It’s getting to where I don’t remember much of anything these days. That is really starting to get on my nerves, mainly because it scares me a bit. Is this where I being the long journey to become my mother in her final incarnation here, devoid of any linear processing ability and the unique part of me that makes me…me? That’s what happened to her, and it started with a little more forgetfulness than usual, a little more bizarre lapses in judgment. It was subtle at first, even amusing. Everyone just attributed it to normal aging processes.

Later, it got almost dangerous. Always a stickler for details and paying her bills on time, always on top of every account, every penny in her accounts, she gradually became someone with poor credit because she had neglected to pay recurring bills on time, if at all. She let her insurances lapse, both her personal health insurance and the property tax on the house. That was totally out of character for her.

Unfortunately, it would not be entirely out of character for me, but when I’ve paid bills late or neglected accounts there was always a nagging shred of a memory that I couldn’t eradicate. These days, I find myself surprised at some of the urgent calls for payment, or renewals of things like my DMV affairs. It’s getting ridiculous, and I wonder how in the world I might be able to hold a job with any degree of competence.

I applied for a job late last week, with the giant healthcare corporation in town (Novant). It sounds a lot like what I was doing a few years ago in terms of the technological expertise required, but it’s full time and not remote. That sucks big time, but I’m getting close to frantic over not having a paycheck and benefits. Being frantic and preoccupied with that stuff is not going to help me remember a damned thing.

So, here I sit, beginning to make my way toward a trip out of the apartment, to pick up a new headset and to see the psychiatrist. The headset will be fine. The psychiatrist…well, we’ll just have to see. I’m a little nervous about it, because I’m a little nervous bout everything right now. Anxiety is becoming more and more an issue, which doesn’t make me happy since that is also a reminder of my mother’s condition, even before the dementia.

I am so incredibly tired of dealing with myself. Why can’t I just …. go on, just do the next thing that needs to be done, not have to fret over everything and prepare for disaster several times in a day? I have always been hypervigilant, but I can ignore the warning flags. I don’t quite get that, and I never have. Is that fear of success or just (as my mother used to say) laziness and trifling? I don’t know, I don’t care, but things should be this difficult. Or at least that’s my story.

I forgot to get dog food, so she is looking very expectant. I don’t blame her, although she has had several treats today so I know she’s not in danger of starving. It’s still a bit annoying that I forgot to pick up a new bag of food, because I reminded myself of it several times in the last 36 hours and STILL forgot to get it. Argh. And yes yes yes I am still grateful that I have the money to rectify the error.

Perhaps I’m tired of having to rationalize and justify everything I feel. “I’m annoyed because I feel crazy and need to see a shrink.” That has to be followed by “Yes, but at least you have the resources to see a shrink.” Shut up, please. I am not happy to have a need to do that, even if it’s just for medication management. I don’t want to be this crazy and need medication for my depression and anxiety. I don’t’ want to be this addictive and need professional help to not eat myself into an early grave (or crematorium). I don’t want to be a pain in my own ass, but that’s exactly how I feel. Tired of having to go through so mancy changes just to get through a day.

One of my Artist’s Way group members died a couple of weeks ago. She had drifted away from the group, and seemed to have suddenly gotten rather frail. She was 79, I believe, and one of the other group members saw the death notice in the newspaper and let us know. The lady who died was a nice and kind retired teacher, art teacher if I remember correctly. She was talented, and did basket weaving and other crafts that were quite beautiful She had a couple of grown daughters, and we kind of knew that but she wasn’t terribly forthcoming about her life. When I read the obituary, I learned so much about her that I had not know.

I don’t want people to not know who I am. They don’t have to know about every screw-up or aborted relationship, don’t have to be witness to stupid crap I did 30 years ago, but I do want people to know the big chunks that were struggles, obstacles, all that. There are some big chunks that I don’t share with anyone, and a few more that I only share with a very select few. It is definitely a trust issue, and I haven’t been given very much reason to trust people I might choose for that level of intimacy.

So, we’ll see how this appointment goes. I’m reasonably annoyed today because this damned drone that I bought is not working the way it should – the remote won’t stay charged no matter how long I have it connected to the charger. Maybe I’ll have to return it for a replacement, and that aggravates me. I want to be playing with it and figuring out how to use it, but I can’t get out of the starting gate.

This is one hell of a way to live a life, where everything is in the form of a question. Am I doing this right? Am I really not as smart as I thought I was, not as good of a writer as I thought I was? Was the previous asshole employer correct about me, that I’m basically incompetent and can’t be trusted with a responsible job? Will I ever have peace inside my own head, in my soul? Have I wasted my entire life, and disappointed everyone (including myself)? Can I be redeemed? Can I survive?

I wish I could find a soundtrack for the fear-based part of my life. Maybe it’s not written yet, but it might include songs like “Wild World” and “Sitting” by Cat Stephens.

Sitting all alone not by myself…
…Oh life is like a maze of doors
And they all open from the side you’re on
Just keep on pushing hard boy, try as you may
You’re going to wind up where you started from”

I suppose I have wound up where I started from. The beginning was as confusing as where I’ve wound up. I don’t much enjoy either point. Sick of people who want to be in control of me, in control of everything around me, leaving me with no agency or control of my own circumstances. I don’t know if that’s true but it’s how I feel. I wonder if I have the strength to keep going if there’s a significant challenge. Will I just throw in the towel and take a standing count to signal surrender? Will I get up yet again, and then wait for the next blow? I’m pretty over that.

When do I get what I want? I’m normally not that arrogant to presume that I’m entitled to get what I want, but it seems to work that way for just about everyone else. When is it my turn? When do others stand aside and let me pass? When can I stand down and let others fight the battle? When have I done enough?

So, yeah – the Great Sleep Study adventure is officially over. Well, at least test part. I spent the night in a small hospital in a room with a double bed and a kick-ass air conditioner. They glued down all the electrodes to practically every part of my skin that wasn’t covered, and a couple of parts that WERE covered. They put not one, but two oxygen sensors in my nose (I couldn’t figure this out, and inquired about it…they said one sensor measures inhalation/exhalation cycles and the other one measures the time in between the cycles). Seems like more trouble than it’s worth, but none of it was profoundly uncomfortable, or at least not painful. Being wired up to look like Mrs. Roboto is not my idea of a fun night out.

As I’ve said before, I was obsessively anxious about the prospect of having my bladder embarrass the hell out of me during the night, but fortunately that did not happen. The most unpleasant part of the whole thing was them turning out the lights at 11pm, as though I was incarcerated (which I more or less was, being imprisoned by the wiring harness on my head and body). They ordered me to go to sleep, which was interesting since I rarely go to sleep before midnight.

I laid there for almost an hour, trying to meditate and play songs in my head. I thought about many, many useless things, including my naughty bladder. Fortunately, my bladder was well behaved that night, but…I could not stay asleep regardless. I woke up no more than a half-dozen times before they unceremoniously threw me out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5:30am. The instructions had said I would have until 6:30, but…nope. It was before the sun rose, and I was NOT a happy camper. So, the nice technician unwired and unplugged me, and ta-da – all over.

I asked uf I had been breathing during the night, and commented that I was aware I woke up several times. The technician said she could not give me the results of the study, and yes she had noticed that I woke up a lot. She was cleaning off the bed and wheeling the linens out with the wires and electrodes and everything faster than I could say goodbye. On her way out, over her shoulder, her parting shot was, “You can leave whenever you want. Have a nice day!” I was dismissed, and left to remember how the hell I had gotten in there so that I could reverse my steps.

