More pics...

Today is picture days.....hope you like them.

Hello all....Not much to say today, so Pics time!

Little Dude looks pissed....huh.

I love the overexposed white on white look.

The Pearl....

Have you ever considered the pearl? An odd phenomenon, it is the product of an oyster or clam, a slimy little creature surrounding himself with a shell and living where, inevitably, he gets sand kicked in his face. He's not a particularly handsome creature in the same limits that we find birds, puppies and kittens, people, even frosty cold beer handsome. And, perhaps not even to other oysters. So perhaps he gets sand kicked in his face fairly often. Sooner or later, that sand that is kicked in his face, as it were, gets past that tough shell and becomes an irritant. What does the oyster do? He wraps that irritant in layers upon layers of himself, in effect isolating himself from the effects of that irritating sand.

What becomes of the irritant we call a pearl. It isn't the sand that is made beautiful, but the very substance of the oyster brought out by the maddening irritation of the sand that shows itself to be truly beautiful. The inner beauty of a creature many would describe as unattractive thrust forth in protection. Isn't it odd?

(We won't go into the manner in which an oyster is harvested. Nor will we wonder at the thoughts of a creature who sees us marvel at the beauty of something he found torturous.)

Sometimes, I guess, inner beauty is never expressed unless there is some form of extreme irritant that simply won't go away.

Some Pics

You have a choice...

I have been both the victim and the vicitimizer.....a horrible realization. To understand that I have been in the position to hurt someone else is so horrible to me now. There were times I was a bully just so I wouldn't be bullied. I was the one in hiding...hiding away from the sexual abuse I was receiving from an older neighborhood boy (he had been told on and nothing happened - what could I have done?). I was hiding from physical abuse and emotional abuse living right under the same roof. And from my hiding spot, I became just as bad and worse an abuser.....I am so sorry, so ashamed. An adult person makes choices in his or her life and has to live with those choices. Sometimes we don't even realize why we do what we do, but doing it is the adult's choice. I chose to hurt who I hurt due mostly to the hurt I had in me. Did that absolve me? Was it ok because I didn't set out to hurt someone? Hey, I was drunk? I was sad? I was lonely? I was mad? No! Just because I was hurting did not make me hurting someone else any more acceptable than saying because I have a dent in my car I'm going to crash your car. I live with the pain I have caused everyday when I look into the mirror. I can't get away from it.....Scottie tells me not to be so hard on myself, to love myself...but for years I was the person who was told he was worthless; would never be anything; why was I even born; so ugly; such a jerk; can't do anything right; I can't even stand the sight of you....I've had guns pointed at me and dry-fired, then called a wimp becasue I didn't like it. And yet, I still love these people; I still crave the acceptance and I still need the positive strokes from these people. And, I still hate the person that was so unworthy of that love, acceptance, respect........me. I wish I could go back in time and tell the people I bullied and hurt how sorry I was and make it all somehow go away. I can't....they are living with my abuse in some way the same as I am living with the abuse that was done to me. And, then there is the moral righteous.....whose "job" it is to punish and castigate at every opportunity. These 'holier-than-thou' folks with vengence in their hearts ... and they probably don't even know why. Facts are useless to them..... just as useless to my victims is the fact that I was a victim, so is the fact for such people who would abuse from a stance of righteousness that they are actually in the wrong. It doesn't matter....the hurt is there on both sides no matter the reason. The only difference: the hurt one side is feeling is a choice of the other.