Blogs

Okay so I've been 'with' this guy for about 2 1/2 months now. He is a senior and I'm a freshman. Of course the first thing I thought about him was he was just trying to play me, get in my pants then leave kind of thing. Well turns out I was wrong! :D He is a sweetheart no doubt and he is very, very handsome. In my past relationships I've had guys that just wanted my body*

Now that this new guy is in my life I want to know when he will finally ask me out. Is about 3 monthes too long to be 'talking'? that is my first question.

Okay now on to number 2. He says he really likes me but have you ever had someone who just really liked to start random fights over nothing. I guess he is just being jealous which isn't always a bad thing but still, I don't like when we fight for no reason. Its kidish and just flat out stupid.

Okay my 3rd question is.. He says we won't have sex until I am ready to. I honestly don't want to have sex with him because I like him so much. I know this may sound a little strange but I'm just trying to be 100% honest here. Truthfully, I think it would be a lot easier to have sex with a guy I met a week ago that I thought was cute/hot whatever, then to have sex with a guy I had real feelings for. I want to know, is that a normal feeling? I mean sure sometime when I'm ready I will but we haven't done anything and the thought of doing anything with him is just weird. I really don't know why I'm having these weird feelings.

xoxo, jlynn

I feel like with all of the drugs that I have did in my life, no matter what, I was still here. I never understand that, and everyone was dying around me including my own husband, and after that a lover and then my best friend. I know that I am not on these things as bad as I was. I raise my kids, and do not have the money to spend on those things as I did before I was a mother. I just feel like I tend to pick wounded people, because I am wounded myself. I have a good heart, and I am trying to make amends for everything I can not change, but by helping others and devoting my life and time to anyone thats heart is as blue as the blood in their vains. I might find peace. Needless to say, it isn't working. I have not found any peace, not even within site.

Cryng all of the time, mourning for the past. No one knows for certain, and you were always right, because if a breaze could blow you out of my life. We are only smoke and ashes.
So with all of my recent events in my life I am now reminded of why I am still here. I am tired of the old Stella. She died with Joe. I am going to start taking more of a stand and demanding what my heart needs to heal even if it means others need to fend for themselves for a minute. If that means stepping down from TDS I will. I do not think it will come to that, but I will never look at things the same as before. I will not sugar coat self harm. I am not saying that I am perfect, but I will not be okay with all of you dying. Be smart, and stop waiting for someone to save you. Save yourself. So say you'll never close your eyes, and protend that it's a rosey world, say you will never try to paint what is right without sugar coat. I want you to picture the horrors me and others have seen so you will know when we tell you like it is, you will listen or at least be fucking more careful. See you talk about the horrors you'ver seen, and the torment you know. All I have to say to that, is come back and talk to me when you bury your husband, then your love, and the latest, my best fucking friend. The only place I can really say this and make a difference is in TDS, so I want to remind everyone why TDS is here. What makes you weak, weak at dark? What makes you want want to break down in silence and bind? Thats what I love about TDS, we can tell it like it is, just so no one can forget. When we forget, we repeat. I am tired of burying everyone I love. Know your body is fragile. One day we are here, and are gone the next. I wished I could tell you that I am okay. I am really in my survival mood, and I am doing what I need too.
All I need to do is figure out why I am dealing with so much pain. The way that I love the people I love is so different then other people. I love you with my entire soul, and I give them a piece of me, and then everytime they die, a part me does too. So I feel as if I am dead already. So much of me is gone. I feel as if I need rescued this time, but I know all we have in the end is ourselves, and I refuse to give in now. Not now, I have came so far, and my composer is maintaining. It's just after we buried Joe, I was in such a familliar place. I was basicly burying my husband all over again, because he was my best friend just as Joe was. I couldn't stop him from overdosing, just like I couldn't my husband. He knew everything about me, and I feel so betrayed. I felt like if we were just friends that would be the one way I could be close and still be safe. Not lovers, just close enough that we were still separate people, not a couple. But it was such a stupid torchure I put us both through. After worrying about losing you and not committing, then if you died it would hurt less. I loved you even though you were out of control, I didn't go with you because I have seen this behavior before. Even after I warned you, you just keep it from me. Somehow I am still alive inside, losing you basicly took my breathe but I am surviving. I don't even know how. How does someone expect a person to live without air, and I feel like the part you left with was everything I had left to give and all of my air to the point I can't even breathe. You were my everything. All of the ones I have lost in my life time. How does a person get that back? I have been to therapy, hell I could teach the class. I still made another appointment on the 11th of Feb. I just do not feel like I am ever going to be the same. I have lost such a good part of myself by losing these parts of my life. I miss them. I feel as if I have no air at all at times.
Maybe I need to forgive them. There are times when I notice my mourning turns to rage and anger. I feel like they were a part of a bigger picture to teach me a lesson. I want to be forgiven for failing them. I just do not see myself giving myself that peace. If I leave this world, I would leave it showing I didn't care. If I sleep just to dream of you, then I have to wake without you there. I feel so alone, and I feel like something is missing. I need to find myself again without you.

Today is Sunday, Feburary 1st, 2009 and it is now 12: 48 AM here in the Philippines.

Yet another continuation, don't you just love character counts!?

The man usually called the "Founder" of the MNLF, although he did NOT found it (I talked about it in an earlier entry) former Professor Nir Misuari is on Mindanao, in Davao trying to arrange furether benefits for his former fighters who deactivated during the 90s, under the first major Amnesty Programme on the island.

