Random Thoughts

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Shedding the Rust

A friend asked me if I write on my blog. Not much, I said. I actually have been writing, just not here. Not a lot, but I’m trying to make it a habit again, trying to do it every day, even if just a half an hour. I am rusty. It doesn’t come as easily to make lovely sentences any more. I need to practice and shed the rust.

After he asked if I’ve written on the blog I scrolled through it on my mobile phone and read a few of the last posts I’ve written. I was not surprised at the lack of number of posts, but I didn’t feel like what I had written was fake, which was good. So many times when I read old posts they seem so fake, and I hate it.

I have ideas of what to write, but often I just don’t want to share so much. This is the stuff that ends up in what I write but not on here. I’m the opposite of how I used to be in this regard, the opposite of how so many are these days. Oversharing is the norm. I have no desire for this. I lean in the other direction, away from disclosing too much personal information. Not personal information such as that I think my breasts are too big (which is true, but meaningless), but personal information such as what I’m experiencing and feeling in reaction to what is happening in my life. All the online algorithms think they know us, but they don’t. They might track stuff and try to predict what we want to buy, but if the ads I get are any indication, they’re wrong. Maybe it’s because I’ve made every effort to block every attempt to track what I do. I don’t know. Maybe they would know some stuff, but even my searches wouldn’t reveal the inner workings of my mind as I perform chores on my farm, mulling over whatever is floating around in my brain.

Somehow I got onto texting with Milla about the little people and animals stickers people put in the rear windows of their SUVs or minivans. We realized that ours would be so expansive we would not be able to use the window. It would be:

👸 👸 👸🐶🐶🐶🐶🐱🐰 🐴 🐴 🐴 🐴 🐴🐐🐐🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🦃🦃🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🐟🐟

Yes, that is quite a lot, I think.

So another meaningless blog post that reveals virtually nothing except that I have a lot of animals. And that I can cut and paste emojis. I love it.

😶

Have a mouthless day.

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4 Visits to Your Blog Today

I get stats on how many people read this blog. I’ve had times in the past where it was in the hundreds a day. Overall I think the total visitors over the life of the thing is over a hundred thousand. Not so much traffic anymore. Today I have had 4 visits to my blog. That’s what it says: “You have had 4 visits to your blog today.” I don’t think I can keep up with this. The sheer numbers are overwhelming. I know it’s because I never write anymore and most of what I write is boring, which is part of why I don’t write so here I am with my four views today. A couple of weeks ago it got up to over 30. Not sure why. I didn’t write anything that day. Maybe someone shared an old post when I was witty. Who knows?

The blog wants me to link to facebook. Trouble is, I don’t have facebook anymore. I hate facebook. What a huge, useless waste of time. We get 100 years if we are lucky, and probably less. Why would I spend it staring at nonsense and nonsense and nonsense? But I know I’m in the minority. In so many things I am in the minority. It’s why, I think, I am so alone. I have my 5 people and that’s it. There are a handful I would like to be more friends with but my efforts there have not been reciprocated so…

I played with my dogs today. I was giving them treats for lying down. I told George to lie down, he threw himself on the floor and got his treat. Abbie laid down quietly and calmly and got her treat. Then I asked Oliver to do it. Before he could move, George threw himself on the floor in front of him. I DID IT! I DID IT! I’M LYING DOWN! GIMME A TREAT! Oh for crying out loud, George, would you get out of the way? Oliver sat with his head back like he was trying to avoid being smacked by a crazy Dachshund paw. Peaches sat looking at all of it as if to say, “When is it my turn?” She hasn’t learned lie down yet. She’s just a baby. But she sits and sits very well, little angel. All of them are good dogs.

I have to go give my horse his medicine. He’s finally home after 3 weeks at the vet college. He’s been home long enough for me to change his bandage three times and the wounds are looking better and better. Keeping him sane is a challenge though. Thoroughbreds are bred to run, bred to exercise, bred to move. Making one stay in a stall day in and day out is torture for them. Poor guy. I hope all this stall time works and he heals back to one hundred percent. If not, I guess he’ll be my expensive pasture pet because he’s not going anywhere. If by chance you read this and want to help out with the vet bills, I have set up a GoFundMe here. All help is genuinely appreciated. It’s been a tough year, especially for vet bills.

Okay, four people. I’m going to stop writing. Actually, the four already read this so it should be okay, maybe two more people, I’m going to stop writing. I’m hungry. Horse needs drugs to battle infection. Buh bye.

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Loose Socks

Socks have to be in deep lockup for me to wear them. I can’t stand them loose; if they’re loose, they drive me bananas. So…only jailed socks for me.

I wanted to know if I was really a ghost so I tried walking through a wall. It didn’t work. Either I’m not a ghost or as a ghost I’m unable to walk through walls. If it’s the latter, that is somewhat disappointing because being able to walk through walls would be one of the most fun things about being a ghost. That and invisibility.

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Stuff and Things

It occurs to me that most people in our culture have lost sight of the fact that in chasing money, we are essentially chasing things. Someone wants a thing, and their desire for more money is the desire to have as many things as they want, when they want them. That’s what having more money brings. I’m not talking about the people at the very bottom of our capitalist triangle who have to struggle just to survive, those for whom a few dollars would mean the ability to stay very basically comfortable. I’m talking about any level above having what one needs to survive easily: a safe place to sleep, food, and health well-being. “Security” as it has been sold to us, is theoretically having enough money in the bank to ensure the safe place to sleep, food, and health. Yet for most it goes beyond that into wanting to have things. Ask anyone with dreams of riches and it is the lying on the beach or yacht anytime that they want, the clothes, the jewelry, the gadgets, the cars, and on and on, that fill their dreams. Pinterest is filled with photos of all the things that humans want. People will spend hours creating these online photo albums of all the stuff they desire. (In the meantime, while posting these things and dreaming about them, the interactions with humans and other non-human animals around them are limited.)

Yesterday I dropped off some stuff at the donation center. We are moving so we are getting rid of stuff. I have felt this immense urge to purge. What is all this stuff? The line at the place was cars deep, everyone ridding themselves of things, some of which had to have been wanted at some point. Either that or or they were ridding themselves of stuff someone gave them either out of a sense of duty to give, some obligation, or some other self-serving necessity. Perhaps for some the thing was given in love and received as such, but at this point, the thing is now being discarded, filling a warehouse, filling a landfill, being sold into places where the abundance of things is not as profuse as it is in the good, ol’ USA. Stuff, stuff, everywhere. In the meantime, we destroy the earth to build enormous buildings to house the things. We rape and pillage the land to carve roads and fill the land with things, things that will rot in piles long after we are gone.

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Entropy

I’ve been reading a bit about entropy. One definition said that nature tends from order to disorder in isolated systems. I think the key words are “isolated systems.” We simply aren’t isolated systems. The planet is one system, and we are all a part of it. Unfortunately, most people don’t see the earth as a single living thing, but see humans and all the other things on it as separate and isolated. I don’t agree with this premise. I see earth as one living thing. Also unfortunately, I see humans on earth as replications of cancer within organic bodies. Too many of us growing on the earth as self and taking it over to the point of destruction. We are creating entropy by making systems that should not be isolated into isolated systems that can then break down. Perhaps some would say we are creating systems that can be arranged in more ways, and therefore creating entropy? Or perhaps it’s just nature’s way to move into multiplicity and therefore entropy and that perhaps we weren’t supposed to be a single system, and the law of entropy exists in the planet as a whole and we are just a part of that?

I don’t think this is how it should be, but since this is how it is, then perhaps it is how it should be, because if it shouldn’t be this way, then wouldn’t it not be this way? Is it possible to have something be that should not be?

I don’t know the answer to these questions.

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Is Freedom Really an Excuse?

Isn’t it interesting when someone who says something hateful follows it up after criticism by saying that they have a “right to free speech,” as if that gives them a blanket right to be ugly.

I’d respond that just because you have the right to speak doesn’t mean you have to nor does it make your nastiness right. Being free to do something doesn’t suddenly exonerate yourself from being truthful or decent.

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If Wishes Were Horses

I have heard the expression If wishes were horses. I don’t know where I heard this. I am resisting googling this before I write so my writing is not colored by whatever I find on the internets. I keep thinking that if wishes were horses, there would not be enough room on the planet to sustain all of them. And also that wishing and wishing and wishing does not make something true. Desire, desire, desire leads to wishing, wishing, wishing. If every wish were a horse this would be a very strange planet. And what about the horses themselves? Perhaps they are wishing too. What then?

For me, if wishes were horses, there would be a herd indeed.

I did do an internets search and found out that it comes from an old proverb. Horses can be interchanged with birds and fishes. This proverb is recorded in English from quite an early date. A version of the expression appeared in the published works of William Camden in the 17th century. The first known citation of the proverb in the form we now know it is in James Carmichaell’s Collection of Proverbs in Scots:

If wishes were horses, beggers wald ryde.

The date of Carmichaell’s work is unclear, but it does appear to have been published in his lifetime and he died in 1628. Whether it was Carmichaell or Camden who first recorded the proverb is currently not known.

I wonder if this means that beggars didn’t get to ride horses in those days. This should not surprise me. Owning a horse is an expensive proposition. Capitalism would have ensured that those at the bottom of the food chain did not own a horse, which requires food and shoeing and a place to live. No, beggars would not have ridden.

Okay, stream of consciousness, too early because I can’t sleep post is over. Suffice to say, for me, if wishes were horses, I wald haft love.

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Making the List

I have the most profound ideas in the shower. Then I have to get out of the shower and run and I don’t get to stop running until those profound ideas are pebbles and grits of dust on the floor, obliterated.

Children, school, work, horse, dogs, friends all are taking me in bits and pieces in the edges and around corners. Live this life right now one day at a time, the theory being that at some point when I’m living these moments one day at a time focusing on one thing in that moment I won’t be neglecting ten others. This isn’t really living in the moment now because it is done with the hope for the future in mind; it’s bearing each moment now. Taking smiles when I can get them because most of the time it’s consternation and dismay.

The profound thought I had in the shower this morning was that I left myself off that list. I don’t even rank. I decided I would rank for three minutes while I wrote this one tiny thought down.

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Business Plan

I’ve decided I’m going to start my own corporation to operate in competition with Monsanto. I’m going to hire a bunch of scientists and get them to patent dogs and cats. Then when people try to breed them, I’m going to sue their asses off. Of course this will be after I’ve harassed them and terrified them, taking photos of them out walking the puppies and cuddling the kittens. I’ll have a field day with those idiots who are stupid enough to post a video of themselves on YouTube. How dare these people interfere with my right to own life? I’ll also go after anyone who buys the puppies or kittens unaltered. If they think they are going to let those animals breed without my getting paid for it, they have another thing coming.

