Poem-untitled

I know you did what you did for her.
There was no other way.
You would of had to of hurt her if you chose me.
I’m sorry you had to choose.
I had to choose too.
It was hard.
I wish you had chose me too.
But I aint mad at ya’.
She has her mom.
Mine does not have his Dad.
Who’s to judge?
Sometimes we come to a cross in the road.
And there is a load we have to bear.
Sometime we have to lift that load alone.
I am trying to cope with no air.
I am trying not to care.
I care too much.
It hurts.
My pain resounds throughout my soul.
It screams and ring inside my ears.
But no one hears.
Just me.
My love for you was vast.
But you were not ready for my love.
Nope.
Not ready.
I wonder what God has in store for me.
What great love awaits me next.

Breakups

Breaking up is hard to do.
Letting go is harder.
There is a mandatory time for grieving.
You may grieve during the break up and grieve afterward.

Here is a collection of poems about Love and grieving.

I thought I finally received a break
Only to see the sun fall

My eyes will not see what they longed to see
My lips will not taste what they longed to taste

Why does life have to be like this
Full of hatred and pain
Instead of joy and bliss

by Gary R. Hess

I hate the way you treated me
I hate what you did to me

When you laughed at what I asked
When you weren't there when I passed

I loved you more than anything
I loved that you thought the same thing

You made me feel like I was in heaven
You now have me seeking a safe haven

by Gary R. Hess

"The greatest pain that comes from love is loving someone you can never have."
-Anonymous

"The stupidest mistake in life is thinking the one who hurt you the most, won't hurt you again."
Anonymous

A broken heart is a heart that has felt love.

It's like my mind knows what's right
but my heart is being retarded and still cares.

The only man worth your tears won't make you cry.

"God is closest to those with broken hearts." - Jewish Saying

"There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go." - Author Unknown

"Breaking up. It happens kind of suddenly. One minute, you’re holding hands walking down the street, and the next minute, you’re lying on the floor crying and all the good CDs are missing." - Kennedy Kasares

"The hottest love has the coldest end." - Socrates

I prithee send me back my heart,
Since I cannot have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?
~John Suckling

Maybe part of loving is learning to let go. ~From the television show The Wonder Years

If we must part forever,
Give me but one kind word to think upon,
And please myself with, while my heart's breaking.
~Thomas Otway

With what a deep devotedness of woe
I wept thy absence - o'er and o'er again
Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,
And memory, like a drop that, night and day,
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!
~Thomas Moore

I thought when love for you died, I should die.
It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on.
~Rupert Brooke

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal. ~Author Unknown

That was rough.... Thing to do now is try and forget it.... I guess I don't quite mean that. It's not a thing you can forget. Maybe not even a thing you want to forget.... Life's like that sometimes... Now and then for no good reason a man can figure out, life will just haul off and knock him flat, slam him agin' the ground so hard it seems like all his insides is busted. But it's not all like that. A lot of it's mighty fine, and you can't afford to waste the good part frettin' about the bad. That makes it all bad.... Sure, I know - sayin' it's one thing and feelin' it's another. But I'll tell you a trick that's sometimes a big help. When you start lookin' around for something good to take the place of the bad, as a general rule you can find it. ~From the movie Old Yeller

Love:
Two minds without a single thought.

This is my commandment,
that ye love one another.
~ Jesus, In John 15:12

Sometimes people care too much.
I think it's called love.
~ Winnie the Pooh

Love is a smoke made
with the fume of sighs.
Being purged,
a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes.
Being vexed,
a sea nourished with lovers' tears.
What is it else?
A madness most discreet,
a choking gall and a preserving sweet.
~ William Shakespeare

Twitter

A lot of my attention has been devoted to Twitter lately. Why? I don't know. I always liked chatting in chat rooms and meeting people online. Now with Twitter it is oh so much more intense. I get text message whenever people twit. Its fun, unless of course you are not interested in what people are saying then its just annoying.

Social media is the way to communicate now. I see that. Phone, e-mail is cute. Sending a letter is prehistoric. I even set up a Twitter site for my company. They don't know about it yet. I have to add it to the marketing plan. But right now there are only 2 followers, including me. So we'll see how it goes. It a new world. Those who adapt win. Those who don't die off.

The world is FLAT. I am competing on a world scale. What doors will open in the FLAT world? Will I find it easier to meet others with similar interests? So far, yes. I think the change will rapidly increase. It is scary yet exciting. So please excuse me if I don't blog too often. I am so very busy keeping up with the world.

The Law of Attraction-You get what you think about, whether wanted or unwanted.

So what lately I've been trying to get the Law of Attraction to work for me. Sometimes I get it while other times I fall short. I fall short when I lose my focus and start getting down in the dumps. You know, that self-defacating no good talk. It starts off slowly and next thing I know I'm getting bad luck.