The trip home was only fifteen minutes or so, and I was inside by 5:45am. I dutifully went to the bathroom and got something to drink. I had boarded the dog because I was paranoid about her getting into something that was supposed to be one in a million odds of her getting into, so the apartment was silent. I got into bed and was sound asleep within five minutes. I slept a sleep of the dead for more than four hours, and missed an appointment with a volunteer who was going to help me haul food donations to the food bank. Dammit. Somebody at the church let him in and let him get everything, so that worked out OK, but I was duly embarrassed anyway.

It was annoying that I had slept for so long once I got home, rather than during the sleep study, but how in the world do they expect people to seamlessly descend into a deep and restful sleep in a strange place, wired up like a medieval robot, with an infrared camera that sees in the dark, and an unlocked door? I was not feeling terribly secure, and the technician did walk in at one point – waking me up – because the O2 sensor had fallen off my finger. Thanks, y’all.

I will wait to see what the doctor says. She could prescribe a CPAP, or a BIPAP, or nothing at all since I have no idea whether or not there were any indications of a problem. Whatever. I’m just glad it’s over. So is the dog, who fussed at me for over a half hour on two separate occasions after I got her home. She wasn’t terribly impressed by her sleep-away date with the kennel. Shut up, you ungrateful little cur – I bought you extra treats and new toys, and I came back to get you even though you poop all over the house. Count your blessings.

One amusing remnant of the sleep study made itself known 24 hours after it was over. I found several of the adhesive pads for the electrodes to be attached at several places on my body – two on my shoulders, one on the back of my neck, and two on my legs. The last one made itself know today, because it itched so intensely I thought I would lose my mind. When I was finally able to pull it off, it had been on there just long enough to start binding with the top layer of skin and that came off in a continuous sheer layer. It felt immediately better, though since the itching stopped. All together, I removed a total of seven and found that hilarious.

Being home now, and returning to normal routines, my anxiety over not having a job returned a bit. I went out and scanned the job search websites, and applied for a job I think I can do, but don’t really want. Actually I do want it, but I don’t believe it has a work from home option. The thought of reporting to somebody’s office is slightly nauseating, but we’ll see if anything comes of it. I have to start somewhere, and who knows what will happen. I may not even get a call-back on the application, so I don’t need to be worrying about whether there’s a work from home possibility. Even if I’m offered the job, I don’t have to take it (although at this point I probably would, just to ease some of this financial stress).

The only other notable occasion of the past few days was my preparation for the sleep study. I had to report there at 8pm on Wednesday, so I had most of the day to putz around and make myself crazy. For some reason, I was highly motivated to purchase a new pillow to bring with me to the study, and some bladder leak pads. The pads were sobering, because they resemble menstrual pads, and that is not something I care to recall. Anyway, I went to Walmart to procure those items. I had a bad feeling about that, but couldn’t figure out why. I attributed it to general anxiety about the sleep study.

On my way to the store, I somehow missed a turn and had to make a U-turn about a half-mile later. That meant I was coming at the store from a different angle, and that rattled me for some odd reason. But, I was dealing with it, and proceeded through the entrance to the Walmart parking lot. I wasn’t going very fast, since I was in a parking lot and was looking for a place to park.

There were two rather scuzzy looking guys, in masks, coming out of another store on the way to the Walmart entrance, but whatever. I continued my approach, and they started walking out of wherever they were coming from, and started on a path to cross in front of me. It was not a crosswalk. They were walking in that slow and deliberately belligerent fashion that said they didn’t care what else was in the world except themselves, and everybody could just wait for them. I was in NO mood for that, so I refused to slow down. I didn’t speed up, but I wasn’t slowing down.

The first guy was slightly faster than the second guy, and he cleared the crossing before I got there. The second guy dawdled just a little, play8ing on his phone or something, and started walking as I approached and was almost even with his shadow. I refused to slow down. It was a good day to die, I thought. He kept walking and not looking up, and then suddenly realized how close I was and backed up hastily, bending over as though he had to evade my bumper. I was miles away from him, so he was just being dramatic. I didn’t stop.

After circling a couple of times for a parking spot after I was closer to the Walmart entrance, I pulled in and opened the truck door while putting on my mask. I became aware of a figure approaching, and sure enough, it was guy #2. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and he came up to my driver’s side window, but wisely stood back a few feet. I got out, because I figured I was going to meet anybody with the balls enough to confront me from a standing position. I think that suprised him, because he got no closer, but he started screaming.

“WHY DID YOU TRY TO RUN ME OVER!? YOU SAW ME TRYING TO CROSS AND YOU ALMOST RAN ME OVER!” I was in such a mood that I really wanted to engage with him, but thought better of it. I told him I didn’t even know who he was, which was kind of true since I had not seen his face because of the mask. It was off now, though.

“YOU MEAN YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE MY FACE? FROM RIGHT BACK THERE WHERE YOU HAD TO SEE ME AND TRIED TO RUN ME OVER!???” I said no, actually, I don’t know who the hell you are, so whatever. He went on and on about it, and by that time I had my mask firmly in place and I was tired of him screaming, so I said look…if that’s what happened, I’m sorry. OK? Then he went off AGAIN about how I hadn’t said that like I was really sorry and like I didn’t care, and I should be really glad I was a lady because…well…

Because well what, I was thinking, but I didn’t say anything. Nothing I could say would have brought him down, so I started walking toward the Walmart entrance. I was a little concerned that he might follow me and put his hands on me, because he was that mad. Fortunately, there were two police officers who were getting into their vehicle, which had been parked in the no-stopping zone at the entrance.

As the guy continued screaming at me, they went on alert and looked over in his direction. One of them looked at me, as if to say WTF, and I just shrugged and threw my hands up, like I don’t know what’s up with this guy. That was enough, because dude noticed them looking and started walking away, still yelling about how I was lucky I was a lady and I needed to learn how to drive or something. I went inside the store, but wondered if he would vandalize my truck. I figured I’d deal with that if and when I needed to.

Thank goodness that was over, I thought, but I felt awful. I felt like I probably shouldn’t have gotten so angry when he tried to cut me off by walking in front of me, and how I could have been the bigger person and taken the high road, just let him pass and driven on to do what I needed to do. I got the damned pillow, but didn’t have the heart to search for the stupid pads, so I just checked out.

I still felt awful, though, like an emotional hangover. Not a nice feeling. My truck was fine, no vandalism and no sight of dude #1 (who I think wanted none of what had unfolded earlier) or dude #2, who was probably still fuming somewhere. I proceeded toward home with my new pillow, and figured I would visit Walgreen’s later for the pads (which I did).

It still doesn’t feel good, not because I feel in any way sorry for this guy but only because I was so angry and have not been that angry for a while. The rush of adrenalin was not pleasant, and did absolutely nothing for my anxiety. It also didn’t put me in a good place to be just about to do a sleep study and controlling my bladder. Ugh. I don’t want to repeat that. I felt out of control and it wasn’t necessary. Maybe that’s why I was treated to this guy screaming and hollering like a madman, just to show me how that looks. I didn’t do that when I had the encounter with him, but I have done it in the past. And I felt exactly the same way as he did. It did neither one of us any good.