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Asses

I used to write all of my thoughts down. I don’t write all of my thoughts anymore.

Tonight I crossed a street, and then crossed a parking lot. Two men were walking up the sidewalk when I entered the parking lot. Halfway across one of the men shouted at me, “You have a nice ass!” I said low and to myself, “No I don’t.” Then I got to thinking about the concept of a nice ass and observed that having a nice or not nice ass is a weird construct, but I also thought that the man who said that probably didn’t think it was a weird construct. He probably just had some idea of the way asses look and determined that some ways are nice. I suppose this is the way most people who think about asses being nice or not thinks about them. But I find it odd that we determine that certain shapes of body parts are nice or not. I know there is some biological basis to finding certain features attractive, that it seeks out opposite and healthy genes, and youthful characteristics that are likely to increase the success of child bearing. However, I’m not sure I see where asses fit into that and I wonder how it is that our society has developed into one where we make judgments about body parts. Actually, I don’t really wonder about it. I can ascertain how we got to this place. I just wish we hadn’t, that’s all. Not because I’m offended when someone yells about my butt, but because we are where we are now and that we are headed where we are and it’s not pretty.

I spend much too much time alone. And it’s probably a good thing I don’t write my thoughts down anymore.

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Dear New Seasons

Dear Mr. Deli Man at New Seasons:  I know it’s late and the time changed, so it feels later in your body than it really is, but could you please be a little more attentive and properly put the chicken in the plastic bag rather than getting only its hindquarters in, thereby leaving the remaining chicken in the paper bag that isn’t designed to hold a greasy glob of cooked meat? Thank you.

Dear New Seasons:  Thank you very much for installing toilet tissue holders that actually turn easily when one pulls tissue off them. I can’t tell you how much this thrills me. So many stores are stingy and obnoxious with their tissue. It’s a real drag to have to pull one square, have the roller catch so the square tears off, then the roller rolls backwards so that the edge that just tore is in the back, leaving you to then scratch and pull to get that edge to the front, only to repeat the process 10 times in order to get enough tissue to do your business. I don’t want to wipe with my fingertips; that’s nasty. New Seasons, your generous tissue holders make me grateful to you every time I’m forced to use them. Thank you.

Dear Carrot Buyer at New Seasons:  Are you a new employee? Are you a particularly gargantuan human? I have to ask because the carrots you’ve chosen this week are enormous! I could have used one for a bat. Maybe you aren’t actually large, but a sports fanatic, and you would just LOVE it if someone used one of your ginormous carrots and a potato to start an impromptu game of baseball right there in the produce section. I could see it! Thank you though. I only needed to buy two of the things to make my soup, which is easier to carry without a bag than more carrots would have been. I don’t like getting bags in the produce section. They’re plastic and not good for the environment or wild animals, so I definitely prefer skipping the bag. The giant carrots made this more possible.

Dear New Seasons Stuffed Animal Pricer:  I get it that stuffed animals at the grocery store are a pure profit item for you. Who buys stuffed animals at the grocery store anyway (people who forget to buy gifts for small children at a regular store and are up against a deadline possibly?). What I would like to know though, is why you have to charge so danged much for them. Maybe you know purchasers of stuffies at the grocery store are in a last minute kind of thing position, and you are therefore taking advantage of our having not planned better. I would like to suggest you don’t take advantage of us. We’re already feeling precarious, having waited until the last minute and all. Maybe you could lower the price just a teensy, weensy bit? Please? For me? Thank you.

Dear New Seasons:  I would like to suggest that if you run out of whole cooked chickens in your deli section that you allow those of us who wanted one to purchase a whole uncooked chicken for the same price. The reason I make this suggestion is that, surprisingly enough, chickens from New Seasons that are uncooked cost MORE than chickens that have been slow-roasted in that cool turning thingamajig that leaves the meat falling off the bone. The cooked ones are way easier for us buyers, which seems to me to make them a premium item. Raw chickens are way more work. Shouldn’t the higher premium chickens cost more? Or at least the same? But they don’t. And some of your delis are not hip to the cooked chicken demand. The location by my house is AWESOME. They rarely run out of cooked chickens. The one by my old house, not so awesome. They ran out all the time and never seemed stocked like the one by my house now. But either way, making the raw chickens the same price would be oh, so very helpful. Thank you.

Dear New Seasons:  I checked out the Green Zebra. It’s so dang small, you can’t pass another shopping cart when you’re pushing one. And pricey! I’ll keep going to you, so whew!, right?

Dear New Seasons:  I am a loyal customer. New Seasons is always my first choice for food from a grocery store. I have to confess though, that I’m going to be stepping out at another store in the future because they have local, organic fuji apples for half the price of yours. They also have organic, steel-cut oats for a dollar a pound less. On many items, you’re actually cheaper than a lot of the stores people think are cheaper, like Fred Meyer. Fred Meyer is a joke. So is Albertson’s, and Thriftway, and Safeway. I hate all these stores. They are over-priced and have way too much processed and non-organic crap. Plus, they’re REALLY expensive. Arborio Rice at these stores, same brand, same size, costs over $2.00 more a container than the same arborio rice at New Seasons. And they can’t even compare when it comes to produce and meat products. But New Seasons, Sheridan Fruit Company has you beat on a lot of things, and I’m just going to have to buy there more often. I’m sorry.

Dear New Seasons:  You sell Gin Gins, my all-time favorite treat, for $3.99 for 3 ounces. This works out to be $15.96 per pound. I was able to locate Gin Gins on the internet in bulk:  Eleven pounds for $62.00, and shipping is free! Don’t ask me why the sell lots of eleven pounds instead of some more round number like say, ten, but that’s how they sell them. That works out to be $5.64 per pound. Even when you had them on sale at 3 ounces for $2.50, they were still $10 per pound. The bulk price is better, so I bought eleven pounds of the things. I admit it. That bag should last a while. Sorry, New Seasons. stepping out on you for the Gin Gins too.

Dear New Seasons:  Final letter of the night, I promise. I just wanted to say that I love going to your store. Everyone is always nice, even when they’re putting the chicken halfway in the plastic bag. All the workers seem not to mind being at work. The customers even seem happy. You help the local food scene. You buy meats that came from humanely raised critters. You’re a bit overpriced on some things (like fuji apples), but I can deal with that. Sometimes when I’m feeling down, I’ll go to a New Seasons just to get a pick me up. I like you, just the way you are. Too bad you’re not a man because I’d date you in a minute.

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Dancing Like a Sugarplum Inside my Head

Where did it come from? Why is it there? It came from nowhere and hung in my mind billowing like clothes on the line, the words playing over and over,

…a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. …a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. …a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. …a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

…the fragment just plays, wispy and light, over and over as I take a shower, as I blow my hair, as I feed the dog, as I clean the microwave.

It isn’t Christmas. I haven’t even thought of Christmas. I even remembered my dream right before waking and it wasn’t about Christmas. I have not listened to or read the Night Before Christmas.

So can someone tell me why the right jolly old elf is ripe and why he’s dancing like a sugarplum inside my head?

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My Thrilling Coffee Shop Visit

So for some reason I can’t fathom, the coffee shop where I like to go has decided to play the same damn 80s tape over and over and over. No matter when I come in, early morning, late afternoon, midday, there it is, belting out Michael Jackson or Madonna or Bob Marley or one of several one-hit-wonder songs from the era that, if heard, will stick in one’s brain for HOURS and DAYS after. This has been going on for weeks. What happened, did they lose their iPod? They should run across the street to the little used shop and buy something else. Anything. Even a different 80s tape. Please?

I don’t miss Papa Don’t Preach. I don’t. I heard it enough in the 80s. Madonna can sort of rhyme. Preach. Deep. I get it.

I don’t mind Thriller so much. In fact, I really kind of like Michael Jackson, freak show that he was, but I keep wanting to claw the air when I hear it, and I’m afraid the rest of the coffee shop won’t dance with me if I start, so…

Prince’s girl doesn’t have to be rich or cool to be his girl. She just has to leave it all up to him and give him a kiss. He also doesn’t want her to act her shoe size. I have a question about this. If your age is 3 and your shoe size is 10, like my daughter, does this advice still apply? I think maybe he would rather she act her shoe size in this case. Also, is there a point at which age and shoe size align? Maybe an 8 year old would wear size 8 ladies, but she would sure have some really big feet. I’ll have to mull that one over.

As an aside, there are two years out of every decade where birth year juxtaposes with graduation year: 1946 and 1964 and 1968 and 1986. That’s it. There aren’t any others.

The Thompson Twins. Yeah, well. I admit it. I had their tape. I played it a lot until one part got too thin and finally broke. I had to pull the little parts out, cut the thin part away, and tape it. Then the song skipped. You can’t do anything like this with CDs. I tried. I had a CD with a deep scratch that just would not play, so I used one of those CD repair kits that is supposed to fill in the groove. It didn’t work — it broke my CD player. I don’t recommend it. Tapes weren’t great because you had to fast forward or rewind or turn over to get where you wanted on the song, but you could keep taping them together forever if you wanted. My patience for whatever they played wore out before they ever did.

Another aside, did you know drinking blackberry juice will stop diarrhea? Yep. Seems counterintuitive, but it works.

I wish my coffee shop would change the music and that when it does, it would turn down the volume. I can’t think when the music is too loud, even when I like it.

Ooh. Something not 80s. Marvin Gaye. I have a thing for Marvin Gaye. So hot, and that voice, that amazing, delicious voice… Okay. I’ll stop.

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This is Completely Bizarre

My friend and I were fooling around on Meetup. I would put in a term to search for groups and see what Meetup came up with. I put in the term Sociopath. Meetup came up saying, “There aren’t any sociopath meet ups near Portland just yet.” Meetup then offered some alternatives that are slightly close and might suit me. Note what choices it offered:

Screen shot

It offered Investment Education, Wealth Creation, Business Strategy and Networking, and Professional Networking. Isn’t it ironic that Meetup thinks a sociopath group would fit with these business groups?

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Have a brain. Will write.

So since I haven’t been writing, does this mean I have no brain? I’m not sure the two are converse, but it’s possible.

My brain has been full. It’s constantly worrying, which is a useless and futile task, I know. If you’re worrying, it’s not happening, I like to say. However, what if what you’re worrying about is how to try to do something?

I don’t know the answer to this.

Some random thoughts:

The US has the highest infant mortality rate of all the other industrialized nations combined! (See the info on the statistics here.) This does not surprise me because birth in this country is done like a business, not like something to create new life. I am a fan of the movie The Business of Being Born. It’s a great film and compiles a lot of data. As with most things in this rotten stank of a nation, money rules.

I have 40 hours of video lectures on permaculture. This is great. Oops. I just realized I forgot to turn off the water on my plants in the backyard. Quick break…

Now my Isabel is home so enough rambling.

