Author: Tonya Lanthron

Tonya Lanthron https://elysianhunter.wordpress.com Middle aged, conservative, about as exciting as finally finding the match to the pink sock behind the dryer

Sometimes It’s Not Worth Getting Out of Bed, I’m Already Pissed Off- Don’t Piss Me Off More!

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I wish I’d been able to find both of these crude bumper stickers back in the day.  I saw this ancient (late 80’s?) distressed Grand Marquis in the Kroger parking lot last week.  It is probably some young kid’s inheritance from Grandma, who abandoned the old Grand Marquis for either a newer Grand Marquis or other large old people’s car (Buick Century, etc.) -or who died.  Since none of my relatives were into big cars except one of my grandfathers, and he always traded his cars because they were low mileage and impeccably maintained, I never inherited a big car. I never really wanted to.  I remember the 72 Plymouth Fury Grandpa had that he traded in on the 92 Buick Roadmaster, that he traded in on the 2002 Grand Marquis.  When he traded it off the Fury still smelled like a new car. The Roadmaster probably did too when he traded it off.  The 2002 Grand Marquis was sold in the estate sale or something when he died, and it had less than five thousand miles on it- in 2006.  Fine with me.  The biggest vehicle I have ever owned was my 94 Toyota truck, with its legendary 22RE engine (a 2.4 4 cylinder for those who may not know.)  I don’t do big cars.  My idea of a large car is a Corolla.  A Grand Marquis is a land yacht. 

I think Dad preferred me to drive small cars primarily because let’s face it- doing the horizontal mambo in a 79 Subaru DL or in a 70’s versionVW Rabbit is an exercise in contortionism.   Possible, yes, but a physical challenge, and I am not the best at any kind of physical challenge.  Dad was probably a lot more optimistic about me getting lucky than I ever really was.  I wasn’t voted “least likely to get laid” in the Senior Will for nothing.  Before I got my first car I tried without success to convince Dad that I should get a 75 Camaro to drive so I would look more cool (hell, I could have had a new Mercedes and I still would have been a geeky awkward nerd with thick glasses and no social aptitude, but it was worth a try.)  Dad put the nix on anything with more than four cylinders.  I’m glad he nixed the Camaro because they are the absolute worst car to try to drive in the snow, and I can’t see out of them worth squat because the seat sits too low.  Gasoline and maintenance also cost less on the small 4-cylinder cars, which was and still is a plus for me.

I don’t think I would dare to sport such edgy bumper stickers on a newer car (though I do make some conservative political statements on the Hello Kitty Yaris) but back when I drove real piece of shit cars, who would care?  As much as I really hated driving nasty cars due to mechanical failures, poor performance and bizarre quirks that are inherent to cars pieced together with Bondo, duct tape and pop rivets, I never had to worry much about cosmetic damage. Who gave a rat’s ass that the headlight buckets on the Subaru were fabricated out of sheet metal and as a result the headlights were aimed as if I were perpetually attempting to tree coon with them?  I remember reattaching the Subaru’s exhaust from the cat back with a coat hanger- in the rain- with Dawne and Jamie both in the back seat laughing their asses off.  If some wise-ass decided it was fun to walk on the hood and roof of the car and dent the hell out of it, oh, well. That was then and this is now.  Now that I drive a late model car, I am thoroughly pissed about a less than 1″ dent in the left quarter panel of the HK Yaris caused by two guys trying to wrangle a used Saturn crossmember in and and out of the trunk.   Most people would never notice it, but I see it- and therefore it pisses me off.

Some days it seems like just the act of drawing breath seems like too much.  I really don’t like being in that frame of mind.  I’ve never been a patient individual but for me high fatigue=really bad attitude.  Especially if someone expects me to do something above and beyond the ordinary daily chores that are necessary.  Today I would have been quite fine with watching Science Channel and TruTV with the dogs all day, but such is not to be. 

