Notes - pleasantly surprised / only a fool / belief

         Later morning. You had a regular breakfast today. You are better but lacking normal. Arthritic conditions are high because of the cool very damp weather. – Amorella

         1019 hours. I’m okay, Amorella. Let’s let it go. I need to go do my exercises.

         At least Carol found a wreath for the door yesterday. – Amorella

         1022 hours. I asked friends on Facebook to help with finding what she wanted and got lots of good advice. Anyway, after the third day of shopping for one she picked up a very pleasant looking and smelling pine wreath with a few decorative touches. We had been searching with one with led lights and battery operated but most had been sold out. We ended up with one with no lights. I thanked those who gave advice though; it was kind to make suggestions. Facebook has its good aspects. I never thought to ask for help on shopping before and was pleasantly surprised.

         Post. - Amorella

         You had Zoup for lunch, new place; you had seafood chowder and Carol had wedding and you each had half a cheese sandwich. Presently you are at Kroger’s on Mason-Montgomery Road this cool and rainy afternoon. Kroger now has WiFi – check your email, orndorff. – Amorella

         1404 hours. There is a strong signal but too slow to be useful. I wonder if some human passion is a lot like that. I never thought of passion in terms of ‘speed’ – usually it is depth.

         Metaphysics is not speed oriented, boy, not in here at any rate. – Amorella

         1407 hours. “At any rate” has a pun like quality in context – maybe I am thinking rate of speed, not rate of depth.

         In other words, you are mistaken on your ‘pun-like in context’ use. – Amorella

         1410 hours. Yes. You can be straight to the point and usually are.

         Passion can be pointed too. – Amorella

         1414 hours. Is passion the only thing that can drive the Dead, at least in here?

         Human stories of returning or imprisoned ghosts give credence to such events. – Amorella

         You are home in the quiet as Carol is reading; it is as a snowbound Winter afternoon to you at the moment – very cozy and comforting. – Amorella

         1451 hours. I like the atmosphere. I don’t know where Spooky is but Jadah is snuggled in her carrying box, down by the heater vent and between the Christmas tree and the front windows. I hear the ‘Spookster’ in the kitchen. She is much more of a talker than Jadah. It doesn’t feel like there are any ghosts around here, at least at the moment.

         Only your and Carol’s own presences orndorff; everyone has a presence in these books. – Amorella

            ** **

presence – noun

3 a woman of great presence: aura, charisma, (strength/force of) personality; poise, self-assurance, self-confidence.

4 she felt a presence in the castle: ghost, spirit, specter, phantom, apparition, supernatural being; informal spook; literary shade.

• a person or thing that exists or is present in a place but is not seen: the monks became aware of a strange presence.

            and

ghost – noun

an apparition of a dead person that is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image: the building is haunted by the ghost of a monk | figurative : the ghosts of past deeds.

ORIGIN Old English gāst (in the sense ‘spirit, soul’), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch geest and German Geist. The gh- spelling occurs first in Caxton, probably influenced by Flemish gheest .

Selected and edited from a mix of English/American Dictionary software.

            ** **

         1505 hours. It appears to me that you are suggestion (in context) that everyone has an “aura”. This sounds – well, I’ll check the definition first.

         Go ahead, boy, check it. – Amorella

         ** **

aura – noun

the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place: the ceremony retains an aura of mystery.

• a supposed emanation surrounding the body of a living creature, viewed by mystics, spiritualists, and some practitioners of complementary medicine as the essence of the individual, and allegedly discernible by people with special sensibilities.

an aura of sophistication: atmosphere, ambience, air, quality, character, mood, feeling, feel, flavor, tone, tenor; emanation; informal vibe.

Selected and edited from a mix of English/American Dictionary software.

            ** **

         1512 hours. I conclude human beings in these books have ‘an ambience of spiritual personality’.

         This is a fair assumption. What else would you call it? – Amorella

         1514 hours. I don’t know but it is not measurable.

