Today, is another Monday but with a differencen it is Memorial Day. This is the day that we remember the brave fallen who answered the call of our nation to serve and protect it from both foreign and domestic threats. A big thank you goes out to all who have served and currently serve.

Birthday Blah....

I am about to turn 35 and I am absolutely dreading it. THIRTY FIVE (35)! FIVE MORE YEARS TO FORTY. Crap! This is the year that I move from the demographic of 25-34 for surveying and marketing purposes. This is the year that I actually have to start thinking about getting my prostate and colon examined on a regular basis. Luckily I got the heart stress test out of the way and the good news on that one is that apparently I am not stressed. God I hope my prostate and colon get such good results. Time to eat more fiber and drink cranberry juice and watch my consumption of fatty meats. Uchh... This is getting to be depressing.

Turning 35, I thought would not be such a big deal, but you know what? It is a big deal. When I turned 30 it was not so traumatic as people and the media had me believe. Turning 31 was worse, thats when it became all too real and apparent that I am in my thirties and hurtling away from my twenties and into the realm of; I am too young to have a mid-life crisis but I am not too young to consider Fiber-Con as part of my daily diet. Turning 35 I am at the midway point of birth and turning 70. Seventy People! Great more hair just fell out. And I look back at my near 35 years of life and I am trying to inventory what I have to show for 35 years of living on this planet Earth. So far all I can come up with, is that I have some photographs of the past and a stack of bills that need to get paid. Sure I have my health, family and a great group of friends but I am seriously feeling an emptiness that I have not felt before. I never thought that I would be where I am at 35 and in a way it distresses me. I am sitting here and trying to think of what and how I want my next thirty five years to be and right now it does not seem all that bright. The good thing about right now, is that I do have the ability to change and visualize the future I want but I have to act and enact on my vision. Yet sometimes, I feel that the burdens of life will prevent me from doing so.

(I will pontificate further a little later)

Jack is BACK!

Tonight 24 started and what I gotta say about that is; Jack is back and his gonna F' some peoples shit up. Seriously, a billion and a half Chinese could not break Jack, does a band of terrorists from the Middle East really think that they stand a chance against him??? I mean my boy Jack killed a badguy just by biting his jugular vein out, all the while Jack was handcuffed and strapped to a chair. Can we say, BAD ASS! Oh, and now that Kumar of "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" is in the show I will not be able to watch the movie in the same light as I did. We all know that Jack Bauer is gonna save the US and the world but the ride until he does so, is pretty damn exciting.

Happy Belated New Year

Happy and a Healthy New Year to all my friends and family I hope all of your dreams come true.
If any of you have made a New Years resolution please share them.

Why?

I have gotten a couple of comments from people I know as to what and why I have decided to post some of my thoughts and feelings out here in cyberland and not share these thoughts/feelings with them one on one. The simplest of reasons that I can give, is that I feel I can articulate my thoughts better when I am writing and by writing my thoughts/feelings here in such a public forum I can share them with the people I care about and consider friends. I could of course just write in a journal and no one would ever hear or read it unless I personally decided to open up my journal. Also, this is a catharsis for me and its one way from me to unload my thoughts and feelings. I am sorry, if some of you have felt left out and feel that our friendship is not deep but please understand that this blog is a way for me to let you into my world and inner thoughts. It is not easy to be an open book and this is a process for me. I thank those of you that are reading and have cared enough to talk to me and comment about the blog I appreciate very much your friendships.

True Wuv

What is love? Now, some of you are going to immediately think of the song "What is love?" made famous by the movie "A Night at the Roxbury" and the Saturday Night Live skit. Well actually no this essay is not about the great comedic movie staring Will Ferrell and Chris Katan, it is about us human beings ultimate quest for love and companionship. I started to write this essay sometime ago and I have not finished it, I would like to think of it as work in progress. I invite any one reading to post a comment or email me your thoughts.

Love can be a wonderful and probably the greatest emotionally taxing. With all its highs and lows Love take us on the most incredible rollercoaster ride that we humans know. It can be absolutely terrifying and completely exhilarating. Love can be the ultimate in happiness and then the ultimate in sadness. Love can make us better people and it can leads us to do terrible things that we say we do or did out of love. If love is all these things then why do we keep on falling in love even after we have fallen out of love?