Most of the men have remained armed, and some belong to newer groups like the MILF or ASG, while others only engage in banditry or in the many smaller guerilla bands like Pentagon (sic), Abu Sofia, ad so on.

Apparently, the forms for "re-integration" are supposed to be personally dsitributed by AFP (army) officers at their discretion and one can easily imagine the graft that this would entail in any nation. when you are talking about the nation consistently listed in official tables as the "most corrupt nation in SE Asia" than it is becomes an actual clusterfuck of greed and chaos. Ergo, men "de-activated" in 96 are in 2009 clamoruring for these "applications."

Misuari has been publicly asking how can there be non-Muslims (en masse) beging given Amnesty for having supposedly fighting in a Muslim Separatist army? He has a point.

Meanwhile, the MILF is seatedily making progress in the more southerly parts of west Mindanao, while in the north it remains as bloody as it ever has with ALL groups fighting one another.

I spent many years fighting in southern Lebanon and Beka'a and at its worst there 70 OFFICIALY listed groups at war. This does not come close to THAT cahotic theater but itcertainly is close enough. Most of the other features are here for sure: IEDs, catastrophic Collateral Damage incurred, allies by day- enemies by night and so on.

On Sunday, a week ago on 1/25 there wasa heavy engagement between the AFP's 38th IB and alied paramilitaries (CAFGU, ILG and Ilaga) are duking it out against the MILF in Barangay Pamadtingan in Esperanza village which is in Sultan Kudarat Province.

Esperanza is a Biaya village with a very well armed Ilaga faction. Ilaga is the Bisaya word for "Rats" and denotes several loosely allied Biasaya and to a smaller degree Illongo paramilitaries. Often used interchangably with the phrse "TadTad" or "ChopChop" which is not neccessarily the same thing.

Ilaga grew out of a parallel movement within mostly Illongo villages, called "Illongo Land Grabbers" in English, known as such for their propesity to settle on land claimed by Muslims.

I have gotten into the history in a few other entires but will say fro breivty's sake that the Muslims here only settled within the same century as the Spanish , and while most Bisaya and Illongo have less than 150 years on the land the Muslims are not any more "indgenous" than either Bisaya OR Illongo.

Muslims claimed much of south and west Mindanao, but only along very coastal regions, and up certain rivers for a few kilometers. Esperanza is one village that lies in that coastal settlement path and so it fell under a "Muslim Sultanate," or Kingdom. there were 2 main Sultanates on Mindanao, "Maguidanao" which took up just about all of Maguidanao Province along with most of Caotabato N. and S. Provinces.

The second was the "Sulu Sultanate" which of course was centered far south in the Sulu islands which ar due south of us, but also in Sabah on Borneo which led to an International Incident and even almost official war between the Philippines and Malaysia.

So, although the Spanish claimed Mindanao, and some of the more southerly islands, they really only ever settled Zamboanga City and Butuan (Butuan is a city about 90 klicks north of me) and even then only in a very limited way. Mindanao in name belonged to the Spanish, but in reality it was inhabited and ruled by Muslims a century before and so began the situation we have now.

Esperanza was unihabited, but was somewhat arable (conducive to farming) and when the Bisaya population explosion took place in the late 1960s the govt. offered freepassage and grants to homestead on this island. Bisaya Datus (chiefs) led enitre communities from the most impovershed parts of the Visayan islands (Bisaya and Visaya are interchangable and I use the English name for the Visayan Islands).

At the same time, those regularly reading my entries will remember that the late 60s saw the crystallisation of the MODERN Islamic Insurgency. In the first years of the 70s the world saw the Illongo LGs and Ilaga take form. In the mid 90s they mostly disbanded although of course, as with most families here, the men retained their weapons and attitudes. When the Philippine Supreme Court overturned the "Ancestral Domain" agreement the MILF's 3 largest factions went on a rampage that is apparently blessed by the larger leadership. That is the current heart of the Islamic War right now.

On 1/21 in Barangay Malisbong in Palembang village in Sultan Kudarat Prvince 100 AFP soldiers from the 2nd Infantry (IB is "Infantry Brigade") fought against a larger force of MILF when they stumbled upon a 20 bunker encampment while on Patrol.

Fighting contued into the 22nd (next day) and then spread to Branagays Maguialis, Lumitan and Butri. No word on the number of deaths but said to be many, including, as always, civlians.

On 1/27 the 2nd IB set up a FOB (Forward Operating Base, a small base with which to maintain a "Front" or concerted armed presence) in Barnagay Butri in Palembang due to the various small skirmishes that took place between the end of the huge engagement on the 22nd and the
27th.

A second much smaller FOB was also then set up in Barangay Mibuk which is more outlying, and will be manned by only 1 platoon from the 2nd IB and mostly by Ilaga Paramilitary soldiers.

On 1/26th the AFP' was ambushed by the MILF in Barangay Ngingiri in Calanogas village killing 7 soldiers and an no MILF.

On that same day, the 26th, the AFP's 55th IB was riding in paramilitary truck when a single well placed sniper shot caused the truck to tumble into a deep ravine killing 7 soldiers, who were based at a FOB in Lumbayangue in Lanao del Sur Province. they had been heading to their C and C ( Command and Control Center AKA HQ) at Pualas village in that same province. It happened on the main road outside of Lumbayangue at 930 AM.