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Februas

February, named for the ancient purifying carnivals in Rome. Virile young men ran naked through the city, carrying strips of bloody goat flesh. As they ran they would pass royal ladies and slap them with the bloody strips, imparting fertility. Ostensibly, the women were joyous at the lashings, believing they would help them become pregnant. The straps were called februas, the source of the name of the month.

How ironic it is that ancient peoples sought so much to increase fertility and create new life, while in this time entire relationships shudder at its possibility.

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Can Someone Please Help Me With This Letter?

Dear Ms. Gardner,
We regret to inform you that, despite our previous assurances to the contrary, we will not be able to return your brain.  Unfortunately, your brain was part of a shipment of brains that was lost at sea over the Bermuda Triangle, a region of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and surface vessels have disappeared in what are said to be circumstances that fall beyond the boundaries of human error or acts of nature.  As you may know, some of these disappearances have been attributed to the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings.  Although substantial documentation exists showing numerous incidents to have been inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, there is no doubt that many ships and airplanes have been lost in the area.

As is often the case in the place just described, the plane carrying your brain simply disappeared off any radar.  Despite extensive searches and radio calls, we have been unable to make contact with the aircraft, its crew, or the items on board.  In fact, one search plane was also lost in the process.

We sincerely apologize for this egregious error.  We realize now that in attempting to save time by crossing this area of the Atlantic Ocean in order to decrease costs and thereby increase profits, we have created a huge liability for ourselves.  Our only hope is that because it was your brain that was lost, you will now lack the intelligence to realize the error was ours (despite this letter) and do nothing against us in retaliation or to mitigate your loss.  We also offer our condolences; a deficit of this magnitude must be quite distressing.  We certainly understand how you must be feeling right now, even without your limbic system.  There must be some awareness on your part that something is, well, missing.

As evidence of our sincerest and deepest sympathy, we would like to offer you this $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com.  It is our hope that you will be able to locate a nice children’s book or some other fine gift befitting the current state of your intelligence.  Perhaps a book on the alphabet or counting will allow you to find work at a telephone control center or at customer service for a credit card company.  In fact, we would be willing to put you in touch with our affiliates in these areas should you require assistance in becoming gainfully employed.  Additionally, we would also like to provide you with this gift of a handsome wallet for your identification and in some cases, pizza.

Again, please accept our apologies.  And have a happy holiday.  Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Brain Restoration Services, LLC

Dear Brain Restoration Services, LLC;
I so much appreciated your letter.  Your kindness in letting me know that my brain had been lost in the Bermuda Triangle, and then your further kindness in offering me the $10 gift certificate and possible assistance with employment were both truly above and beyond the call of duty.  I accept the Amazon certificate, by the way, and look forward to locating a book I can now read (as reading has become somewhat difficult in the weeks since losing my brain).  I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have been helping me in all areas, including reading, feeding, and wiping drool from my chin.  Without you I may actually have drowned.  Much gratitude also to my cousin for typing this letter on my behalf.

I would beg your further kindness, if at all possible.  Unfortunately, Amazon does not carry drool rags.  I searched their site high and low (again with the assistance of friends and family) and was unable to locate one in my price range.  I did locate a towel designed by a famous designer (his name escapes me at the moment–a not uncommon occurrence these days), only this towel was both quite large and quite expensive.  It was not really suitable for my needs.  I would prefer something absorbent that will withstand frequent washings.  Actually, two or three would be most suitable so I have something to use whilst my soiled rags are being laundered.

I also would like to inquire whether you are aware if others who lost their brains in this unfortunate incident might like to get together, not for a support group, but to play.  I think it would be quite enjoyable to build things with blocks or stack plastic rings with one another.  Our caretakers may even be able to trade ideas on dealing with the excess drool and, um, issues surrounding personal hygiene.  I have been made to understand that diaper changing on adults is rather difficult, as you may imagine.

Again, I so appreciate your thoughtfulness and hope this letter finds you well.  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Lara Gardner

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Life is Like That

I often think of new little products, waiting patiently in their boxes to be used. They’re so new and orderly. Pick me! Their calmness and order seems to say as they lie there in their box, waiting to be chosen. They have been waiting their entire life for use, and here you are, choosing. Will it be me? Their orderliness seems to ask.

I wonder whether a pantyliner or other hygiene product really wants to be used. They might think it’s what they want, getting out of that box or off that shelf. A new home! But then they come to realize that their use isn’t necessarily something desired. It results in the trash can or the sewer or the landfill.

I suppose a pantyliner or other hygiene product has no idea that being placed in someone’s crotch or in an armpit or between toes is a bad thing. They have no other existence to compare theirs to. Although the pantyliner might. It meets the underwear and thinks, Oh, a friend. A different sort of friend. Then the pantyliner gets covered in goo and is tossed in the trash, and the underwear gets to stay. It’s not fair on some level, but life is like that. You get to be a professor. She gets to be a mother. He gets to be an electrician. Someone is born and starves in Africa. Another is born and is obese in America. We are all on our different journeys. This really is simply how life is.

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Dental Floss Just Doesn’t Cut It

Blurb for the day:

I love popcorn. Too much. I often feel sick after eating too much of it, especially on an empty stomach, but I still keep coming back and love it. If you’re going to eat it though, you have to invest in a water pik. Dental floss just doesn’t cut it.

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Lapsing

Lapsed. I’m lapsing. I’ve lapsed. From nearly everything.

Lapsed seamstress. Lapsed writer. Lapsed knitter. Lapsed runner. Lapsed cello practicer. Lapsed student. Lapsed lover. Lapsed homemaker. Lapsed housecleaner (Actually, this one gets many lapses in one: Lapsed duster, lapsed bathroom scrubber, lapsed dishwasher, lapsed vacuumer, lapsed mopper, lapsed ironer). Lapsed makeup wearer. Lapsed friend caller. Lapsed snappy dresser. Lapsed reader. Lapsed photographer. Lapsed French and Spanish student. Lapsed cook. Lapsed popcorn-maker. Lapsed wit (I’d like to think I’m a lapsed half-wit because that would imply I was getting smarter). Lapsed activist. Lapsed memory. Lapsed. Simply lapsed.

I can’t really call myself a lapsed sleeper because I’ve been insomniac for two decades now, so it’s a permanent condition. I could only say I’m a lapsed insomniac if I were to start sleeping regularly. I also can’t call myself a lapsed laundry folder because I’ve always been abysmal at that too.

Thankfully, I have not lapsed in tooth care, keeping my body clean, or playing with my children or dog, although sometimes I wish I could lapse on these things too. I skipped a shower yesterday, and could barely contain my desire to jump in the shower this morning. An itchy scalp makes me bananas. I hope I’m never a prisoner of war or part of some other catastrophe that keeps me from being able to wash.

Maybe it’s my hair that has me so stuck, so unalive, so lapsed. I heard someone say in a movie that you should not keep the same hairstyle for decades, but I have not followed this rule. I’ve made forays into other hair places, but I always veer back because the texture of my hair is so inflexible when it comes to hairstyle variety, at least if I want to look moderately presentable, that I end up drifting back into blow-dried straight, shoulder-length hair. It doesn’t do well with layers, mainly because it’s really actually curly and layers turn me into a square head, which is so unattractive. Bangs. Those stick out straight in front and I look like I’m giving trailer girls circa 1985 a run for their hairstyle money. Again, it’s because I’m mostly curly. That’s the other thing. I’ve tried Gresham…er…curly, but I think because I blowdry straight every other day, some of the strands have become straight, so I end up with some parts curly, some parts bent funny, and the rest frizzy. Ugly. Ugh. Hence, no hair style change. Most days, it’s in a ponytail. I look the same all the time and this is boring. Just like me.

Tag: Motivation, lack thereof. There isn’t one of those, but perhaps there ought to be.

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Rats

I had rats. I suppose that statement is somewhat nebulous. Did I have rats in my hair? Did I have them as pets?  Were they running rampant through my house? Actually, two of these three statements are accurate, and if I hadn’t taken action when I did, likely the third could have been true as well.  I have had pet rats, and I’ve also had them running rampant through my house. It is the latter to which I refer. Rats infested my little bungalow, the one I restored in a SE suburb of Portland. I didn’t want to kill them. I started out using sticky paper to catch them and then I would take them to a park or somewhere else to release them. This was quite distressing. They would be so stuck to the paper and it would cause all sorts of physical stress reactions in the little things, and I could hardly bear it. I would cry as I used a stick or some other means to try and extricate them from the glue, whispering I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, over and over to them, pieces of their skin and fur left behind. I also tried live rat catching cages, but not one rat was caught.

Eventually the infestation became too great for humanitarian aid. My brother was staying with me at the time, as well as his girlfriend, and the combination of the two was more bait than any rat could resist. They were horrible housekeepers, which made them less than desirable house guests. The girlfriend especially. At one point during their sojourn, I found it necessary to clean up after them. The discoveries I made in the girlfriend’s belongings were enough to turn one’s stomach. Derek’s stuff, not so much. His stuff was just disorganized, but there wasn’t anything of organic nature in it. But girlfriend had bags full of clothes and at the bottom of bags were all manner of disgusting and rotten foodstuffs, as well as crusty-crotched underwear, and used menstrual pads. I could hardly manage. I’m on the clean end of the spectrum. I don’t like ghastly aged human excretions and rotten food being left in my home. Worst of all, the rats had burrowed into the bottoms of these bags and made nests filled with tiny torn up underwear crotches and pajamas.

As you can well imagine, the rats had a field day with this. They were mating and spawning like crazy. No sooner would I escort 6 teenage rats to the park than 20 more would appear, gorging on dog food, running across the basement stairs when the door opened, or tunneling through girlfriend’s sacks of nastiness. They also chewed cords and walls and were pretty destructive.

I finally realized that I was, unfortunately, going to have to cause some untimely rat deaths. I did not relish the thought.  Having been a rat owner for many years, I loved them. They are smart and cute and furry and all the things lots of people don’t think they are. Who cares if they have skin covered tails? Is a rabbit any different except that it has a fluffy tail? Not really.

I decided against traps. I could not bear squishing them. However, murderous bait was not much more appealing. They would suffer. Yet disposing of whole bodies were more palatable than getting rid of mutilated ones.

And so it began. I put out bait in big plastic things. Within days, I discovered slow moving creatures attempting to escape and find water. I would remove them to the farthest corner of the yard to die. This was horrible, but my cat and I could not keep up with their endless breeding and destruction.  Eventually my brother and the girlfriend left and I was also rat free. I cleaned the basement room thoroughly and made repairs where necessary. Life moved on and I forgot about the entire sordid affair.