So then I pause and change my thinking. I understand, that if I perceive I can achieve it. Perception is key. But even more amazing is the control I can have over my life due to the law of attraction. You really just do need Faith.

There is a funny thing about faith. On one hand faith is easy. Believe it will happen and it will. On the other hand, you doubt yourself and the world around you. Faith is not as easy as it sounds. Just how do you simply believe in what you cannot see?

What is scary is that even without faith, the law of attraction will continue to work. It is a universal law. What you put out there goes out, affects others and boomerangs back at you. Put out negative energy, you will get negative energy. Believe it or not! You get what you think about, whether wanted or unwanted. The Law of Attraction is neutral.

All forms of matter and energy are attracted to that which is of a like vibration.
You are a living magnet.
You get what you put your energy and focus on, whether wanted or unwanted.
Energy attracts like energy
Everything draws to itself that which is like itself.
"As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7

Basically the law of attraction is a universal and ancient law. It gets translated many ways such as:

Birds of a feather flock together
Like attracts like
Whatever you want wants you
What you sow, you reap
What you put out you get back
What comes around goes around

What is interesting is to deliberately use this law to create your future! What I like to do is experiment. I look to put out specific thoughts and positive vibes and then wait and see. I am also not trying to go after my bliss. You know just do what makes me happy and avoid all the other stuff. Trust me, this is not as easy as it sounds.

Here are the 3 steps to applying the Law of Attraction:

1. Get very clear on what you want
2. Visualize and raise your vibration about it. Focus. Give it all your positive energy!
3. Allow It. Yup just wait! You cannot see the future. You may not know how you will get what you want but you'll get it.Let the Universe figure out the method of delivery, when you will receive it, etc. Expect it like you already have it.

What Me Worry?

In the the words of "MAD" magazine, 'What me Worry'?

While I observe the housing market finish its slow, sharp decline, I am still in awe at how so many people could be so greedy. You know the tortoise and the hare, well I am the tortoise. And to all those hares out there-- a big sarcastic THANKS! This is the fall out. There are BIG winners and BIG losers and as always the casualties are people trying to gets theirs... Tens of thousands of people in the financial industry will be out of work. Non-US governments and businesses will grow at our expense.

I am not trying to be pessimistic. But until Sunday night, no Wall Street firm of Lehman's size and stature had suffered an all-out meltdown. I got an e-mail today that my Merrill Lynch 401K plan is now being bought by Bank of America. I don't even want to see my 1/4 earnings/losses. Over the weekend, the Govt bailed out AIG with 20 billion. Who wants to bail me out? I need money! LMAO. Everyone is affected by the housing market, renters and homeowners alike.

The housing bubble wasn't just some dirty sub-prime lender in a plaid suite taking advantage of poor people. This was hi-class, fast and furious, all or nothing and it occurred across the board. All players got their hands dirty and we all knew because the papers reported on it with articles like 'When is the bubble going to burst?' The boom was a lie. Duh. And ordinary citizens like myself couldn't do a damn thing about it. Because people so badly wanted to believe the lie, poor people who wanted the American dream, middle class who worked so hard and wanted to enter into the upper class with real estate investment and rich who just wanted to get richer. The mortgage pool just got bigger & bigger...

NOW-- Its over. While we everyday working class taxpayers are paying billions for war in the MiddleEast we also have to bail out banks that took advantage of people who just wanted a place to live.

Damn shame.

Paparazzi are a disease

I like a good story. I like to know what others are doing--some times. I don't like lies and I don't like people getting harrased. The paparazzi drive people crazy (ie Brittany Spears and Micheal Jackson). Even if you say that they had issues regardless, the harassment by the paparazzi just makes matters worse. I guess it gives them more to write about. The paparazzi need to be curtailed on grounds of harassment and by breaking the American right to the pursuit of happiness. Who can be happy with strangers following you everywhere you go, snapping pics of you without ur permission? Its oh so very ridiculous.

So why am I venting on this subject? Because I am supporting Kayne West and his attack on the paparazzi. LOL. Good for the paparazzi. Who is the real victim? Kanye. Cameras can be replaced. Your sanity can't. TMZ and all the others are scum.

See some videos on it here. Ironically, the paparazzi supply the video.
Kanye West at the Airport protecting his privacy


Kanye West bobyguard asking paparazzi not to take footage of Kanye, which surprising they do anyway!

Of course, I understand, Kanye did break someone else's property but how much can one person take! Lets look at the real illness here. His reaction is a symptom. The paparazzi are a disease.

Weeping Willow trees

The other day, in Fairview NJ I saw a Weeping Willow tree. I don't usually see them around where I live in North Jersey. But when I was a kid they were everywhere. My apt. bldg. was near the water and the land was basically a fixed-up swamp. And the willow trees had deep roots in that land. They swayed heavily on many windy days. I miss those Willow trees...

