Month: September 2014

Been Around Schizophrenia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxktavpRdzU

I laugh at the numbers in which you were given about Schizophrenia. My brother has paranoid schizophrenia and takes meds and drinks along with. 3 of my classmates in high school have schizophrenia – 1 is in prison for murder, 1 committed suicide, 1 is under house arrest for life and not allowed to leave Everett, WA cause he’s a level 3 rapist and takes a heavy cocktail of meds (this one I also dated for a month in high school before I discovered the truth, I nearly was raped by him, too). An ex boyfriend from high school, his step sister, one of the twins, has schizophrenia and lives on the streets. In the apartment building in which I lived with my husband, there were 3 schizophrenics – 1 now lives on the streets his name is David, 1 might be dead now, but was in a mental hospital after she was removed from the apartment due to how she lived in a hoard of filth, and 1 just left everything she owned and left, don’t know what happened to her.

Oh, my now ex-husband, has residual schizophrenia all his life and has never taken meds. His family never told me until after the divorce what his condition was. I found out on my own the hard way and left before he did more physical damage to me. Another neighbor next to the apartment building brought a woman in to help her, she had schizophrenia and committed suicide three years later. I know of 20 other schizophrenics I’ve seen, interacted with cautiously cause all of them didn’t take medication. Half of them were physically dangerous. All these people I’ve come to know, including my brother, all live in Everett, Washington. Everett used to have a mental institution, but was shut down in the 80s. Now, most of these people walk the streets with no meds cause they can’t afford it even with Obamacare. They don’t even know they are that mentally ill to get help.

Now, there’s the story of a family in Tacoma, WA back in 2008, I think it was. The father went to work. His 10 year old son went to school. The wife and her two younger children stayed home. The husband’s grandmother had lived with them for nearly five years under medication and living in the attic just fine. She was coherent and normal, took her meds every day….Until one day, she stopped taking them. Within three days time her mind reverted back to it’s original schizophrenic state but snapped. The father came home, the son came home. What they found shook the state of Washington to it’s core. The mother and the two children were found dead in the kitchen. The grandmother had committed suicide.

Now, tell me again that schizophrenia is not dangerous? That the numbers are a 1% of the population? 1 in 4 people now know someone or has someone in their family with some form of schizophrenia. It used to be 1 in 9 people 15 years ago. The numbers have exploded due to people’s awareness of symptoms and meds being given only if someone can afford them.

My brother can barely afford his meds to keep down ‘the demons’ in his head. The insurance companies cut him back at least four times a year cause THEY THINK he’s overly dependent when they don’t understand how much he needs them that badly to function. When he doesn’t have his meds, it only takes 3 days for his mental disorder to go wild. I won’t go into any further details as this hurts me to know that you and your production group think that it’s only 1% of the population. Well, news flash buddy, I’ve lived through all that 1% which is getting bigger. I’ve seen it all my life. I know things I shouldn’t, but it has kept me alive.

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Mini Essays on Many Subjects

You know, I’ve been really busy going through as many videos of Philosophy Tube channel as I can. I think I should post all my ‘mini essays’ into one lump sum for you, cause now, my mind feels like it’s about to explode.

Death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNgZ2Tb2tkM
I’ve come to realize this over the years of my life….you may quote me if you’d like – “There is no death. Only the flesh fades away. Energy transforms into other energy that is cycled through all of existence. From life there is death and from death there is life.”…..I know I may have mixed up a few other famous philosphiers quotes subconsciously as my own, but the gits of it is – there is no death.

Camus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixPJnbJL9PY
I came to realize that notion of what Camus said nearly eight months ago way before I ever heard or him or his views on life. I came to that realization of my own existence and have accepted the pointlessness of it all and yet am now free to make my life my own with purpose which then makes me happy. I’m glad I realized such a ‘reality’ because I was tempted to end my life again for a third time. Every time I realize such a break through, soul of me has breathed new life into me and I can then move forward. I’m glad I’m not the only one who had such awakens, even if to me I’m many years later on that fact. It’s a good thing.

Slut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA8O4ptxVxc
I have over the years lost a video in which someone described the full; real definition of the word: slut. The YouTube channel was called Hot For Words. In this video the Russian woman explains why the word ‘slut’ in today’s context is actually wrong in how it is used. I’ve loved this eye opening discovery ever since and express my new (now many years old) knowledge to every one I come across online or in real life…..Slut means – an untidy woman wearing ragged clothing, on hands and knees scrubbing the floor with brush and bucket of water. (think Cinderella in the Disney animated film where she’s doing just that ‘being a slut’) A untidy, disrepectful woman who has no respect or honor in how she acts toward herself and others in what she wears and how she acts (non-sexually)….I’m not telling people out that they are wrong in the context, but to change up their view points in how they use words. How they can learn about them to better their own self well being of education.

Environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvz_5Jqe2_M
Seeing the world as I grew older, I watched my peers do bad things, act in negative ways toward each other in a heard mentality. My mother smoked cigarettes from age 21-65 and has had emphazima for the rest of her life. I watched her cough up ‘lung cookies’ and have difficulty breathing for many years. I learned from her mistakes and never picked up smoking. I learned from my brother’s mistakes of drug use and drinking to excess and I never did drugs or drink to excess. I learned from my father’s mistakes in not taking care of mom to get her help when she needed it and from his mistakes on not stopping the abuse she put toward me. I then learned right away to not be abusive towards others. I also learned from my peers. I learned from the bad teachers in my schools, which then later I continue my education freely. I learned from observing my surroundings. I calculated what works for me to make my life simpler and better that would later help others as they came into my life. A chain reaction of good actions….Now, with 7billion humans on this planet, still making a basic impact on it’s environment negatively due to culture processes of learned actions (monkey see, monkey do), it will take maybe two generations to realize what our elders had caused is something we don’t need to repeat in the sake of tradition. However, there’s a bigger issue which humanity has no control over what so ever….Human kind is so argent of itself that it has the audacity to think that it has any impact at all. This blue/green ball in which we are spinning around on in a galaxy is a biosphere of life. The Planet is a living, breathing, moving and feeling being. Well, in which connects to its whims and actions to better or worsen life, has consequences of its own actions through destruction into creation. No matter what we do in supposedly messing up this spherical home planet we have, Earth and the forces of nature itself, will in time shake us off like fleas. When nature does this, there is NOTHING we can do about it and to think we can is what can cause us to experience the worst consequence of all existence – poor actions towards each other cause our demise.

Kant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3xGDTn-Fcw
sips fresh cup of creamy coffee and bites into English muffin with Nutella spread Every few videos of subjects I enjoy from your channel, I take five to ten minute break to absorb what I learned or reinforced what I’ve already learned. All together, I have been sitting here since 10am EST letting my mind swim in all you have expressed. Now, my mind feels like it’s about to explode cause reinforcing what I’ve already learned in the course of 30 years, I’m nearly, I guess, at capacity until something else comes up…..The Aborigines believe that all humanity from it’s most basic forms up to now, came from ‘the dream time’. Dream time, I have come to realize after 20 years of mulling this through, is humanity was created from thought of another higher being, but not created by a religious or metaphorical being. Each individual is the observer to which our own ‘higher self’ is dreaming of ‘the self’. Each person plays out a role to the greater scheme of plans to reach a final conclusion of existence. Each person is the center of Universe playing out it’s own consciousness in trying to understand why Universe was placed into existence. A physical being with mind consciousness, within a conscious internal self, within the subconscious, within a dreaming, within another reality beyond the thinking physical actor/actress who is the dreamer onto itself playing their part. (A continuous loop of fractal reality, Universe, within a Universe) Each person is created by their own Higher Self seeing how that individual (You and myself with our own view points of our conscious existence) that Soul can learn from Universe in how to make all consciousness to it’s full potential collectively as ‘Dream Time’ keeps moving the ‘Sleeper’ onward.

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I’m on a roll this afternoon. I’m not sure if it’s the coffee or my mind that has made me acutely aware of my surrounds and Soul of me, but I am enjoying the ride.

Where Muses Live

Okay, bare with me here folks…I’m having an attack of oddity this morning…I got into NKOTB back in Oct. 10, 1989 seeing them in a teen magazine at Fry’s Grocery store in Phoenix, Arizona. Saw Joe’s photo and I was hooked. Now for 20 years I thought I was late to the New Kids fandom. I had very few friends while growing up and the few fans I did find were quiet, reserved, overly shy and didn’t talk much. I was teased for like the band. I was even bullied physically when I thought I could trust someone to get me the Step By Step album (which I found it was a bootleg and the three girls beat me up afterward). I ran home crying and screaming in fear to get away.

