Taking a Mental Shower

A friend from a past life contacted me a few days ago. Catching up with old friends means honestly assessing yourself to report your standing in life. It forces us to confront head-on how the choices we make cast us in circumstances we never dreamed of.  I spend so much time agonizing over work, politics, world news, and Very Bad People that I often fail to see the beauty in the world. It didn’t take me long to realize that my self-appraisal revealed much more umbrage than peace, more plague than pleasure, more condemnation than concord.

As Darwin said: it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. So I looked for beauty, but no week would be complete without the sliding scale of angst. And where I land on that scale depends only on me.

We're having some beautiful dark rainy days. This powerful sculpture was done by a local artist I have met and was impressed by. I don't know if this metal female warrior is from mythology or the artist's mind---but it's absolutely stunning and even more so in the rain.

This is another part of the metal sculpture above. These figures perch high on a wall around a mountainside home. Spectacular.

These beautiful angel figures were made by another artist whom I do not know. The owner of this house commissioned this after 9/11. Note she flies the American flag, something we see little of here. It was raining when I took this picture.

Strange modified bus parked on Erie Street. I don't know who owns it or what it's for, but it's pretty cool. I don't know how they drive a bus so low to the ground though.

This hipster art is impressive only because it exists publicly. Whatever statement, if any, it's trying to make, I'm not getting it.

I guess every town has to have its dirty little Occupy movement. Not impressed.

The beautiful Mule Mountains in the rain. So far nobody's burned them down, though there have been a few attempts.

Some musicians playing in St. Elmo's Bar parking lot a few days ago.

Desolation Row, what I think of every time I pass Coronado Nat'l Park, 30,000 acres burned over the summer. Roads are still closed up there from monsoon mudslide destruction.

I clean a house at the bottom of Carr Canyon, where the firefighters worked laboriously to save homes of people who live there. This customer has extensive bird feeders in her yard, and many animals come. This gorgeous little doe comes every day.

Goldfinches on feeder at house on Carr Canyon Road.

Saving the best for last—here's Maxi, all ready to go for a ride. She truly is too cool for school.

Video Game Schizophrenia in Young Adults

An 18-year-old male human is staying in my house right now. He is very shy around humans, and hasn’t been able to find a job, but doesn’t try very hard. He has no interest in acquiring a car, but has a Smartphone that costs about $100 a month to maintain.

He’s not a bad person at all. He’s good to my animals and has a sense of humor if the joke isn’t too complicated. There’s a lot of work to do around here as I try to prepare for whatever life’s next chapter may be, and I can ask him to help rip up old carpeting or move furniture. The problem is asking him to do anything harder than that.

He is a video game addict. What’s amazing is the change of personality when he’s facing a screen instead of a real person. At first I thought the raucous laughter and swearing was good because he seemed to be having fun…now, after two weeks of it, it’s depressing.

He’s on the phone often but not to look up words, read the news, find out what that weird frog in the yard is, or even talk to somebody. All of his energy is directed toward something that’s not real.

How utterly, totally different he is from me when I was 18. He’s not motivated or proactive or curious about life, books, people, travel, or current events. Imagine having the contents of the Internet at your fingertips at any time, and not using it to look stuff up. We had libraries and books and crappy jobs and junkers and were bursting with adventure even if we had to hitchhike—these kids have World of Warcraft and Facebook and texting. Nobody held our hands or paid our bills (at least not mine). I don’t know how to talk to him or what to say. I can’t stand baby talk and have an extremely difficult time dumbing myself down, but each attempt at conversation has to be prefaced with “do you know who … is? Do you know what a … is? Have you ever heard of … ?”  It’s so exhausting I’ve given up. I don’t think his vocabulary is more than a few hundred words. He is also so inarticulate I have to ask two or three times for him to repeat himself.

An excess of video gaming takes a socially awkward person and polishes them until they are completely disabled. It discourages personal growth and enables unworldly kids to remain that way for the rest of their lives. No new life experiences are required, no further knowledge of the world is needed to advance your online character—only more hours in a dark room in front of a vivid screen. In spite of the laughter, it’s very, very sad.

