Good Friday always makes me think back to the First House of Clocks. One of the more notorious parties we had there was the Be Bad on Good Friday Party. We crucified Ian and played Pin the Nail of Jesus. I remember someone shouting "the beer's on fire!" and rushing to put out the flames. You know it's a real party when you have a beer fire.

We had music in the old tinfoil covered playroom. The old playroom was crazy. I mean, really crazy. Tinfoil walls, strange paintings along with random items screwed into the ceiling. I had written on the walls and the floors. Blissfully hopeful things and abysmally awful things. The pictures on the walls didn't match up spatially with their frames. A Twister mat was the table cloth. It was me. Me then. Strange, cluttered, mismatched, bright, stark, broken, glowing, and scary. I'm different now. I am no longer that room. I am breaking out of a chrysalis, not sure yet of what I have become.

purpleglitter just ending a four day weekend and trash day shifted to Wednesday combined to completely addle my internal clock. The trash came and went and I completely missed it. What's worse, this week is recycling pickup. Recycling pickup in Arlington only happens every other week, so missing it causes things to really pile up. Fun fun, I guess I'll move it down to the basement for storage until it can be picked up — which won't be until after New Years.

This has been a wonderful and merry Christmas so far. purpleglitter got me wonderful gifts, including a new birding camera — the same model as the broken one, so that it will work with my telephoto lens.

My parents gave me a brass clock once owned by my great-grandfather. It's an old electric clock and wasn't made with the ability to start up on its own. A knob in the back must be spun just right so that it "catches", then the electric power will take over. The neat thing about the clock is that it will run backwards if the knob is spun backwards. I used to always set it running backward when I was a kid, and it is running backwards in my livingroom now.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. merryperseis came over to join purpleglitter and I in the livingroom. She had never seen our new place before and she arrived with perfect timing – just 10 minutes before dinner

I cooked portobello and artichoke stuffing, corn on the cob, baked homemade macaroni and cheese, edamame, and a pumpkin and carrot pie that turned out to be more of a pumpkin and carrot pudding — but still quite good, if I do say so myself. We all stuffed ourselves silly and had a good and mellow evening. Good company and too much food is how Thanksgiving is meant to be.

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For breakfast I had angel hair pasta in a garlic butter sauce; for lunch I had mutter paneer on rice; for dinner I had pizza, and for my healthy snack I had three mandarins. However, I didn't get any exercise and ate quite a bit of the left over Halloween candy. We only got two groups of trick or treaters, so there was a lot left over. Tomorrow is another day, perhaps the day I make this attempt work.

Tomorrow, I'm going to start Project Three Meals up again. The same as it's always been: three reasonable meals and one healthy snack – no more, no less. 30 minutes of exercise a day, minimum. Absolutely no junk food. Sounds simple, should be simple, isn't.

This of course means I won't be raiding the after-halloween candy sales this year.

A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case. The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets. ... Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman. “They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.” After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept in a small, filthy cell and shackled, drugged and beaten while being interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without ever having been charged with a crime. full story

This is outrageous. The blocking of a trial with spurious claims of "state secrets" is, in my opinion, tantamount to an admission of guilt. This crime is even more blatant by the fact that this German citizen was flown to Kabul — an occupied territory of the United States. Does anyone really doubt who's in charge in Afghanistan or Iraq? The crimes of puppet governments are crimes of the puppeteer. It is a further crime that Khaled el-Masri cannot peruse justice in an American court and it is likely that neither those who kidnapped and tortured him nor those that ordered the kidnapping and torture will ever be extradited to stand trial in Germany.

The information coming out about Blackwater just keeps getting worse and worse.

A few weeks ago, we hear that Blackwater massacred at least 11 Iraqi civilians.

Then we find out that there were 6 other Blackwater shootings this year.

Then we find out that a Blackwater employee drunkenly shot and killed one of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi's bodyguards last Christmas Eve, only to be silently whisked back to the United States by the State Department — never to be held criminally responsible for the murder.

Then we find out that Blackwater (not Iran) has been arming the Iraqi militias.

