things are happening left and right. a baby is being born to the family, but it has moved so much over time that it's somewhat wrapped up in its cord and they have to move fast. things will probably be ok but times are very stressful for everyone, especially those who are most immediately involved. we hang around on pins and needles.

it remains 97, 116 heat index, or something just as bad, or worse, and every minute outside makes you more uncomfortable, and you need bath if you venture out there even once. at night it's still warm and steamy and the thirteen-year locusts keep up with their continuous screeching, though you can see their shells on the tree bark in the morning as if they were all noise, they spent their whole bodies making noise. our little pool out back has been working well but now the water has warmed up so it's more like a warm tub than a cool tub, we might have to toss some ice in there to cool it down. other family dramas play out as, apparently, it's just a time of year when lots happens. some stories, I'm sure, are better not told; others may, in the course of time.

this is what happens when you experience a trauma. Your brain does what is in effect rolling up the memory of it, and the feelings that memory carries with it, in protective matter, and throwing the whole wadded ball as far from its main activity as possible. This is to protect you from reliving it and and re-experiencing all the emotions it engenders. This brain activity, a scrambled mess of neurons that represents your memory of a traumatic event, is quite active, in its protective little ball, and can be a heavy burden for years, but can also be broken down and reintegrated by alpha wave generation in the involved areas. Reintegration will make it more of a memory among other memories, and you will break down, hopefully, some of the protective tissue that isolated the trauma. you'll feel a thousand pounds lighter. but you have to know how to generate alpha waves, or have someone do it for you.

this came up in a talk that was arranged for other reasons, but it brought up the possibility that any of us have been affected by trauma in our lifetimes or deep in our memories, buried or perhaps forgotten for our own good. do you ever really forget a trauma? it depends, I guess, on how many you face in a lifetime. it is possible, I'm sure, to get used to them. impossible, but not necessarily good.

I've come to target my own body fat as baggage, parts of myself that I need to break down, deal with, let go of. exercise is difficult and it takes a long time to even work up a sweat, and feel like I've even lost a pound. worse yet is getting to the various corners of my self-image and reintegrating old memories, breaking them down and trying again to be ok with what they say about me. cutting back on the baggage seems to be an admirable goal in a place where it stays over 95 for weeks at a time, and it's so hard just to get yourself out the door sometimes. but I consider that a hallmark of depression: if you can't do the minimum of exercise every day, what does that say about you? that you're tired, or busy. or worse, depressed.