Nearly a year before, in the Autumn of 1988, my family and I left New Orleans, Louisiana for Phoenix, Arizona. In mid October, a month after being in Arizona, I come to find that New Kids were filming the You Got It (The Right Stuff) music video at Lafayette Cemetery. When the video played on MTV I screamed a loud realizing the exact path in which they took was where I was nearly a month before.

In 1991, New Kids did a mall tour to promote the cartoon series by ABC. I was there on a basic shopping trip with my parents to Dillard’s at Paradise Valley mall at 1:50pm in the early Autumn. I had not heard of or saw the advertisement for it until I walked into the store seeing the poster display right at the door. I squealed a loud and noticed the time. I was too late. The show had just ended nearly 20mins before I arrived. However, as I passed the ad, something caught my eye to the right in the woman’s clothing department.

Three oddly dressed men nearly thirty feet away from the main aisle were in between round racks of clothing staring at me. I took a step, looked to my right again and saw what I figured years later was Joe, whispering to Donnie at his right. I turned my head back toward them a second later and they were gone. Their terrible excuse for disguises did not work. From right to left: Donnie, Joe and Jordan are my guesses still to this day.

Then there’s the terrible news about the last tour cause of Jon’s anxiety. That damn People mag article I didn’t not believe for a second. It was rushed and fake. I knew something was up. The sad part to this for me was, my mother had bought tickets for the show in Phoenix in April or May 1994, but within two days after receiving the tickets I heard on the news the concert and tour was canceled. I cried my eyes out for two hours straight.

After all that in which I missed, came close to (swing and a miss, ya know), I dropped everything to do with the band up until 2001, but then again, I never left that love for the band in a soulful way. So, today I find the music video You Got It (The Right Stuff) was filmed on November 14, 1989. This made me realize I was never late to the New Kids Blockhead party after all. I was nearly right on time or a bit fashionably late with seconds to spare.

Now, from all that I remember in every detail possible as though it were yesterday, I’ve come to realize something even deeper. Psychologically I’ve clutched onto something that kept me alive. I had worked so hard, in a quiet manner, to experience the band in person, that unbeknownced to me, I had prepared my mind for a greater adventure into the psyche in which I write novels. The dates in which I mentioned above are all connected to time periods of my novels and character(s) interactions. There is no shame at all in realizing where and how my muses stepped into my mind or how they orchestrated the inner workings of my writings. Every single author has their muses in which they gravitate to regularly. For myself, however, I am one of those peculiar people who remembers exact locations, dates, times, and other details and then mixes it all up like a well cured stew and serves it to the world. It may take years to cure, but it will be well worth the hard work.

Coming to realize all of this, I feel liberated. I feel at peace mentally and spiritually. Comfortable in the fact that my muses, will never leave me as long as I love myself and realize where they came from, when they stepped into my heart and made a home there.

Now, back to writing book 2 “Soul’s Little Lie: Broken Roses”.

Soul Consciousness

Soul observes the surrounds of life through a mirror of light. The mind does not recognize fantasy or reality as separate while it is awake or sleeping. The eyes are a reflection of the internal mirror. Once all lessons of life have been learned, Universe rewards Soul with paradise. But what is paradise? Another life Soul wants to learn more from in a unique path that it has not yet experienced. Hence the constant cycle of energy transforms into other energy – there is no death, only the flesh dies and Soul keeps on eternally going onward onto new paths of learning. This is why Universe placed life into consciousness so to learn from itself why it ‘Universe’ came into being in the first place. – Tara B. Dobbs

Short Story: Three Coffee Pots

I wrote this little short story back in 2010 while I was still married. The situations in this story are all true. Enjoy the laughs. Let me know what you thought of it in the comments. Thank you.

“Three Coffee Pots”

By: Tara B. Dobbs

Coffee can be drunk in many ways. This smooth hot or chilled liquid can be drunk at any time of the day or night. It only takes seconds to prepare into the machine, and takes minutes to create through the machine. What kind of machine you buy from a store, given by a friend, or find at a thrift store can make a different in the taste of that first cup you pour out of the pot. It’s not just how the beans are roasted that makes the difference, it’s the machine that really makes or breaks that first cup in the morning. Here I shall give an in depth comparison between three totally different machines. The very lives these machines lived and some that are still living.

The first one, a very unlikely candidate for any bachelor living in an apartment, was a 32 cup restaurant coffee dispenser. My boyfriend, now husband, had been living in the same apartment in Everett, Washington since 1996 after being honorably discharged from the Army after the Gulf War. He would tell me stories of the ‘Army coffee’ he consumed then. How black and very, very strong it was.