In The Willow Shade
-Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830-1894)

I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.

Who set their heart upon a hope
That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope
The sun's wan looking-glass.

Who set their will upon a whim
Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or miss their will.

All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.

A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.

A second like a sunlit spark
Flashed singing up his track;
But never overtook that foremost lark,
And songless fluttered back.

A hovering melody of birds
Haunted the air above;
They clearly sang contentment without words,
And youth and joy and love.

O silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Have you no purpose but to shadow me
Beside this rippled spring?

On this first fleeting day of Spring,
For Winter is gone by,
And every bird on every quivering wing
Floats in a sunny sky;

On this first Summer-like soft day,
While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
And birds sing everywhere.

Have you no purpose in the world
But thus to shadow me
With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,
O weeping willow tree?

With all your tremulous leaves outspread
Betwixt me and the sun,
While here I loiter on a mossy bed
With half my work undone;

My work undone, that should be done
At once with all my might;
For after the long day and lingering sun
Comes the unworking night.

This day is lapsing on its way,
Is lapsing out of sight;
And after all the chances of the day
Comes the resourceless night.

The weeping willow shook its head
And stretched its shadow long;
The west grew crimson, the sun smoldered red,
The birds forbore a song.

Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
The ripple made a moan,
The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;
And then I felt alone.

I rose to go, and felt the chill,
And shivered as I went;
Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,
What more that willow meant;

That silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Which spent one long day overshadowing me
Beside a spring in Spring.

Vanishing Republican Voter

I came across this most self-affirming article. It self affirms that I'm not crazy. When I graduated the in year 2000 I thought I stepped on the doorsteps of prosperity. I was first in my family to go to college. Sadly, what I faced was a downhill economic trend that made me really grateful I went to college but at the same time very disappointed. So this article, which has a most amusing title, is in fact a true analysis of a very real trend affecting me and most Americans: The Vanishing Republican Voter. Below is my own excerpt since the article is rather long and you may just want to get the gist.

The Vanishing Republican Voter
By DAVID FRUM
Published: September 5, 2008

Note: Sarcasm mine :)

"Since 2000, something has changed. Incomes at the middle have ceased to rise. (No really?) Between 2001 and 2008, the amount that employers paid for labor rose impressively, at least 25 percent. Yet almost all of that money was absorbed by the costs of health insurance, which doubled over the Bush years. (Tell me about it.) In the 1990s, thanks to the advent of H.M.O.’s, health-care costs rose more slowly, so more of the money paid by employers could flow to employees. Out of their flat-lining incomes, middle-class Americans have had to pay more for food, fuel, tuition and out-of-pocket health-care costs. (Damn shame!) In the past few months, they have suffered sharp tumbles in the value of their most important asset, their homes. (There's no place like home...) Their mood has turned bleak. Almost 70 percent disapprove of the policies of George W. Bush.

At intervals over the past two decades, Gallup has asked Americans whether the United States is a society divided into “haves” and “have-nots.” Back in 1988, more than 70 percent of Americans rejected this description. (LOL) This year, the country split evenly: 49-49. When asked, “Are you better off than you were five years ago?” only 41 percent of middle-class Americans say yes, the worst result since pollsters started asking the question half a century ago.

If health-insurance costs had risen 50 percent rather than 100 percent over the Bush years, middle-income voters would have enjoyed a pay raise instead of enduring wage stagnation. But it remains unfortunately true that the Republican Party as a whole regards health care as “not our issue” — and certainly less exciting than another round of tax reductions.

Republican economic management since 2001 has not yielded many benefits for middle-income America. Adjusting for inflation, the incomes of college graduates actually dropped by 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. (Im still paying back that school loan too... Argh...)

Leaving aside the District of Columbia, 7 of America’s 10 best-educated states are strongly “blue” in national politics, and the others (Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia) have been trending blue. Of the 10 least-educated, only one (Nevada) is not reliably Republican. (Hmmmmm.....)

A big part of today's economics is also immigration. Immigration is good for America as a whole only because — and only to the extent that — it is bad for the poorest Americans. Conversely, low-skilled immigration enriches upper America, lowering the price of personal services like landscaping and restaurant meals. And by holding down wages, immigration makes the business investments of upper America more profitable.
Middle-class Americans surely share in the cost-lowering benefits of immigration. But the middle class also pays the higher local tax bills that can result from immigration. Immigrants do not qualify for many federal benefits, but they do use the roads, schools, hospitals and prisons supported by state and local property taxes — the taxes that fall most disproportionately on the middle class. (Yes, the article is referring to Latinos...)

The trend to inequality is real, it is large and it is transforming American society and the American electoral map. Yet the conservative response to this trend verges somewhere between the obsolete and the irrelevant. And so we arrive at a weird situation in which the party that identifies itself with markets, with business and with technology cannot win the votes of those who have prospered most from markets, from business and from technology."

