A few months ago, something happened to me...a quickening, an awareness of life, the light pushed the shadows from my heart. Feelings numbed by life and injury are now in full bloom again. My intuition and sensitivity are at the top of my skin. I cry at old movies. My laughter is genuine. I care again. I profess love with no expectation of anything in return. I am writing fledgling fiction. I am experimenting with concrete abstract poetry. My income is doubling from unexpected sources. She's backkkk...

My joy has been touched by the greatest sorrow. My life turned on a dime. My daughter almost died. Those memories may take a long time to fade. Watching my baby leave in an ambulance was the worst horror and fear I believe I will ever face. For awhile the numbness returned. But then again, life is about both joy and pain. When I am honest I am grateful. My child lived. Second chances are cause for celebration.

My belief in God that I have celebrated since I was salvaged in my early 20's has again become an awakening. Like a Hesse novel all things were connected. Today I am in love. There is magic. Inspiration and faith grow despite the obstacles of life. Undeserving, I am still willing to take the blessings. I am working hard to convert my fear to faith.



I am uncertain what part the stream has played in my transformation. I no longer try to figure it out. Pup wrote a very loving blog for my grandson Hunter. It is not the first time. Oddly enough he is obsessed with her blog. Now how can a three year old have a sense of love from a computer screen? I cried when I read Rita B's blog today. Her heart is broken by the death and suffering of children far away but connected to her soul. There are many on the Stream who let their humanity come alive here. I suspect they are loving people wherever they go.

So that brings me back to love. Why and how can I love strangers? Is this passion I have about me or about the nature of soul connections. Everyone has a different definition of love.

Tom Peters a business author may have my definition...."Love is passion, engagement, awe for life, great causes and the determination to make a difference. Shared adventures. Bizarre failures. Growth. Insatiable appetite for change."

I am in love with life today. And all of you are a part of my life. My stream runneth over.

Words without images
Images without words

Digital conversions
Soul Conversations

Understanding without effort
Effort without understanding

Clothed
Naked




Images and words

Effort and understanding

staggered conversations

Transparent

Thanks z.....Colo

Good news Lucy is doing better. She may just be tired of running and hiding all over the Stream, but she seems to have regained her sanity....Perhaps, like me she still has a slight blogging problem.....If so, at least she is happy and addicts are not happy camper....So I said the serenity prayer about Lucy and decided she is pretty easy to accept exactly like she is....because I do Love Lucy

So put up the tazers and the handcuffs..Thanks so much for all your help and special skills...I was really getting tired of her Groucho disguise anyway

But if we see signs again that she may need intervention we will be there to make her life miserable at a moments notice

Colo...

The creator of the Blogstream...Is this man guilty of a crime?

Lucy and Chanda in happier times

Lucy's recent arrest for compulsive blogging Note the new alias...zsa zsa

This blog is a public service announcement. And a call to arms to help one of our own. Intervention is an ugly word but I have encountered a scary situation. Our friend and fellow blogger Lucy of "Trying Not To Come Undone" finally admitted she needs help.

Today on Whit's blog "Whit's Whittlin's our own dear Lucy cried out " NEED BLOG INTERVENTION HERE !!!" Seeing her pain and honesty, I felt compelled to call upon my fellow bloggers to ask them how to deal with this terrible addiction. This evening she was on my blog once again begging for help "Sign me up.........I need HELP!!!!"



If you look back on dear Lucy's blog all the signs are there....

She has gone from low tech to hi tech. Lucy has installed a toilet in her home office...Blogging has become her "drug of choice". She calls the Amish blog a "marathon". She is getting other bloggers involved in her epic posts. When Lucy met Chanda, Chanda was a quiet divinity student. Now Chanda has become almost as driven as Lucy. Lucy rides through blogland spreading irreverence and looking for the next mountain to climb.

In effect our dear friend really has come undone. On her blog the music is loud. There are veiled threats that she wants our pictures "or else" Just a sentimental woman who is doing a photograph album...I think not.


We may never know what is really going on in the mind of this wonderful woman so ....but we do know she is sinking...Please help me pull her to shore...