So why did I bring this up now, six years later? Because I have a little safe in which I store a backup hard drive for my computer, and necessary papers like passports and birth certificates. Every now and again I have to get into the little safe for whatever reason, most often to back up the computer. This little safe was stored in the basement where my brother and the rats cohabited. One other problem I experienced with the rats is that they peed on things. They mostly peed on Sarah’s clothes (Sarah was Derek’s girlfriend), but they also peed on that safe. I’ve sprayed and scrubbed it and tried to rid it of that scent, to no avail. It is there. It smells. Every single time I open the safe for whatever reason, there is the smell, musky and stinky. It’s like cat pee; it never goes away. It has faded, but I doubt it will ever be gone. For as long as I own and use this safe, I expect I’ll have a little bit of rat urine in my life. I guess I can live with that.

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I Remembered Insomnia

I remembered that I didn’t sleep last night, that I woke at 4 in the morning and that the brain turned on, even though I ran through every means I know to try and shut it off, short of taking drugs, which are not useful when taken at that hour because they leave me feeling hung over the following day and I could not afford to feel hung over.

I remembered that I lay there thinking about finishing my taxes, and whether I’m getting enough exercise, and money, and my children, and global warming, and the novel I am not writing enough of, and you, even though you don’t deserve my thinking.  I also remembered that I thought “You don’t deserve my thinking” and took pains to steer my thoughts elsewhere, even if the alternatives were not very appealing either.

I remembered when I felt tired at 8 and couldn’t understand why because 8 is not that late that, oh yeah, I didn’t sleep last night, and that also, oh yeah, I didn’t go back to sleep, which I usually do, and that, oh yeah again, I had to get up at 7 a.m., but that when the alarm went off, I reset it for 7:20, but still didn’t fall asleep, so I reset it for 7:50, but finally gave up and got up at 7:30 because lying there and not sleeping was foolish and that if I did fall asleep I would feel misery at having to awaken.  Yes, this is a too-long sentence, but forgive me because I’m tired.

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Life is Like That

I often think of new little products, waiting patiently in their boxes to be used. They’re so new and orderly. Pick me! Their calmness and order seems to say as they lie there in their box, waiting to be chosen. They have been waiting their entire life for use, and here you are, choosing. Will it be me? Their orderliness seems to ask.

I wonder whether a pantyliner or other hygiene product really wants to be used. They might think it’s what they want, getting out of that box or off that shelf. A new home! But then they come to realize that their use isn’t necessarily something desired. It results in the trash can or the sewer or the landfill.

I suppose a pantyliner or other hygiene product has no idea that being placed in someone’s crotch or in an armpit or between toes is a bad thing. They have no other existence to compare theirs to. Although the pantyliner might. It meets the underwear and thinks, Oh, a friend. A different sort of friend. Then the pantyliner gets covered in goo and is tossed in the trash, and the underwear gets to stay. It’s not fair on some level, but life is like that. You get to be a professor. She gets to be a mother. He gets to be an electrician. Someone is born and starves in Africa. Another is born and is obese in America. We are all on our different journeys. This really is simply how life is.

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Virtually Useless Post

This is one of those extra special posts where I say virtually nothing and put it in a blog post.  Come to think of it, isn’t that what all of my blog is, actually?  I’m gradually discovering that I have nothing of any value to impart via the written word.  Nonsense, nonsense, all of it.  This is not an attempt to fish for compliments from my friends, but truth.  Really, going back through every single post, if none of it had been posted, no one would be any the worse for it, except maybe for the Pure Med Spa posts, and that was a complete accident.  Happenstance.  Fortuity.  Anyone could have gone online and bitched about Pure Med Spa and it would have been them to whom all the traffic on the issue would have been directed.

Anyway, all this was a sidetrack. What I really wanted to say was that I have the most adorable little dog in the world.  I love the adoration of dogs.  I love how they pick you and you’re their person, which means you’re the one they follow when you get up to go in the bathroom or the kitchen or across the room.  I love how when I climb into my bed, for whatever reason, little Ava isn’t far behind.  And even as annoying as it can be, I love her shrieky little bark and licking.  I wish she would not lick most of the time, but it’s her, and therefore I love it. I hold her little face in my hands and ruffle the bed head fur on her puppy head, and completely melt. Keeping a dog like this one is like having a baby around all the time.  Having my baby around all the time is joy in and of itself as well, so the combination of the two of them makes life pretty sweet a lot of the time.

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More Stupid Things I’m Thinking

Yes, unfortunately, there are more.  It’s how I roll.  Stupid thoughts running in and out all the time.  For instance, tonight the local bankruptcy bar in which I practice held a CLE, a thing to go to and learn legal things, continuing legal things.  Hence the C in the CLE. A judge, a court rep, and a couple of trustees instructed us on the ins and outs of the new bankruptcy rules.  Good times.  After they invited us for snacks and drinks.  I thought, free snacks?  Sure.  Social hour with adults. Why not?

Well.  I never feel more a fish out of water than when I attend lawyer functions.  I am terrible at small talk and stand around feeling self-conscious.  Stick me in a room full of lawyers and judges and theoretical “peers” and I simply feel, well, peerless.  I’m terrible at it.  If there are issues to discuss, cases to analyze, things to talk about with a question to argue, basically communicating with the same people in my job, then I’m fine.  But take any of that away and I’m just pathetic.  I stand there holding a drink and feeling foolish.  I think things like, “I’m standing here thinking this,” and “My pantyhose are too tight,” and “I can feel my ears,” and also sometimes things like thinking another lawyer is hot, although tonight that didn’t happen.  I was too sidetracked by the tight panty hose.

Today while I was getting dressed, I posted a status update on facebook that said, I go for lawyer, I end up librarian. This about sums up how I am as a lawyer overall.  I’m not suave; I’m frumpy.  I actually asked a judge tonight whether he would kick back a brief because of bad grammar because I have gotten some really awful briefs from lawyers with terrible grammar and thought to  myself that if I were a judge I would send back a brief for bad grammar.  He kind of paused as he answered, “Well, um…” And I knew the answer was no. He probably realized in that moment that perhaps I wasn’t a normal person, but he did seem a bit tipsy, so that might have helped my case a bit.  I like it when most of the people at such a function start to take on a bit more alcohol then they probably should. Then I figure they aren’t going to remember my standing there like an idiot holding some glass and repeatedly crossing and uncrossing my legs because my feet hurt, and not because I have to go to the bathroom.

I’m not sure why this is.  When I was first a lawyer, it was lack of confidence. I had no experience and felt like everyone around me had tons.  Now I don’t feel inexperienced. In fact I feel quite confident about my practice skills for the most part, and I don’t care when I don’t know.  I just call someone up and ask.  No big deal.  It isn’t that I don’t have anything in common with anyone either. There are people in this group with whom I have enough in common to manage a conversation, and some of them interest me quite a bit.  I really want to know about what they do.  I just don’t schmooze well, and a lot of legal activities seem to be all about just that.  Ah, such is life.

Tonight Isabel pooped on her bed.  I have been letting her run around with a diaper because she has never pee-peed or poo-pooed anywhere except in her diaper or her potty.  Tonight I think the poop surprised her.  I heard her holler from her room, POOP!  I went in there and low and behold, that is exactly what had taken place.  She looked surprised and kind of scared, sitting there with a little turd on the bed and stuck to her bottom.  Okay, honey, I said, I’ll clean it up.  I was laughing so hard, I could hardly breathe, especially because I was trying to do it without her knowing I was doing it and it was strangling me.  Poor little pooper!  I got her all cleaned up and she helped me put on a new diaper and then take her bedspread to the washing machine.

On New Year’s Eve, I had the opportunity to venture outside my comfortable inner NE Portland bubble and visit the suburbs.  My friend Rita invited me to a party at her friend’s house.  Why not?  I could bring the baby. We could hang out, bring a small hostess gift, and then head home after.  My other option was movies at home on the computer after Isabel went to sleep. Not so fun.  Life is kind of boring around here when Milla is gone.  No one is around for me to boss around.

So out into the land of McMansions I trekked.  Rita asked me to meet her over at her neighbor’s house because she was picking up her son.  I parked at Rita’s house and bundled Isabel in her coat before trundling to the neighbor’s white colonial.  Bundled and trundled. The door bore the words WE_COME.  The L was curled up so it looked like a little dash.  I knocked and waited.  From within the house I could hear the sounds of children running and hollering.  A moment later, Rita’s son answered the door, followed closely by Rita, carrying another son.  Immediately in front of me were stairs up to the second floor of the house.  Each stair displayed a word or an inspirational saying in different fonts and letter sizes.  LOVE.  KEEP Faith ALIVE.  HOPE. God ANSWERS those who ask.  Okay, I thought.  Not my decor choice, but whatever.

Rita introduced me to the neighbor and we headed back over to her house.  Inside, I noticed Rita had Faith, Hope, Love in stick-on letters on her dining room wall.  Hmmm.  I thought nothing more of it.  We changed diapers, gathered diaper bags, bundled up children further, and headed out to drive over to the friend’s for the party. It was nearing 10 and we needed to get going.

I followed Rita’s Highlander as we drove out of her neighborhood onto a main road.  A half mile up the main road, we turned and drove along a road with countryside on one side and houses on the other.  We turned and turned and turned again. Mostly the roads stayed partially housed and partially country.  Rita lives in Washington county.  It is my opinion of Washington county that its perspective is to cover every available green space with a building, so it was actually quite refreshing that this countryside had not been tainted.  The night was clear and the moon was bright, so I was able to see the grayed landscape.

Finally we drove into a neighborhood.  Neighborhoods like the one we were driving into are popular in Hillsboro.  I think it is Intel; its base is there.  These neighborhoods are filled with houses that nearly obliterate their lots.  They are mostly snout houses, meaning the primary feature one notices when looking at them is their rather large garages.  We passed several such houses with three garages.  Who needs three garages? I thought to myself as we twisted and turned, twisted and turned.  Every house looked the same to me.  I would never have been able to find my way there if I had been alone.  Rita used to live in a neighborhood like this one, back when she was married to a man who worked at Intel.  I kind of pride myself on my ability to find my way and that I rarely get lost, but every single time I visited Rita when she lived in that neighborhood, I made at least one wrong turn.  It was uncanny.

In any case, eventually we arrived at a whole lot of cars and I knew the party could not be far.  We parked and walked a block to a nondescript suburb house.  Very large. Very snouty.  The cars were parked outside, which I later learned was because the garage had been turned into a storage facility.  Maybe that’s the purpose of the many and large garages, storage!  Fill your garage with things you never use and won’t see just in case someday you might need them, but you won’t know you have them so you’ll buy more of the thing you can’t find, use it once, then lose it in the garage again.  I get it!

I digress.