Also on the 26th, a second Refugee Camp came under fire. This one was in Barangay Libutan in Mamasapano in Maguindanao and again it was 105 MM shelling! Hmmmm....

It had been preceeded by 2 days of fighting in Barangays Tapikan 1 and 2 in Shariff Aguak also in Maguindanao which had then spread to the villages of Datu Unsay and Datu Saudi Ampuatan.

On the 27th, in Barangay Dado in Alamdao village, a Bisaya and illongo village in Cotabato the AFP and Ilaga fough the MILF all day, beginning before day break.

This past Thursday, 1/29 in Barangays Pagatin and Pusao in Mamasapano village in Maguindanao Province the AFP (army) fired 10 rounds of 105 MM shells into a Refugee Camp just as the 20,000 Refugees within were chowing down on their breakfast rice and putrid water, goes great with cholera! YET ANOTHER REFGUEE CAMP!!! It is the 8th that i know of in 2 months...

While the MILF DOES have Howitzers its placement of them is VERY limited and NONE are in that part of Maguindanao.

And that is my world!

And inside there are shelves from the floor to the ceiling and drawers built into the walls, everything covered with a thick layer of comfortably settled dust and the man wearing the heavy black boots that clomp ca clomp as he makes his way slowly across the aged and uneven hardwood floor, heading towards the entry way of what might be a kitchen or a pantry, examining anything carefully that catches his eye, the one in charge of all of this he yells "Halsted!" and then "Wait outside!" and when Halsted turns, startled by the loudness and abruptness of his voice, rather clumsily to head back out the front door he knocks a lantern from it's place on a low standing table near where he was standing and sends it clanking to the floor. The man in charge, the one with the boots, takes a beautiful silver Smith and Wesson Model 59 from the back of his pants and racks the first round into the chamber, clomps over to Halsted and looks him in the eye, reminds him, jabbing the barrel of the gun into the bottom of his chin "And please don't disturb anything."

Written in what looks like it may be charcoal on a brick inside the uncovered fireplace is the word RUNTA and when the man in charge announces to us, turning on his heel and slithering towards the next room, that we are to bring anything that appears unusual to his attention I don't bother mentioning this or how I knew to even look for it there.

Today is Saturday Janurary 31st, 2009 and it is now 11:05 PM here in the Philippines.

Continuation from the last entry...

To the south and the west of me the Muslim Insurrections are still going strong.

With ASG, Abu Sayyaf the biggest event would probablly be the kidnapping of 3 ICRC (red Cross) workers on Sulu on 1/15. 1 was a female from Davao here on Mindanao but the other 2 are european men, an Italian and a Swiss and nothing gets the media going like a Westerner in peril anywhere in the world but especially here. There are more than 100 Filipino civlians known to be kidnapped by guerillas right now, and that number is probally more like 500 plus but let 2 Europeans get taken and all hell breaks loose.

More than Europeans, Americans seem to have higher news value, as we saw with the infamous Burnham Kidnapping, when 2 US Christian missionaries were taken from an upscale resort on the island of Palawan and spirited into the hinterlands of Basilan island, which is governmentally attached to us here on Mindanao.

The husband ended up killed but not by Abu Sayyaf, by the AFP (army) when they tried to "rescuse" him and his wife. a 3rd dual Peruvian/American, Gilberto Sobrero was executed by the ASG about a week after they were taken.


Sobrero was here to spend an idyllic vacation with his Filipina chatmate cum girlfriend (and I DO mean "cum" hahahaha), no matter that his poor Peruvian wife and kids were home in California. Poor Sobrero was on methadone, and when ASG grabbed the vacationers (many others taken as well but I believe the others were Filipinos so they did not matter to the fucking media) it was the middle of the night, they had no chance to take anything at all. A week later, Sobrero was babbling about needing medication (of course!) and they lopped off his head (Allah u Akbar!).

According to Burnham's wife who wrote a book about the ordeal (I actually have a copy since the army handed them out to many soldiers here, and most do not speak let alone read english it made its way to me in short shrift), they heard a knock on their cabin which was a bungalow on stilts, over the ocean conencted by boardwalk to other such bungalows, they thought it was just the drunk security guard bothering them for a bribe again. Lo and behold, it was the ASG. they took the clothes on their back and were gone for about a year.

It is interesting for many reasons but mostly to me because of the Burnhams being old hands here, like myself. they were not johnny-come-latelies who disregarded local mores. they and their children spoke several languages and dialects, lived like locals, and other than missionaries only socialised with locals. It did not matter.

She says that the kidnappers DID offer a modicum of respect to them , in her mind because they thought her to be religious but in reality I am sure it was due to their being such high value prizes in terms of ransoms. indeed, after a long time the US did, and this seems to be a fact, pay 300,000 US under the table for their release, only the cash never made it to Basilan, having been entrusted to another ASG factional leader on Jolo. Other than 200 US for each fighter (perhaps a bit more for their factional leader) no money made it to Basilan.

The US is big on "Never pay ransom!" but in reality they are pragmatists. Sadly they have little understanding of the world outside their own borders. Look at the recent Saudi debacle with Somali pirates. The pirates took a 20 foot motorised skiff into the shipping lanes and using just AKs got a freighter full of Saudi petrol to stop!!! Granted, a nice explosion might have ensued but I would like to think that Saudi tankers, among others, could withstand a punch from an AK, after all we are not talking RPGs or mortars.