I really wasn’t up that late doing my nails last night either- Jerry decided to spend the evening at the hell hole (I don’t even want to know how much money he pissed away there because that would be even worse for my fragile morale) and he staggered in around 10:30.  I crashed around 11:30, when I was confident to some degree that my nails had dried.  Jerry was flopped over the bed and snoring loudly so therefore I could be confident that he was both a.) asleep and b.) still breathing.  In some sort of drunken intuition he must have known not to say anything to me when he came in because I would have ripped him a new one.  Either that or he was plastered beyond having the power of speech.  That doesn’t happen too often.  If anything when he’s plastered he chases me around and runs at the mouth until he passes out. Usually when he comes in quietly that means he actually won money, (if he loses money I usually get an hour’s worth of tirade on how he is so broke, ad nauseam) but I won’t hold my breath.   I hate gambling.  I know sometimes he wins but it’s never enough to make up for what he loses.  In gambling establishments the odds are always such that the house consistently wins, otherwise why would they bother?  Over the long term you’re generally better off to keep your money rather than piss it away gambling with the far-off hope that you might beat the odds and win big.  Most people simply lose.   But you can’t tell a gambler that.

I am not quite that addicted to caffeine.  In recent years I’ve cut back on it quite a bit, but I am all too familiar with that “I’m too damned tired and burned out to deal with you,” feeling.  When I’m stressed the last thing I want is to deal with people, especially when all they want is for me to give them something or do something for them.  Sometimes just conversation is too much.  I think I might take a silent sanity day Saturday- don’t talk to anyone for any reason.  That could be good for my mental health if I can pull it off.

 

Of course conversation is a relative thing.  I don’t particularly want to discuss the same old tired topics. As far as politics go I know pretty much who and what I’m voting for and against, so there’s not much further discussion for me on that topic.  I certainly don’t want to be reminded of my perpetual state of relative poverty, how bad my health is, or how dysfunctional my home life is.  That doesn’t leave a whole lot open for Jerry, other than bitching at me for sins of omission, commission, real or imagined, and stuff that is high on his priority bitch list that I’ve either never thought of or just plain forgot about.  All of the above are things I really don’t feel like talking about.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Guess Where Big Brother Is Now? In the Name of Science, and Defeat Communism 2010

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My question, and I think it a valid one, is why would anyone need to conduct any sort of  “research” involving toilet cameras?  Maintaining toilet cams sounds like more of a fetishist project to me.  “Oooh, look at that big loaf!”  Why not just check out the “Rate My Poo” site if you are so into that?  I’ve never been a big fan of Freudian psychology, but isn’t peering over toilet cams a sign that one is getting way too obsessed with matters of the eliminatory kind?

As far as public surveillance goes, it has gotten really out of hand.  Part of the reason I really despise public fitting rooms is because back in the day- say for instance at Penney’s or TwinFair or any other department store where they sold clothes- there were two-way mirrors through which some aspiring voyeur got paid to watch you try on clothes.  Ostensibly this was to prevent shoplifting, and I’m sure it did, but I really don’t like the idea of some perv (male or worse, female) getting their paycheck and their jollies by glaring at my trollish body in varying stages of undress.   Today the surveillance factor is multiplied in that mini-cameras can fit anywhere.   The camera can be transmitting pictures anywhere with Internet access, so the perv(s) monitoring it can be in Tanzania or Fiji for all I know. It’s no longer about one perv amusing him/her self in private glee at my expense, but pervs around the world with the potential to share the fun online.  One can only imagine that any public fitting room has dozens of spy cameras in strategic places where any lecher in the store’s employ can gaze, clip, save and post pics of any unfortunate in the try-on booth on their Facebook page for posterity should they so choose.  George Orwell himself couldn’t have imagined this.  I don’t need some deviant posting pics of me attempting to find a bra that actually fits, or pics of me trying on pants that either fit fine except they are six inches too short (when I try to wear “petite” sizes) or pants that fit fine except they are six inches too long (when I try to wear “regular” sizes.)   I don’t try on clothes in public.  Period.  Mom made us do that far too much when we were kids.