The point of this little tale is that upon entering, the very first thing I noticed was that all over the walls, in between the photos and floral hangings, were more stick-on, inspirational sayings!  Lots of them.  A little lightbulb popped on above my head right in that moment and I realized that this must be the in suburb thing.  I’m really out of the loop about in things, and I’m especially out of the loop about in suburban things.  I wondered, standing there, whether my many suburban Vancouver and Washougal and Camus had special sayings on their walls.  Probably.  Wow, I’m not in.  But I knew that.  I think about my pantyhose at lawyer functions, what the hell would I know about inspirational writings on suburban walls?

Now it is time to go to bed.  Isabel has been very patient as I write this.  Milla has been hiding in her room.  She came down to sit on my bed and scold Isabel because Isabel wants to touch Milla’s homework and Milla doesn’t want her to, but rather than ask nicely or move to a place the baby can’t get to, Milla is acting all teenagery.  Get a grip, Milla. Now baby wants to be on my lap.  I have to brush my teeth.  The stupid thoughts will just have to hang out in my head for now.

 

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Stupid Things I’m Thinking

These are some stupid things I’ve been thinking about recently.  As I’m sitting here thinking of these things to write down, there are quite loud bangs going on outside. I’m not sure what the bangs are for, as it is not near midnight. However the sorts of people who seem to find fulfillment in loud noises are probably also the sorts to find that fulfillment at whatever time of day. They are just glad of the excuse for a holiday with which to cause extreme vibrations to reverberate through the air.  I hope actually that this is what it is, because I would hate that these noises are caused by a shotgun or a canon or a home invasion or something of that ilk.  This would be not good.

My cat is bulimic.  If she’s gone bulimic to lose weight, it’s not working: she’s fat. Actually, the truth isn’t that she is bulimic, but that she is an irrepressible glutton who gorges on her food and doesn’t bother chewing it. This causes her to vomit all of it back up, whereupon she heads back immediately to the food dish for more.  I have begun to believe she was a starving alley cat in a past life or something, the way she eats. And she has always been that way, for as long as I have known her, which has been since she was six weeks old.  Glutton.  Bulimic glutton.

It used to be when I typed in WordPress, I could option delete back to delete an entire word.  They have changed something and now I can’t do that.  I must write to support and ask why because it is really annoying not to be able to do it.

About a month and a half ago, there was a story in the Oregonian about how personal care and cosmetic products are basically unregulated.  It cited many multiple ingredients in these products that can give you cancer and ultimately kill you.  A spokesperson for the industry was quoted as saying that the industry does not need to be regulated because the products are all safe; no one has gotten sick or died from personal care products.  The Oregonian left it at that. I thought the reporter should have pushed this point, although the article was probably written by the AP and not a human here and reporting in that manner is pretty shoddy.  In any case, this statement was pure foolishness.  All sorts of cancers have increased exponentially.  Breast cancer continues to increase.  Autism is at an all-time high.  We have millions of people with all sorts of increasing physical ailments putting known toxins into their bodies by an industry that is virtually unregulated, and their representative claims there is no evidence these products cause harm?  How about some long term studies to back up that claim, hmmm?  That would be nice.

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Pointless Rambling

Do you ever have a day where it feels like there is a burr in your ass?  I didn’t start out the day feeling that way, but ever since I woke from a midday nap I have felt increasingly cranky.  I’m sure a lot of it is that I did not get enough sleep last night, and the other part is that I’ve got a damn cold again, and my voice is nearly gone, and by the end of the day I’m frankly sick to death of squeaking rather than speaking.  I finally decided it would not even be a good idea to work on my book because my attitude would more than likely worm its way into the text and I don’t need that.

All this said, I have the cutest, sweetest, most adorable baby on the planet sleeping next to me and just seeing her fills my heart with love and joy.  She is perfection.  Tonight in the car, she picked up her chubby, sandaled foot and held it to her head like a phone.  “Lo?” she said into her heel, her toes to her ear.  What could be cuter than that?  Sweet adorableness.  I’m in baby love.  Older daughter was actually kind today too.  She had me come in and cover her with blankies before going to sleep, then I cuddled her and accidentally poked her in the eye.  This required kisses and loves.  At least she didn’t snarl at me.  I’m not in love with this snarly, surly age. I hope we get through it intact.  I foolishly believed I would be immune from adolescent angst in my child.  Oh how wrong I was…

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Bedtime

Tonight I ran, pushing Isabel’s stroller, for a half an hour.  Ava ran with us.  We ran up and down hills and across sidewalks.  Many of the sidewalks were bumpy because of large tree roots.  I love the large trees; I do not love the large roots pushing up the sidewalk.  However, given the choice, I would take the trees and the bumpy sidewalks over no trees.

Anyway.  After I ran I came home, took a shower, and made dinner and washed the dishes, then Isabel was tired so I put her in jammies, changed her diaper, and put her to sleep.  I lay there too for about a half an hour.  It was only 9 o’clock.  I could have completely stayed asleep, but I was still wearing contacts and had not brushed my teeth, and then Milla came in to kiss and hug me goodnight, and I knew if I stayed there I would wake up at 1 and not go back to sleep.  I got up and started working on my book and now I’ve hit a wall, a tired wall.  I can’t write anymore.  I have to go to sleep.  I still have not taken out the contacts or brushed my teeth.  Ack.  I’m going to have to do that before I can sleep.  Instead I sit here and type this.  Okay, I quit.  I’m going to bed.

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Accident or Intention?

It has been my experience that when one does something inadvertently or accidentally to another person and it causes harm, the person apologizes profusely.  Perhaps it is a leap in logic to presume this is always the case, but I think in most cases, if someone causes harm unintentionally, apology is the appropriate and common response.  Accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, apology.  I can recall some instances where there was an accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, then acknowledgment of the harm, and acknowledgment of the action.  However, I cannot recall any situations with accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, and defense of original action without an apology.  If there was an accidental action that caused harm, there was an apology as well.

How common is it, do you think, that there is accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, then defense of the original action as accident without apology?  For instance, I trip you accidentally, you fall and get hurt, then I don’t apologize, but instead say Ah well, it was an accident…?  Considering cultural norms surrounding apology in this circumstance, it does not seem to be a stretch to presume that if I trip you and you fall and I don’t apologize, that the original tripping was not accidental.  In this instance, it would be necessary to look to the surrounding circumstances to determine whether or not my action was intentional or inadvertent.  For instance, I’m wearing big shoes that I’m not used to wearing and holding my feet out at a funny angle because the shoes feel odd.  It would not be hard to figure it really was an accident.

However, if there is a footprint on the back of your leg in such a way that for that footprint to have landed there I would have had to have kicked you, and then you were harmed, and then I did not apologize, it would not be difficult to surmise that I intended to cause harm.  I may have intended to kick and tripped instead, but the original intent was to cause some harm thereby negating the need for apology.

Ah, it is all speculation.  I know it wasn’t an accident.  If it were, there would have been profuse apology.  The resulting damage may have been greater than predicted, but harm was still the intent.  The fact there was no apology is just another factor that proves it.

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Third Person Lara

Lara is staying up too late.  It is her own damn fault; she fell asleep with her infant at about 6:30 in the evening and slept until almost 9.  Bad idea.  Bad idea, indeed.  Now Lara is awake.  But Baby finally fell asleep at half past midnight, so Lara can go to sleep too, after she brushes and flosses her teeth.  Poor tired Lara. Let’s hope her infant doesn’t wake up at the butt crack of dawn.

Lara thinks she should change her name, but she doesn’t know what name to change her name to.  She doesn’t like the name Lara.  It is such a wimpy name.  Plus no one can pronounce it properly in the United States. It’s always LORuh or LAIRuh, not LARuh, like car, or bar, or far, or tar, or mar, or even the letter R.  It’s not hard (or the word hard), or difficult even, but people here can’t do it.  And even when she spells her name for people, they still stick in the damn U.  What the hell, people?  There isn’t a U.  It’s not the same name.  Laura is the feminine of Lawrence.  It is a Latin-based name.  Lara is a Slavic name.  It is not related to Lawrence.  But try telling that to the morons who refuse to call her by her proper name, dang it.  Annoying.

Okay, awake is going to win if Lara does not head to her bed.  First to the bathroom sink and the toothpaste and the toothbrush, then to the bed.  Sleep.  Sleep.  Ahhhh…

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How Do I Love Thee

Ah, sleep.  My lovely friend, you are my blissful savior.  For months you have evaded me, trickling in and out like a stealthy lover.  Yet tonight you arrived on my doorstep to spend the night, lolling beside me on my bedsheets, holding me close to your bosom.  Each time you have graced me with your spiriting presence you removed my mind, carrying it off to unknown vistas.  Your visit has restored my thoughts, revived my spirit.  Please do not leave me again–my heart and mind will break without you.

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Cottonhead

There is fuzz in my brain.  No, not the police, just cotton.  Thick lumps of it, blocking any attempt at coherent thought.  Do you know how many “drafts” I have saved in this blog?  Unpublished drafts of things I started and then never got around to finishing because I either could not figure out what I was going to say or because I was interrupted and when I went back I could not catch the train of thought?  Lots of them.  Lots and lots.  Sometimes what I was writing seemed like something I wanted to say, then when I went back I realized it was just stupid, so I deleted it.

We are looking for a new apartment.  I really want to move.  I really want to move before the baby comes.  But I also am not thrilled at the prospect of looking for apartments.  Yuck.  I hate the ads. So many of them are bogus crap.  Craigslist is wonderful in many ways, but the crap ads are annoying.  I flag them, but they still show up. I wish there were some way for Craigslist to improve that feature of its ads.

Well this is my mindless blurb for the day.  I really have nothing more to say.  So I’m going to work on the long list of things I need to complete.  Maybe my writing projects won’t go as slowly as usual, but I doubt it since my brain seems filled with pregnancy cotton this morning again.  Whee.

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And Then

Liz Cheney is as big a fucking hate-mongering idiot as her devil father.  Spawn of the devil keeps his evil going…

I may have been followed this morning.  A woman I had seen on the train got onto the elevator with me and did not choose a floor while I was on the elevator.  I do have to say though, that she did not get off at the 6th floor as I did.

When I go to businesses that ask my name, I make one up.  Your name?  Aristophanes.  Spell that one.  Then pronounce it.

We are losing.  Here is my prediction of what is going to happen:   The ginormous corporations will continue to get bigger and proliferate.  The masses, increasingly ignorant and sedated with fast food, television, noise,  sports, and religion will become even stupider, turning back into the peasants of the middle ages.  The power elite are going to win and the poor are going to help them.  The poor want to be rich and if they were given the means, they would act the same way so they don’t question being constantly sold and mollified with product, trying so hard, kissing vacations goodbye and futilely trying to shovel their toddlers into Harvard.  Since they will not become a part of that which they seek, they go along and buy their lottery tickets, stuffing their faces, plugging earphones into their heads and turning up the music so they can drown out their own oblivion.  They believe it when they are told there is a magnificent being in the sky who cares about them and will take care of them after death so they don’t have to concern themselves with the fact that the place in which they are actually living right here and right now carries other possibilities.    Numbed and choking on corn and petroleum, they will let the power class continue to take them and take the planet.  In time, those of us who are in the minority and see the damage and want change may rise up and revolt, but success is an unlikely prospect.