Boarding the boat there was a very long (weeks) impasse after whicht he Saudis coptered in 3 million US!

In a stroke of fate, as the happy as shit pirates were heading back to shore a squall blew up (Monsoon season after all) and over turned their tiny boat. Whether they could swim or not, all drowned. One man DID wash up on shore last week with 155,000 US strapped to his waist, found by family members who are very happy never the less, I am quite sure.

The point though is that WHEN you pay, you can expect that the acts willincrease, NOT decrease! With ASG, they of course have.

The ICRC workers were in Patikul, the main village in sulu, and there to inspect the govt. prison to ensure better conditions for ASG! You would expect the guerillas to have a modicum of consideration but of course they only care about one thing. fuck redevelopment, fuck better lives for their children, they wanna' get paid man!

This week, a famous Filipino movie star Robin Padilla offered to act as a go-between to work out the ransom (no thought on release without ransom of course, thanks Uncle Sam!). Padilla is one of many Filipinos who converted to islam, a phenomenon I described in detail in an earlier entry in my Blog here. His conversion, or "reversion" as it is considered as such by these converts happened in prison in the mid 90s as he served a couple of years ofr a weapons offence.

His pre-incarceration bodyguards were ASG guerillas actually, one of which the famed "Kummander Kosovo" was killed while making a daring prison escape with other ASG members sometime after. So perhaps Padilla's conversion was a mere formality. In any event, the former action star (think a cheesy Charles Bronson) offered his "services."

This really drew my curiosity when the MILF, often a tactical ally of the ASG, warned Padilla to never do this again and to essentially mind his business! they gave a nice press release about how the ASG WAs a real islamist group but is now only motivated by money and materiel gain.

In Zamobanga and Basilan (and perhaps closer to my province than anyone thought) the ASG and MILF are often indistringuishable from one another since they operate jointly more often than not. This COULD signal a shift in MILF polciy but one will have to wait and see.

Then, on Basilan on 1/29, the mayor of al Barka village was killed by the ASG in an attack that also killed 2 of his bodyguards as they traveled in a convoy between Lamitan City and al Barka. The ambush took place in Cabangalan village and involved RPG and AK.

On 1/23, 3 teachers were travelling by boat from Sacol Island off of Zamboanga , to Zamboanga when they were kidnapped by the Basialn faction of the ASG who were in another boat. The ransom is supposed to be 6 million pesos per teacher but the families are trying to bragain since they are all very poor.

That is the second kidnapping by that group, by boat. the other kidnapping victim is a bakery franchisee who also owns a small fishing fleet. He is still in cpativity as well but has been sighted deep in the bush of Basilan, around the village of Hadji Mohammad (sic) Ajul, an ASG stronghold.

There have been small firefights on Jolo involving US Forces but i have to add ALLEGEDLY since the US is "forbidden" by Philippine Law to engage in armed conflict on this country's soil. Sulu remains firmly in ASG hands, although there are also MNLF (not MILF mind you) guerillas operating as well, and on Jolo i have to add that the 2 MILF commands are still in the bush.

I will get to MILF activities and Clan Wars in my next entry. All for now...

ffffff

It feels like I'm at 16 years of age again. I had a crack addiction for 11 years that ended last summer. And I've got money again. My apt has moen bathroom fixtures and its full of gear. A protools mbox mini 2, self designed speaker boxes, audiophile grade amplifier, pre-amp, equalizer, bass shakers attatched to the seat and back of a computer chair that I reupholstered; the chair wobbles your eyes in their sockets. I have the entire line of Scientology books. A stray cat, a cell phone, internet service, solid computer, headphones with custom pocket amplifier, I even have a snow removal hustle in my neighborhood.
I was given a free pass to the YMCA and I've been going and coming home sore. I had my psyche change me to seroquol 200mg today alongside my ativan 2mg daily. I'm losing weight too. I had health problems coming off a 4 year Dexadrine/Klonopin iv'ing addiction. My weight went down to 155 and then it went up to 235 and now its at 210. I'm going to lose 40 lbs cause' I have a wardrobe that Im excited about wearing.
I like gettiin high on drugs my probation officer cant detect and loungin' round' naked.

He has nothing of value to say and is certain his imagination was misplaced in the move.

I do not know if people see the devastation in my face or if it is good karma. Today I had a old friend agree to take me to a place that helps give your family a good christmas if you need it (which although it kills me to admit, this year I am broke after bills and the girl's cost and up keep.) Then right after that, my neighbour knocked on my door. When I got to the door he was holding a 25 pound turkey. I mean, it was a brand name Honeysuckle white turkey. I just looked at him kinda weird. Then he said, "I get one of these every year from work. I just thought you would want it." I was so dumb founded. I told him thank you and took it, and he was so happy about doing it, that it gave me a warm feeling in my heart. So it made me feel good, not to mention I could really use that turkey for the girls and I. Then it was like thirty minutes later and my other neighbour brought me twenty dollars, and said, God told her to do it, and as I tell you this, my eyes are filled with tears. I also want to tell you all that I am very private irl so there was no way that either of the last two knew I am struggling. The only one that knew was the friend thats helping me with christmas for the girls, and she doesn't even know my neighbour's. These were such answers to prayers of mine.
I am just beside myself. I see such different kinds of people. Some that hurt you, some that help you, some that wound you. No matter what though, I see such good that it out weighs the bad. So although it is so hard some days, the others are such blessings.