Joking that, “There’s Army coffee and maintenance coffee. Army coffee are these little single serving packets in a soldier’s MREs. Pour twenty of these into one cup, you’ll be awake all day, but you’ll crap your pants. Then there’s maintenance coffee or gentleman’s coffee. You can degrease parts with it and strip rust right off of steal.” I shuddered to think of such horrors if they were ever true.

When I moved into the apartment in the Spring of 2003, I met the coffee machine. There it was, sitting proudly on the mantel corner of the fireplace. It’s shining, tall cylindrical body but slightly dulled silvery appearance, with a black top and black four legged base gave a looming presence. He had told me stories of how he came across this machine and I could only imagine the stories it could tell if it could talk.

“I bought it at a restaurant supply store that two friends introduced me to when I first moved here,” he said proudly as he unplugged it at the base taking it off the mantel and carrying it to the kitchen. Opening a can of Foldgers coffee, he proceeded to make a whole pot full – a 32 cup maker full. “I bought the machine, a three pound chocolate bar, and a five pound can of coffee. I had no furniture, but I at least had a coffee maker.”

“You drink out of this?” I asked, turning my nose up at it.

“Yeah. I make it on Monday morning before work and drink out of it all week. It saves me time and money this way,” he replied as I nearly lost my cookies.

“I’m so glad I don’t like coffee,” I added as I walked out of the kitchen.

As time passed, I watched in horror as he would do the same thing every week. Make a machine full for a whole week. Making the coffee from this machine for more than three people at a party or basic gathering is a logical idea, but for one man alone? No way.

One day, in late 2003, he headed off to his parent’s for the weekend to help around their house. It was late and I was bored. Casually I walked up to the mantel and glared at the tall; silvery beast. Unplugged it from it’s base and carried it to the kitchen saying, “You’re mine! Finally I get to see how dirty you really are.” I had only seen him once clean the machine out and this was my chance to clean it myself.

The water ran in the sink taking longer than usual to heat up. I opened the top, poured out the contents and looked inside. To my astonishment I didn’t see a ‘clean’ basin, as he had claimed was clean. Looking with the kitchen light there were crusted burnt coffee grounds and coffee liquid at the base and around the sides. Filling the basin with hot water and loads of Dawn dish soap, I let it soak for a few hours. I could remember the elbow grease it took me to wash it. It was a serious workout to say the least. After an hour of scrubbing, the inside and outside of the basin shone brightly like new chrome on a classic car.

Once he came home I made the 32 cup amount for him.

“What did you do to my coffee maker?” he asked, seeing how clean and shinny it now was. “You cleaned the taste right out of it!” Of course he was joking. If he wasn’t, that may explain his upset stomach he sometimes got from drinking from such a dirty machine.

All was well for many years. He still used it as usual making the full 32 pot. Until one day, in mid 2005, I started to protest to him that he should get a new coffee maker. I loathed that monstrosity. Drinking so much coffee was unhealthy in many ways. I soon told his stepfather of the situation and urged me to get rid of it.

“It’s healthier to drink just the first cup. After that, the coffee becomes acidic and can rot the lining of your stomach over time. How can he drink so much and let it stand in the pot heated for so long?” the old man was sickened by the thought. I agreed with him completely.

For a whole week I protested to him. “You can’t drink out of that thing forever. You keep drinking coffee from it all the time even after work and from that you stay up for hours on end. I wake up in the middle of the night sensing that you’re not in bed and I find you drinking more at the your computer desk.”

One faithful day, he tried to make another pot full. After pouring the water and putting the grounds in the filter, he turned the switch. Nothing happened.

“You broke it!” he yelled. I came running from the bedroom seeing him taking it apart. “You broke it with your hate. You broke it with your hatred for this machine!”

Looking inside the mechanics of it, I saw that one of the wires had frayed and broke away. “The maker died on it’s own. I knew it was going to die soon.” I got up and danced. I was elated that it had died finally. “This means you have to buy a new coffee maker! You have no choice now!”

A few days later, we went to Starbucks down on Colby Ave. There we purchased the Starbucks Barista Aroma coffee machine. It was a little pricy, but I figured it would be worth it. The amount of coffee made was considerably less than the restaurant 32 cup machine. He could easily make two cups or just twelve cups at a time. By this time also, I grew a taste for coffee starting with Starbucks Frappachinos.