Vacations or road trips or any activity that costs money are no longer a part of my life, and I’m very sorry that I can’t help him explore the area here. But the world outside my door holds much fascination if observed closely. I can’t make another person see it, and I’m tired of trying to explain everything. Because he doesn’t have a car and mine has a standard shift which he can’t drive (of course), he’s stuck in the house. But it doesn’t seem to be an issue because he’s not interested in going out. An 18-year-old without a car is like a fly with no wings.

Whose “fault” is it? Anybody’s? I don’t think so. It’s an aggregate cultural blight, fed by genes, parents, advertising, peer pressure. I was not immune to peer pressure, but my mother was a freak and a loner and absolutely would not allow us to have anything that would have helped us fit in (though we were all long gone by 18). Is this bad or good? Is it the reason I’m such a misfit today? Maybe, but I’m a damn self-sufficient one. This kid is headed to college in the fall to study a subject that couldn’t be more unrealistic for his personality type and future employment. I am sad and embarrassed for our culture, and just about all cultures everywhere.

Handbooks to Make Your Life Harder Available Now

An article popped up on my homepage yesterday entitled What Not to Say to Someone with Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Several people close to me have RA so I clicked on it. It was ridiculous. Curious why someone would write such a stupid list, I googled “what not to say…” and the results were unbelievable. Not two million, but two billion seven hundred and seventy million helpful hits on how not to offend just about anyone.

What not to say to someone who is grieving, to someone who is unemployed, to your boss, to a woman, man, boyfriend, girlfriend, child, parent, or co-worker. To a military wife, a veteran, a parent of a Down syndrome baby. To a pregnant woman, a woman in labor, a woman who just had a miscarriage, a woman who had a C-section, a stay-at-home mom, or to “someone who is struggling with infertility.” To a childless couple, whatever that means. To an immigration officer, your insurer, a person with a non-visable disability, a victim of sexual assault, a thyroid patient, a blind person. What not to say in text messages, to someone trying to quit smoking, a marathoner, a Marine. To people in distress, with eating disorders, with diabetes. To veterans, new college graduates, lesbians, or an Amish farmer. The list is endless and covers just about any situation where you might make the massive mistake of opening your mouth. It’s bad enough that political correctness has taken over the western world, now we have to worry about what not to say to someone with allergies.

Every interaction starts with a sentence, and yes, it might be the wrong sentence. That’s how we learn new stuff, and choose who we’d like to get to know—or not. Are we all that clueless that we need two billion articles to tell us what not to say? Are we that hypersensitive that we can’t endure an awkward but curious or well-meaning remark? Do people who consistently say insensitive things ever read articles on what not to say, or do thin-skinned people read these articles to find out how they too can be offended? I better check to see if I have some affliction I can be indignant about. Hmm, how about migraines? My first husband once told me I got migraines on purpose just to ruin his day. There. Don’t say that. Thirty years later I’m still annoyed.

These articles are not intended for flamers, trolls, or miserable shitheads who provoke you deliberately online or in life. They’re for regular folks who are deathly afraid of saying the wrong thing, and I find that pathetic. Why not use some common sense, and have a conversation?

The Week in My World 3/11/11

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THE LAW OF ATTRACTION really works. I have mastered visualizing underabundance, trusting in the force of negativity, and manifesting inadequacy. I’m a firm believer in self-disempowerment.

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A HANDY TIP FOR HALF-BLIND SCREENSLAVES: As many of us age we become presbyopic, where the lens of the eye loses its ability to focus. Along with reading glasses, this easy keystroke is a lifesaver:

Hold down your control key and hit the plus (+) sign. Each time you hit the + sign the page will enlarge in increments. It works like magic on blogs or any internet page with uncomfortably small type.

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DOES ANYONE ELSE EVER read the end of a book by a favorite author first? Bad books get tossed after a few pages. Mediocre books may be suffered through by skipping pages. But give me a P.D. James novel and I go to the last page first. I don’t want to race through the book for the sake of the ending, only to neglect the beauty of the writing. I read to savor the rhythm and flow of a virtuoso storyteller.

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THE REPRESSION OF OUR PARENTS’ or grandparents’ generations was reflected in their music. In the ’60s when rock music exploded, kids no longer  wanted to listen to Bing Crosby or even Elvis. I think it’s not only cool that today’s kids listen to music than spans five decades, it’s almost obligatory. Many kids today love Led Zeppelin, and what’s not to love?