Today is now Saturday Janurary 31st, 2009 and it is now 12:58 AM here in the Philippines.

Continuing from the previous entry...

So the army began the over flights and bombing runs, and managed to force SOME units onto the westerly heading, through the Barangay at the end of Mangga (our road), on the western side of National Hiway.

Most however were smarter and had apparently coordinated their retreat. They were practically swimming through our paddies , but we do not engage unless engaged, trying best to stay as neutral as possible unless directly threatened.

Then the aircraft came back and I would say it was the first true victory for the amry in quite a while. At least 60 bodies have been brought into Poblasiyon/Poblacion, the center of our village. As for pro-Govt. forces, I only know of 18 dead and 11 are paras.

The army really can claim it as a tactical victory, although I really think it was terrible fot hem to dot his while they could have been much more beneficial to the community by effecting AID and rescue during the flooding.

In other NPA news, yesterday in Butuan they lobbed a grenade through the window of a government official who also has the dubious enemty of being a Double Enemy of the People for his work as an executive at Dole, the Western fruits company before entering public service. No reports on deaths yet.

In the village of Carmen which is right over the border of Agusan del Norte the 4th attack in as many months has taken place this week at an Iglesia ng Krsito (Church of Christ).

Iglesia should not be confused with the US based Church of Christ although like it, it IS a Prtestant sect. It is homegrown, and run by a single family, whose patriarch founded it in the first years of the 20th Century.

It has a rather positive distinction of having a very beautiful edifice, the same structure, in most every large non-Muslim town in the country. The buildings are very beautiful, real Americana in the middle of the SE Asian tropics.

The religion has attracted controversy for its very strict rules. Members are required to attend every Church function unless given written permission not to do so. If they fail to, they are fined huge amounts by local standards and there has also been issues of families ostracising close members for dropping out of the church or refusing to join in the first place.

Here, and in Cotabato Provinces (there is a Norte and Sur just as in Agusan) these churches have been targetted by NPA (communists) and in Cotabato by Muslims as well.

In Tampakan village the police station was raided by 50 NPA guerillas yesterday, 1/28, using rifle grenades. Noone seems to have been badly hurt although there were 3 police wounded in the attack which netted weapons, Laptops, and phones.

When Arroyo was taking off from Butuan Air Port there was a firefight right down the road between NPA and the 30th Infantry, but with a twist. the NPA were in black fatigues which is something altogether new. Some are trying to suggest that it might have been an attempt on the President but I do not infer much from it although it is a first.

On Monday, 1/23 the police station in Carmen (Agusan del N.) was raided fro the 2nd time, and the weaponry removed, etc, the 50 man NPA formation killed 1 policeman.

Yesterday, in Davao City, which is HIGHLY unusual (not since the very early 90s) the NPA set an unsuccessful ambush but did manage to detonate a claymore mine and wound 7 soldiers and 1 para in an 8 truck Govt. convoy of KM-450 trucks. VERY unusual given the role the Davao mayor has played in the recent release of two POWs held by the NPA (trading on the release of jailed NPA guerillas).

In Targum, which is in between us and Davao, 5 NPA from Front 53 surrendered in the Amnesty Programme, turning in a nice amount of weaponry.

Closer to us, in Com Val, the new province of Compostela Valley which sits in between us and Davao del Norte Province, the army has redeployed the 503rd Infantry to Arba, and the 41st Infantry to the nearby village of Ba'ay Licuan.

The army has also raided two NPA safehouses, one in Maco village earlier this week and then yesterday a house in Barangay N'gan in Compostela village.

Another thing that made me sit up and take notice was the last issue of the NDF's newspaper, online as well as in handbills. the NDF as I explained is the National Democratic Front ans is the umbrella for both the NPa (New Peoples' Army) as well as the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines). the paper, "ang Bayan" has a first page editorial calling the Israeli Operation in Gaza a US conspired operation to murder indigenous Peoples and so on.

As a dual Israeli/US I am more in tune to such threats than a person otherwise might be. I am now officially the only Israeli on the island, and probablly the only Jew with Rizza off on Cebu...speaking of which, our females and children are going to be returning, G-D willing or as we say in Bisaya "Buyag" (not the same meaning but the same intent) after the weekend. Right now we want to make sure most of the armed threat has dissipated as well as giving the Provinces a bit of time to dry out and get the AID trucks off the few passable roads we have (all of one major road plus Mangga, ours).

The Operation was noticed by the NDF, et al as well as major Islamic groups here but this si the most vehement piece to date and the only one linking it to US actions. The NPA makes no secret that while it has not targetted even American soldiers in a couple of years it still holds them to be viable targets. I am not in ANY official capacity here, certainly would never be in any american capacity ANYWHERE but because I am so light skinned (I am blue eyed after all) I am mistaken for American in many places.

Here all white people are considered to be American until proven otherwise (hahaha), and they are all called, males anyway, "Kano" for "American." that or the ubiqitous "Joe,"something I must have mentioned in another entry I am sure.

"Joe" is for "GI Joe" since the WWII mystique is alive and well in this once bastion of pro-Americans goodwill...at least until it got sucked dry under the US crony Marcos who beld the country and its people dry.

I soemtimes give the family a good laugh by screaming "Hi Joe!" whenever we pass rubberneckers. A white person here attarcts mad attention.