         But you have experienced the ‘feeling’ of this quality several times in your life, mostly from your fingertips; examples: holding FDR’s cane at Springs, Georgia, touching a Stonehenge monolith, sleeping in  --, touching the tombstones of Emerson and Dickenson, touching specific photographs of the Dead from Dachau, touching the ‘ancient living tree’ behind Christ’s College, Oxford that inspired Lewis Carol and J.R.R. Tolkien; touching several sacred objects in Westminster Abbey, the Coronation chair being one, the stone that encases the bones of Chaucer another. Touching several objects at the British Museum, the Smithsonian, the New York Museum of Natural History, Canterbury Cathedral, the Washington Cathedral and Uffizi Gallery Museum in Florence. Visiting Churchill’s Bunker Museum in London, holding a piece of clay from the land at the Battle of Agincourt. Walking the grounds of Machu Picchu as well as those at Tiwanaku, Bolivia. Touching the Cuneiform at Rome. Those places and personal experiences of memory exist, no imagination needed. Presences were felt. Do you deny this? – Amorella

         1755 hours. No. However, I think exaggerations of imaginations flared, mostly from my fingertips. Ghosts, I don’t believe so, but spirits and/or presences, not unlike my own, that is, human spirits or presences of spirits other than my own. I would like to deny this outright but that would not be right. However, the senses may not be accurate. This recent out of body experience caused by inner ear problems is an example. The cause was physical yet it was as a metaphysical experience; though I realized it was a manifestation. To touch the stone image of Ozymandias at the British Museum provided me with a sacred moment. Perhaps that is what all of these events were, sacred moments impressed into the fingertips. Perhaps they were nothing but the echoes or slight reverberations from my own spirit. (1806)

         This is a realized, fair enough comment, on what you consider ‘presence’ to be. – Post when convenient. – Amorella

         2036 hours. We watched four hours of television shows – “CSI”, “Elementary”, “Madam Secretary” and “NCIS” as well as NBC News. They were all entertaining though we saw a crime scene location in the woods on the recent “NCIS” that we had seen a couple years ago on “CSI”.  Also, I’ve been thinking about the word “Aura” and need some clarification.

** **

Aura (paranormal)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Human Aura in a healthy woman after a diagram by Walter John Kilner (1847-1920). The picture depicts Kilner's "inner and outer auras." Colours have been added for illustrative purposes and have no other significance.

In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or object. The depiction of such an aura often connotes a person of particular power or holiness. It is said that all living things (including humans) and all objects manifest such an aura. Often it is held to be perceptible, whether spontaneously or with practice: such perception is at times linked with the third eye of Indian spirituality. Various writers associate various personality traits with the colors of different layers of the aura. It has also been described as a map of the thoughts and feelings surrounding a person.

Skeptics such as Robert Todd Carroll contend that people may perceive auras because of effects within the brain: synesthesia, epilepsy, migraines or the influence of psychedelic drugs such as LSD. Other causes may include disorders within the visual system provoking optical effects. Eye fatigue can also produce an aura, sometimes referred to as eye burn.

Spiritual traditions

In Iran the aura is known as farr or "glory": it is depicted in association with Zoroastrian kings.

Ideas of the aura are well represented in Indian religions. The Buddhist flag represents the colours seen around the enlightened Buddha. In Jainism the concept of Lesya relates colours to mental and emotional dispositions. To the Indian teacher Meher Baba the aura is of seven colours, associated with the subtle body and its store of mental and emotional impressions. Spiritual practice gradually transforms this aura into a spiritual halo. Hindu and Buddhist sources often link these colours to Kundalina energy and chakras.

In the classical western mysticism of neoplatonism and Kabbalah the aura is associated with the lustre of the astral body, a subtle body identified with the planetary heavens, which were in turn associated with various mental faculties in an elaborate system of correspondences with colours, shapes, sounds, perfumes etc.

According to the literature of Theosophy, Anthroposophy and Archeosophy also, each colour of the aura has a meaning, indicating a precise emotional state. A complete description of the aura and its colours was provided by Charles Leadbeater, a theosophist of the 19th century. The works of Leadbeater were later developed by Palamidessi and others.