Mom had a philosophy about buying clothes for us.  Usually I ended up with my sisters’ old threadbare clothes- being the youngest sucks in more ways than one- but occasionally I did get something new.  I did get new socks and underwear (thankfully I didn’t have to wear their old ones) and occasionally a shirt or pair of pants now and then.  Mom’s thing was she didn’t want to waste money (or in my case usually, Grandma’s money) on clothes that didn’t fit.  So we would have to try on all the stuff that she thought would look good on us, and if it wasn’t at least five sizes too big, and available in fugly shades of green and/or brown it went back on the rack.  Mom likes to shop so this ritual was sheer torture.  Not only did you have to try on 50 different items, but you usually ended up with the three items you hated the most.  Granted, it was the 70’s and I don’t think there were that many good clothing choices then.  Even so, I hated undressing in public even more than some of her clothing choices.  To this day I do not a.) use public fitting rooms, ever, or b.) wear scratchy knit pants in hideous colors.  I tend to gravitate toward the “cool” colors, given that my skin tone was named after a Toyota paint color: “Super White.”   I have some dignity left even if I do have to occasionally hem my pant legs- or just sigh and wear capris.

All I can say is I hope Obama keeps on campaigning for Strickland.  Everyone who Obama’s supported politically since he was elected has gone down in a blaze of glory.  May the trend continue. 

I hope people are waking up.

The Trains, Lacquered Sentimentality, and The Way Things Never Were but Should Have Been

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My grandfather was never a man given to travel, at least not when I knew him.  Then again I never knew him before his hair had turned completely white, and his supposedly legendary volatile and capricious temper had cooled to a point where you would almost deem him incapable of expressing anger save for very infrequent (yet most memorable and ferocious when they did occur) outbursts.   When a lion is forced to roar, one better take heed, even if it’s a very old lion.  Mom always had to learn this the hard way, because she was often the one to light the match and fan the flames when Grandpa did have an angry tirade.    I can’t for the life of me understand why Mom wanted to harass Grandpa over his love of chicken necks or his passion for Nacho Cheese Doritos- but bugging him about what kind and how much food he ate was never a very good idea.  Once someone has made it to eighty years old, controlling their diet is pretty much pointless and almost sadistic by then.   It’s one thing for a forty-something to count carbs and fat grams and worry about caloric intake, but quite another to impose the High-Fiber, Low-Calorie, Low-Carb, Low Sodium Diet on someone who has already cheated the Reaper for 80 years.   I do have to wonder how he managed to eat chicken necks with dentures, but there were very few things that Grandpa wouldn’t eat- save for tapioca and sauerkraut.  He lived through both the Depression and WWII and had to deal with more than anyone’s fair share of food shortages, so the way I always saw it is why not let the man eat whatever he likes, even if it means he will snarf a large bag of Doritos and half a pound of Velveeta cheese just for starters.  He lived to be 91 so he must have done something right.  I think it did him a world of good that he spent the last thirty years or so of his life doing what he wanted- watching the world go around, enjoying TV Westerns probably hundreds of times with the volume cranked way up, cooking and eating, and pretty much sailing along without rocking the boat.  I do believe he could have recited all the old Eastwood and John Wayne Westerns by memory but he watched them all over and over just the same.

The quiet ones are the ones you have to watch.  They tend to have the most colorful stories.

I don’t know a whole lot about Grandpa’s tour in WWII other than he spent some time in France and he would gladly volunteer that he “didn’t leave anything in Europe and there is no way in hell I’d go back there.”  He had a general disdain both for the French and the British after serving over there but oddly enough not much hostility toward Germans.  I don’t know if that is because he didn’t encounter too many of them or if he was just not terribly impressed by our allies.   Most of his tour (after he’d had to have all his teeth pulled- sans anesthesia and by a British Dr.-due to pyorrhea) was spent in the States on the troop trains.  He belonged to the engineering corps in the Army- the guys who built roads and bridges and such- and as a machinist he could fabricate parts for and repair heavy equipment.  Typically the older guys and those with skilled trades did not see combat.  Being both older than the typical recruit and a skilled tradesman, he spent most of the war “in the rear with the gear” from what I can tell given the sparse records I could find.  He also served as a cook.   It was no wonder with the quality and scarcity of rations available in WWII that Grandpa had a talent for making even the most simple and crude food taste good.  I have to believe that his love of food came from spending many years of his life not knowing where his next meal would be coming from.   A chicken neck would be a feast indeed if that’s the only meat you’ve had in months.