So, live and learn. My anxiety can, and does, amplify my anger. Truthfully, I don’t know if it’s the anxiety or the depression that is the amplifier, and truthfully I don’t think it really matters. I just have to cope with it. Truth be told, I’m tired of coping with all of my stuff – I want it all to just go away.. Haven’t I paid my toll on that journey?

I am whining now. Sometimes it’s just what I do. I should abandon that endeavor and go off to play with my new drone. It was just delivered yesterday, and I’ve been trying to calibrate it’s GPS and gyroscope, but I have been doing that indoors and it has not gone all that well. Tomorrow I will take it outdoors and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn’t, I will watch more YouTube videos on how to set it up and start using it. It’s a beginner drone, suitable for a first-timer like myself or a kid. Technically it is classified as a toy but it’s got some nice features. A new toy.

Toys are good. Sometimes I forget to play, and forget to learn how to do new things, so I am hoping the drone will take some of the edge off the anxiety and depression. I have my first appointment with the new psychiatrist next week, so we’ll see how that goes.

OK, one of these drone batteries is fully charged, and the other one is still trying. Hmmm. I should just leave it alone, but of course every fiber of my being wants to fiddle with it and help it somehow. I am such a pain in my own ass sometimes, causing problems that don’t have to be problems.

Off I go, into the wild blue yonder, cleverly disguised as a quad-copter drone. That’s better than weighing in on the trending debate over candy corn, and whether it’s the best Halloween candy or the worst. Yeah, the drone is just a little more interesting.

I reflected on the cost of freedom the other day, and now at 2am the cost of life is needing exploration. This is what happens when I can’t shut my brain down and go to sleep. Even the dog left me and went to sleep in her own bed.

Anyway, what does it cost me to live? Not monetarily, but in terms of things like ethics and morality and action and self-care. In terms of getting from point A to point B, making decisions, and learning. What does it cost me to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing? What does it cost me to do the wrong thing instead of the right thing?

When I do the wrong thing, usually something that causes harm to someone (including myself), my energy is depleted fairly quickly. My thought are consumed by the resulting cognitive disconnect, where I am wrestling with myself to understand why I do such things. How could I do such things?

Once I have completed the self-flagellation when I’ve caused harm, I have depleted my energy even more. Wrestling with myself is not pretty, and it ultimately wears me out completely. That level of exhaustion is not necessarily physical, but that can be a product of the constant negative self-talk.

I do not talk to myself well, especially when I make mistakes. It’s a habit that emulates my mother’s treatment of me when I was a teenager and young adult. Those horrid years when the world spun off its axis, when nothing was certain. It was like being an alien deposited in the bowels of hell, as I recall. But I learned the fine art of being mean, of slinging the most hurtful diatribe possible at someone who had aroused my anger. My mother was very good at it, and I worshipped at the feet of the master.

Most of the time when I’m engaging in very negative self-talk, it’s more a reflex triggered by the stress and PTSD of that time so long ago. In retrospect, it seemed that I was rebelling in any way possible at the possibility of having my spirit broken. That’s something that remains in my repertoire – when I feel as though someone in authority is trying to control me and shut me down, I go limp and passive aggressive. I ultimately suffer rather negative consequences, but I didn’t break. That’s important to me. Still.

Here’s the rub, though – when someone I believe is a friend IS controlling me, I cooperate in my own minimalization and objectification. It’s weird. Maybe that’s people pleasing to the extreme, but that’s why I feel so incredibly enraged when someone I trusted as a friend betrays me and is shown to be just another narcissistic asshole. That’s a double negative. WTF?

That has cost me over the years. Right now, I have pretty much given up on trusting just about anyone. There are maybe five people in this world I trust with anything and just about everything. Just about. I believe there are some things that will go beyond death without ever being spoken. Perhaps that’s the appropriate paradigm for me, but I have always wanted to feel that I could be a completely open book with SOMEONE. Maybe that’s not how it works.

My mother knew more about me than anyone else in the world. She was the first person I knew, even before I came into the world. It stands to reason that I would adopt her patterns and ways. I guess at this point, however, I want to adopt my own patterns and ways, not anyone else’s. That is costly in terms of my life force, I think. It’s a risk, and that definitely has a cost.

So. What is the cost of my life? I figure it can sometimes cost my soul, if I do things I know are wrong but do them anyway. Bonus points if I cause harm. Those instances haunt me, and I involuntarily re-live them over and over and over. I find it nearly impossible to forgive myself for those periods where I was not a nice person, to myself or anyone else.

I suppose the reason I don’t forgive myself is guilt, and shame. It seems that I am hard-wired for that, because once again it’s reflex for me to feel guilty and then embarrassed for having done the wrong thing. All the wrong things. That’s part of the pattern, though. Do the wrong thing, feel guilty and ashamed of it, lose the confidence to do the rest of my life. No risks taken, no joy, no accomplishment, rampant underachieving.

As I was sitting here tonight, not being able to sleep, none of this is what was on my mind. It just came out, but I think it’s somewhat productive. What WAS on my mind, though, was paying the guitar and wishing I was a little better at it. I was working out some 12-bar blues riffs in my head but I know that’s just whistling in the dark (quite literally) because none of the mental work means a damned thing until I put my fingers on the frets. I’ll do that tomorrow.

For some odd reason, I am feeling slightly more energized about cleaning up a bit in here, reclaiming my living space. I did a load of laundry today, and moved a couple of things around in my bedroom to expose the crap under it. The sleep study is still on for Wednesday night, and while tossing and turning earlier I decided that I’m going to board the dog for the night. It was really worrying me that she might get scared and stressed when I’m gone for so long and begin barking or crying in the middle of the night. I had visions of neighbors calling the complex’s police officer to investigate, and them coming in here to see what’s going on. Boarding her will be easier on me because I will know she is safe and can’t get into trouble. It would be just my luck for her to hurt herself in some way.

I am still stressed about the sleep study, but it will be what it will be. It’s not invasive, so I don’t have to be worried about that. It’s just the nervous bladder thing causing me to fret. But that’s OK – it will be a single night, not a week, so even if it’s not a good outcome it will be over soon.

Hopefully I have gotten a little sleepy now, and will be able to catch a few winks. I don’t know where that phrase originated, because I don’t think anyone winks while sleeping. American English is a strange language at times. If it was gendered it would be next to impossible.

I am going to take my self and try for sleep. It would be nice if I dreamed. Some of my dreams are just bizarre, but when I can remember them it’s interesting to connect dots to other things in my experience. Now I am just babbling.

Sometimes, when you believe that you’ve gotten to the bottom of things, figured it all out, closed the book…there’s more. Lots more. At the bottom of just about any empty pot, there are a few crusty scraps left of the dish, clinging to the bottom. Not ready to let go and become garbage.

I keep returning to past events, significant though entirely resident in the past. This has been more pronounced lately, and it’s beginning to concern me. Dredging up painful experiences from my past, having them intrude without invitation or warning at random times isn’t really a barrel of fun. My therapist believes it’s because I’m stressed about this sleep test and about money. Maybe, but it feels deeper than just a stress trigger.

Regardless, this is where I am, on the verge of tears at every turn. Maybe I’ve gotten to the bottom of the pot, maybe I’m scraping the bottom. My question is…then what? After you’ve gotten through a full pot of consumables, and scraped the bottom, at some point there’s nothing left. I suppose then one must wash the pot, clean it for the next time it’s needed.