The British occultist W.E.Butler connected auras with clairvoyance and etheric, mental and emotional emanations. He classified the aura into two main types: etheric and spiritual. Auras are thought to serve as a visual measure of the state of the health of the physical body. Robert Bruce classifies auras into three types: etheric, main, and spiritual. According to Bruce auras are not actual light but a translation of other unknown sensory readings that is added to our visual processing. They are not seen in complete darkness and cannot be seen unless some portion of the person or object emitting the aura can also be seen. The British Healer, clairvoyant and author Paul Lambillion in his book "Auras and Colours" writes of three visible bodies or layers in the auric field that can be observed whether or not in the physical presence of the individual subject since the aura is not a three dimensional phenomenon and limited to such parameters. (see also Sunday Times May 2011 and Transformations Channel 4 TV 1990)

Glenn Morris, grandmaster of the Hoshin Roshi Ryu lineage, included perception of the aura in his training of advanced martial artists. His experience was that it consisted of multiple layers. He described the most easily visible of these as being "light and denser than the air in which the body is immersed", typically half to quarter of an inch thick and correlating with the etheric body of an individual. Around this he described a yard thick egg-shaped layer reflecting hormonal state that he linked to the emotional body, and outside this, other barely perceptible layers corresponding to the mental body and beyond. Recalling the aura of another  soke, he wrote, "The first time I saw Hatsumi, he was running continuous bright, lime, neon green a foot wide and was so easy to see he would flash in bright sunlight".

For holistic healers, aura reading is the art of investigating the human energy field, or the energy fields of other sentient beings. It is a basis for using techniques of holistic healing, and includes such practices as bioenergetics, energy medicine, energy spirituality and energy psychology.

Tests

Tests of psychic abilities to observe alleged aura emanations have repeatedly met with failure.

One test involved placing people in a dark room and asking the psychic to state how many auras she could observe. Only chance results were obtained.

Recognition of auras has occasionally been tested on television. One test involved an aura reader standing on one side of a room with an opaque partition separating her from a number of slots, which might contain either actual people or mannequins. The aura reader failed to identify the slots containing people, incorrectly stating that all contained people.

In another televised test another aura reader was placed before a partition where five people were standing. He claimed that he could see their auras from behind the partition. As each person moved out, the reader was asked to identify where that person was standing behind the slot. He identified only 2 out of 5 correctly.

Explanation

Bridgette Perez in a review for the Skeptical Inquirer has written "perceptual distortions, illusions, and hallucinations might promote belief in auras... Psychological factors, including absorption, fantasy proneness, vividness of visual imagery, and after-images, might also be responsible for the phenomena of the aura." Another explanation for the belief in auras, given that there is no scientific evidence for their reality, could be cases of synesthesia. However, a 2012 study discovered no link concluding "the discrepancies found suggest that both phenomena are phenomenologically and behaviourally dissimilar." Clinical neurologist Steven Novella has written "Given the weight of the evidence it seems that the connection between auras and synaesthesia is speculative and based on superficial similarities that are likely coincidental.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia – Aura (Paranormal)

** **

         2110 hours. I tend to agree with the critics and skeptics. The simplest explanation is that my brain functioning accounts for this. However, the sense of the experience appears real enough, i.e. it is a personal reality and not entirely different from a sense within a vivid dream. These experiences have added to my sense of reality. If someone were able to scientifically prove a human aura exists, I would smile to myself and quietly think, ‘I knew that.’ However, I cannot imagine anyone proving the aura exists any more than anyone can scientifically prove ghosts or spirits exist. To each their own. – rho

         You find it disconcerting that I, the Amorella, can exist within or a within a separate part of yourself and that I have directed much of your writing of the Merlyn books you have posted your legal name to. A part of you understands that from one perspective, that is the works, the books and the blog, show evidence of my existence. – Amorella

         2139 hours. Yes. This is disconcerting. I cannot explain myself rationally, but then, I don’t think any human being can explain (know) her or himself rationally. Only a fool would think this possible.