Lucy was a suburban housewife and mother and she is now driven by blogging demons much too evil for her to handle alone. It may have given us a hint when she stopped leaving her computer and insisted that CH serve her pitchers of beer she calls "holy water' It is all she drank for weeks....Anyone that saw the sad sight of her blog crashed the other night must have suspected how far our sweet Lucy has gone. When the server crashed at the Stream a month ago....Lucy had been blogging...Coincidence...I think not.

Are her blogs worthy of recognition and awards?...YES

Is she possessed.... PROBABLY

In this case an intervention may be the only way to save her from herself. I will need help. Like a jaywalker headed for a busy street I say "hold on to her arms and I will grab her feet".

Please let me know if there are any exorcists, hypnotists, recovered bloggers, chemical engineers, counselors, shamans, witch doctors, or just concerned "netizens" that will step forward to help me try and save the soul and sanity of Lucy the afflicted.



Please give me some idea what forms of treatment may work in her extreme case. Perhaps rehab programs, detoxification. leech therapy, cold turkey, exorcism, drug therapy, 12 step programs....We are willing to consider anything..

These two gentlemen posing as Drs were caught trying to "treat"' Lucy with alternative therapy....

Naturally. this may be too much for the sensitive or the weak hearted to take..Your prayers are still appreciated.....but I will ask you sometime tonight while your neighbors sleep unaware go to your car and "Honk If You Love Lucy" It could be the honk heard around the world...



LUCY UPDATE
As of 1:07 Eastern Standard time Lucy has been confined (for her own safety). She is curently being evaluated by Scratch's friends the "Men in BlacK'....Tonight we are hopeful that that "Son of a Shaman" Captain Morgan will be able to install his invention (described below) in Lucy's home office....As the horns honk throughout the continental US.....We are doing our best to help Lucy "help herself'


LUCY FLIES THRU THE AIR.Thank you Captain Morgan!!!!

"As the son of a son of a shaman I have considerable influence with the great spirits and will be meeting with them later this evening to devise a plan."
Lucy's Evil Spirit has been identified and isolated by Proud to be an American.....My friend TS told us weeks ago..that "Lucy has changed from a dynamic woman to a blogmaniac"...



This song is for you Lucy..."accompanied by car horns"

Picture yourself on a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
and she's gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, ah

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
that grow so incredibly high

Newspaper taxies appear on the shores
Waiting to take you away
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds
and you're gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds, ah

Picture yourself in a train in a station
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Overnight Lucy will be subjected to Disney movies which will play as she sleeps....Hopefully, it will work


Tomorrow we will still be hoping for a miracle...I for one will not truly rest until Lucy is back home with her family and outta my garage...

DAY 2 THE LUCY INTERVENTION


As the sun rose over the Texas sky this morning the loud crashes stopped in the garage.....I was certain that Lucy's evil spirit had left her body. The phone rang, and it was Ice in a rather foul mood....It seems Puppy went to jail last night for "Disturbing the Peace" who knew that honking was a crime in some neighborhoods....Lets hope Shiloh is free today.


One has to wonder if Whit is a sage or some sort of harbringer of evil?....Lucy seemed to be under control until she read Whit's blog about BAD...the newest addiction diagnosis and perhaps an evil sysdrome created by Mr Whit himself....Could it be this seemingly kind, gentle person has unleashed an evil spirit onto the Stream? Please think for yourself and help us track down this ever growing danger...Is Whit involved in this?


For legal liability issues, and because we need to put the car back in the garage, I want to summarize the treatment Lucy has received and acknowledge the help of her friends on the stream......

Prisoner and whispered were the first bloggers to acknowledge Lucy's problem needed attention based on the criteria of Whit's blog

TS (Proud) had been demanding she not be allowed to suffer....

We had two men pretending to be Dr's (we'll call them Brad and George)....It seems that Kristin has disappeared with them when I turned my back...Kristin send Brad and George back...I need to question them...

Scratch and Mr Onery were invaluable in the initial capture of "dear Lucy". With handcuffs, mirrors and restraints they were able with the help of 3 large friends to pull Lucy away from the computer and start this process.

Captain Morgan's catapault chair was a hit with Lucy's neighbors. She landed in their yard rushed into their house and continued to blog. Chey "put the moves on Lucy"....we were certain that if nothing else worked this would. When she landed in the floor Lucy jumped to her feet (camera in hand) and began to take pictures of Chey...."For my blog...for my blog....It's anonymous....for my blog..." the poor woman cried as she ran to the door. As you all know Lucy briefly escaped.