I suppose I feel as though I’ve been washing the pot all along the way, purging the large chunks of refuse continuously. But…there’s still more. Always more, it seems. I am no longer stirring the pot because there’s nothing left to agitate. But, there’s still quite a bit of the dried remnants of my life that beg for release and I’m getting tired of scrubbing.

My therapist and I had an unexpectedly emotional session just yesterday, and she asked the always excruciatingly painful question – what do you want? From somewhere very deep inside me came the answer I most endeavor to hide from the world, that I want someone to love me. I want someone to not expect me to be perfect, to have me be number one on their to-do list. Someone who will be there, always be there. Be there for me.

Maybe that’s too much to ask, maybe that’s some kind of romanticized and distorted notion of what I think love is. I’ve been told in the past that I should be asking what I bring to others, but that sounds simplistically formulaic. I don’t understand, it’s some kind of esoteric mathematics that is beyond my comprehension, a calculation I can’t manage. It should be that difficult.

When I was discussing this with my therapist, I said that I had given up. That is mostly true; I prefer not to keep trying when something is so plainly futile. When failure is so painful. If I am clear about anything in my life, it’s that I don’t want to add more pain to my list of accomplishments. Perhaps I am only looking at the desired product of long endeavor and presuming I don’t have to do the work to get there.

I don’t much care these days if I’m indulging my inner child, my outer adult, or my fantasy life. It is what it is, and mostly I stay away from purely social opportunities. I don’t mind going to dinner with friends or attending meetings that have some purpose. But I’m not looking to date or meet-and-greet anybody. It took me years to discover that I am a magnet for narcissists and users, so how about we just save a whole lot of time and not give them an easy target?

The biggest part of me is screaming “No more!”. No more betrayals, no more lies, no more lofty expectations. No more users, no more emotionally immature children in adult bodies. No more. I would rather be alone to the end of my days, which daily remind me that end is sooner rather than later. I don’t have time for games, which I will lose, or sales pitches.

There’s a fine line between intelligent and eccentric, and I keep walking that path. I don’t feel as though I qualify for genius at any level, but mama didn’t raise no fool (unless it comes to being talked out of something by some charming demon). I do not suffer fools gladly, though, but fools wait to block my light at every turn. Sometimes they have a measure of power or authority and give me the short end of the stick. but that’s just the way of the world these days. That’s about what I do, not who I am.

The question of what I want is daunting because I feel as though I have to iterate every grain to be flawlessly definitive about what – or who – that is. I don’t have that much time. My heart knows what that is, and I’m not interested in reducing that knowledge to inadequate words. It will be what it will be, and I’m tired of blaming the “victim” for not having whatever it is that I want.

One of the more annoying trains of thought lately has been, “When is it my turn? When do I come out on top?” Well, maybe I am already on top, or plainly at the bottom, but maybe it’s not a linear-vertical system of measure. The edge of the Universe is flatly horizontal, and everything exists within a very narrow vertical range. Accordingly, my reality is a continuum, and sometimes I’m very far to the left, other times I’m very far to the right. Rarely am I anywhere near the sweet spot, where things can go either way.

My life is…my life. There isn’t any sharp definition of it that I can make. That may be a good thing because it doesn’t appeal to me in any way. My attention wavers from one stimulating target to the next, sometimes in a nano-second.

The blink of an eye, the time it takes for a red blood cell to be propelled out of the heart, and I’m on to the next thing. Does that constitute ADD, or ADHD? I really don’t care, because that definition has nothing to do with my reality, and my reality is like rifling through the pages of a book, experiencing a huge plethora of things at a very superficial level. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

For me, I think the problem with flittering like that is a lack of long-term commitment. Or maybe not. I am committed to a great many things, like racial equity and justice and related noble causes. Generally, though, I feel that I’m not committed to much of anything, not able to stay in things for the long haul, not really effective in anything I do. I don’t know if a flash in the pan is truly less valuable to a movement than a slow-burning fuse.

I’ve been considering whether or not I am smoldering, still burning under a layer of cooling ash, still hot to the touch but not flaming. Burning silently. I am not fire, but I am not cool either. Given enough oxygen, flames will erupt again, and I will burn. IIs that a desirable outcome? Always a threat, but when managed intentionally and well, I will not kill you.

Life as an incendiary. I have to consume myself to live, and when I’ve exhausted that fuel source I smolder. I know I’m alive because of the smoldering, but I feel very ineffective. I can burn nothing, and sometimes burning something to the point of nonexistence is the desired outcome. But such is my life.

I feel like I’m babbling now, but at the moment this smoldering coal that is me is cold because she has the thermostat set too low. I can fix that. What I can’t fix is the feeling that there will never be enough heat, or there will be far too much, that my own flame will be irrelevant to the temperature. I can’t fix the feeling that I will never be right. That’s going to take some doing.

So, yeah. I think I’m going nuts. Seriously. Or maybe more nuts than before now, but still – nuts. JPN. Just Plain Nuts. I am obsessing over things, some more serious than others, but still I am fixated and can’t seem to shake it off. I hate when this happens.

I am obsessing over not having a job, for obvious reasons. The most pressing issue with continued unemployment is that I have no health care without the Affordable Care Act subsidy. I must have health insurance coverage – I have too many issues that require periodic medical intervention, medication, etc. So, to maintain the ACA subsidy, I have to demonstrate earnings at or above the poverty level (which is $12,400 in North Carolina). Since I am living on my savings right now, I can’t quite demonstrate actual income. This is a problem.

Ethically, the entire situation disturbs me tremendously. I have no issue paying taxes on the amount it costs me to live from day to day, but that’s not how the system works. The system expects that if I have cash on hand, I will exhaust that before attempting to qualify for any kind of subsidy. The stupid thing about that is that I’m not asking for assistance with rent, or daily living expenses, only health care coverage. I’m caught in the breach between sensible government and the bureaucracy. Caught in a trap, like one the coyote puts out for the road runner…comical, and you can predict that it won’t work, but still the coyote persists. I don’t move fast enough to be the road runner, but I don’t mind pointing out the absurdity of systems that ultimately push a person to the edge of a cliff.

Anyhow, I’m also obsessing about this sleep test I will have next week. I have to report at 8pm, then get my head wired up like one of the machines in a bad sci-fi movie. After that, I’m supposed to go to sleep there. Last time I did this, the bed was comfortable and everything, but…it wasn’t my bed, in my funky apartment, and I couldn’t really sleep. I never went into alpha-sleep, so ultimately I dozed. The test results were inconclusive for sleep apnea, so kind of a waste of time (in my opinion).

I cannot get this out of my mind, for two reasons – should I board the dog since I’ll be out for up to 10 hours (they discharge you – or boot you out of bed – at 6:30am). Will she whine and bark in the middle of the night while I’m gone? This would disturb the neighbors, although goodness knows they disturb me in the middle of the night at times. But I am fretting over this detail of the event.