         Post. - Amorella

         You decided, on a lark, to retake the Belief-O-Matic quiz at Belief-O-Matic DOT Com. You did your study of the questions and are somewhat consistent with all earlier results. Unitarian Universalist has been in your top three or four since first taking the quiz around 2001. Until now Reformed Judaism and Liberal Quaker have been the consistent other two, usually Reformed Judaism has been 100 percent, this time it is Unitarian Universalist with Taoism being two at 78 percent; Neo-Paganism being three at 74 percent; New Age being four at 73 percent; Secular Humanism, four at 70 percent; Liberal Quaker, five, at 69 percent; Sikhism, six at 66 percent and Reformed Judaism, seven at 64 percent. – What do you think of this, orndorff? – Amorella

         2220 hours. I am surprised. Here is what Belief-O-Matic says about the Unitarian Universalist:

** **

What is Unitarian Universalist?

Central tenets of this faith, based on questions in the Belief-O-Matic quiz:

Belief in Deity
  Very diverse beliefs--Unitarian/Universalists welcome all deity beliefs as well as non-theistic beliefs. Some congregations are formed for those who share a common belief, e.g. Christianity.

Incarnations 
 Very diverse beliefs, including belief in no incarnations, or that all are the embodiment of God. Some believe Christ's is God's Son, or not Son but "Wayshower."

After Death
  Diverse beliefs, but most believe that heaven and hell are not places but are symbolic. Some believe heaven and hell are states of consciousness either in life or continuing after death; some believe in reincarnation; some believe that afterlife is nonexistent or not known or not important, as actions in life are all that matter.

Salvation
  Some believe in salvation through faith in God and Jesus Christ, along with doing good works and doing no harm to others. Many believe all will be saved, as God is good and forgiving. Some believe in reincarnation and the necessity to eliminate personal greed or to learn all of life’s lessons before achieving enlightenment or salvation. For some, the concepts of salvation or enlightenment are irrelevant or disbelieved.

Undeserving Suffering  
Diverse beliefs. Most Unitarians do not believe that Satan causes suffering. Some believe suffering is part of God’s plan, will, or design, even if we don’t immediately understand it. Some don’t believe in any spiritual reasons for suffering, and most take a humanistic approach to helping those in need.

Contemporary Issues
  The Unitarian Universalist Association’s stance is to protect the personal right to choose abortion. Other contemporary views include working for equality for homosexuals, gender equality, a secular approach to divorce and remarriage, working to end poverty, promoting peace and nonviolence, and environmental protection.

From Belief O Matic DOT Com

** **

         2229 hours. After reading the above I find nothing objectionable to me. I would probably be socially and spiritually comfortable in such an organization if I went to a church, which I do not. I am by most personal accounts an existential transcendentalist at present with the existentialist as the adjective. – rho

         In context here, this is how you accept yourself spiritually. I am still here, boy and am not about to go away. Your friend, Amorella. Post. 

Notes - more honest /

        You were struck with the stomach flu at about ten last evening and vomited about every hour and a half until five in the morning. You have been physically out of sorts most of the day since. However, you have had no more vomiting. - Amorella

         2158 hours. I had toast for lunch and cereal for supper and plenty to drink. This is a rare illness for me. I cannot remember the last time I was so struck. Basically I threw up all I had eaten yesterday. I did 40 minutes of exercises yesterday as well as walked for a half hour. I was feeling fine until about ten in the evening. I am better. Tomorrow should be better still. I have not been hungry all day nor now either.

         Time for bed boy. You need your sleep. Post. – Amorella

         2202 hours. I don’t like to mention my health but to keep honest I must admit to it.

         Your health need be a matter of personal record here, at least in general. You are who and what you are boy. Nothing wrong with admitting such.

         2205 hours. I should listen to Carol more readily when it comes to daily health matters. She told me how to better recover, eating toast and the like. I was surprised but actually it tasted good and lessened the upset in the later morning today.

         You mean you were happy Carol was around and paying attention. – Amorella

         2208 hours. You are correct, though that sounds so childish. 

         You are now more honest. - Amorella

Notes - coincidence / two six pack discs

         0953 hours. A tip of the ‘old’ black beret and a very happy birthday to my original Muse, Kym, a former student of mine back in the early eighties. “Happy Birthday, Kym.”