Then we find out that there have been 195 Blackwater shootings since 2005, and in 162 of them Blackwater fired first.

Blackwater has been operating above the law, not accountable to anyone — and the State Department has been complicit in their actions. The Iraqi government has asked that Blackwater leave the country, but the U.S. State Department told them that is not possible. As a result, the Iraqi government has accepted the foreign-hired mercenaries will stay and that it is powerless to do anything about them. Is that how a sovereign government behaves? Powerless to prosecute, expel, or even question foreign mercenary groups that prey on it's citizens?

The Iraqi government is in not sovereign, its actions have to be approved by the United States, it is nothing more than a puppet. When Americans complain about the Iraqi government being ineffective, they are really complaining about our government's puppeteering being ineffective.

Prince Henry's test results came back yesterday, and he got a clean bill of health. He got to fly with everyone else for the first time. Sir Dubbins freaked out and had to go back to his cage, but the budgies didn't seem mind him much. None of the budgies approached him too closely, but it was evident Skye wanted to. We're not going to have Prince Henry and Sir Dubbins out at the same time until they get a little more used to the idea of each other.

I went to a equinox dinner yesterday at lady_babalon's and sophiaserpentia's. I must say that sophiaserpentia makes the most excellent apple crisps. I was happy to see that x_bluerose_x was there to. We sat around the table and discussed what we viewed as our "harvests" this year, however I'm more planning for the spring then harvesting now. Of course, there were other topics, but that was the planned topic. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I had fun while I was there.

After leaving the equinox dinner, I went over to merryperseis's place, where I ate again. I knew that we would be having roasted cauliflower, so I intentionally ate sparingly at the early dinner. I brought her my serpent staff. I've known that my bird staff is what I'm meant to use at this point, and merryperseis told me she needed something that symbolized a serpent: so the transfer seemed right. I wanted to do it on the equinox for balance. There wasn't really any ceremony about the transfer, it was just done.

Sol, lifebringer and lightgiver, our star, the one which holds us tight and keeps at bay the outer darkness. Sol, thank you. Your winds dance in our sky and your breath allows our existence. There is nothing more powerful, nothing greater, nothing more brilliant or amazing in this system than Sol. While there may be bigger things out there, that effect our existence here and now than does Sol. While today we may look to Sol, truly everyday is Sol's day, for without Sol there are no days.

Going through my one of my cavernous closets, I found my wisdom teeth I had taken out in the late 1990's. They look a bit old, and the crusted blood has turned to a greyish powder. I had my wisdom teeth out the same time docbrite had theirs out, and being the bizarre goth thing I was I sent them what must have been a very creepy email with a picture of me, a picture of my teeth, and an offer to swap teeth. Of course, I never received a reply.

I found many other things as well. An old valentine from purpleglitter, a mid-nineties mac powerbook named "Like Butta", various mementos, a picnic basket, two air conditioners (one alive, one dead), ancient sheet music, seeds, and just too much interesting, strange, and downright random stuff to make a list here. I wonder what I'll find when I really begin to plunge into the depths.

Yesterday was Valentine's Days. purpleglitter gave me a heart of chocolates from Godiva, which is absolutely wonderful but ensures that I failed at Project Five yesterday and will again today. However, I can't entirely blame not making Project Five yesterday on the Godiva. I at a cheese danish, got no exercise, and had half a microwave pizza before bed.

For breakfast yesterday, I had pizza; for lunch I had spaghetti in tomatoe sauce with portobello mushrooms and parmesan cheese; for dinner I had arepa de choclo; for my first healthy snack I had a clementine; and for my second healthy snack I didn't have one.

I'll get back on track tomorrow.

The pots have been clanged! The water has been thrown! 2007 welcome and I hope it brings us all good things!

While not without it's tribulations, 2006 was a year of milestones and reunions for me. This was the first year in half a decade that I have spent completely out of psych hospitals. Although I took a couple of my old Ativans to get to sleep at a couple of points, I spent the year pretty much without any psych med prescriptions. I've become closer with certain members of my family than I have been in a long time. I've reconnected with friends long past. I've grown spiritually and even found God. It's been quite a year.