You might be asking, ‘Why not buy a more basic brand like Mr. Coffee or Black and Decker?’ My experience with those in my parents’ home is just the same as any other ‘basic’ coffee maker. Brewing the coffee and then letting it stand in the pot on a burner creates an acid that can be toxic to the stomach. The Starbucks coffee pot itself was made like a thermos, so there is no worry of burning. However, drinking from a full 12 cup pot over time isn’t good either. It’s only good at the fist cup that is poured.

Just like the 32 cup maker, my now husband, we married that very year, would still make a full pot of coffee just for himself on the weekends. It took me many, many months to get him to stop drinking a full 12 cups in one day. Again, just like the old restaurant maker, he would stay up late hours having drank the whole thing and not gone to bed. He did after much whining off, drink one cup or two cups a day. Not much else went wrong with this coffee maker until late 2009.

I had called Tulalip Casino Resort to see if they had any rooms available during the Valentine Day weekend. Sure enough, they had one room left. A room with two queen sized beds on the top floor where children were not allowed. Not only was this a spur of the moment outting, I wanted him to have a nice birthday on me. We got to the room and found a Keurig coffee maker on top of the open bar. I thought it was the cutest one cup coffee machine ever.

The first day there, I made him a cup. I did as instructed by the manual. Soon after the cup was ready. The coffee came out perfect every time. The samples on the bar even had tea and hot chocolate. I had myself a cup of Earl Gray tea the next morning. I was so impressed with the machine I knew I had to have one.

Once we came home from our little weekend, just like clock work he made a full pot of coffee with the Starbucks brand machine. As he did so, the machine started to act up. I cleaned it afterward with vinegar and hot water a few cycles through. All was great, until I saw him drinking the whole pot again to himself. I finally realized what I had to do.

With the money I had left over from grocery shopping one day in the Spring of 2010 at Fred Meyers grocery store, I picked up one of the Keurig basic models and a few of the assorted K-Cup packages. I couldn’t wait to take it home and make my first cup. If not for myself to make the first cup, at least for my husband when he came home from work. Of course I couldn’t help myself and made a cup anyway. I like having creamer in my coffee. Never black, I could never stand it black. The machine was so easy to operate, of course all coffee makers are easy to operate, but this machine at least to me was special.

After a few days of using it, at least one cup for my husband and one for myself each day, the machine stopped working. I cleaned it out like it suggested, hot water and vinegar. Still nothing. I then proceed to call the company to see what could be done. They instructed me to mail in the K-Cup part of the machine with a special number taped on it. I did so and then a few weeks later a new Keurig machine came in the mail. I turned on the new machine like normal and it worked just fine. Along with this new machine they sent an assorted collection of K-Cup coffee flavors and brands. It was fun trying out each one as no two coffees or teas are created equal.

Now, it had seemed my husband had been successfully whined off of a large amount of coffee. Starting from 32 cups, then to 12 cups, 6 cups and then 4 to 2 cups. Now he drinks one cup in the morning before work, and one cup before bed. However, if I’m deep in sleep, he’ll make a second cup and I’ll know this because the leftover grounds have been dumped into the sink. Call it, woman’s intuition. You’re probably asking, ‘what ever happened to the Starbucks machine?’ we still have it and use it for company when needing to make more than one cup.

I do, on occasion think about the large 32 cup coffee machine that graced it’s presence into my life. I can only imagine the stories it could tell of the long nights that my husband stayed awake typing at the computer. The faces of friends and family walking past it and stopping only for a moment to refill their cups with the brown ‘bean juice’ contents inside. Did the 32 cup maker have a soul? I’d like to think so. Even though I hated that my husband drank so much of the boiled brew for days on end, I did not hate the machine itself. The 32 cup restaurant coffee maker lived a long life a top the mantel of the fireplace. I will admit that I too took at least one, maybe two cups, from it in the morning just before it died, but only when I cleaned the machine myself. I believe this coffee maker had no fuss about me pouring creamer into the cup afterward. All it cared about was making my husband happy all throughout it’s life in that simple apartment.

A few months just before the coffee maker died, I drew a picture of it, depicting it shining in all it’s glory. Inked it in black with hatch markings and stippling dots. Immortalizing it forever on card stock paper for an art project exam. The simple inked art piece still lays in my portfolio folder to this day. Sometimes, just sometimes I wish the coffee maker never died. I knew the coffee maker died only doing what it loved most – brew a full pot of coffee for anyone who needed a cup at any time of day or night.

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