There are many people in my town who are stuck in the ’70s. They condemn the ’80s (they insist it’s all disco!) and the ’90s, (damn modern crap!) and they won’t even discuss the aughts. I vow to never let that happen to me. Viva Lady Gaga!

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CAN WE PLEASE STOP with the phone books?  A couple of times a year they distribute them  in my neighborhood, and most people don’t even pick them up. They sit there by the road in their plastic bags and rot, and then I pick them up. Phone books should be by request only—who even uses them anymore? They are going the way of the landline and video stores.

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1948 Bisbee dog license that our friend Hogan found on his property. It is one of my dearest possessions, I use it as a key chain. I wonder about the dog who wore it, and frankly I'm surprised they even had dog licenses in AZ in 1948!

The Ironman statue at the corner of Tombstone Canyon Road and Quality Hill.

Even our sewer covers are cute here.

The trees are budding and some are flowering. This beautiful old apple tree is in full blossom, and is busily attended by birds and bees.

Friends built this hay bale doghouse for their outside dogs. Hay bale houses are popular here as they make superior insulation. The bales are stacked on wire forms or rebar, then covered with cement or plaster. This doghouse is not plastered, but it is very cozy inside.

Bonnie is a three-year-old pitbull who needs a home. She's been through more than I can write here. She's being fostered by my friend Janice. Bonnie is funny, loving, protective, and doesn't need no stinking leash. She's a companion dog first and foremost. However, she's not crazy about other big dogs.

Car of the Week: 1959 Volvo PV544, beautiful condition inside and out. Drive it away! Brought to you by our friend Hogan at http://hogansclassiccars.com/

Existential Nausea

Rants

Most left unsaid. I’m usually disconsolate, but try to squeegee off deathwish before attempting dialogue—I am not anonymous and surly soliloquies are best spoken to myself. I never contemplated the downfall of western civilization so much until Facebook. Sharia law is evil.

Politics and Religion

I do not believe in God, but neither in atheist websites. Agreement is no good reason to suffer feral presentation. I’m liberal but flinch at the left, I’m conservative but recoil at the right. Read between the lies. Sick to death of arrogant manifestos and evangelical devotion to ideals that don’t work. They want approval, they get the opposite—I’m fully alienated. I still subscribe to several to keep the hate alive. Even longhaired town hippies disappoint in their conformity as they hiss “fascists!” rendering further discussion futile. (Criticism of chained dogs or piles of garbage in my neighborhood is forbidden.)

Blogging

Struggling to co-exist in same body with my rants without suppressing soul. I have strict policy against tracking unsharpened mud across comments sections. Bloggers who leave same generic message for all: “great post!!!!!” when finally overwhelmed with indifference, spring into action by unclicking “notify of follow-up comments.” If I become comatose, do not insufflate. Give me substance-syringe or pull plug. I thought blogging was about writing. If you don’t think your comment is worthy enough to check back on, use Facebook. If I spend 15 minutes writing a thoughtful comment and you don’t have the courtesy to respond at all, then disable your goddamn comments so the rest of us don’t waste our time.

Lists

Guilty of refusal to fatigue you with laborious lists (see Facebook). My prototype for lists would include such questions as, have you ever been in a torrid love triangle? Did you break someone’s heart? Does the sound of your partner’s breathing ever make you want to put a plastic bag over their head? Do you waste your time because you think you have to please people? Is your enthusiasm embellished? And they would be essay questions.

Tag Surfer

Kafkaesque. I seek enlightenment from the undeceived, the skeptic’s sweet talk, midlife confessions and observations on personal unrest. I avoid pregnancy chronicles, recipes (I’m safe around stoves), and new-age bloviation. Request the pleasure of your ennui-defying feats of sensuous sentences. Curses courted, regrets revealed, jealousies acknowledged. Passion without persecution, but rage required for honor killings, animal abuse, and blood of innocents. Questions: why why why. Discuss.

Helping Others

Not for love. Not for money. Not for fellowship or familiarity or fraternization. But Karma is a debit not credit Kard—penalty for exceeding withdrawals will drain account. My random acts are not of kindness as defined in the dictionary, but of hope receiver will be less angry. We are all obligated to contribute to the society which contains our sorry carcasses. To leave it better than we found it. I do it to live with myself, or there will be no life in me.