I must admit, though, some of what else is running roughshod over my sense of wellbeing is, in all seriousness, whether or not I am going nuts. Or maybe beginning the descent into dementia that seems to have claimed every woman on my mother’s side of the family. Is that what this obsession is about? Am I really experiencing somewhat of a cognitive decline at this point? This is about where it started to noticeably affect my mother, right around this chronological age. By the time it was interfering with her daily life, she was retired and everyone saw her as just another slightly goofy old lady. But I remember when it started, the forgetfulness, the inability to follow a train of sequential thought or instructions. It was subtle at first, then more and more pronounced until finally her cognition was nearly non-existent. Her thinking became more and more chaotic, and she became increasingly paranoid. The unique parts of her were becoming hazy and blurred until finally, what made her unique was gone. Only the involuntary functions remained at the very end. It was a frightening decline, and I am terrified of travelling that same road. That’s probably what is underneath all of my neurosis at this point, and the real obsession is wondering if I really am starting that journey into nothingness. I am still really afraid of having an accident in somebody else’s bed during the sleep study, but this far is far more present and way more central. I’m not sure if I can fully shake that, but I’ll work on it in therapy. We’ll see.

The other thing I’m fretting over is my somewhat nervous bladder. I frequently get up to go to the bathroom at least once just about every night. Usually I can go back to sleep, but sometimes it takes a while. To get up during the study is not simple, because you have to be disconnected from the monitoring equipment. They literally will have to unplug me. What if they don’t get there in time??? What if I am so disoriented that I have an accident in bed??? This is costing me sleep NOW.

So, my brain is running in overdrive, and I am not liking it. Yes, I have been taking ALL of my medications. Yes, I do still have an appointment with the new psychiatrist, in the next 10 days or so I think. Yes, I understand that even if the dog barks or I mess up the bed during the sleep study, it will not be the end of the world. Who am I to be embarrassed by not handling one or both tasks imperfectly? Well, I am me, and me is the only person who is going to be mortified if either outcome is realized.

Today it is gloomy and has already rained, with more on the way. The weather suits my mood, although sitting here writing this has made things seem just a little bit lighter. It is still very warm these days, and right now it’s 72F and that’s somewhat cool because of the clouds. Summertime in the Southland. Autumn usually has to wait its turn, and when I was even farther South growing up Christmas Day was sometimes 80F. We had to watch movies to see what a “white Christmas” was all about. Here, it’s usually pretty chilly by December 25th, and we’ve had at least a couple of snowfalls by then.

I love snow. It’s something I never had, so it is a childish thrill for me even now. Things feel sharp and clear, even though it’s very cloudy when it snows. But seeing big snowflakes coming down does something for me, and a snow-covered ground gives me a feeling of awe. A snow bank is like a giant snowball to me, and I love to get a mouthful of it while it’s still falling. I’ve been warned not to eat the yellow snow and all that, but when it’s freshly fallen I love it.

Snow is really, really cool and I look forward to it, but ice is another story. If we lose power, that’s kind of a drag, but mostly it’s my fellow humans that bring me down even on a pretty snow-only day. People can’t drive, even on a sunny day and there are always those people driving a car that should be shot to put it out of everyone’s misery. Yes, people, let’s see what your mostly bald tires can do when the roadway is sporting a thin sheet of black ice. And yes, this would be the time for you to check out your 4-wheel drive. That’s the ticket.

Ah, the humans. I suppose they are not really supposed to make sense. They believe they are making perfect sense, though, and therein lies the problem. Arrogance and hubris will kill us all if some things don’t change. Collectively we have no humility, and I think we’re going to keep feeling like victims of everyone (or at least that somebody is out to get us because we’re so great) and everything else because of that. But again, I digress.

What I’m going to attempt for today is something very challenging for me, and that is staying in the present moment. Reality is kind of an immediate option, not something in the past or something that has not yet happened. Maybe I could pick up a little around the apartment, throw out some trash, put a few things in order so I can find them when I need them. That would be a good thing for a day like today.

Or maybe not.

I am putting people on notice – my patience has run out. Entirely. I am fed up with the anti-vaxxers and the anti-maskers and the so-called patriots and anybody even trying to talk about violation of their rights and freedoms and their liberty.

Yes, you can opt to not receive the vaccine, you can refuse to comply with mask mandates. You can quit your job rather than get the COVID vaccine, you can host a mask burning party. You have the freedom to do all those things, but just because you have that freedom does not mean that you should use it.

I’m sick to my stomach 24×7 listening to people shrieking about having the right to refuse any reasonable measure to combat this scourge of a virus while people are dying of the nefarious disinformation campaign that says there is no virus, or it’s no worse than the flu. I am sick of it. I don’t care to be tolerant, or understanding, or even politically correct at this point. People who are refusing to vaccinate and mask are self-seeking idiots who don’t give a damn about anybody but themselves.

There. I’ve said it. I’m getting angrier and angrier for every day the infection rate goes up and see that local governments can’t even pay people to get the damned shot. The vaxx resisters are the same ones who bought out all of the hand sanitizer and toilet paper at the beginning of this unfortunate period, purchasing insane amounts they could never hope to consume. Many of them refused to share, defiantly shuffling out of stores with so many stacks of toilet paper and bottled water they couldn’t even fit it into their vehicles. Ridiculous.

I’ve had it with the hypocrisy of churches telling their members to come for worship, without masks or any other precautions against the virus. This is strike 2 for these folks, who did the same thing when the lockdown started, refusing to comply with mandated crowd controls. They lost people in that middle finger to the world gesture, and the only thing they gained was more funerals and more headstones. If that’s the plan, surely there are easier ways to stimulate profit in the mortuary industry.

People are dying, and they’re going to die some more. That’s nature, life on life’s terms, all that. But I don’t want to be one of the ones that go, especially when there are ways to increase my odds of being taken out by COVID. But the crowd that got their medical degree from Walmart in the middle of the night from some vending machine, they’re calling the shots on this.

I’m sick to death of hearing the likes of Josh Hawley calling for Joe Biden to resign because of the U.S. military exit from Afghanistan. I’m sick to death of seeing Madison Cawthorn making googly eyes at military personnel while he cheered on insurrectionists who sought to overthrow the U.S. government. Sick of them all claiming that in God they trust but can’t go to the bathroom without an assault rifle. That’s some trust in the Divine right there.

This is not just democracy in trouble, it’s the entire species in trouble. We continue to believe that we did ALL of this – our brains, our muscles, our ingenuity, our ambition. Unfortunately, we can’t take credit for the air, or the water, or the grass, or the trees, or organic life. We presume that all of that is here expressly for our use and comfort. Perhaps it is, but we aren’t supposed to kill it all. There used to be a motivational ditty that said, “If you love something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back to you it was never yours to begin with.” More sardonic wit revised that to say, “If you love something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back to you, hunt it down and kill it.” Guess which one we flocked to?

For all of those who are refusing to get the vaccine or wear a mask because big government is overstepping its boundaries, I am here to point out, as many others have done, that we have been adhering to laws and mandates that limit our so-called freedoms for hundreds of years. You had to be vaccinated against certain things to go to school. You couldn’t travel to certain places, or at least get a passport, without certain immunizations. You have to wear a seatbelt when driving. You have to have a license to drive, and that is issued only after you pay the man the $2 and take the required vision, driving, and regulations tests. My point being – there are a whole lot of things we are told that we have to do, many of which are a pain in the butt, but it’s the law and so we comply. If we don’t comply, we know the penalty. Why is this vaccine so different?

I contend this is different only because The Former Guy politicized it and gave credence to conspiracy theorists, and now it’s out of control. Or maybe it’s exactly what was desired in the first place – population reduction, mistrust in everybody and everything, people doing their own version of Lord of the Flies every day. When there’s no leader, the people will make one. When the truth is not known, people will make up their own story to explain things, and that story will be far worse than the truth might ever have been.

