We're trying to dis this eProp craze with the power of satire and casualobserver is the one taking it all too seriously. Maybe casualobserver needs to be more self-reflecting and less casual about self-criticism. Listen to her rant: "I got tired of seeing David at the top of the list all day long. When I saw someone was catching up to him (vickyvix) I gave her just enough eProps to push her ahead of him." Tired of seeing! Catching up! Push ahead! Sounds like it could be a mildly obsessive involvement to me.

Maybe she should read lcsaph's entry and texaco's comment about OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).

Or just heed the following quote:

"If a warrior is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession."
--Tales of Power, Carlos Castaneda

Or just join in and have some fun.

While all you eprop ho ho ho-s and madames amd junkies are out there scurrying around (Holly Green, could you pleeease let me know where you fit in), I've decided I want to become the Comment King (to hell with prime minister of TuvaTuva)! Give and take more comments than anyone else. Give, give, give. Get, get, get. Let eProps occur like the climax of lovemaking as incidental homage. My insight is from the military, first de-programmed, then re-drilled: "Got to take the crap now, so you can dish it out later."

*now don't forget to update that time stamp

Yesterday Wildheart played a game,

"Monsur" was his name,

Alone she propped him to the top of hot,

And made eProps a shame.

Once upon a time, I woke up a wounded puppy. The world, it seemed, had finally come crashing down around me. And as my previously preferred phenomenological fantasies faded under reality’s new, harsh, brutalizing light, I found myself haunted by a gnawing suspicion. It seemed to me that the totality of women in my world had begun¾all at once and for some inexplicable reason¾to ignore, to just abandon me. Well, if not as accidental societal company, at least with respect to my psychological and personal needs. The truth, indeed, seemed like a bitch.

Wounded puppies, however, are known to yelpingly overreact. And I was no exception. My chewing suspicion of a calculated female indifference turned out really just to be a byproduct of a self-inflicted teething process involving nervous paw-chewing. Into a short learning curve, after the gnawing ceased and some healing ensued, I began to reconstruct my newfound predicament. I then realized that what I imagined as an entire gender’s class-action against me was merely a minor concomitant in the grander course of fate. If women, as I had legitimately perceived, had really come to forget me, it was only because such was a consequence of God doing nothing less. Oh yes. When God forgets you, you better believe that the rest of the world follows course--not intentionally or knowingly, just forgetfully, yet invariably!

Now when I claim that God forgot me, I don’t intend to suggest that He (probably She) had forgotten only me from forever and for always. There’s almost surely a plural subset of People Whom God has Forgotten. Membership in this group may be entirely accidental or may be part of a design grander than the Grand Design. It really doesn’t matter. But this is not to say that God was not my pilot. God was very much always my pilot. (Though Satan--he--or probably a she, too--was the suspected co-pilot). In any case, at the time that God forgot, both She and Satan emergency-ejected from my soul’s cockpit¾for whatever reason¾for the duration of my soul’s sortie. Now that is a historical fact.

What can be the sane reaction of a man (or woman) who comes to realize that he or she belongs to a small group whom God has forgotten? Well, you can’t blame God. That’s totally idiotic. She is God! As great and as good as can be. And if something goes amiss, there is no grander other entity or authority that can assign cosmic fault in such instance. Nor, of course, should He or She blame Herself. Times are hectic and He’s, to severely strain a metaphor, only human. In any case, there has never and will never be reckoning flowing from the earthly realm as a vector to the divine.

So what’s the proper reaction? Should you despair? Well, if you presumed that you were going to heaven, you might despair. But then you’re more suffering the karma resulting from the capital sin of presumption--and that’s not despair. You should just cease to presume and you’ll be okay. On the other hand, if you had a certain certainty that your waywardness had you on the fast track to the deep-hot-downunder, then why, indeed, despair? God has forgotten your transgressions, too (just hope that She doesn’t have an efficient bureaucracy in place to manage such details!) If, however, you’re in between¾like most people: not with a foot in heaven or a foot in hell, but with both feet firmly planted in some lukewarm middle goo (purgatory)—still you shouldn’t despair. After all, the goo is squishy, you haven’t forgotten God, and you can still pray! So despair only when both you and God forget each other and you fall face first unconscious into the goo; not merely when She deigns to forget you.

Nonetheless, once forgotten, you will find your self in a most curious situation: you are not getting rewarded, but you are not being punished; you’re not given credit, but you’re not being blamed. When God forgets you, you are cast into the amazing experience of being utterly human. The foremost and signature characteristic of this utterly human experience is an immediate availability to the psychic understructure of all reality. This is not to say that you will gain effortless access to the psychic realm, only that it becomes fully available to you. But that is another story.

So what should you do? Pray! Harder! “God, You may have forgotten me (though in my finite wisdom I’m likely mistaken), yet I do humbly remember You. May I someday prosper in Your sight once again! When next you choose to remember me, O Lord, please give me a sign that I may see: if one, just one, loving woman returns to me, the angels will sing and I will know!”

Just remember¾until reassured: strawberry fields forever.