Sometimes it feels like death is everywhere -- the news of an old friends passing this week, even though it was expected after a long-term illness; the catastrophically idiotic war where bombs beget more bombs and bodies and and suicide bombers; and the tragic turn of events from the smallest miscalculation. Inside these terms, the trivial is made more so when i consider the daily antics of life... the spam, advertising, commercials, fast-food promotions, and latest celebrity buffoonery. None of it makes any sense. Death in the context of a botox bimbos' perspective or death in the context of brainiac Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist who believes we've screwed up this planet just enough to require colonizing an entirely new planet. (There's even water on Mars.) All that led me to ponder as i left my home this afternoon, wondering as i turned the door-knob, where death waited for me -- twenty years from now, two-weeks? How many passings will i witness before my own? My dog Diva? My cat Xola? It's .. all so disconcerting. So with all that said - I guess i'm with Hawking and have been ever since i first watched the movie Star Wars 28 years ago. My brother and i looked up at the moon, it was twilight, and decided right then and there that i would take that ride to outer space any day... as long as i could bring my dog.

My "Average Happiness" score is 7 out of 10 from the Fordyce Emotions Questionnaire which
Measures Current Happiness. The percent of time i'm happy score is 55% and that seems off, at least for this past week where i've been too busy at work to spend much time pontificating on the worlds vast misery...

which leads to the sad contemplation that the world is just going to go "boom" one day and other than recycling, buying a flock of geese or a cow from Heifer International  - i'm pretty much at a loss as to how to fix it. I do own a car which i happily fill w/20% soy bio-diesel. It's not enough - i  know that... well, okay, 55% is a good number. Sigh. It's hard to be happy dammit!

Okay now this is hilarious! I scored a 30 out of 60 - which apparently is construed as "severely depressed." BAHAHA! That's funny!  The test encourages me to "seek treatment" immediately. Am i morose sometimes? YES. Somber? Definitely. Do i spend any part of my day thinking of harming myself? Heck no! I spend most of my time ensuring my safety. If i could get away with wearing a helmet in my car on my three mile commute to work -- i would. All that said, i will continue to take a different test every day (or so) and delve into the psychology of positive emotion. I should also state that it was perhaps not wise to take this particular test during PMS. I'll take it again in a few weeks and report back!