So, my diary carries yet another year of my never ending babble. There has been this subtle change of identity forming over the last 6 months and some or most of it has taken hold. Funny how things change.

People do not change. A shit is still a shit if it is decorated with a flower.

Change should never be forced. But sometimes change happens as a by-product of a transition or the result of the way the next domino falls… either way change can happen. Even a shot becomes fertilizer that becomes the flower.

So, maybe you like to new look and feel of the site. From Book of Uriel to Uriel’s Journal.

My New Year celebration was quiet and wholesome. I wanted the exact opposite of course, but fate dealt another set of cards. It was good. I was with good people I cared about. I also talked to some awesome people. xo

It’s here… getting close to middle 40’s. I can say this birthday completely and totally sucked balls. Not in a good way either. I got a lot … a LOT of well wishes and a great card from my mom. But in the end, the weight of certain people forgetting it was my birthday is something I can’t stop thinking about. No, not Adolfo. In fact he gave me a very sweet phone call and a birthday song on my voice mail. So, we just learn to let things go. Another year is biting the dust!

Here I am catching up again. Half a month passes and some things have changed… one of which is the name of this web site. Yes, I changed domain names again and in the next couple of days this will all become Uriel’sJournal.com instead of BookofUriel.com… but I will try and get it again.

News notes:

• I found out that unless I can raise 6K$ I will not be able to return to school and finish my last quarter. I started something on http://www.fundable.com/ but I am not sure it is working right?
• Fundable.Com (link to fundable)
• Christmas Day was nice as I hung with local friends. It was good
• The dinner party I cooked for had a couple minor problems but they said it was the best menu yet.
The Menu Was…
• Beef Tenderloin on Caramelized Onion with au jus
• Roasted Duck with a Duck Sauce
• Potato au Gratin with Fontina Cheese
• Roasted Acorn Squash Puree
• Brussel Sprout with Pancetta
• Green Beans

Appetizers
• Shrimp wrapped in Capacola and Wonton Skin fried
• Pork Loin Muse Bouch on Toast with Pickled Onion and Spicey Mustard

The Jack Rabbit says tickets are on sale now!!!!!!

Email below:

[BManUpdate] V13:#8:12.12.08‏
From: bman-announce-bounces@burningman.com on behalf of Will Chase (jackrabbitspeaks@burningman.com)
Sent: Fri 12/12/08 2:15 PM
To: bman-announce@burningman.com

Burning Man Update: The Jack Rabbit Speaks
Volume 13, Issue #8
December 12, 2008

What?! Two JRSs in as many days? Yes! Why? Because we’ve got fresh
info, hot off the presses (ok, well, off the computer anyway), and
this stuff is important enough to warrant its own edition. So there.

Yes, and so today we present to you the hard-won product of
significant toil put in by our lovely ticketing team (they really are
lovely, you should see them), which is to say: Burning Man Ticketing
Information for 2009!

In short, we’ve got ticket pre-sales still going on now until December
28, 2008 or until that allotment runs out. Then, tickets officially
go on sale on Wednesday, January 14. Go ahead and prepare to bust
that piggy bank, dig down behind the cushions of your couch, sell some
bodily fluids, whatever it takes, because this year maybe more than
ever, BOY OH BOY do we *ever* need Burning Man? Sheesh. And how!
And so we serve you up all the latest ticketing info today, and it can
always be found here, too:

http://tickets.burningman.com

Oh oh oh! One more thing … almost forgot. In the last JRS, we put
the phone number for those kids down in Austin doing that New Year’s
Burn, without realizing they didn’t mean for it to be published.
Doh! OK, so do us a favor, and don’t call them, please? Yeah, that
would be cool. Instead, email them at
marrilee@communityartmakers.com, and check out their very cool website:

http://www.communityartmakers.com

Thanks, and we hope your holiday season is going swimmingly.