Merriam-Webster defines love in the following way:

Love – Noun

1 a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties love for a child> (2): attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b: an assurance of love love> 2: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea> 3 a: the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration love> b (1): a beloved person: DARLING -- often used as a term of endearment (2) British -- used as an informal term of address 4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person's adoration of God 5 : a god or personification of love 6 : an amorous episode 7 : the sexual embrace 8 : a score of zero (as in tennis) 9 capitalized, Christian Science : GOD - at love : holding one's opponent scoreless in tennis - in love : inspired by affection

Love - Verb

1: to hold dear: CHERISH
2 a: to feel a lover's passion, devotion, or tenderness for b (1): CARESS (2): to fondle amorously (3): to copulate with
3: to like or desire actively: take pleasure in <loved to play the violin>
4: to thrive in loves sunlight

Love is both a noun and a verb. The words that mainly describe the meaning of love are; devotion, affection, devotion, attraction, unselfish loyalty, G-d, the act of sex, to desire and it is also the score of zero in tennis. Zero? Is love a Zero sum game?

Where does love come from?

Biblically love comes from G-d. G-d loved and loved man so much that G-d gave man the freewill to worship him and love and be devoted to him in return. That’s amazing! G-d loves us unconditionally but gave us the freewill to love him. Obviously G-d wants us to love him but it is our choice. G-d could have just been satisfied with the Angels who love G-d without any conditions their faith and devotion is unquestioned. But man’s love, devotion and faith are questioned and are constantly questioned. We question everything. How could G-d give us free will to decide our faith? He gave us the free will because G-d wants us to love him on our own accord, sure G-d has given us a blueprint to follow and commandments and mitzvoth as to how worship, devote ourselves and love in return but its up to us to take this blueprint a use it. Obviously, man does not always follow the ways that G-d has set out for us. G-d is like our parents they love us unconditionally, they give us our life, they gives us shelter, they give us education, they give us the lessons of life that are necessary for us to go forward into life and be good contributing people. But in the end it is up to us to do what we feel or see fit with all this love and lessons that G-d and our parents have given us. Even though, G-d and our parents have given us rules for life we can still throw them away and not follow. I would imagine that in someway it is to our benefit to follow these rules and return the love that has been given to us.

Getting back to G-d and his love for mankind. When G-d created Adam, Adam was alone and G-d saw this and it made him sad. G-d knew that Adam should not be alone even though Adam was in the Garden of Eden and could not want from anything. However, the animals, bushes, flowers and all the trees in the Garden could not possibly provide Adam with the comfort and companionship of another human and yes the love of another human. So G-d creates Eve from the flesh of Adam and then Man is no longer alone. What does the creation of Eve do for Adam? It gives him companionship and the ability to love someone else. This is a great and unselfish act by G-d. Now Adam can love someone or something other than G-d. Essentially, G-d gave himself competition? (I am not sure about this explanation myself then again it is my own.)

The questions I have are; is the love between Man and Woman an act of free will? Is Love predetermined? Destined? Fated for us? Why do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we love them? How did it happen? Does love choose us or do we choose love? The possibilities of love are mind-boggling. How do we/I know when I am in love? Like I wrote earlier, love is an emotionally taxing act that we search for, find, lose, regain and ultimately submit our minds, bodies and souls to.

Just the facts ma'am.

I wonder if the world we live has become so engulfed with the belief that we all need to know what the other person next door is doing. I believe that the gov't at times acts as if does and maybe for good reason. But in the context of what this society has become one of celebrity worship do we really need to know what Britney Spear's undercarriage looks like? I did not have to know and now I do because of my own curiosity (yes curiosity did kill the cat) and the fact that a friend emailed me an email with the link to see the pictures of her whoohaa. I probably could have lived the remainder of my life content without seeing Britney's Spear's crotch and the c-section scar. Now I do not be grudge a persons desire to go out and about sans underwear but what I do not condone is their blatant attempt to get media play and thus the medias shoving down our throats of this information. And yes again I did fall into the trap as well and I am none too happy about it. I wonder if all this interest in the cult of celebrity and their lives and going about town without underwear, adopting children from third world nations (which on some level is noble but not when all the camera bulbs are flashing) is some kind of conspiracy to dummy us all down? When we all wake up too late from our Brangelina, Paris, Madonna Kabalah, TomKat Scientology, Britney's crotch, Lindsey's boozing and the national nightmare of whether Jennifer Aniston will find true love hangover that we will have discovered the complete and utter take over of our way of lives, gov't and nation by those who wish to keep us stupid and unable to voice an opinion other than; "I preferred Cameron Diaz as blonde rather than as a brunette"?