         Kym did inspire you and still does with her wonderfully innocent question, “What is love, Mr. Orndorff?” while she sat across you in the teacher shared office where she was your general aide during her otherwise assigned studyhall time. In those days you usually had students write an in class essay once a week. With over a hundred and twenty students that was a lot of grading. She (and other aides before and after) made sure those essays were in each student’s essay folder. You were required to have a writing sample from each student once a week. You thought of it dark humored as a kind of body count for higher administration who liked to spout the numbers and the authenticity of the magic student folder. Your side of the office (the other side was ‘owned’ by Miss B) was lined half way up the walls with tomb stone rubbings from a famous old Salem, Mass. cemetery – more humor from being buried alive with grading papers. You still have those rubbings hanging in your basement. – Amorella

         1012 hours. I left Indian Hill with the Class of 1984 twelve years after I began in 1972 after returning to the States from teaching British literature and chairing the Department of English at Escola Graduada de Sao Paulo while Carol taught third grade at the same private U.S. accredited school (which it still is) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 1984 our daughter, Kim, was beginning first grade at Mason Local Schools and a job opportunity had opened at Mason High. After I signed a new contract with Mason I resigned from IH the last day before my contract would have been automatically renewed.

         Less money but also less driving plus the real benefit was that while Carol was still teaching at Sycamore Community Schools one of us would be on daughter Kim’s school schedule. I always got home before the elementary students and thus had more quality time with daughter and less of her time was spent at a local day care because Carol as an elementary teacher went to school an hour or so later than I did and I got home from school an hour to an hour and a half earlier than she did. The added joy was having her in the same high school (which she loved) and having her in my AP English class her senior year (her wish). Kim and now Paul and the boys are and have been a great part of our quality life. Who would have traded all that for more money?

         You began speaking of Kym and her birthday and ended up focusing on Kim your daughter – the shared name is a coincidence. Post. - Amorella

         Mid-evening. You have been out and about looking for a wreath Carol would like and found none. You did find two six disks of Blu Ray disks with the six Star Wars films. It was cheaper than buying a collector’s edition so you bought it. The next purchase will be the four Indiana Jones films in Blu Ray, after that you have no idea. When you came in Carol was talking to one of her sisters on the phone; she still is. Earlier you read a great Amazon review of the Blu Ray Star Wars Collection, quite detail from a fan who can also be objective. The review enticed you to once again consider the purchase. – Amorella

         2002 hours. Shoot, if I live long enough they will have the entire nine film series out in Blu Ray 3-D or whatever they use at that time. Hope the boys like both ‘old timers’ films when they are old enough. Growing up I liked the classical films of the thirties and forties, so did my parents and other like adults. We still like those early classics. My friend Bob did also; and he wrote some poems about those actors and actresses. I think one is in the books, or will be. I’m done for the night. 

         Post, orndorff. - Amorella

Notes - pronouncement / a lack of grammar

         Later, mid-morning. You woke during the night and, as you could not return to sleep you headed downstairs, cleaned out the litter box, then played around with the smart TV until you got the hang of Netflix (further compliments from Kim and Paul). You watched part of one of the newer Star Trek films, “Into the Darkness,” tweaking the simulated 3D and other aspects, and discovered a whole new world of media watching. You also watched a good production of the PBS BBC show on Madeline, the code name for the woman spy, the last in Paris during WWII, then back to bed to sleep. – Amorella

** **

Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan . . . (2 January 1914 – 13 September 1944) was an Allied SOE agent during the Second World War who was posthumously awarded the George Cross, the highest civilian decoration in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth nations.

Also known as "Nora Baker", "Madeleine", and "Jeanne-Marie Rennier," she was of Indian and American origin. As an SOE agent during the Second World War, she became the first female radio operator to be sent from Britain into occupied France to aid the French Resistance.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

** **

         1018 hours. I first read of Nora as Madeleine in Stephenson’s A Man Called Intrepid back in the 1970’s. I strongly urged my British lit students to read the work. A few actually did. Overall, students were more eager readers in those days. Such are the sacrifices war entails. Sometimes a wave of the Dead from a Winter of wars flows heavily atop my lowly mind-like island and when it flows beyond I feel a refreshing sign of Spring. Such as now.

         Awkwardly expressed, boy, but understandable in context. Indeed, I am aware of the perception as wave-like though from my part it is more as a breeze in that the discernment has, like myself, no weight attached. – Amorella

         1034 hours. What an odd pronouncement Amorella.

