason, they "let" them live)

How is it that we read the bible and then think, "God is Good". I mean, he commanded horrid atrocities....

My mind was on fnords and ancient human ancestors, pain, the Bible and neurogenesis. ( I don't have a girlfriend, ok) And I realized what purpose those horrid attrocities served in Judaism. They were the Fnords. We read over them, but shake them off in a fearful, anxious way thinking Oh, God's all grown up now, he doesn't do that anymore.... or will he if I don't behave?

They were the fnords of the Old Testament. Only they weren't hidden, ignored words, they were whole chapters of atrocities. But we ignore them, and fnord them out, just like exercise and calorie restriction.

Marijuana Prohibition is a fnord. Someone could tell on you! You could get caught driving home with it from your guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a mexican... since we can't grow our own, or we'll go to jail and lose everything... another Fnord. And it's not just a fnord for the smokers, the cops could bust down your door. They make mistakes. Every year innocent Americans are shot in their homes by botched drug busts. And if that isn't Fnord enough for you, there's crime in the streets and Columbian cartels too and Taliban, and they can't keep the pedophiles in jail for all the potheads, so watch your children, FNORDS!!!

Have a nice day. I'm headed off to Nashville. To go to 12th and porter lounge, wherever in the hell that is!

Back from the show and I had a blast. I even got to play camera man for my main act, Greta Gaines (total hottie! but married of course) . Met some fun people an listened to some awesome music.... good times.