This just in!

We're here on the scene where, not three days ago, David Precht started to worry about the outcome of a script for the comic book he has volunteered to write, 'Above & Beyond'.

The book, a publication of the Treasurer's Office's Young Believers Department is an education tool, teaching and exploring the Baha'i Funds and young people's involvement. Stories generally center around between five and six Baha'i Youth and their non-Baha'i friends in a nondescript suburb at a nondescript high school.

The target age group for the book seems to be "junior youth" or those impressionable young people between 12 and 15, and work toward creating as positive, although, fictional, a role models as possible.

As this story is being written the issues for David Precht's first script continue to unfold. A once simple storyline has been scrapped and re-imagined several times. Even the lesson has been changed more times than the writer washes his cloths.

Right now, however, Mr. Precht has expressed that while the story has been solidified he doesn't "feel confident that the presentation and execution will be well received" by his target audience.

We will continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds.

My ultra-sensitive ways

Some comments are to be ignored, others are given their credence, and still others are taken to heart. They all blend together, at times, for me. There's no way to say, definitively, that every comment made by people will cause a jumbling of gray-area but there are certain times when someone's comment too closely mirror the thoughts in my head. In these moments I close up, I slow down (generally, I'm worked up about whatever it is we're talking about), and I start to process the thoughts and comments. Attempt to really figure out how much is real and can and should be adjusted. I wonder about how much an effect this will have on the view of myself and spend too much time pondering what others will think or how they will (re)act. The thoughts, like roots, grow and branch off to infinity. How much of is true? How much would it effect my life if were excluded? Will this diminish who I am? And then the real question is arrived upon: Where does this action stem from? I pause, I figure it out, cross the street with people I've been walking to lunch with, and become more conscious of how I speak. Add the change to the inbox, opened and viewed, and strive to implement it.

Anti-Climactic? You bet!

I had my regularly scheduled, once a month phone visit with the woman, Dolores, who heads up the inhaled insulin study I'm part of - that took a long time to say. It was a little nerve-racking as this was the first time I'm giving her results since my insulin requirements have decreased by 2/3. The whole time I read them off to her I tried to gauge her response. Was she happy? As excited as I was, or frustrated, angry even that one of the members of her study may not be part of it much longer? I never got a straight answer, or indication one way or the other. At one point she gave me the whole "faux surprise" and "excitement"; I say faux because, over the last year, she's used that same tone and inflection only to find out that she was unimpressed, playing around. So, I sat there, at my desk, on the phone with this woman, unsure of her response. Trying to hold back the "booyah" that was building inside me. Swelling and letting out short jets of steam from my ears, brimming over, and then I thanked her. She told me she would call back with the results from the doctor in about an hour; which lacked any semblance of the excitement I had. I thanked her again, this time with more conviction, like a cocky hunter about to venture forth after some big game, and hung up.

Pause button struck

A quick look back on the last two weeks yields a lot of steps in the right direction. Hopefully I can continue in that direction. I mean, tests are necessary and great, but at this point I'm just thanking God for the break.