This is ridiculous. I lived in a high-crime city for many years, and still have certain reactions in crowd situations that amount to PTSD. But these days, everything is triggering that kind of reaction, because I feel as though I am being assaulted every day, all day, by attacks against common decency, common sense, and the common good. It makes me want to do something big and dramatic, but what is there to do?

I am waiting for the window to open when I’m eligible for the 3rd dose of the vaccine. I am doing the other things I’m told are I should do for my health and well-being – today I got my eyes checked. No glaucoma or cataracts, and only a very slight change in my prescription since 2019. I scheduled the sleep study my doctor wants me to take…they’ll wire me up like a video game character monitor what happens when I sleep. IF I can sleep with all that crap on my head, but at least I’ll show up for the test. I am taking all my medications as prescribed, no matter how much I loathe taking a handful of pills and capsules every day. Unfortunately, when I don’t take them my test results are worse, so I take them. No sense in having my head shoot off into space because my blood pressure was not being medicated.

It’s not that hard. Is it a pain in the ass, living with 9 billion other people on this planet? Yes. I am aggravated every time I want to change lanes in traffic and so does everybody else. At the same time. And there is always the one car that lets EVERYBODY in, followed by the other fool who won’t let ANYBODY in. But I digress. This is the cost of freedom – having to wait your turn, having to be nice even when you don’t really want to, understanding that some days you’re the bug and some days you’re the windshield.

Like the song says, freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…and freedom don’t mean nothin if it ain’t free. It was never promised to be without cost. We’ve gotten confused and take freedom to be the ability to do whatever we want to do, whenever we want to do it. But that ain’t how it works. Even if you manage to get off the grid and go to live in the wilderness, there’s going to be a hippo or a venomous snake that wants to be exactly where you are.

We are sentient, and we have complex brains that are capable of making discretionary judgments. We didn’t create that, it just…is. To keep it, we have to accept the responsibility that goes along with advanced cerebral function, and that responsibility is vast but very simple. Responsibility is things like:

— Take what you need, and leave the rest.
— Don’t waste stuff another person can use.
— Don’t be greedy and horde stuff you don’t need.
— When you can do better, do better.
— Remember that none of this is yours. It belongs to everyone, so use it well and share it freely.
— Most of all, know that it will be OK – we just don’t know what OK looks like.

I will try to remember those things, and I will take heart. I will get through one more day of wanting to scream at the whole country to grow the FUCK up. But I won’t do that, or anything else dramatic or possibly illegal. I will take the dog out and play stupid computer games and think about my parents, and how glad I am they’re not having to live through all of this. I’ll watch some cartoons and think deeply about what’s going on outside my walls, and then go to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll do it all again. Because this life, and this is gratitude.

Facebook gave me a memory, from this day, five years ago:

like the song says – i am not throwing away my shot. i took my shot, you didn’t. i told you a while back, it was about you, it was always about you. i’m not sure you could hear that, wanted to hear that, could understand that. first rule of social work is meet people where they are. only recently have i been made to understand there’s another part to it – meet people where they are, but we can’t stay there. we have to move, or we’ll die. i met you where you were, but i chose not to stay and die there with you. i cringe at the vision of seeing you whittled away to less than nothing, believing that is what love means, giving up your essence and muting your passion because it threatens the weak and weakens those who are already threatened. i cannot save you. that was my ego talking, i realize that now. it’s not my place to save you. you have to want to live, out loud, whole and without apology, sure that you are owed nothing but even more sure in the knowledge of what is inherently yours. the stakes are so very high now, and i have to believe there are many coming to your aid from beyond what our eyes can see. i had to let you go, i had no other choice, but it is an incredibly bitter pill to swallow. you said that you never leave, you wait for others to leave you. that’s pretty chicken shit, now that i think about it, but i suppose i did exactly what i was supposed to do according to your script. funny thing is, according to my script, i did what i have never done before. i took my shot. i took a shot for my own integrity, and in a roundabout way, i took my shot for you. i chose not to enable you to be half a person any longer. stand and deliver. it’s not fun, it’s not a party, it’s a bitch, and it’s hard work, and it hurts. but this is life, this is the real deal, not fantasy land, not lego land, not barbie’s fun house. none of that is real, but this is. this is life, and yeah, some of what you were dealt fucking sucks. that’s true of a lot of us. i’ll probably not be able to remember my own name in 20 years, but i still can’t stay here in the same place and not move. i guess i’m not willing to waste the 20 years. it’s not what i want, but i wanted to be tall and skinny and incredibly brilliant and rich, and that’s not happening either, so…i make the best of it. you’re better than this. you’re more than this. i have seen what’s behind the hand you play so close to your chest, and you’re selling yourself way short. you know that i know, and you know that you have nothing to fear because i’ll be right here when you’re ready to take your shot.

So. I was thinking of someone else when I wrote that. Someone I thought I loved, may still love. It was all so tragic and romantic then, as it has been through most of my past. The same person over and over again, just with a different face, different circumstances, different name. But always the same person who takes and does not give, who rejects emotional intimacy, who lies on some passive level. Someone who rejects what I am but uses it for their own comfort, but only when it suits them.

In reading this memory, I wonder if I was not really talking to myself. Those are words I needed to be saying to myself, still need to be saying to myself. It smarted a bit to read that, and to remember how empty and demolished I felt back then. All because of some other person who did not even miss a step while this storm was going on inside me. This is a pattern that has gone on for most of my life – obsession with one single person who is unavailable and treats me like shit. What is THAT all about?

I want that pattern to end, and my strategy now is to stay as far away form people as possible. I don’t want to develop deep friendships with anyone, don’t want to be emotionally intimate with anyone, don’t want to trigger the wind machine that blows down the wires and the transformer and shorts out the rest of my life. No more. I figure that’s not the optimal way to handle it, but it’s what I’ve got right now.

Do I still love the person who prompted that diatribe? In a lot of ways, I do. In a lot of ways I don’t quite like them. Mostly, I feel played and have lost respect for how they live and how they treat people who really give a hoot about them (as opposed to satisfy some fantasy where they can perpetuate their own self-delusion of superiority). It’s pretty hard, if not impossible, for me to love someone without respecting them.

I still love as though I am an adolescent, as though I never quite grew up in that area of my persona. It’s frustrating, and I am not apt to continue dipping my finger in the water to see if if it’s still boiling. The fire is still high, so I know the water is still hot enough to scald me, so…stay away from that. I don’t have to jump in with both feet to demonstrate that boiling water is a bad thing for me to experience. These days I ain’t jumpin’.

There’s still a juvenile part of me that yearns for that one person who is in synch with me, who fits like a puzzle piece with my unique shape. Someone who is safe and who understands the concept of reciprocity and boundaries. Someone who has done the work of confronting their own demons. Someone who is not repelled by my demons.

Too much to ask, perhaps, but there is still a niggling hope that it will happen, in some mystical dreamscape. With music. Dramatic music rising to a crescendo as ocean waves crash on the pristine sands on the edge of forever. *screeech* That’s a soap opera, not real life. Those are the expectations of a 12-year old who has watched far too much television, too many after-school specials and Hallmark movies. Ah, well. It’s part of my charm.

So, live and learn, or if not learn figure out an escape plan. I’m a solo act, not always willingly, but I choose it over the tumult of constantly trying to relate to the unrelatable. I’m too old to be suiting up for battle every time I go into polite, or even impolite, company. Too old to be a starry-eyed child who still believes in Santa Claus and the Wicked Witch. Things don’t seem to be quite that simple any longer.