And a thought from my friend Carin:  Something that’s been bugging me.  Self righteous boobs claiming to be upstanding and moral whilst they are posing half nude with photographers, getting boob jobs and participating in a meat, sorry, “beauty” pageant.  Or teenage twits who claim they are the voice of abstinence-only sex ed while holding their baby that they conceived obviously not through abstinence.

As I walk to the subway, ride the subway, and walk to my office, I’m filled with thoughts and observations.  The moment I walk through the door and sit down under the flourescent lights, the thoughts fritter away into the ether.  I wonder as I’m walking if I should stop and write some of the thoughts into my notebook, but I don’t do it.  My notebook used to be full of thoughts, but right now the only words there are a note I took to remind myself to contact my daughter’s school about an art teacher who smashes art pieces she deems unworthy of her almighty judgment.  Other than that, nothing.  Is it the flourescent lights?  Maybe it’s the air-conditioning.  Maybe it blows the thoughts from my brain.

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Happy New Year Musings

I got a headline in my email inbox that said It Will Never be 2008 Again.  Well, it will never be this moment again, or this one, or this one.  We have all these silly human traditions to mark the passage of time, yet time passes every moment. Each one is a new beginning and an ending.  That moment is the future, now it is now, now it is over.

And on and on.  Every year I mull over this curious holiday celebrating what is essentially the same moment as previous, but we label it as new, give a party, scream and shout, and have another method of categorizing our time.  It does its job, to some extent anyway.

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Random Thought

You know, I was thinking this morning about giant bank failures after Wachovia bit the dust.  Surprise surprise.  I looked through the FDIC bank failure list.  While it appears a few small banks have failed recently, the number of large bank failures to small ones is bigger in comparison to the overall number of banks.  Perhaps part of the problem is that these institutions were too damn big…a dinosaur effect if you will.

This got me thinking further about those who scream and yell about big government, how it is horrible, etcetera.  I don’t hear these same people screaming about ginormous companies.  They would probably say this is because the giinormous companies are “private” and don’t use taxpayer money.  But that is a false argument.  Just because the money isn’t deducted from a paycheck or mortgage statement doesn’t mean it doesn’t come from taxpayers, and it probably means we paid extra so the private business could make a profit.

I don’t know where I’m going with this.  I just got to thinking about it this morning.  It’s not a discussion I have heard.

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Another Political Blog

So now no one will read me. For some reason when I go on and on about how pathetic I am, my readership goes up tenfold.  I write something political and it drops. As a political commentator, I’m an unknown voice screaming among many.  I would think I am the same thing as a pathetic wreck, but apparently not.  Or else people like reading about all the pathetic wrecks, so adding me to the mix is okay.

So here is my political blog comment of the day.  Well, actually there will be two.  First of all, I went to McCain’s site yesterday.  His first paragraph says that he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade.  Then he says he will appoint judges to fix this decision.  Then he says he does not believe it is right to appoint activist judges who legislate from the bench.

Problem number one:  Is he, or the person who wrote this drivel since McCain is apparently unable to use the “innernit,” completely unable to see the hypocrisy in this statement?  I will appoint judges to overturn this, but I do not believe in appointing legislating activist judges?  He obviously thinks appointing someone to overturn a decision is not appointing an activist judge, thereby immuning him from his own hypocrisy, or else he completely misses that what he says is hypocrisy.  In either case, it’s a problem.

Problem number two:  When judges interpret a law, which is their job, it is not “legislating from the bench.”  It is doing the job of a judge.  Congress (or another lawmaking body) writes a law, executive branch gives it the stamp of approval, judges interpret.  Very little of what is written is 100% clear.  Facts need to come along and give a law some teeth and meaning.  Freedom of speech?  This does not mean you have the right to encourage someone to rape someone else.  And on and on.  All the words in a law need to be interpreted.  That is the job of the judicial branch.  Lawmakers jump up and down and throw a fit because judges do exactly what they are supposed to do.  That is the POINT of a three-branch system.  If lawmakers do not like how a judge interpreted a law, then the problem is not with the judge but with the way a law is written.  If lawmakers want judges to interpret a law a certain way, then they need to write that way into the law.  Otherwise judges are left trying to determine what the hell the lawmaker meant.  If an executive does not want a law to be interpreted a certain way, then the executive should not sign the damn bill into law until it is written more clearly.

It’s basic civics McCain.  Maybe instead of focusing on your time in the military 40 years ago, you ought to spend some time going back and relearning basic US governmental structure.

This leads me to the other McCain criciticism of the morning.  Why is it that we constantly have to hear all about McCain’s military service?  Is this all the guy has done? Uh, yes.  The other 60-some odd years of his life are irrelevant, at least that seems to be what he wants us to believe.  Let’s focus on the fact he was a POW and ignore all the other crap he’s done in between because if we focused on that, we know it would be hard to sell him as a leader.

Annoying.  That’s all I have to say about that.

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Spinning Time

My blog has turned into two things.  One is me going on and on about how pathetic I am.  The other is my ranting about the godforsaken political situation in this country.  It’s as if my sense of humor has taken a monster shit and been flushed down the loo.  It does not exist anymore, at least in writing.  I am not sure though that I ever had it.  I just had these magical moments where things came to me and I wrote them down, but they are gone now.  Or maybe it was just that I was not living in mental chaos all the time.  Lately I feel as if I live in mental chaos, in this box where I just want to know what the fuck it is that I want out of life and I go for it.  But the times I’ve known what I want and gone for it have been monumental failures, so I have really almost given up trying.  Well, I don’t know about that, but I’ve not known exactly what I want for ages, and that has been a big part of the problem.  Recently, I have figured out exactly what it is that I want, but it is one of those things that requires others on board and I have not exactly figured out how to present these desires to the other parties involved.  The result is that I mope about wanting these things, wondering if they are the right things to want, waffling whether I actually do want them, then wondering again if I do in fact want them how to present these things to other involved parties.  It’s a conundrum, I can assure you.

As it is I just spin time, organizing my room, thinking about things I want to write, sitting at the computer and staring, trying to remember what it was I sat down for, then getting up and wandering over to my bed to stare at the wall, continuing in my humorless vein.  It’s a good time.  It’s such a good time I am going to do it again right now because I am tired.  Good night.

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Random Tidbit

Here I sit in Bend, Oregon, listening to some pretty cool jazz music.   BF is playing with a tenor duo and drummer.  It’s good.  I like this venue because there is a place for me to sit in the back and goof off on my computer while listening.  I love it.

I am moving to Hawaii in less than two weeks.  I am not prepared.

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Song of the Day

Also known as proof that corporate mind takeovers really do work.

I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weiner,
That is what I’d truly like to be.
‘Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer weiner,
Then everyone would be in love with me.

Isn’t that special? I know that song because I heard it on television as a child. I spent a lot of time watching television. See how I turned out? Yikes. I’m the poster child for why you shouldn’t let your children watch television or be loners. I’m so Generation X, it’s boring.

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Interesting Beats

I had to go to work today since I did not work yesterday and also my boss has a big brief due so he needed for me to proofread it and then help him put it all together in notebooks for the hearing. I’m tired. I woke up too early again this morning. I laid there contemplating things I did not want to contemplate, too tired to get up, but not falling asleep. Then I got the brilliant idea that it might be the light waking me up so I put on my eye pillow and promptly zonked out. Sometimes I marvel at my own incredible brilliance. Truly remarkable, me.

I heard a song I liked today. It’s called Unsquare Dance by Dave Brubeck. Actually, I love the rhythm. You can download it for free on the internet, so I’m going to. I found it because I’m working on my website. My logo is going to be a lamp with 7/8 in it for 7/8 time and 7/8th houses in astrology. I did a search for songs in 7/8 time. I found a great list. All the works have this unusual time signature. I really liked this one.

I get my new apartment keys today. Yippee. Moving from a house to an apartment sounds like so much fun. But it’s temporary. And I love the neighborhood. And the apartment really is cool if one is required to live in an apartment.

Altogether the day is shaping up to have different sorts of interesting beats. And it is sunny. That’s the best beat of all.

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I’m Here, Aren’t I?

Showing up. Showing up. Showing up. As a writer, it is necessary for me to show up. I don’t have any desire whatsoever to work on the important things tonight. I have no desire whatsoever to work on unimportant things tonight. I have nothing spectacular or funny to say. I am boring. I recognize this. I also know why. I have not slept well recently. Over time, the lack of sleep draining causes sustained retardation in my brain. About the only thing I am capable of doing well (and well is the key word here) is watching South Park videos. Small problem. South Park Zone won’t let me watch South Park videos. I tried reading a book. I realized I had read a page with zero comprehension of the words in front of me. This means I have reached a state of brainlessness rarely achieved, even for me.

So here I sit, starting paragraphs with the word so. This is not a good thing. Oh, guess what I saw today? The back of a street sign had a foot tall green penis and balls drawn on it. There were little squirties coming out the top. Isn’t that original? I thought it was. Particularly the choice of green as a color for the penis. Perhaps that helped to make the penis stand out.

One of my bank accounts is a big, old mess. I have this account I use for Milla’s money. Well, I thought there was a deposit made that wasn’t, so a bunch of crap went overdraft. Here’s the thing, the crap that went overdraft was from point of sale purchases. What does this mean? It means that I used a debit card. I asked the bank to explain to me why they would approve the point of sale charge if there was no money in the account. Why not simply say no, this card is useless? Well, they could not answer this. Instead, they charged me $25 for the first two $7.75 purchases, then $28 for additional purchases, one for about $37, another for about $60, and a third for $20. There were a couple of others. Here’s the other thing. I had one big charge for $200, this was the one that caused the problem. It put the account overdrawn, then all these piddly ones came after. So I said to the bank, if that hadn’t gone through, none of the other stuff would have gone overdrawn. The bank person told me they put through the big charges first. At this point I noticed that indeed, the charges began with the largest and proceeded down in denominations. What does this mean? It means a big purchase makes you overdraw, then all the little nickel and dimey crap comes through and runs up BIG money for the bank. Isn’t that a great money-making scheme? The guy on the phone said it was because big purchases were more important. Oh really, you think so? I think it’s a scheme for your bank to make more money. Add to that the fact you allowed point of sale purchases to go through when there was no money in the account. He said my pointing that out was being abusive. Since I was speaking in a calm, normally volumed, well modulated tone of voice, I found this confusing. Abusive? I asked. How in the world is my pointing out that your bank is ripping me off abusive? I would say that your bank is abusive. He then asked if there was anything further he could do for me. I told him he could go and take a hike. Yes, perhaps that last line was abusive. I’m a bad person. I admit it. I guess paying $156 in fees for purchases totaling less than that makes me this way. Yes, I know there are those out there who would get all judgmental on my ass for not knowing about the deposit in the first place, but there are extenuating circumstances. Another person puts money in that account and I thought he did it. The judgmental people can now be original and say see what you get for doing your own thinking? Yes, I do. I get abusive, that’s what I get.

