Gearing up for 2009

Hello all,
Greetings from my easy chair with my swollen, vasculitis ravaged legs and feet perched on an ottoman for as much comfort as I can muster. That along with pain medication is helping me to get past the hitch in my get along.

As 2009 creeps up on us, I wanted to be the first to wish everyone a very Healthy, Happy, Wealthy and Wise New Year. We've had some weirdness in 2008, but I'm hoping for better things to come in '09.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, I am posting my newest Presskit trailer. I'll be posting a bit more regularly now that I am not incapacitated in the hospital.

Cheers Everyone!~

Parkinson's has a new playmate...

I have to say in the last several months or more, I haven't been feeling myself. I am not one to focus on things like that unless it knocks me for a loop. Consider my loop thoroughly knocked. Now, when my Young Onset Parkinson's disease being my only malady, my body said, "Nah, I think you can handle one more..." And so it goes. I have what is termed as "Churg Strauss Syndrome," which is a disease that falls under the general heading of "Vasculitis".

This isn't me, but close enough. I broke out in the worst case of rash, sores and other grossness all over my body a couple of weeks or more and it landed me squarely in the hospital for a week. I took every blood test known to mankind (literally) as well as had a biopsy of my rash, steroids on drip and more.

Oh, and did I mention that I was and am on so much steroid that I have to take 2 forms of insulin to keep my blood sugar from skyrocketing from all this? Needless to say, this isn't fun. I go to the dr tomorrow to see how I am doing...the rash, sores and other grossness are not quite so "pronounced" but still having trouble walking and so on. Bleh.

Oh well....I guess my Parkinson's will have a new playmate. Parkinson's, meet Vasculitis (Churg Strauss Syndrome). Where shakiness and bad balance meets neuropathy and pain.

Booyah.

More Freaking Musings Later-

The Uncanniness of Theosophy

I've always considered myself a Theosophist rather than Christian or a subset of religion such as Methodist, Baptist etc. For those who wonder what the heck a "Theosophist" is, it is one who embraces all religions and feel that each has a truth. It's always made more sense to me.

It's funny, I've been on this earth 46 years and counting and it just dawned on me for some reason. I asked Alan Solomon, my co-writer what my name would look like in Chinese and what it meant. I always wonder about that. Hey, Kevin Costner wanted to know what his name was in Native American tongue, didn't he?

Well, it made me think back to my mother telling me the story of how she knew she was going to become pregnant with me. She hadn't even been pronounced pregnant yet by her doctor! She had been praying for a child for a long time and during her prayers, she said she heard a voice that shook her to the soul. "Thou shalt have a Deborah."

At that time, (early 60's) she had never heard of a woman called Deborah in the Bible. Her and my grandmother scoured the Bible and finally found a mention of her. Actually, I found a great site that gives more info about her. Here is a snippet:

The popular prophet Deborah is one of the few female role models in the Tanakh, where she exemplifies a Hebrew woman possessed of respect, authority, leadership and decisiveness. To some of the rabbis such strong character in a woman was very threatening. Rabbi Nahman, in his dislike of "strong women" twists the true translation of her name from "bee "to "wasp" (Genesis Rabbah 18:1).

This resistance to women in an active role by male commentators is one factor that makes it difficult to uncover the true memory and significance of the first biblical Deborah. Let us proceed to examine this first, decidedly overshadowed, Deborah.

And Dvorah, the nurse of Rivka died, and she was buried below Beth-el- underneath the oak, and he called the name of it the Oak of Crying. (Genesis 35:8) Here is the webpage for more info: The First Deborah

Here is what is interesting; the Chinese version of my name and meaning is similar to the Bible's meaning of "Deborah". See below for the actual Chinese spelling and explanation from Alan Solomon:

My New Name: 辛 丽军
I had wondered about the Chinese writing that appeared next to Alan's name one day and I asked him, "Hey, what would my name look like?

What does 'Taryn' mean in Chinese?"Ask and you shall recieve as I always say. For some reason, I can't post the Chinese writing into this post, but at least it is showing in the title.

Xin is my surname and LiJun is my first name. Taryn is seen here as being a young pretty soldier, so your first name is LiJun which means beautiful army .... Xin is the nearest meaning to Simpson.

Don't even get me started about numerology, black holes, dimensions and the like.

God, there is so much we don't know...

More Musings Later-