In my old Journal I had talked about how girls here LOVe white men. 2 Filipina BLers, D'tergent and MariaCallas took me to task saying they did not think so at all but then they are cosmopolitan, upper class women from Manila. When you are in the "Provinces," as anyplace outside of Cebu City or Manila is called, you will be innundated with stares until it drives you mad. You will also be told "Hi Joe" or more rarely "Go Home Joe!" by the locals.

The 2 BLers said that they think it has to do with the extreme poverty here and that it would be the same with any foreinger. I then replied, and probablly convinced both of them by reminding them that noone ehre studies "Arabic" or goes to Paki themed dating websites to meet THOSE freign men (internet dating is disgusting here, and everywhere but not in the sense that it is something digusting per se, just how it is handled here but that is another rant and nothing really to dow ith what I am discussing).

Ihe point though... We have an African man who lives down Mangga, over the Surigao line and we soemtimes see him walking past our compound. True, people look but only for a second and then go about their business and no women give a damn. A white man? Forget about it! I get women jumping off busses !!! I will be in the front of the compound, playing with my main dog Jumbo (the picture of him as a pup is in Gallery), letting him eat other dog's shit across the road, and a Bacehlor (busline) will be speeding pass and then slam on the airbrakes, and a gaggle of girls will get off and even approach me!!!

It has only happened twice in a year or so but that is enough of an indicator. I am no movie star and certainly noone worth twisting your nech to see let alone jumping off of speeding busses! Yet it happens. Is it any wonder that you have 80 year old Yanks and Europans coming ehre and marrying 18 year old girls? DIGUSTING but to each their own. I guess i should not talk since i will soon be 42 and have a 25 year old wife although that is not really a huge difference. Just seems that way to me because I have known her since she was a baby.

Will get to the rest of the guerilla violence this week in a following post...

Today is Friday Janurary 30th, 2009 and it si now 10:15 PM here in the Philippines.

Pretty much back to "normal" as much as normal exists in this part of the world, so I will link to a couple of the videos I talked about in the last entry.

Dead Confederate is a group from outside of Augusta, Georgia near the South Carolina border and wrote the following song as a protest piece about Christian Fundamentalists, Anti-abortionists and intolerance in general. the song is called "The Rat" and is fantastic, bluesy kind of rock but with a real Alternative feel if that makes sense:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN055pYFGZs

The next song is probablly my favourtie right now, the British band Keane and the song is called "Spiralling," a great Alternative rock song:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-LZ7yH-JBM

I will get to the others prhaps in the next entry.

Have not had much time for books, though I do hope to reread the book I have read a couple of times, "E=MC2: The Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation" by David Bodanis which does a great job of explaining in relatively easy terms the ideas and work that went into this earth shaking equation.

I have had the pleasure of hearing Bodaris speak 2 times, once on this particular book although I never thought to try and weasel a book signing out of him. What a great and modest man he is. Really enjoy his thought processes.

Well, we finally found out what is what .This past Wednesday, Janurary 28th, the President, Gloria M. Arroyo came to the region, and the army hoped to confuse the NPA into stepping right into a large scale offencive.

Arroyo supposedly came because of the terrible flooding which has turned our village and 6 others into official Disaster Zones (although it is nothing like in the West, here it is a only a minimum of AID. 600 sacks of rice were handed out by the Army here yesterday, 200 of which I personally donated my damn self so it is really sad but let me stop before I buy the bullet I just ducked).

I have talked at length, in my old BL Journal about the terrible deforestation here. I am a Botanist (Ethno) by degree so I am particularly sensitive to plants, but I would hope most rational folks would be considerate or at least cognisant of all flora and fauna.

On one hand you have a long, long history of colonialism, with the Spanish having literally half a millenia exploiting the 7,107 islands of this nation, and then you had immediately after them, the Yanks for a rough 50 years or so. The Americans especially began to denude the land of all the most crucial things, like timber. Practically no Virgin Forest exists on any of these islands and now even 1st and 2nd Growth is being taken away as well. The result? Landslides, flooding, and all those goodies.

The monsoon this year has been super heavy, raining heavy now in fact and the flooding has been horrendous. We are much better off than most here because I am educated enough to take precautions on our farm lands so that our rice and corn fields will be better for the flooding, but most here are bankrupt because of it.

2 villagers have officialy died in the flood, 2 of many on the island and that is so much worse than flooded rice paddies. I count my blessings in many ways.

So, the army pulled out of the region evacuating my province, Agusan del Sur and the one that begins a kilometer or so east of me, Surigao del Sur. They advanced deep into Agusan del Norte all the way to the northern coast at Butan and then west woards Nasapit, aout 10 kilometers up the Coastal Hiway.

They had hoped that the NPA would come out of the mountains in full, and to a very small degree they had limited success. The NPA did not come in open formations but they did come in under cover of night over the last 2 evenings (not tonight).

Then, as they were in the villages under cover of night last night, the AFP came back in full force.

CAFGU, the offical governmental paramilitary never pulled out, and had been fortified in key points like our municipal building on National Hiway, and key infrastructural points. In addition the Lademora (fuck it, what is a name, right?) paras were of course itching for a fight, and were well dug in and what is most suprising of all was the coordinated effort put forth, which is incredibly rare here.

Using gunships and bombers the army was able to cut off key points of retreat back into Surigao and on the other sides south into ComVal and again on the north into Prosperidad. They left the western routes alone so as to drive the projected retreat along that heading.

