Listening to:   Nothing at the moment.

Still reading:   The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon ~ Tom Spanbauer.

Drooling over but didn't buy (yet...):
Coldheart Canyon ~ Clive Barker. Man, I saw this in Books-A-Million earlier tonight. Why couldn't I fork over $6.99 for a hardback copy of it?

Because I'm cheap, evidently.

I thought that I really FUBAR'd in algebra class this morning. I went up to work a problem on the board and had to re-work it ~ in the meantime, the instructor decided to help me along by telling me what to do next...which just ended up breaking my concentration and really confusing me. Finally, after going through about three steps of this damn problem (find the lengths of the three sides of a right triangle) and her telling what I wanted to do next, I just barked out, "I SEE IT!!!" The instructor just backed off and said, "o.k...."

I just can't work when there's someone standing over me and telling me every little move that 'I need to make.' I know that she was just trying to help but damn...I did apologize after class, though. Turns out, she wasn't even offended. Good thing...

Hmmm....some things I need to get out of my system:

I've been thinking, talking and listening a lot lately. Philosophy, world views, religion ~ it's all come up at one point or another. Because of all of this, I think that a lot of things are sliding into place for me (again!) There's nothing like hearing what someone else vehemently believes to help you make up your own mind on a few things.

One idea that I've come to a conclusion about is god. I'm resolutely agnostic on that account. I have a hard time believing in the stories about the various gods but I've also come to the conclusion that I don't have to. Sometimes those stories sound as if they came out of a soap opera but they're good stories, nevertheless.

Granted, I seem to have a thing for Kokopelli (damn it!! I still try to misspell his name!) Do I 'believe' in him a real person? I don't know. There are stories about how there was a real person named Kokopelli, something like an Anasazi Johnny Appleseed, who went all over the southwest spreading corn (and quite a bit of his own seed, if the stories are to believed, hence the nickname of 'the Anasazi Casanova') and played a flute as he journeyed. Today, he has been transformed into a fertility and rain god. It's also said that his flute can still be heard on the spring winds.

Perhaps there really was a guy named Kokopelli. Do I believe in him as some presiding overlord, waiting to bring in the spring winds and rain? Only in the same way that I 'believe' in Neil Gaiman's version of the Endless ~ great stories where, if only for a little while, anything is possible. Sometimes, that's all it takes ~ the idea that anything is possible ~ for miracles to occur.

That's enough for me. I'll take the story anytime...but I keep an open mind. I'm willing for the story to be true. Especially for a deity that sounds as fun as Kokopelli.

Still, with that said, I have to admit: something happens when I talk to...the universe? my ancestors? the dust motes? some guy named Arty? It really doesn't matter who or what it is. I ask ~ it answers.

I think I'm a little burned out on the whole spiritual and/or New Age thing anyway. I've had a bit much and need a break. This happens every few years, doesn't it? I'm just at a point right now where I feel that god (whatever name it's going by these days) can wait ~ there's paintings that need to be done...or in the case of tonight ~ algebra.