-PQ
(Associate Rabbit)

There comes a point in your life when you realize what matters most, what never did, who won’t anymore… and who always will.

So, don’t worry about people from your past, there’s a reason why they didn’t make it to your future. Learn, evolve, enjoy the moments.

Be kinder than necessary because nearly everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle right about now. Here’s to an epidemic of Unconditional Love in ’09!!!

Time is ticking to Burningman tickets. It could be as much as 260$ from what I hear, but we are still quite some time away. This is the link to get tickets. SO we wait and see.

There is a local Burningman holiday party coming up and then Jan 10th the local burners are having a campout. I hope people are checking this out and finding these posts helpful!

What a year it has been. I mentioned once that this was going to be a year of change. It has been… but as much as things change they remain the same. As some of you may have read in a recent posting I vented over some family issues which I am officially letting go of. As a foot note… I got a letter from my Dad which I immediately marked return to sender. I just don’t trust him anymore.

This years I started trying to meet some new people, but the one steady element has been John Mendoza. He is such a sweetheart. I love this guy, he is a really dear friend. He puts up with my shit… but there are times I can tell he gets frustrated by me. But… I think we have a lot of fun together. He is working his ass off this week. Hi days off were lost because they needed him… I think he loves his work anyway.

Yesterday went in a 6 mile hike (oh my hell!) and floated naked in a natural hot spring 3 miles out… then had to trudge 3 miles back.

Last weekend went to Tecopa hot springs and floated naked. Then camped out over night in the desert. Went camping with Burningman peeps (see previous entry) not long ago, but am going out again in a month.

If these fucking queens here can’t get their shit together and get out there and experience life and the world then I’ll have to do it on my own. Damn, I’d like to have a bf. Shit.

I am getting a lot off my chest today. I should get my ass back to work….

When I told my mom that I had fallen out with my ‘dad’ and that my idiot brother-in-law decided to berate me in front of some family through email I heard something in her voice. It was disappointment. She asked “why don’t you get along with family members?”

So let’s have a history lesson here…

My sister and I never got along since the day she crawled out of the egg. She and I are about as opposite as two people can get. About 20 years or more ago I told her off in a big way because she really was the baby of the family and so heavily favored by both parents that all this resentment came rushing out in a shouting match. This was probably the only time no one was there to rescue her and protect her and I made sure he heard every word of it. She then told the entire family that I beat her up and she will probably go to her grave saying it to. I guess words really do hurt, because that was all that bitch got!

My dad is another issue discussed in a separate entry. Selfish egocentric asshole.

My uncle on my mom’s side and his daughter live together up in Oregon. Both are fucked up meth addicts. I was on really good terms with them and moved to Oregon in June 07 and rented half of the house. Crack head cousin started telling stories how I was abusive to her and spinning some bullshit on my uncle then that freak started locking me out of portions of the house with a steel bar. He refused to even talk to me and literally was sitting in his room with one of those lamps people where when exploring caves on his head in his dark room. This went on for a month with this weirdness, all caused by my crackhead cousin. I bailed and came back to Las Vegas.

That’s it… well, my side of the story anyway. You can read more by looking at some of the past entries!

Look at some of the past entries:
This one from my return from Oregon!

Another note about old dad…

I found this entry… the guy I am talking about here named Noah died last week from cancer.

So, if you have known me in recent years then you also know that I have valued my family highly. I have enjoyed a good relationship with them for a few years and with a few bumps in the road here and there I have managed to continue to value the foundation.

I am a white kid with parents raised Christian (for all accounts)and the child to parent relationship is usually tenuous at best. In a Caucasian family the kid or parent is usually ready to boot the kid out by their 18th year and have nothing to do with them for a while… blah blah blah. It’s very non-nurturing in my opinion.

Well, the dynamic of my family is even more obscure and I grew up with parents as diametrically opposed to each other as one could imagine. My mom worked hard to make life for us kids while my dad did much the same, but he was mostly in it for himself.