Simplicity is not the ultimate goal, because it’s not ultimately the way life shows itself (at least in my experience). I’m not sure I have a goal, except to get through to the other side. The other side of me, I suppose. It feels closer than ever, but still feels like there’s an infinitely high mountain to climb. Always another mountain to climb. For someone born in the swamp lands, that’s nearly incomprehensible.

When climbing a mountain, or sloshing through a swamp, or hiking through the urban wilderness one encounters the unexpected, no matter how well prepared you may be. There will be obstacles, as the environment will also set its own boundaries. It would do me well to remember that boundaries are inherent in everything, including me. I just have to use them, and not let external forces trample into my inner recesses without contest. I don’t want to fight, but also don’t want people to cross my line without even asking. That ain’t respect, and I suppose I have a right to demand that. Like I said earlier, it’s pretyt hard for me to love someone if I have no respect for them.

I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher,
And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire
(“Ring of Fire” – Johnny Cash – written by June Carter / Merle Kilgore)

So, yeah – the burnin’ ring of fire. It burns. The more you struggle and say you shouldn’t be there and have to get out, the lower you sink and the higher the flames. Anger and love are both valid emotions, but they have downsides.

Today I’m not so much angry as resigned. Resigned to life on life’s terms, as they say. Resigned to the fact that my meal deliveries for the past three weeks have been left on the first floor of the apartment building, even though I live on the 3rd floor. I finally called the meal delivery company to complain, and they called FedEx, who delivered the boxes. FedEx called me, and it took me 10 minutes to explain to the nice man why leaving the boxes on the first floor did not constitute delivery to me. He could not seem to understand why that was a problem and said there are no apartment numbers on the doors. No, I corrected, the apartment number is the number on the door, and that corresponds to the actual mailing address.

So, leaving a package outside a door marked xx18 is a residence that is not mine – mine is marked xx38. See? 18 is on the first floor, 28 is on the second floor, and 38 – that would be me – is on the third floor. On the fourth try, he finally got it, and I was elated. But then he lost it…wondering where the package was, and where the driver should go to retrieve it. I have it, I said (which is how I started the conversation). I just want to make sure that any subsequent deliveries are hauled up to the third floor. *crickets* Oh…so I don’t need to send a driver now, just need to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Is that what you’re saying? Yes, sir. That is exactly what I’m saying.

Good lord. Communication is a dying art. I was almost ready to fax him a picture of the apartment building. It just shouldn’t be THIS hard to understand such a thing.

After dealing with FedEx, I had to call my health care provider because I need them to release copies of my own radiologic images from the past few years. They are mine, and I have every right to request them. As far as I am concerned, they should be easily accessible to me on my private login to their patient portal, but no…HIPAA. So they say. I have been trying to get these images released for two solid months, after stupidly following their instructions and getting no response I finally called repeatedly and got a nice man on Friday who said he would personally handle my request (although I heard this from another lady who did absolutely nothing). I sent him the scanned request form. Despite asking him to call me back to confirm that he had received it and that it was all he needed to give me the records, I heard nothing from him. I called again this morning and got another nice lady who went and found the previous guy, and he said he’s put the request into “the system”. The nice lady had first said that I wasn’t in “the system” but now it was confirmed that I am, in fact, in “the system”. Yay, me. Then I asked how long it would take to actually GET the images, and she said a month. No, no – and no. I have been trying to get this for 2 months, so this needs to be expedited. I understand, she cooed. I’m so sorry for any inconvenience, but it will take at least two days for your request to register in “the system”, and when it does we can expedite it.

Good lord. The system is self-aware and hoarding its resources to stay alive, ironically keeping the owners of the information it exists to protect from accessing their own property. Yeah. Privacy…which really does not exist, but we’ll keep pretending it does.

So one of the other more annoying thrusting me into the burning ring of fire realizing that the male of my species has some kind of incomprehensible need to be heard while behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle. Cars, trucks, motorcycles are required to be as noisy as possible, the more deafening the better. I’ve observed there’s a racial cut on this as well – white and LatinX dudes seem to be all about the cars. Black dudes seem to be all about the stereo. They might do the whole car dancing thing as well, but it’s all about the sub-woofers.

I get that it’s attention-seeking behavior. I like to be rolling’ with the windows down and the volume up myself, but I don’t cause the window panes to shake in nearby residences. My bedroom windows face a beltway, with a speed limit of 50mph (like anybody adheres to that). Motorcycles and cars that have been modified to maximize the engine noise are constantly speeding up and down the roadway below my windows, and the noise is so intense they might as well be in the room with me.

If it’s not the noisy engines and drag racing, there are the car stereos. My window panes have rattled when someone with million-watt speakers and sub-woofers the size of a satellite dish drives by slowly. It’s amazing because to get that volume of sound you have to have spent a significant amount of cash.

I just don’t get it, but damn – there is such a thing as noise pollution, and I am right in the middle of it. I am getting to the point where I’d like to acquire stop strips and just roll them out there when I hear them coming from a mile away. There are a couple of spots where I could hide in the bushes and remain unseen while throwing out the strips at the last minute. It’s tempting. Either that or rain down a bucket of shrapnel on them as they pass by. I could rig up some kind of device that would shoot it out onto the roadway from my 3rd-floor palace.

So, we’ve gotten past the 9/11 anniversary, with proper solemnity and pause. New York, in particular, has no choice but to pause since they are still recovering from Hurricane Ida. Unbelievably, the death toll in NY/NJ was higher than in Louisiana. There’s something you don’t hear every day. But, 9/11 was relived, as it is every year, and I found it difficult to watch all of it. I broke away to watch cartoons, which seemed perfectly fitting. There is only so much I can take right through here.

Between 9/11 and the Afghanistan exit, things seemed a little dark these past few days. That’s why it felt very much like I was going down, down, down to the burning ring of fire. And it burns. I don’t need any help getting there, but I had a lot of assistance this time. Just feeling like why am I doing any of what I’m doing right now – trying to educate people about some justice issues going on right now (the state redistricting process is underway, on a compressed timeline so the new districts can be in place by the mid-term elections). People are lethargic about things like that right now. I don’t quite get that, either. Democracy is on the ropes right now and needs a hand up.

As forewarned months ago, this COVID crisis is nowhere near over. The Delta variant is wreaking havoc on infection rates, and the mask-resistant masses are helping. There was a church somewhere in the state that said they’ve sent letters to all of their members, telling them masks are NOT required to enter their services or events, and they are refusing to comply with any mandate that should be issued. What is up with these people? Some hospital staff has reported that people who are minutes away from death by COVID still refuse to believe they are dying of the coronavirus, and still believe that masking would have helped in any way. I repeat – what is up with these people? Another public figure who’s now been diagnosed with COVID said he’s taking the horse dewormer stuff, and that it’s going to cure him. I hope he’s got his affairs in order and good end-of-life instructions. I am not wishing death on him, but other people are listening to his advice and following it because he’s a public figure. That ain’t right.