I will continue shortly...

yeah in my lil town we don't have pay phones you have to drive over the bridge into the next town a bit. lol idk we have like 5,000 in that town, a few hundred in this one. Iowa for ya. It wasn't the issue though, its that I didn't have is number. BUT I found my phone in my mom's coat that I borrowed because mine was being washed. I just heard it vibrating as I walked by. Good deal.

I spent like idk 15 min write a blog and it ATE IT!
Anyway, not worried about Sean anymore. We will be just fine. I just get worked up when my brain is always on overdrive.

Early this month a Sudanese man was on a flight to the Red Sea port of Jeddah from Qurayyat in northern Saudi Arabia and apparently ignored the flight crew when they had asked him to simply ash out his cigarette. He was arrested right as soon as the flight landed and his punishment...thirty lashings from a whip! Wearing just a shirt he will be struck by a police officer holding a book under his arm (to prevent a lot of force from being used) with a whip similar to the one attached to this pos.:

The man tried to bargain his way out by saying he would go to rehab center for his smoking but no luck. The judge was set on making an example of the man, now this isn't the first time this has happened. Another man while smoking on a flight set off a smoke alarm and was sentenced to fifty lashes. Personally I thought these kind's of unusual and inhumane punishments were banned. Guess not.

Sources:

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1134323/Man-sentenced-30-lashes-flouting-smoking-ban-Saudi-Arabian-flight.html

hi, i'm 2muchpain! Welcome to my life. I haven't got the time or patience today to fiddle with fonts or smiley's etc. By the time this is posted it'll be my 31st birthday and i'll be spending the first few hours of it waiting for a phonecall to tell me i've got work. If you haven't figured it yet, i'm an escort. Judge if you want but if offended by this kind of stuff please don't read any further entries! Will write more very room.

The man with the stretched out navy blue hooded sweatshirt, holes in the seams where the pocket is stitched in the front on the belly, that pocket where you can put both hands into and they can meet, that singular, giant pocket that isn't good for holding much because it always ends up falling out anyways, the man sitting on the concrete and I hope he has something to cushion himself not only from the hardness of the ground but the stinging coldness of it, that fucking below zero biting temperature that isn't so much cold anymore as it is some sort of demonic possessed evil version of it, I assume he wants somebody to share some of their pocket change with him though I don't think he knows it right now and when I sit down next to him and nudge him in his gut, part of the reason his sweatshirt is stretched out and ripped, an absurdly obscene gut for a starving man stinking like death and begging for change in his sleep, he doesn't budge even a little and just sits there leaning against himself, his back up against the bricked wall, still holding his faded Dunkin Donuts plastic travel coffee mug with a few pennies and nickels collected at the bottom.

"I've only got but a couple dollars on me, myself," I tell him, his moustache caked with dribbles of frozen snot dripped from his nose as a result of the cold and then "Did a strong wind destroy your home?" as I lean in closer to make sure he's breathing.

People rush by, people dressed in dry cleaned overcoats and the fur of animals fashioned into nifty looking designs to keep them warm, clutching briefcases with number coded locks on them and purses filled with pepper spray. I grab the coffee mug from the grip of my slumbering friend and he snorts a little, drops his arm at his side. "I'll give this right back," I promise him.

A man with white earbuds poking into his earholes in a shiny two shades of green Nike tracksuit and white turtle neck, clutching a halfway stuffed gym bag looking freshly showered with his greased, slicked back hair probably on his way back to the office after a power workout on his lunch break and a quick protein shake for good measure trots our way and I rise, that frostbite feeling stinging my ass, coffee mug in my fist stretched out in front of me.

"Hello, hello, hello!" I sing shout, staring directly into his eyes as much as I can through the Ray Bans he wears, though the sun is nowhere to be found, one of those gray winter days where everything is highlighted by the bright nothingness of the white clouds blocking the sun, seeming a little sadder and he hesitates just a little bit, caught off guard and in a split microsecond debates with himself whether to keep walking, faster than before, or to stop and acknowledge me. I make the decision for him and jump right in his pathway, both arms now stretched out beside me as if i'm about to embrace him.

"Emaweni webaba," I tell the man with a smile on my face. "Silale maweni!" and he tries to walk around me, quickly looking down at the ground as if avoiding eye contact with me will make him feel like i'm not really real.

I give him a "Webaba silale maweni," and I can feel the fear in him wrestling with his anger, the game show fluorescent signs flashing "FIGHT" or "FLIGHT" in his head and with a quick move to the right, I shift quickly, blocking him again and decide, not so impulsively, to give this one a pass.

"Webaba silale maweni," I tell him, a little calmer this time, a sort of peace offering, and do that thing where I step backward and sweep my hand out in front of him as if to say "Go ahead," and I can tell he wonders if this is just a trick, not moving right away and looking at me for the first time then taking one step forward, carefully, and another, and then a quick succession of rapid trots as he scampers away half wanting to turn around to make sure i'm not going to tackle him from behind but I don't and I smile just because I could have and he knows it.

I walk back over to my fat passed out friend and stand beside him for a second leaning against the wall. "I don't think he's much of a Paul Simon fan," I tell him and wait another minute just watching the people walk by on their way back to work, back home, to the bank, to get a six dollar coffee. "Many dead, tonight it could be you!" I holler at a passing car and walking towards it, a green Jaguar with tinted windows. "A strong wind destroy our home. A STRONG WIND!" and standing on the curb I throw the coffee mug into the street, the change scattering everywhere and it hits a passing bus bouncing back in my direction landing a few feet behind me.