Well imagine that. I managed to eke out more than one paragraph. Wonders never cease. I didn’t even think while I did it. I suppose it is not necessary for me to point that out, my not thinking. It’s probably quite evident from what I’ve written. I know this. In my altered, brain dead state, I am able to fathom that my writing is pitiful. But I’m showing up, that’s what I’m doing. I’m having impure thoughts too. Isn’t that nice to know? You don’t know what they are. I could be thinking about sewage in the Willamette River. That would be an impure thought. You probably thought I meant sex, especially since I mentioned seeing the giant green penis drawing. But there are other things out there I could be thinking about that are impure. I’ll never tell.

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Trivialities

Holy criminy.  I don’t look at my eyebrows for a few days and the damn things completely take over.  Yikes.  Little sprouts here and there and everywhere.  It’s not a pretty picture.  I wonder if electrolosis really works and if it does if it costs much and if it doesn’t if it hurts.  If all these pieces can be satisfied I ought to go and get some in order to negate the requirement that I remove these hairs with tweezers every three days if I would like to avoid a forest across my face.  Frida liked that look. It doesn’t work for me.  I’m too pale.

I hurt my back.  I spent 20 minutes bent over picking up dog poop out of the backyard, tried to stand up, and that was that.  My back was out.  I have had difficulty walking, moving, sleeping.  I’m beginning to improve.  I have not had the back strength to sit and write.  I have had lots of interesting things I have wanted to write about, then I think of my desk and chair, my back gives a twinge, and that is the end of that.  Back trouble is not conducive to a writing career, at least for a person who does not have a laptop.

I have another offer on my house.  It is a good offer.  There is another offer in backup if this one falls through for some reason.  It’s not as good as the other, but it isn’t bad either.  Both potential buyers are in love with my house.  I have said all along that I want someone who loves it to buy it rather than some investor who is just going to rent it out.

Last night the man and I went to a hookah lounge and smoked a blueberry hookah.  Or rather an exotic blueberry hookah.  Every flavor is exotic, but when we asked for blueberry flavor, he said, Exotic blueberry.  Oh yes, our mistake.  Interesting little experience.  Lots of over-synthed techno pop eurotrash music that after a few hits off the hookah thingy wasn’t so obnoxious, although it would not have been my first musical choice.  I tried blowing smoke rings.  Can’t do that.  I tried blowing out just one nostril without covering the other one with my finger. Can’t do that either.  I’m not a smoker, never have been, so all those little smoker tricks are lost on me.  Overall though, it was fun to try something new.

Darling Milla, my NINE year old, is off on a trip with her class. They went to a farm.  It’s in Silverton.  She gets to milk goats, among other things.  Lucky for her it is supposed to be merrily warm over the next few days.  If I had to go camp on a farm and milk goats, I would infinitely prefer merry warmth to icy chilliness.

Now I have a drumming lesson.  I like drumming.  I love bass.  I am not taking official bass lessons.  I have been using a dvd.  I would like to take bass lessons, I just haven’t done it yet.  Plus I’ll need to find a decent bass teacher.  I don’t want to waste time or money on a crappy bass teacher.  So off I go to bang on percussion instruments and make noise.  That is if I can remove myself from this chair. The back is not happy I sat this long.  I realize this is a pathetic post.  It’s my effort at showing up since the painful back has kept me off track a few days.  It is what it is.

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Musings in the Library

I saw this book at the library today called God’s Politics.  I only saw it as I was walking by so I did not examine the contents of the book, but I had the thought immediately upon seeing the title that such a thing proves that god is a construct of man because politics are a construct of man.  Why would any god have need of politics?  It’s foolishness.  Politics are the process by which groups of people use to govern one another and to decide who gets what.  If god were a supreme and single being, what would be its need of politics?  It would have control of everything and would have no need to bargain.  In any sense where a god could be involved in politics, god would be a human construct, a way to complicate the political process.

I find it so ironic that people who believe god wants things one way think god wants it their way.  They seem so unable to consider a universe where there might be one god that wants it some other person’s way.  In that regard, the god becomes a further extension of the self and a justification for something the person either isn’t willing to say alone or for which the person has no honest justification.  It’s the devil made me do it reversed.  The god is constructed to back up an idea or to stand for that which the person can not or will not stand for alone.  The reliance on the god becomes a way to remove personal responsibility.  Ironically enough, in our society, the religious person is automatically afforded a moral compass and assumed responsibility simply by the fact of being religious.  Again, the requirement for actual personal responsibilty or development of an actual moral compass is lessened simply via the association.  This is simply absurd.

These are just the thoughts that fumbled through my brain as I wandered the aisles of the library in search of books to play my bass.  Politics, religion, and bass guitar.  Who could ask for more than that?

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Dogs, Blogs, and the Nice Manager at Target

My silly little dog hurt his back leg.  I suspect he injured it while jumping off the couch or the bed.  In any case, it appears to be a soft tissue injury and, while he is limping, he seems to be improving.  He does not like to step on it and walks gingerly.  Today I took him out to go potty and it was hilarious.  He wanted to lift the back left leg which would have forced him to stand on his back right, the injured leg.  He couldn’t do it.  I kept cracking up because he seemed so unwilling to lift the hurt leg to pee, even though he was holding it higher to keep from standing on it than he holds it while peeing.   Poor little guy.  He’s trying to pee and I’m laughing at him.

Now I’m sitting here typing and having to contend with greyhound nose.  Edna’s nose is just the right height to insist upon a pet from keyboard hands.  Yesterday I was practicing my new bass guitar (oh my gosh I’m hooked, it is so much fun!) and Edna kept coming over and nosing my hand while I plucked.  Maybe she wants to play too.  Silly thing.

Today Milla and I went to Target to buy her a new coat.  I normally do not shop at Target.  I think their business practices are as abhorrent as Walmart’s.  However, Milla received two gift cards for Target for Christmas and she needs a coat so I figured we could use the cards that way.  Well, while we were in the store, I put the cards in my pocket.  We found a jacket and headed up front to pay.  I reached into my pocket and one of the cards was gone.  I was so frustrated.  We combed the store looking everywhere, retracing our steps.  We did not find it.  I went up front to ask if the store had a lost and found, but the woman I asked just looked at me like I was a ghost or something and did not answer.  More frustrated, I asked a security guard who was walking by.  I didn’t have much hope it would have been turned in, but it was worth fifteen bucks so I thought we should try.  There was a rather young guy walking with the guard.  He asked us about the card, what happened, etcetera.  He then said he would look in lost and found.  In the meantime, Milla and I had picked up a cheaper jacket we had considered and were in line to pay for it.  While there, the young manager came over and gave us another fifteen dollar card.  I was speechless. We left the store and drove off.  I then realized I needed to go back and tell him thank you so we did.  He was really nice about it.  He said he thought they would find the card during cleanup after closing, but he wasn’t terribly concerned.  That guy earned bonus points from me.  I have never gotten that kind of service from Target.

While typing that my half Lab, half border collie dog, Molly, came over and said hi.  She shoved her nose under my hand for a pet.  I’m here, she said.  Pet me.  Now it’s Edna again.  I love my dogs.  Anyway, that was our afternoon.  Wasn’t that exciting?  And isn’t my life exciting that this is what I’m writing about?  Yep.  I know it is.

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The Corporate Addiction Palace Has My Number

Yep.  It’s on speed dial.  LARA!  It calls. Come on down here for a bit.  You know you want to.  Stop writing and web surfing and come on down.  We’ve got a yummy chai tea waiting right here for you.  Oh, it’s not that expensive and you know you want it.  Imagine that warm feeling running through your veins.  Imagine the clarity in your head once the drug bathes those neurons.  Imagine all the fantastic things you’ll want to do and accomplish under the influence of the drug.  Mmmm, now isn’t that nice?  Don’t you want it?  You know you do.

I can’t do big caffeine.  A diet coke sends me into shivers for hours, I’m that much of a caffeine lightweight.  But my brain has most certainly made full use of the small amount I imbibe on a daily basis, spreading it around to all parts.  It might be thin, but it covers.

Okay, non-sequitur here, but human bodies have some aspects to them that are just so yucky.  I know it’s a marvel of engineering design and all that, but some things like mucous…yuck.  And farts.  What is that, Mother Nature’s sense of humor?  Something sent to remind us we aren’t busy and important?  And other things I won’t mention.  Gag.  I just had to point this out.  Yech.

One other pointless rant.  Windows.  You click on something and nothing happens and it gives you a nice message that says, Such and Such is Not Responding.  No fucking kidding?  I couldn’t fucking tell when I clicked on it 800 times and nothing happened.  The stupid message makes me want to throw the computer more than the fact the damn program froze.  Piece of crap.  Some Microsoft techie created that message just because s/he knew it would put people into fits.  They’re having fun at our expense.  I know it.

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I Apologize in Advance for My Lack of Brevity and Wit

My daughter goes to a Waldorf school. There is a lot I love about the school. She has learned to knit and she is only 8 years old. She can do math word problems like no non-Waldorf 8 year olds I know. And she’s been learning music for years now as well.

But sometimes, if I’m honest, the “I’m liberal and New Ageyness” of some of the parents can be a little annoying. It’s like listening to the local NPR station sometimes with these people. Oh yes. Tomorrow we’re going to the farmer’s market to find grain to grind to make our own bread from scratch. It’s all organic and grown on that lot that was purchased in north Portland. Oh really? Wow. Yes, tomorrow Balfour and Aaliyah and I are going to a pottery class for 3 year olds, then we’re going to chant at the spiritual center. Both of these statements are made to one another in perfectly modulated, quiet voices, our indoor voices if you will. You know, just like NPR. And of course our children have unique foreign names to show our multiculturalism. We may be white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, but we’re diverse!