         No odder than your own first impression, boy. Post. - Amorella

         I discovered this on BBC this morning.

** **

2 December 2014 Last updated at 08:02 ET

Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind

By Rory Cellan-Jones  Technology correspondent

Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.

He told the BBC: "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."

His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI.

But others are less gloomy about AI's prospects.

The theoretical physicist, who has the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is using a new system developed by Intel to speak.

Machine learning experts from the British company Swiftkey were also involved in its creation. Their technology, already employed as a smartphone keyboard app, learns how the professor thinks and suggests the words he might want to use next.

Prof Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans.

"It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said.

"Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."

But others are less pessimistic.

"I believe we will remain in charge of the technology for a decently long time and the potential of it to solve many of the world problems will be realised," said Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot.

Cleverbot's software learns from its past conversations, and has gained high scores in the Turing test, fooling a high proportion of people into believing they are talking to a human.

Rise of the robots

Mr Carpenter says we are a long way from having the computing power or developing the algorithms needed to achieve full artificial intelligence, but believes it will come in the next few decades.

"We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can't know if we'll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it," he says.

But he is betting that AI is going to be a positive force.

Prof Hawking is not alone in fearing for the future.

In the short term, there are concerns that clever machines capable of undertaking tasks done by humans until now will swiftly destroy millions of jobs.

In the longer term, the technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned that AI is "our biggest existential threat".

Robotic voice

In his BBC interview, Prof Hawking also talks of the benefits and dangers of the internet.

He quotes the director of GCHQ's warning about the net becoming the command centre for terrorists: "More must be done by the internet companies to counter the threat, but the difficulty is to do this without sacrificing freedom and privacy."

He has, however, been an enthusiastic early adopter of all kinds of communication technologies and is looking forward to being able to write much faster with his new system.

But one aspect of his own tech - his computer generated voice - has not changed in the latest update.

Prof Hawking concedes that it's slightly robotic, but insists he didn't want a more natural voice.

"It has become my trademark, and I wouldn't change it for a more natural voice with a British accent," he said.

"I'm told that children who need a computer voice, want one like mine."

Selected and edited from BBC News.

** **

         My first response to this article is a counter thought from my old ‘friend in the mind’ Isaac Asimov.

** **

The Three Laws of Robotics (often shortened to The Three Laws or Three Laws, also known as Shelnutt's Laws) are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov. The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story “Runaround”, although they had been foreshadowed in a few earlier stories.

The Three Laws are:

1              A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2              A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3         A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The original laws have been altered and elaborated on by Asimov and other authors. Asimov himself made slight modifications to the first three in various books and short stories to further develop how robots would interact with humans and each other. In later fiction where robots had taken responsibility for government of whole planets and human civilizations, Asimov also added a fourth, or zeroth law, to precede the others:

0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

** **

         Later. You are presently at Target off Fields Ertel after running a series of errands. One more stop – Best Buy, the complete Blu Ray Star Wars editions for eighty-four dollars.

         Alas, you waited about fifteen minutes while the clerks looked for one of two DVD packs and found neither. So, you will wait until they restock or that you can find a similar price close by at either a Target or Walmart. Carol wanted to drive in to Potbelly’s for lunch and now you are waiting in the Macy’s south side lot at Kenwood. – Amorella

         1538 hours. We had a late lunch. I don’t know why I am so concerned getting the Blu Ray DVD Star Wars Collection. I’m the only one who will probably watch it.

         You have been contemplating ‘The Force’ Star Wars style and have come to the further conclusion that ‘a human state of Being’ is not a matter of force of any kind. ‘Being’ on/in various levels is a conditional not a person, place or thing. It is not even a verb. – Amorella

         2200 hours. We watched several TV shows tonight. I am ready for bed. It is something nearing to be: an existentially transcendental conditional – a limited state of being physically encapsulated in bio-chemical consciousness, an irritation and wonder in being aware.

         You realize you are being far too wordy and as such you may be missing the simplest point of grammar within a series of seeming consequence  . . .. – Amorella

         2232 hours. Why must the spider always exist before the web?