Fashion Week NYC 2008

So one of my interests is fashion. At 14, I was accepted into FIT h.s. but I chose LaGuardia.... Good choice? Maybe. But as result I kind of hung that dream of being a fashion designer. I still want to learn how to sew and then hey, u never know. For now, I'll suffice with being a fashion observer and consumer. This week I am watching Fashion WEEK NYC and picking my favorites. I really love Duckie Brown and Glemaud for the guys. For me, MissSixty those socks for HOTT, Diane Von Furstenberg oh so feminine, Tracy Reese with wonderfully colorful taste and Isaac Mizrahi who I always loved. The old standbys did not really catch my attention but I'd buy they stuff, DKNY, Carolina Herrera and Jason Wu. GAP and Diesel were just B-O-R-I-N-G. I did not like the rest... They were just too weird or too off-beat. Creativity is important. An emotion that characterizes the clothes brand is more important. And if I would actually be caught dead wearing the stuff is essential. What's ur pick? See Fashion Week.

One day I'll get a house

I thought I would of bought a house in my 20's but I am glad I didn't. Sometimes in life you have to be practical even when it means putting your dreams on hold. In my 20s, the market was grave and the loans were graver. I am happy that soon things will turn around. I am optimistic that perhaps in a few years I will buy my first house. And I will not pay too much for it! I will not pay for more than what I can afford or for more than what the house is really worth. I remember homeowners in 2006 bragging that their house costs 300,000 when they bought it for 150,000 five years prior. And I knew that was not reality that things would have to change; like living in the Matrix. Because eventually, the number of people who could afford over inflated prices would dissipate and the Me's of the world would be waiting for our chance to be a homeowner.

Good times a comin'?
More info: Fannie, Freddie and You: What It Means to the Public

Blog it

I am testing out a new blogging tool...

Poetry & Stuff

I love poetry and art.... Let me share one I like. I find it, oh, so, romantic:

SONNET 61
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.

Get the translation here: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/61detail.html

Quote of the Day

Health care companies are making huge profits at taxpayer's expense.
12 billion a month spent on a war to protect "our way of life" yet, gas prices "rising as much as $1.40 per gallon on average since last year". Hello? I think Senator Charles Schumer said it best here:
Bush Presses Congress on Economy - New York Times: "“While the president is standing idly by, proposing irrelevant solutions to a national and international crisis,” he added, “Shell and BP announced record profits for the first quarter in 2008. Whose side is the president on?”"

Genetic Variants and Your Health

I think its safe to say that when getting medical treatment for serious conditions or when undergoing surgery, check that the medical professional has had success treating other people of the same gender and race. Why? Different races, I believe, have biological differences that can mean the difference between life and death. Due to years of racism, much of modern medical science in the U.S. is centered on the health of white people. My mom, for instance, underwent a common histerectomy that went terribly wrong. Her kidneys were damaged in the procedure. She was sent home with poison (urine)leaking in her body and almost died. The white male doctor confessed to my father that she, a Puerto Rican women, of some mixed black, white and indian decent was shaped differently inside. Having a different shape is not surprising to me since when I was pregnant, I was told by a black woman doctor that my uterus was that of a black woman and that different races are shaped differently. Interesting. After several surgies to repair the kidneys, my mom dropped the law suit and she moved out of the area. She didn't want to deal with the stress anymore. Now several years later, I read in Nature Medicine Journal, A GRK5 polymorphism that inhibits -adrenergic receptor signaling is protective in heart failure, . Blacks have a genetic variant in their heart which decreases mortality with heart failure. That's not to say that salty, fatty food won't clog the arteries and inflate blood pressure. But it does say that there is medical evidence that different races cannot be treated with the same measure, medically. See the news report on the finding in the NY Times: Genes Explain Race Disparity in Response to a Heart Drug - New York Times Genes Explain Race Disparity in Response to a Heart Drug - New York Times

Famine & Drought: The Rice Shortage

Why are people around the world rioting? What happens when there is an inbalance in wealth and prosperity? Today there is famine & drought and its been six years in the making. And though what's happening with the draught may be inevitable, (Famines and droughts have happened all through time.) is our reaction inevitable, too? In a flat world can we humans pull together and help each other out? or do we just watch it televised and reported like an afternoon drama? It is proven thoughout human history, that great disparities between rich and poor cause violence, political upheavel and great depressesions. There is anger and repercussions like waves in the ocean eroding the sand. “Why are these riots happening?” asked Arif Husain, senior food security analyst at the World Food Program, which has issued urgent appeals for donations. “The human instinct is to survive, and people are going to do no matter what to survive. And if you’re hungry you get angry quicker.-4/08/08 NY Times, Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger, by KEITH BRADSHER”