I know, I know. I’m being judgmental. I mean, after all, I am blonde, blue-eyed, white, and liberal. We eat organic and Milla knits. But I can honestly without a doubt say that sometimes our house sounds like trailer trash central. I walk in the kitchen and discover my dog vomited all over the floor and I scream, “What the FUCK is this mess? Goddamned dogs!” And last night, I admit it, we watched Dumb and Dumber without compunction. That movie is stupid and funny. And Milla watched it and laughed right along with me. Uh oh. If any of the other Waldorf parents found out, I’d be voted out. Maybe her teacher could claim the fact we’re late at least once a week is because Milla has heard the word fuck and has seen Dumb and Dumber. The fact I’m the only parent living here and have a hard enough time getting my own ass out of bed let alone my daughter’s has nothing at all to do with it. No sirree. And on the days where we’re late and I’m in the parking lot hollering at Milla to get moving because she’s the slowest thing on the planet sometimes, I swear, the holier than thou, how dare you speak to that child in that manner looks on some of the smug little faces make me want to whack them one. I don’t spank her. She’s got a good life. It isn’t going to kill her for me to tell her to get her damn ass moving already when she’s taking her own sweet time checking out some spot on the car door instead of getting into school. Jeez.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Milla’s school. She used to go to a different Waldorf school where it felt like being in junior high all over again. The exclusion that went on there was out of hand. I guess what bugs me about the “I’m Liberal and New Age” crowd is that it’s worn like some badge of honor and used as a way to exclude those who aren’t in the “I’m Liberal and New Age” crowd. It’s the queen bees in another context. “Oh,” the eyes say as your child walks by wearing, GASP! Something from Old Navy! “You mean you didn’t spend eight-thousand dollars on a pure cotton, hand-knitted, grown up on the remade lot in north Portland skirt and shirt combo? How DARE you! I would NEVER let a stitch of acrylic touch my perfect child’s skin. And I certainly wouldn’t let little Balfour wear something made somewhere besides my own backyard! God forbid.”

It’s frustrating when you agree with the results of someone’s choices, but the why of their choices is problematic. Does it matter? I suppose it does in the context of trying to live without judgment, just letting others live their own life. Even the fact that it bugs me that they judge me for not being “Liberal and New Agey” enough in their minds is a form of judgment on my part.

Thinking about it, I suppose it’s how or why we identify with groups. Do we do it to belong or to exclude? And in belonging is there automatically excluding? Or can you belong simply for the sake of being a part of something? And some things people belong to by an accident of birth, yet this does not stop their identification to the point of even killing someone else who had a different accident of birth. Ireland comes to mind here, or Israel and the Palestine. Why is it that we will fight to the death for something that we wouldn’t have cared about if we had been born to another family? Even a seemingly innocuous choice, like which dog breed you prefer, can be a choice for exclusion as well. It’s weird. The whole thing is tied up in a big, old mess. Humans have this need to be a part of a pack but in doing so they leave others out of the pack and it seems like every conflict centers around this tidy piece of information. It’s the nature of conflict, isn’t it? One side against the other. One view against another. Me against you against me.

Sometimes it’s funny though. I try not to laugh at the “Liberal and New Age” voices in the hall at my daughter’s school. I try not to roll my eyes in class meetings when the parents get into a disagreement that they don’t want anyone to recognize as a disagreement. We’re using soft voices and “I centered” messages so it’s not a disagreement, is it?

“But really, I just can’t have Aaliyah eating cheese pizza for lunch, and we wouldn’t want her to feel excluded if the rest of the class has cheese pizza. She is allergic to dairy, yeast, soy, sugar, brocolli, pineapple, peanut butter, white bread, wheat, and every nut on the planet after all.” (And that’s another thing. Why is it that every kid is allergic to 18 different foods? For Christ’s sake, get a grip already!)

“Well, you know, Galbraith has been so cooperative at home lately, I promised him he could have cheese pizza. I wouldn’t want him to feel like I’m not listening to his needs if I didn’t get him cheese pizza.”

“Well, perhaps it may have been a wiser choice to bring him other options for his calm behavior. Perhaps you could discuss another choice with him. I’m sure he would be awake to such changes.”

“I just think that would create a lack of trust. Galbraith is such a sensitive soul. He has to be open to understanding, but I wouldn’t want to send the wrong message.”

And on and on and on. I just want to scream, For Christ’s sake! Let’s get the fucking pizza already. If your kid doesn’t ever eat pizza, how the hell is she going to miss it when everyone else eats it? And you’re just afraid Galbraith will throw a fucking tantrum if the class doesn’t get pizza. Why are we sitting here listening to this drivel at a parent’s meeting? I thought we were going to find out what they’re working on in class, not spend a half an hour bitching about whether or not to let the class have cheese pizza.

I sit there during these meetings and look at my shoes and wonder why it is exactly that the rest of us have to sit and listen to this nonsense for a half an hour. Oh, that’s right. Because we’re giving them an opportunity to be heard. And we all need to be heard, right? What about my right not to have to sit and listen to the shit? Guess what? We can’t all have all our rights at every moment we want to have them.

Okay, that was the longest, pointless rant ever. Sometimes I wonder about the pointlessness comes out of my typing fingers. I start with one thought and end up somewhere completely different. There is another blogger I like to read.  He wrote about the fact that he writes about a bunch of nonsense sometimes and wondered why he does it. Why indeed? Why is there this need to spew forth our opinions and observations? Why is it that when I’m writing for my blog I can write and write and write but when I just did my journal it was like pulling teeth sometimes? My counselor said that artists need an audience. I just wonder how anyone could call my drivel art. It makes me chuckle. But Full Metal Gerbil is right about one thing, if I’m writing on here, I’m not wasting time elsewhere, so it’s all good. Plus it keeps me sane. I haven’t been writing nearly as much as I need to in order to keep the brain sane and last night I realized I was in a depressive funk. I just have to do it. I have to get the meaningless drivel on the page. If someone has the stamina to sit and read all of it, more power to them. I apologize for my lack of brevity and wit.

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Summer Shoe Longing

I went in my closet to find some longjohns to put under my overalls so I can work outside on the house and get it ready to sell.  I bent down to grab them from under a pile of work clothes (you know, the stuff you don’t care if it gets paint or caulk on it) and a pair of summer shoes caught my eye.  They are these gorgeous navy heels with white piping trim.  There are two leather straps that start up near the toes, criss-cross and curve back.  Another strap goes around the ankle and buckles.

Oh I long for warm enough weather to wear those sexy ass shoes.  I love those shoes.  I love having pretty toenails peeking out from the criss-crossing straps.  I love how they make my legs look long and thin.  I love the way the weather has to be to wear those shoes. Makes me long for sun.  Makes me long for wispy skirts and tank tops.  Mmmmmmm….yummy!

I’m sitting here in a heavy sweater, my paint-splattered overalls lumpy with the longjohns underneath, and while it’s difficult to imagine, I am going to San Diego in February and all I can hope is that there will be one day warm enough to wear those shoes.  Maybe I need to schedule a manicure….

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Musings

And the one, having failed to express anything for thinking the other not interested, causes the other to think the same and therefore to leave.

Hold your cards close.  Show your hand.  Show one card.  Show two.  There seems to be no only answer.  But how much fails to start for the lack in deciding which is the proper course of action?  How many have stumbled because all of us concern ourselves with wondering what the other is thinking rather than simply asking?  It is because even the simple asking can be a showing of our own cards, thus compromising our position. I hate the gamesmanship of it, yet it is there, and it is required when there is more than one and there is no way around it.

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Church of Freezing

I am starting a new personal religion. Called the Church of Freezing. Why does this damn thing keep doing this? Maybe the computer wants to join too, since it keeps freezing up. Also the church of tired. Go worship in the Church of Freezing and you can build goodwill. You can accomplish anything. Stop trying to be warm because it won’t work. Go to the Church of Freezing and get born again into the world where you don’t have to avoid being who you are. You are cold! Be cold! You are tired! Be tired! Stop trying to escape into those places you cannot go called warmth and fulfillment.

My tab has decided to work now. The computer does not want to join the Church of Freezing. But every time it decides to freeze up, I will not become angry with it because all it wants to do is worship the cold as I do. I understand. It wants to be itself and only through the cold can it become fully itself.

At the Church of Freezing, you can learn to accept who you are. Your body has wanted to be cold for so long, and you have fought it for so long, but your body is wrong! For the first time, I understand the needs of people like Luther. When his body wanted pleasure, he was denying the body experiencing pain, so he gave his body pain. My body wants warmth, but in doing so denies experiencing cold, so I’m giving my body back its cold.

And this season is the high one for the Church of Freezing! It’s a time of celebration, of worship! Sit out in the cold and become ONE with it!

The Church of Tired works the same way. I was lying in bed, not wanting to get up and write or work because I was cold and tired and the bed offered warmth and relaxation. But in order to take the warmth and relaxation, I had to give up writing and working. I also had to give up cold and tired. I do not want to give these things up! Instead, I will ignore warmth and relaxation. So in a way, I’m denying them, but they are so demanding! They want my attention all the time. They do not need to have my attention 100% of the time. They are not my children. They are demanding, forceful little brats who need more than I can give them. Give back to the Church of Freezing and the Church of Tired and you will reach salvation.

Taking a warm shower for a member of the Church of Freezing is like a hedonistic orgy for a Christian. At first the CoF member feels immense pleasure. Their body tingles with delight. They bask in the sheer delight of it. However, after a while, the CoF member realizes that the pleasure is too much. It’s not as caressing, it’s not as full, it’s not as warm anymore. In fact, it is too hot! Beware, Members, of the powerful call of the shower and warm water in general. It is to be avoided at all costs! Failure to adhere to this decree will result in a level of sickness and guilt like no other. Do not do it, I beseech thee!

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Word Jail (or Lara is possibly a mental case, I’m not sure)

My words are being read.  Not by many, but some.  So how truthful will I be in what I say?

This life is surreal.  My new favorite word lately, surreal, because that is how life feels lately.  It is so unfamiliar.  This isn’t a bad thing, I just have no idea how to navigate this alien landscape that is my life.  I suppose I have the tools to figure it out and get wherever I’m supposed to go in this life, in fact I know I do.  But it still scares the crap out of me.  And right at the moment I wonder how much of my anxiety is the result of staying awake too long, how much is the result of doing things I’m not sure of, how much is just normal considering the newness of all of my life.  Maybe my friend Mark is right; maybe I took on too many new things at once.  But I like change.  I wanted change.  I guess I got it and now I have to figure out what to do with it.

Word press.  Pressing words.  Pressing in the sense of print media.  But for me it is more like words pressing the inside of my brain begging to escape, words that don’t have any meaning for anyone except me.  What is that?  What is that need to tap into that energy line and disappear into the void for a while and let the words out?

I guess the words are in jail if I don’t express them.  They are prisoners held captive by no will of their own, so if I don’t let some of them free, there will be a coup and I will be in trouble.  Actually, trouble has been brewing for years because I have not let them out when they needed to escape, just to breathe for a while.  And I paid for it.  Big time.