A woman having witnessed all of this strolls my way rapidly switching between looking at me and looking at the ground, looking at me and looking at the ground, hoping to get a glimpse at me before I lock eyes with her and when I finally do she'll stare right back at the ground and pretend like she was never even looking at me in the first place, praying that the brief moment of eye contact we shared won't translate in my obviously mentally ill head as some invitation to address her, some non-verbal sign that she actually wants to be my friend but regardless of whatever the fuck she's doing I have decided hours and days and weeks and months ago that she would be the one and when I calm down and slink back to my spot standing against the wall beside my friend and slump down to the ground not looking anywhere near her, I know she feels relieved walking past me and quickly puts the whole situation out of her head.

"Many dead," I say to my friend, still snoring and snorting and slumbering away, pulling his arm up onto his belly and wrapping his fingers around the handle of the now empty coffee mug and leaning it against his chest.

Standing myself back up again and facing the direction she went, the cars on the street and the buildings around me catch fire and burn, the trees growing out of the small squares of dirt surrounded by asphalt and concrete grow arms, hands, fingers and wings, uproot themselves and grab hold of the mailboxes bolted to the ground, the street lights and fire hydrants and traffic lights and billboards and fly away into the clouds and before my friend, my fat, homeless, drunken, filthy friend gets taken by the oak tree on the corner of 48th and 7th and carried off into oblivion I tell him "Tonight," running quickly after her, yelling behind me to make sure he hears me "it could be you!"

You ever feel like a bottom feeding suction eel somedays?

Anyone ecver get so hurting they had to sell their handgun, tec 9 or anything of the likes.

I know I have not(never owned a "real gun" Only had 22 given to me for hunting bird..I have no poin to own gun. I hate guns. Well when used for no good reason. Hunting and the army are exceptions. Not that I think anyone should ever go to war. But War is unavoidable..so the army does need them. Anyway I tend to ramble about non sense in all my blogs. Maybe thats why next to no one has even posted a response to any of my blogs.

"I just got it used from the NAVY."You could flash fry a buffalo in 40seconds." -Moe-

" awwww 40seconds, I want it now!" -Homer-

This week I have been receiving blank text messages and muted voice-mail from my mother.

Perhaps I will call he back before the weekend. I don't know how close families are supposed to be.

This kind of non-relationship has been going on for almost nine years since I moved out. But we never ever communicated well and, hurtful as she finds it, it's this kind of relationship between her and I or none at all.

I feel guilty about this at times and try to build bridges but it always ends with us both in the most incandescent of rages and seriously hurtful stuff flying around.

Any amount of times I swore never to have anything to do with her again, but blood's thicker than water, they say.

I just wish I did not have to speak with the woman. I'm considering switching to letter writing.

In a sea of people, we all manage to be utterly alone. I wonder sometimes how this phenomenon manages to occur so often. One could blame it on society, I suppose, but you'll find more people who have been shunned than those that were accepted. It's odd to me how society is such a small majority, and yet it still manages to rule our everyday lives.

Most normal people find it absolutely inconceivable to do something outside of the approval of society. So many people seem truly disturbed at my lack of organized religion. My philosophical views on the world are mostly lost on the people around me. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can get through life only believing what they feel comfortable believing. There is so much happening in this great big world around us that people would rather turn a blind eye to.

How many people continue to wear fur and get downright hostile when you politely suggest that perhaps they watch a video of how fur is obtained. Oh, heaven forbid if you speak out against declawing an animal (specifically cats) because it involves the first joint of their toe being amputated. Not to mention the psychological damage it can do to the poor thing! I had not one, but TWO people argue with me on this issue on YouTube. Despite my showing damn near inarguable evidence and citing my sources, they just continued to bad mouth me and call me "crazy" and "psychotic." All for telling the truth about an inhumane practice. And let's not talk about veal, because that's another thing.

If you can sit through the PETA KFC video without flinching, if you can watch a helpless fox skinned alive to make that coat you're wearing without feeling guilty, and if you can watch the legs of a baby cow get broken at birth so they don't move to make that tender cut you so love to eat without getting nauseous, more power to you. But if you feel slightly disgusted at the thought and decide not to think about it, STOP BEING A WEAK FUCKING LOSER. How about speaking out for the issues that get your blood boiling? How about putting your ego out on the limb to try and open the eyes of the people around you. Even if ONE person realizes what point you're trying to make, you changed someone's life. YOU singlehandedly opened their mind a little more. And maybe, just maybe, that person will go on to make a bigger difference.

Maybe we all wouldn't be alone in this world if we opened up our minds. A cat and a crow can be friends (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JiJzqXxgxo), so I don't see why two human beings can't feel compassion for one another. Grow a set of balls and learn how to love everyone. It takes a lot more guts to love than to hate. Hate is instinctual when you're afraid of something.

Peace out.

I quit a low paying, go nowhere job at the end of April so I could spend the summer with my Lady (who's a teacher). By the end of summer, the US economy was totally farked and no one was hiring.

It hasn't gotten better yet.

I'm one of those "interesting" people who has had a lot of different jobs in a lot of different fields .. which looks horrible on a resume.

I guess I have to hold on and hope at this point, but it feels loathsome to not be contributing any cash into the household.

/end vent