THE MISADVENTURES OF AN ESOTERIC INVESTIGATOR

According to the Urban Dictionary, yesterday was Christmas Adam and today is Christmas Eve. I was awoken at 5am by the cats going crazy. Turns out they couldn't wait to open their gifts, new catnip sacks particularly.

Since I have to work tomorrow morning, we're going to open presents today sometime. I still have one gift for Jacquelyn to get, which means shortly after I write this message, I'm going to sneak out of the house and leave her and the boy to scavenge breakfast. Everything else is already under the tree, as we no longer have any Santa-believers in the house.

One day when Ethan was in fourth grade, on the way home from school, he says to me, "Dad, I don't think Santa's real."

"Oh?" I replied, "What makes you think that?"

"Well, I was thinking about it and... it just doesn't make any sense. I'm right aren't I?"

"Yes, son, you're right."

"And the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, they're not real either, are they?"

"Not that I know of, son."

He raised his fists in the air in mock anguish, "EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIE!"

Here is the tree with all the loot. You can click for a high-res version full of lotsa details.


Have a happy holiday, whatever your particular solstice-inspired holiday. The days get longer from here, as we move back toward the light. Much love to you, dear readers.

Warmly,
Jeremy
a.k.a.
Jack Shoegazer

P.S. Jacktopia has grown so large it now need people to visit it to make a transportation system. I still have no idea what the point is.

Ourangutang.

I spelled it wrong.

YAWN>

::sigh::

I'm not going to tell you everything to type, she said.

Especially if you spell things wrong.

When do cliches become cliche? When is it cliche to say something is cliche?

When does novelty become novel?

How long until parody and satire are immediately applied to everything?

She is a cricket on my shoulder and I cannot shoosh her.

I did it again, she said.

But no one will know because I fix it.

But she knows.

And my eye smelled my finger as it wiped away a crumb and it smelled like garlic.

Everything had garlic.

I cut up garlic and ginger.

Mary Ann was nice and begged for her life.

I said no one will get it.

But she got it.

I bet you think I'm high but I'm not.

Not even drunk.

But I'm blah and that's like a drug too.

She said it's worse.

I have a bad Seether song in my head and I am not happy about it.

She said that's cliche.

Haha, Sayid said.

Ok, it's just for breathing and my neck is cramped.

So good night and new year and monkey love.

She said it's a sad post.

I say no one will read the whole thing anyway.

But she read it because she watched as I wrote it.

Does that count?

It's Christmas Eve, so of course I was thinking about the Myth of Oedipus. (No, there's really no connection. I was being contradictory.) I will summarize for those unfamiliar and those who want the full story can follow the link above.

Oedipus goes to the Oracle who says, "Dude, you're totally gonna kill your dad!" Naturally, Oedipus thinks this is pretty fucked up, so he runs away so he won't be anywhere near his dad. While traveling, he meets a stranger, gets into a fight and kills him. Then he goes and hooks up with dead-dude's wife. Eventually he discovers that the dude he killed was his dad and he's been fucking his mom. Oedipus then stabs out his own eyes in horror and banishes himself.

Now, Freud says that this myth means that all men want to kill their fathers and fuck their moms.

What the fuck is wrong with Freud?

Anywhere in the story does it seem like this is something that Oedipus is looking for? He didn't get up one morning and say, "Hey, I'll go see the Oracle and maybe that crazy witch will give me some good news! Like I get to stab my dad with my sword and my mom with my cock!"

Is it not much clearer as an allegory for the inescapable pull of one's destiny? Try as you might, you can't fool the Fates, you can't avoid your destiny. Fight all you want, but you get pulled along anyway, and because you fought all the way, you will find nothing but discontent where you may have found contentment instead. Does this not teach us to embrace our destiny, to follow our unique life's orbit? A Wise One in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series says that we must learn to ride fate. Wouldn't you rather be surfing atop the events of your life, rather than always being tossed about, churning in the undertow?

Perhaps Freud had a hot mom, a MILF if you will. And his father was a very strict and authoritarian Jew. Between Freud's everything=sex theorizing and his personal correspondence between with Carl Jung, it becomes clear that dear Sigmund was quite hung up on sex, even unwilling to discuss his own sex life in analysis. So it is not surprising that Freud would pull this most immoral and distressing interpretation out of a simple metaphor about fate. What strikes me as surprising is how wide-spread and accepted this interpretation is and how much psychological damage has been done to the personal unconscious and sexual identity and of the Western world because of it.

Happy Holidays!