Email, Coincidence, Weirdness, and Cornelius Fudge

1. Dreamed about an Aussie email-pal.  My American friend Jen sends me an email that includes a dream she had; and so does my email-pal Sophie.  I want to tell Tim about their dreams. They support some kind of theory or idea I had shared with Tim.  I decide to forward Sophie's email to him but edit the non-dream bits out; and then add Jen's dream to it.  When I start writing the email, I make a mistake and the send-to box has Sophie's email address on it it.  I tell myself I'll change it as soon as I get the email fixed up. I name the email  something like My Friend's Dreams.  I'm working on the email, and accidentally press send.  I'm horrified.  Now Sophie's going to get this forwarded email that has her own dream on it.  What if she thinks I'm the type of person who forward's other people's private emails left and right?   I consider breaking my rule of no-lying, and telling her I was planning to forward the email to myself. I could say I wanted the dreams on file or something like that.  But I hate lying and don't want to do that.

I'm pretty sure the dream came from the fact that someone had posted someone else's email on their blog yesterday.  I had wondered if the author of the email knew that their email was out there for the world to see.  I'm guessing....yes.

I think the dream reveals some of my morals.  I'm okay with keeping secrets (which is a sort of form of lying, I suppose). I'm not okay with actually PROVIDING information that is wrong or answering someone's question with a lie.  I don't include little white lies that are told to protect someone's feelings. If someone, asks am I ugly?  I'm not going to say Yes.

2. Woke up to find scary and depressing news on my iGoogle page.

3. Wrote Australian-related dream plus other dreams down in my Livejournal dream diary.  There was one dream where Tim looked like Daniel Radcliff, and he was his twin.  I was delighted by the fact that my husband looks like Harry Potter. Then there was another dream in which we were staying in NYC. Our apartment/hotel had a grocery store on the top floor.

After I wrote down the dreams, I followed my tradition of reading old dreams.  Lately, I'm reading dreams from September 2005.  One of the dreams I read today was about a  guy who looks like Harry Potter; and there was a dream about an apartment building in NYC that had stores in it.  

I thought that was an INTERESTING coincidence.  

4. Received a message on my blog's Facebook page.  My friend told me I wasn't weird.  I'm not sure if she was referring to something I said in my post, or she was referring to the blog title.

She's a very nice friend, so I'm guessing she was trying to reassure me.  But I don't use weird as an insult...usually.  To me, it's a more positive thing.  It's just a way of saying something is different, interesting, unusual, outside-the-norm. 

I wonder if most people see it differently than me.   I remember another Australian seeming bothered by the term.  I wonder if it's more offensive in Australia?   This same Australian used the term "creepy" in reference to Jack.  I had told a story on the blog about some of Jack's younger spiritual/psychic type moments.  She responded by saying something like I hope I don't ever give birth to a creepy child.   I was very offended by that, but maybe "creepy" is less of an insult in Australia?  Then again, if I put it in context, it sounds like she was being insulting. It's not like she said. Cool. I hope I someday give birth to a creepy child.  

Back to the "weird" thing.   It's not like the term is always seen as a compliment in America.  I think here there are people who think weird is bad. But I think these are the people who believe it's best to be very normal—fit in with the crowd.  They don't like people who are different; nor do they want to be seen as different themselves.  But I don't think it's the same with these two Australians I'm talking about.  Neither of them are conformists.

 5. Decided that there are benefits to living in a boring inland city such as Fort Worth. For the first time in my life, I'm kind of liking the fact that I'm living far away from the ocean. I don't have to worry about hurricanes and Tsunamis.  I have always wanted to live on the coast.  That might be one dream I decide to give up.

Okay. That's not really true.  I'd still love to live by the sea but maybe in a perfect Utopian world that doesn't kill people with giant waves.

6. Struggled to figure out how to respond to this question on the Harry Potter role-playing game.    Are you really stupid or are you just pretending?

I was kind of under the impression that we ALL were pretending.  Or maybe they're pretending to think that I might not be pretending. It all gets so confusing. 

Maybe I AM the only one pretending.  That would be fun and spooky. Everyone else is really in Harry Potter land, and I think it's just a role-playing game.  You know, that would probably be a good plot for a young adult novel.   

Oh, and by the way.  The "stupid" character is not the one I wrote about the other day. This is a different one.  Is it Kosher to play multiple characters in role-playing?   I'm not sure.  It's all kind of new to me. MAYBE it is okay, and all the other characters are played by one single person.  Maybe I think I'm playing with many other role-playing people, and it's really just me and one other person.

There are so many spooky possibilities.  

7. Read article about Australians missing in Japan.  There's 900 of them.  That's very sad. And it's very sad that there are thousands of dead and missing Japanese people.  I'm sure countries all over the world are experiencing personal tragedies because of what has happened in Japan. 

I honestly don't even know what to pray for. It all seems so hopeless. I haven't prayed. All I've done is wished that it hadn't happened in the first place.

8.  Disturbed to read that an unwelcomed person has returned to Australia.  Well, Kevin Rudd told him he wasn't welcomed back.   I'm sure many people agree with Rudd. His name is Sheik Feiz Mohammed; and his heart is not full of love for Jews and Christians.  He also promotes the idea of killing oneself for their religion.  Lovely.

You know who this guy is likely to hurt the most?   Muslims.  They're struggling enough with their reputation.  Well, hopefully they'll do what they can to show that most Muslims are VERY different from this Sheik Feiz guy.  And hopefully the non-Muslim community will remember not to believe that this Sheik Feiz guy speaks for the whole Muslim community. 
 