As expected, we found Lucy at Chanda's seeking help from her co-conspirator....Then the unexpected...Chanda in an effort to free Lucy from the grips of her evil spirit chased Lucy through the stream with a very nasty looking axe...Lucy was laughing and jumping up and down as she cried...."Blog on....blog on..."

Does Chanda look Innocent to you? Perhaps not...

At this point, we lost track of Lucy briefly and there was unusual activity on her blog....

Somehow, a guy with a Cuban accent dropped Lucy on my doorstep....She was put in the garage for Disney therapy... I have since reviewed the video and my worst fear is that Lucy disguised as Cuban Husband may have delivered him to the front door.

We did an impromptu sceance as a crowd gathered in my front yard...Needless to say the drug therapy or the "laying on of hands" were both dismal failures. The Disney therapy did not work either....I got very little sleep last night because of the mad honking of horns.

This morning Lucy was gone!!!!!!!!!!....If you see Lucy or hear someone screaming..."Blog on!!" Do not approach her. She may have Chanda's axe and she was last seen trying to break into the library to get computer access. Be afraid ...be very afraid

Welcome to the Stream Cuban Husband...unless you are Lucy in one of her many attempts to keep blogging....Lucy if that's you, release your husband now!....

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN?

Of course blogging like shopping, working, watching TV, reading, volunteerism, journaling, solitary games, talking on the phone, cleaning, and even going to AA meetings can be a type of addiction.....Lots of things can be done compulsively.

Speaking as someone, who has dealt with a different kind of addiction, the ones who kill people, I have to say that I do NOT find blogging similar to drug addiction, alcoholism, or cigarette smoking.

I used to work with a guy that was addicted to pornography and he stayed late at the office to use his computer to access pornography web sites. Others on his team were workaholics and had trouble leaving the office to go home. After the project was over the workaholics got their bonus. Their circumstances changed their behaviors and they went home to their families. I fired the porn addict for unauthorized use of the computer. My guess is 7 years later the porn addict is still doing the same thing somewhere else.

I do not think there is any redemption in true addiction. Except maybe the recovery from it. I still remember 1988 and the first batch of 16lb lap tops. Every one I knew that got one spent several months playing with them....Or 1995 when we all got home computers and "new toy" fever struck the country...

I believe that the addict /alcoholic that was in a downward spiral in 1995 may be dead by now and the geek that was playing with the "new toy" may be blogging....

Blogging includes the opportunity for entertainment, social interaction (perhaps in the extreme good and bad form), reading, personal growth, writng, and learning to write, spiritual and religious study and reaching out, helping people, personal growth, even hurting people, and trolling the internet for different kinds of predators. Can it be compulsive?...Yes.....Can it be harmful?....Yes.....

Is it a true addiction. I don't think so. After all I was addicted to pinball in the 70's. But one of the symptoms of addiction is denial of it, so the below words from a mental health site are not mine but sum up my thinking.......



"What kind of a world view is compatible with addiction? Almost any philosophy that does not include and will not permit happiness, healthy and balanced behavior, sustaining relationships, rigorous honesty with and about oneself, and some kind of spiritual connection(even though it may not be called that). Addiction thrives best in an atmosphere of unhappiness, resentment, alienation and estrangement, secrecy, mistrust and in most cases, ultimate despair of meaning. And it cannot continue for long in the opposite atmosphere, i.e. one of happiness, emotional well-being, healthy relationships and genuine honesty. Serious addiction, therefore, necessarily points in the direction of an unhappy and dissatisfied world view, and away from the opposite, happier and healthier perspective. A happy addict is a contradiction in terms."

There are too many UPSIDES to blogging to put it in the category of most addictions. But that is only my own experience. I have always felt that when someone reaches out and no one is there a danger and a sadness start to grow.........When a soul does not enjoy the UPSIDES, then it could be a problem. Just like the lonely person that sits for hours reading without a break and never hears the voices of others. But then I find blogging to be very similar to my early recovery meetings from alcoholism and less like my compulsive drinking.

WHERE ELSE COULD WE BLOG ABOUT BEING ADDICTED TO BLOGGING!!!!!