The last random thought I’m having involves a conversation from this morning, with a group of rational people. We didn’t talk much about the vaccine or the virus. We were talking about justice issues and race and bias and the human brain. One guy brought up something I had not heard of – W.E.I.R.D. societies. W.E.I.R.D. is an acronym for Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic. Those cultural attributes inform thought processes and morality and values culturally and are normalized through generations. I find the concept fascinating and want to investigate it more deeply. From what I’ve read so far, we’re pretty damned WEIRD and our WEIRDness radiates from us. What I’m more interested in, though, is why the norms aren’t challenged more – is it about the money? Is it about the education? Is it about the industrialization? I don’t know, and that’s been a long-standing question of mine – how does a numeric minority wind up with the majority of the power?

So now I will lay me down to sleep. I’m not praying for anybody to keep my soul – I think it’s just fine right here. Until it’s not. When it wants to do something else, that will be another conversation and probably time to do something entirely different. I’m not sure that can be planned, either. In fact, I’m not sure it’s even a conscious decision. The business of souls is well above my pay grade. I just do the legwork. The soul does its own thing.

This morning, work crews removed the 12-ton statue of Robert E. Lee from its memorial site in RIchmond VA. The crowds were, mercifully, kept behind cordons at a distance from the pedestal and the heavy equipment. I watched the live stream version of this, from a local news outlet, and found the work itself to be unremarkable. The comments were…incredible.

Comments ranged from accusations of erasing history to proposed retaliation by taking down statues of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama. No commenter specifically attributed the Lee statue’s removal to African-American interests or Black Lives Matter, but the connection was clear. Many comments attacked those who supported the removal, and somehow concluded the other folks were sucking sitting home and collecting unemployment when they should be working. That was a stretch, but these folks were largely enraged, citing assaults to liberty and freedom and the decline of the nation because Robert E. Lee’s memorial was removed.

Watching the hateful comments scroll by, and hearing the on-site crowd reacting in like fashion, was somewhat distressing if I’d have taken it personally. But I wasn’t willing to do that. I’m NOT willing to do that, but I have to admit I just don’t get it. I’m not even sure that I want to get it, but feel as though I should try. Seeking to understand is not as simple as it sounds.

Understanding is a two-way street, by definition. If one side of the street is blocked, we aren’t going to get anywhere. And we have to get somewhere. We can’t stay here, fighting over ideology and trying to make impermanent things permanent Nobody alive today knew Robert E. Lee, but we have emotion tied to who we believe he was, and what we believe he did. That ultimately has little to do with him, and little to do with history, and everything to do with power.

Power, or the imbalance of it, is what gives us the unwanted feelings of being out of control of our lives. When we have power, we’re fine. When we don’t have it, we resist those who have it and we cannot rest. It’s innate; it’s who we are. That has less to do with skin color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, or anything else that stratifies us. It has everything to do with common human nature.

I don’t know if I can make the choice to refuse personal reaction to generic insults and differences in opinion. It feels like justice matters enough to engage me on a personal level, but I have to be careful that I’m not just looking for a few steps up on the power continuum. I have to be honest about that – do I just want to be right? Do I have a valid stake in every dispute? Do I really believe there’s a moral injustice occurring, and do I have enough information to accurately determine that? Those are some of the considerations I need to make if I’m going to maintain my personal ethics and integrity. It might take a minute.

The best comment I saw on the endless stream of mostly hateful banter on the live stream earlier made me laugh. It said, “Lose the dude, keep the horse.” Sounds like good advice to me. I’m going to keep the horse and let it carry me beyond the memorial and beyond the misinformation and keep going forward.

So. I am told that “Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point.” (Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5 – How It Works)

Half measures. Half assed efforts when I know better. I hope they are not half-hearted efforts, but they are frequently doing the same thing and expecting different results. This is a very bad habit of mine, one of my default programs. Frustrating, to say the least. It was Labor Day, so I honored that and did absolutely no labor. I have sat here for yet another day, doing absolutely nothing, but building sand castles in my mind, without the sand, and leaving most of them unfinished. Great ideas, though. Always great ideas, just lacking on the implementation.

I was musing on how much I allow myself to be taken advantage of. Some friends of mine, who are ex-pats, will be coming to visit in October. A mutual friend is trying valiantly to assemble the usual suspects, but I had to laugh when she was asking me whether or not there was “history” between me and someone in the crowd. There is angst in the world, and then there is lesbian angst, which is the exponential value of the cumulative angst of everyone else. Good lord. I had “history” with the person in question, but we agreed it was not THAT kind of “history” so it would be safe to have us all assemble. Goodness. Drama averted.

The person in question owes me a small sum of money, around $350 if I recall correctly. I loaned it to her freely, and didn’t expect her to do the right thing and repay it. It’s been forgiven, and I have never mentioned it to another soul. I don’t have much respect for the woman, but I don’t care enough to make anything of the debt. That is the sum total of the “history” as far as I am concerned, so it’s a dead issue. But it got me thinking about how many times I go above and beyond for friends, colleagues, etc. only to have them kick me in the teeth in gratitude.

Maybe, when I was in much worse shape, I did likewise. I’m not that person any longer, and maybe it’s like survivor guilt on my part that prevents me from being more demanding about being treated fairly, or at least with more respect. I don’t know. I’ve never known, and I’ve always gotten the shorter end of the stick in relationships of just about any kind. I suppose that’s something I should work on. I’ll get right on that.

Regardless, I feel as though I am Sitting In Limbo (which is a great song by Jimmy Cliff). “…waiting for the dice to roll…got some time to search my soul…meanwhile they’re putting up resistance, but I know that my faith will lead me on.” Faith. My faith will lead me on.

That may be all that I’ve gotten from today – faith. I don’t know exactly what my faith is, but I suppose it’s that somehow, some way, I’ll be able to keep my snout above water. It’s frightening to be thinking about going into the, um, latter part of my time here but I don’t think living under a bridge at 70 is going to be in the cards for me. Fear is the biggest obstacle to faith, and faith is the antidote to fear. At least that is what I think. Both faith and fear ebb and flow on some never ending continuum, I guess. Right now, fear is rather high on the scales, but this too shall pass.

I’ve never considered myself brave, nor courageous. I’m more a scrapper, scraping the dirt with my fingernails to get to my feet when I’ve landed on my ass. That routine is getting old, though, so I’d kind of like to be figuring out better ways of staying on my feet. My balance generally sucks, but I am learning to compensate.

One of these days is going to be the day I speak up and my words are heard, and understood. One of these days is today on the other side of the planet, so one of these days is now. Time is a human construct, I keep feeling it necessary to remember that because I feel as though my life is over, that I’m old and have wasted all of my time in failure. Bleh.

Meanwhile, they’re putting up resistance. I’m waiting on the dice to roll, as the song says…waiting on judgement day. Who judges? I judge. It is always a pronouncement of sentence in my own measure. Perhaps I was a hanging judge in some other lifetime, and the bad karma exacts its ironic verdict in having me judge myself for this lifetime. That’s almost funny.

What’s not funny is living a half-assed life. Half-measure avail me nothing but I am certainly getting a lot of mileage out of trying for different results. It’s going to be OK, but I don’t know what OK looks like. I know what I want it to look like, but I’m not sure I believe that is a viable picture. Maybe I just don’t believe it’s viable for me. That perhaps I don’t deserve it, am not worthy of it. I don’t effing know, and I’m tired of doing the mental and emotional calesthenics to concoct an answer. (So, just stop screams the not-so-small and not-so-still voice within.)

Random thought for the evening – why in the world has the A&E channel on cable television decided to degrade itself with marathons of things like “Finding Bigfoot”? Now those are half-measures.