         Post. - Amorella

         2249 hours. Amorella, I lack the grammar to spin a yarn that is not of my own making.

Notes - birthdays / live openly

         The year according to Earthlings is moving on to a closing in this first month of Winter. You have a couple of birthdays you enjoy remembering, the first is Kym’s, your first Muse’s birthday and the second is your first real friend who was a girl, Sandy’s. Your late father, Richard Bookman Orndorff, also has a birthday coming up this December. – Amorella

         1027 hours. This seems awkwardly phrased, putting Kym and Sandy’s names before my father’s.

         Being that you are alive, as are Kym and Sandy, I placed them first. Is that the problem? – Amorella

         1032 hours. In such context, no, it is not.

         Post. - Amorella

         Dusk. You took no vertigo medicine today and drove (for the first time in a couple of weeks) to Panera for lunch, then Walmart for an errand and on to Tri County where you bought two flannel shirts and a new Fall jacket for Winter use (the first in more than a decade). The salesman was Mickey M. one of your former students at Indian Hill. Last night, his sister, Sarah friended you on FB; a coincidence by any other name, from your perspective. – Amorella

         1753 hours. It was pleasant to drive once again. I had no light-headedness or dizziness in the car. It was fine.

         Almost time for supper, later old man. – Amorella

         1840 hours. Supper will be later. Carol wanted to put up Kim and Paul’s old Christmas tree. It is four to five foot tall with about at three-foot diameter bottom branch range. The small white working lights are built in. My suggestion was to put it in the living room (where it is). I found a usable piano stool with no sitting pad in the basement and a square piece of butcher block we had in our kitchen in the Majken Place bi-level where we lived in Mason from 1975 to 1992. It makes for a very sturdy stand. I put rubber buttons under the legs to better distribute the weight on the carpet. I think it is a fine little tree and Carol is putting up unique ornaments from all over the world where she visited and/or lived. Many were inherited from her parents, a few from her grandparents. I don’t think we have any from my family. Actually I have never thought about it before. Cathy and Gretchen took whatever they wanted when Mom gave stuff away. I asked for nothing but some photographs and an old bookcase and a few of Mom’s books, which I received. Cathy has the old dining room set we had in Minerva Park when we were growing up and she has some things from Grandma Schick’s house. One is a sturdy old rocker that Uncle Clayton used to sit on when he visited Grandma. Good memories, which I get to witness when we visit Cathy and Tod’s house. Carol is pretty much done with her initial display. She always does a good job of tree decoration. She enjoys the seasonal displays. I accept the many and enjoy a special few very much. Spooky our Halloween cat is sitting in the nearby chair watching the lights from within her black coat and through her quite yellow eyes and expanded black pupils. Jadah is nowhere to be seen and is probably sleeping in the warm corner of a chair. (1909)

         You each had snack suppers – a ham cheese rollup for you and nonfat cottage cheese and a fruit cup for Carol. You watched the national news, then a “NCIS”, “NCIS.LA” and a “Modern Family” before turning off the set. You have been thinking on how the Star Wars Force is not like what I, the Amorella, am to you.

         2232 hours. The Force is an instrument of power for the Jedi and the Sith, the light and the dark of the Force. My personal sense of you, Amorella who I long ago once felt you were perhaps an Angel of G---D did not and as you presently, do not, give me a sense of power. Just the opposite – I do not feel the necessity of power. I have no wish for power. I want nothing, really. I am next to nothing, a nothing with a hint, a long possibility, of a capital N in my mind and heart. The Knights of the Force command and use the Force. I cannot even command my own honest heart and mind and soul to come forth without you Amorella. You go no further than my fingertips on the keyboard. You are not like the Force in Star Wars. I have come to that conclusion by myself. – rho (2244)

         You want to tell the fictional story of who you are in the deepest sense of yourself to a pretend Angel if you cannot tell it to a real one, and I am here to keep you honest. Your heartfelt need to leave this planet an honest man is a humble one because it is not possible because you cannot know who you are any more than any other human can know who she or he is. This is a lesson you already know and understand, but sometimes you just have to see the handwriting on the wall, so to speak, and live openly with it. – Post. - Amorella