Sounds like bitter grapes by now. Well, he never was my “dad” but he was my father. He was everything to his daughter though where I came a distant second; he told me so when I was 17. He also told me I was not worthy of his name or that I was worth being his son. Sucks that this shit can carry in your mind into adulthood and that voice can come back as frequently as it does.

I changed my last name to my mom’s maiden name for a while and when I realized that was a pain in the ass I just went back to what I had. Eventually we reconciled and the relationship seemed to be better than it ever was. In fact, I felt like I was getting to know a whole new man.

Suddenly that guy who had been calling me fat-ass through most of my teen years was a fat-ass himself and looked almost exactly like Santa Clause after 10 years of not talking. I was shocked. He actually seemed like a decent, more humble guy; no longer spouting racist terms at every turn.

He retired at 55 which was a great achievement. He met a woman who is one of the nicest people and was really good for him.

Without going into too much detail, I made a mistake this week. I looked to him for some help with a student loan I needed as I was getting ready for my last quarter of school and needed to get my ducks in a row. It was a loan in my name I was asking him to cosign, which is a big deal and no one wants that ‘could happen’ on their shoulders. I can’t hold it against him for being not willing to cosign for me. It was the response to the request that killed me.

Once again I ended up cutting my ties to him and shutting that door. He can drop dead for all I care now and I just have to put in my head the man is just dead. He was never a ‘dad’. He was an abusive, nasty asshole most of my life. I can barely recall a nurturing moment that ever came from him since I was a kid. I was never good enough and since he told me so, I guess it was just time to believe it.

So, this has been an interesting time and I may have mentioned on a previous entry about a perception that a lot of things in our universe are changing. Energies fluctuate and changes are made from that chaos. Sounds fluffy, huh? Not really if you look at it. There are one or two people who actually understand what I am saying… right Sam and Cheryl????

Since the last full moon cycle began I have had a lot of uncomfortable and negative things happen to me, some caused by me, that provoked some major changes in my life as it is today. 3 full moon cycles the same sorta ‘rough’ full moon phase kicked my ass as well, but not like this one. Now the moon is not particular fond of the male anyway, but I digress.

(If this sounds weird to some of you I really don’t think it is any weirder that the second coming of Christ or some guy speaking to his burning bush so shut it.)

So i was standing outside and in the south I could see the crescent full moon with Venus and Jupiter flanking it and all I could think of was – wow. It was a world of opposing forces in the air.

I am still babbling on spiritual stuff most people I know have no clue about – not that I am a genius myself!

Digressing again – keeping my head screwed on….

This has been a year of change for me. A year of new perceptions, ideas, exceptions, feelings, outlooks, and goals. With my upcoming graduation from school it is a time of planning as well. The last two years have been preparing me for some kind of transition and I still don;t know where it will all go.

I joined the local Burningman group (see the bm2009 link in the upper right corner) and started living life more in tune of the things I hope to have. I’ve gone camping my myself and slept in the middle of the desert and danced around a bonfire like some pagan fire worshiper loving every minute of it.

Recently I have been seeing relationship being tested and got some interesting results out of it. I will blog in more detail soon, but I basically cut off ties to my father and got the riot act from my sister for doing so. My mom was disappointed and I could hear her feelings in her voice… but she would have never had to be part of that nonsense if someone didn’t try and involve her.

Me… I am a man turning 44 this month with the soul of a man half my years and the expectations and outlook that is very naive to structure the world is trying to build around me. I have achieved so much in this life and will continue to that people can’t bring me down. I won’t let them. They wound me with their pure evil and their hate and their ignorance and I won’t fall.

I have an insight into this life and a grasp on life that only an insane man should ever know. Sounds so hippy-dippy, huh? Maybe I will start understanding my uncle better? not!

If a man is my friend he will be my friend and have patience and understand me; or try to. Except me for me is all I ask. If you don’t like it – lump it.