Monday night -- moments after cutting short my last entry, I ran into the bathroom and vomited in the toilet, finally purging my stomach of the gloppy matter that had been torturing it for hours. Almost immediately afterward, I started to feel much better.

So much better, in fact, that I went back to the computer and typed up another rambling elaborating on my status. But just as it was nearly complete, the power flickered out, wiping out everything I had written. The thunder, lightning, and rain outside must have caused the outage.

It didn't take more than 60 seconds for power to return, but I was tired, and still far from prime condition. I said to hell with it, unplugged all my more expensive electronics from the grid (in case of a surge), and went back to bed.

It was still a fairly restless night, as I kept waking up. Sensations alternating between hot and sweaty, cold and clammy, thirsty, and needing to urinate kept waking me up every hour or so. At one point in the wee hours of the morning, I took a nice hot shower, which helped a bit.

As daylight approached, I started sleeping easier. I slept until almost noon. When I awoke, I had an annoying headache, which stayed with me for the rest of the day, but gradually faded with time.

Feeling capable enough (but still not quite normal), I grudgingly dragged myself into work at 16:00. That actually went better than I expected under the circumstances. In the laidback yet slightly upbeat atmosphere and easy-going company of the manager and coworker, my recovery continued to the point where I felt almost well. My 4-hour shift passed quickly, and I returned to the Mideastern Base relaxed and refreshed.

It's interesting how my mind works while under the influence of a fever. Thinking goes into overdrive with ideas and ambitious plans, but in a body that isn't able to implement any of it until later. This time, it was dominated by a recurrance of an idea that's been simmering in the back of my head for a while: Writing an exhaustive, tell-all, no-holds-barred online autobiography.

Since I started writing this site, most major events of my life have been documented, but almost everything that occurred before 1999 (or '96, depending on how deep one digs), have very little in the way of written records. I have no delusions that my life is so eventful as to be of interest to a wide audience, but I think it could be a fun and cathartic exercise, and there might be a small few who would find it interesting (the regulars who keep coming back to this website, for example).

My fever-stricken mind -- contemplating the difficulties and hurdles of how to organize such a thing, fill in and revise pieces that aren't remembered all at once, and complete it in incremental steps over time -- evolved the idea to the conclusion that this project just might be best implemented as a wiki. A personal wiki, containing my life history, which can be added to, revised, updated, and elaborated as needed.

In a sickly irony, now that I'm out of the fever state, I no longer feel quite the urgency to get underway with such a thing immediately, but it is on my todo list. We'll see how soon it actually happens.

Part of what spurred this notion on was the recent resurfacing of memories from The Forum (a.k.a. "The Landmark Forum", as it's now officially titled). I went through the thing over a decade ago, found it to be a significantly life-altering experience, took a few of their other courses (mostly on my parents' dime, as they had taken it themselves and considered it a worthy expenditure), got out at the "right time" (for me), and heard nary a thing about it since.

Then suddenly, over the past few days, I've been seeing online references about it cropping up all over the place. (And its predecessor, est.) Naturally, this has led me to seek out more info, and conduct research in a way that would have been almost inconceivable 15 years ago.

Something I hadn't been aware of was that Werner Erhard, the godfather of the whole enterprise, was apparently heavily influenced by Scientology, to which my instinctive reaction can be summed up as, "Oh shit." I have heard enough tidbits from enough credible sources about that "church" that I would prefer to avoid ever entering its vicinity.

At the same time, it would be dishonest and foolish of me to write off the validity of the experience due to this revelation. Beyond that, it would be pretty much impossible to delete the philosophical awareness I gained from it, even if I wanted to. I still maintain that despite some flaws, The Forum contained a massive dose of worthwhile lessons packed into a super-potent 3-day burst.

Another informative page about its origins reveals that Erhard was also a devotee of Alan Watts, whose books on Buddhist philosophy I find unsurpassed in their clarity and brilliance. (His radio lectures are also really interesting.)

On the Scientology vein, Tim recently pointed to the site of a Scientology member (posting anonymously) who believes there are "serious flaws" in the organization and wants to reform it, but still thinks Hubbard's original teachings have great use, and so he has made it his aim to convey them independently. A couple of books he wrote himself are freely available on his site, which look like they're worth checking out. Though I'm still skeptical, I'm open to the possibility that despite its abusive behavior, there exists a grain of something worthwhile in the teachings of Scientology.

That should be enough links to keep inquiring souls entertained for a while. Now that daylight has arrived, I'm either going to go back to bed, or get up and do something. I'm not sure which.