9. Decided Sheik Feiz Mohammed reminds me of Russell Edgington on True Blood.   The other (nice) vampires are working so hard to spread the message we're not bad people!   Like us!  Then Russell Edgington tries to mess it all up with his little spectacle on television.  

10. Watched this very compelling scene from a film called Feeling Sexy.  It shows a conversation between a stay-at-home mother and the husband who goes to work all day. The woman is lonely and feels very dissatisfied. She has to deal with a crying baby, and has no time to do her creative work.    While she lingers in a depressive state, her husband cheerfully chats about work.  Finally, she speaks up and shares her feelings.   Does he offer empathy or a shoulder to cry on?  Nope.  He responds with advice.  Do something creative with the kids.   Do something together. I translate that to, be a better mother, because you're not doing a very good job as it is.  Be a better mother, and you'll be happier.   

When that attitude from the husband doesn't cheer the woman up, he plays the competition game.   Don't complain about your life.  My life is worse. He has to work fourteen hour days at the hospital.   Okay, but he didn't seem that sad a minute ago.  He seemed very happy with his job.

I thought the scene was very well-written.  I think it's very representative of real life conversations.  
 
11. Read about various walks you can walk in Adelaide, and looked at Adelaide on Google Maps.   

12. Learned that Rundle Street might be a good place to go shopping in Adelaide.   I don't know if it has my type of stores, though.   Lord Wiki says it's known for cafes and fashion.  I like food, but I don't care so much about fashion.

This website says that Rundle Street has a Sunday market. That might be fun.  

13. DISGUSTED by the news that P.J Crowley has resigned from his job after making criticisms against the way Bradley Manning has been treated. I want to say so many bad words right now, but I know certain readers of my blog don't like that, so I'm trying to restrain myself.   

It's so funny (not in a good way) that I'm reading all this Harry Potter role-playing stuff about the evilness and stupidity of the Ministry of Magic.  It's SO much like the American government.

Obama is really reminding me of Cornelius Fudge right now. For those who haven't read Harry Potter...Fudge was not a bad man.   Well, at least he wasn't purposely evil.  He was just very gullible and incompetent. He believed what he wanted to believe, and that caused much harm.

In response to Manning's treatment, Obama said I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.  They assured me that they are.   That is SO Cornelius Fudge.  He trusted a neatly-groomed woman who'd torture students by making them use their own blood for coping work. If there were complaints about her behavior, I'm sure Fudge would have responded in the same way Obama did.

Why can't we have a president that's like Dumbeldore?  That would be AWESOME.

14. Learned from this page that Kangaroo Island was the first place in South Australia to be settled.  I didn't know that.   That's settled as in white people settlement.  Black people were probably there way before.

The page also talks about how Adelaide is a very planned city.  A guy named William Light did the planning.

15. Consulted Lord Wiki about William Light.  He was British.  That's not too surprising. He's the one who planned the city of Adelaide; and he's the one who chose it to be South Australia's capital.

Oh!   Here's something interesting.  Although Light was British, he wasn't born in the UK.  He was born in Malaysia.  He joined the navy when he was thirteen.

Light sounds like a smart guy.  He wanted Adelaide to have a lot of parkland.  He knew that European cities often became polluted, and he wanted to avoid that.  He decided to have a lot of green in his city.

16. Very thankful to the Tiny Ball of Light Facebook Page.  Although they're a fun Harry Potter page, and not a news or a political source, they took time out of their fun to express compassion for Japan.   I'm a fan of an excessive amount of Facebook pages.  Out of all the popular culture/celebrity pages, this is the only one I've seen mention Japan.   

Yes, I'm happy that you're going to have a concert soon.

Yes, I'm happy that you're having a flower and garden show.

Yes, I'm happy that you're having fun little giveaways. 

But can you stop for a minute and just show that you give a crap?

17. Learned from this page that Adelaide is the driest of all the Australian capital cities. Interesting.

There's not much rain in the summer.  

18. Saw on my Statcounter that someone from California came to my blog searching for Instead of birthday cake.  One minute later, someone from New Zealand came looking for the exact same thing.  Could it be the same person; and it's an IP address issue? If it's not, that's kind of cool.  Maybe the California person and the New Zealand person are soulmates.  

19. Decided that I really don't like 2011 so far.  I much preferred 2009 and 2010.  I need a hug.

I think we all need a hug.

20. Realized I lied on Facebook. I said my thoughts and prayers are with Japan.  I was trying to be nice.  And my THOUGHTS are with Japan.  My prayers are a bit frozen.  Really. What do we pray for? 

I guess I'll pray that they'll recover someday.  It seems so difficult, though.

I'll pray that it doesn't happen again somewhere else.

I guess we can pray for the subsequent disasters to stop in Japan, so they can work on recovering and rebuilding.

Somewhere there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  But right now it seems horribly far away.

21. While putting clean sheets on the bed (miracles of miracles), I realized that I probably often say stuff like I'll pray for you, and I don't end up literally praying.  It's not like I'm trying to lie or be fake.  I think it's just my way of saying I care, and I hope things end up being okay for you guys. 

I DO pray sometimes.  And I believe in the power of prayer....to a point.  I'm not one of those who believe that if you get enough prayers, you'll get what you want.  I don't think it's a popularity contest.  I don't think there's some kind of prayer meter, with gods sitting around saying,  Well, she didn't get to to the purple level so we're not going to let her girlfriend come out of that coma. She should have had 5000 people praying for her girlfriend rather than a measly 97. 

I think prayer might do some good.  I have a little bit of faith.  And when I remember to actually stop and pray, it makes ME feel better.  It makes me feel a little less powerless...whether I'm being delusional, or not.