Grandpa had an almost vehement dislike of travel in all of its forms, especially air travel.  He had been on one airplane when he was in the Army, and as far as he was concerned that was more than enough flying time for him.  He didn’t care for travel by sea either.  According to him it took two weeks for a ship to cross the Atlantic- two weeks of being crammed into close quarters presumably without access to shower facilities (yikes!) and being surrounded by people puking their guts out from sea sickness.    I’d never heard him say much against train travel except that he had been in all of the lower 48 states and had no desire to travel them again.

I would have to think the most disturbing aspect of riding the troop trains would be observing the constant influx of young men being sent to divers places, many of whom you know will not return alive.  Even worse, the coffins containing the dead were shipped back their hometowns on the same trains that had whisked them away.  While Grandpa never mentioned this, he had not only had to have known it but would likely have observed or even assisted in the loading and unloading of the dead.  He quite possibly could have observed or even actively loaded and unloaded the corpses of those he had seen in passing, alive, only days or weeks before.  

I wonder what had to be going through his mind- keeping the behemoth machines rolling- being a part of the higher machinations of war- feeding the machine that feeds the machine so to say.

I understand that WWII is probably the last instance that the US has seen of what could truly be called just war.  Nobody, at least publicly and out loud, challenged the necessity of bloodshed and martyrdom to defend our freedom and that of our allies.  Unlike subsequent hot and cold wars in the 20th and now 21st centuries, in WWII the enemy was clearly defined as were the goals to be accomplished.   Even though I am sure that Grandpa as well as those who he served with understood the necessity of what they were doing, I have to believe that there was an underlying grief at the carnage, the senselessness and the sheer monstrosity of war.  I have to believe that there was despair in the constant rhythm of the trains, a swan song in the mournful sound of the steam whistle.  

I also find it intriguing that even so close to the “Day That Will Live in Infamy” (Dec. 7, 1941) the utopian dream of better life through technology was alive and well.  To look at the exhibits featured in the 1938 World’s Fair there is little to suggest that in the coming decade the world will undergo such horrors and fundamental changes as have never been seen before or since.  It’s curious to imagine the little art-deco microcosms depicted in the exhibits as they would have evolved apart from the influence of war- if they would have evolved into anything at all.   To say the picture drawn by the World’s Fair was optimistic is an understatement. 

There is supposed to be a time capsule buried in NYC from the 1938 World’s Fair- here is the book listing what the capsule contains– and some of it makes me wonder what in the flip they were thinking.  I could really care less about such trite statistics as the school enrollment of the NYC public schools in 1938, but it must have seemed important to include that at the time.  Then again it would be interesting to experience a world untainted by the specter of Global Thermonuclear War, a world free of Islamic extremism terrorism, a world that in comparison seems innocent and naive when compared to today. 

One could speculate  ad infinitum how the world would have been dramatically different if somehow WWII would have been avoided- if Hitler had been assassinated early on, (plenty of folks tried!) or if the attack on Pearl Harbor had been thwarted or re-thought.   Would the technological advances brought on by wartime necessity have ever materialized- especially the advances in medicine and in the manufacturing sciences?  Would there still be life-saving antibiotics and surgical techniques that were developed and perfected during that war? 

Who would be alive (or who would have lived longer) and who would never have came to be if not for the circumstances of that war?

I don’t have the answers for those questions, except that maybe somewhere there is a parallel universe in which a decision or two was made differently, and as a consequence it is a different world where the long-dead walk alive and the never-born are as flesh and blood as I am today. 

Freaky things to be contemplating on a Friday afternoon for sure.

Say it Isn’t So, Peculiarities, and a Cougar’s Eye View

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One of the interesting perks of cougardom is the ability to give young, hot guys the eyeball without attracting much scrutiny.  I would think it more creepy to be getting the lecherous eye from someone old enough to be one’s mother than for a guy to be eyeballed by a female of the same age, but maybe they just write off old bats like me as harmless and assume I’m not looking.  I am looking.   I can’t help it. My great-grandmother was checking them out and looking at the beefcake well into her 90’s.  Some things never change, and I guess it’s not too terrible to be caught admiring the scenery.

Speaking of young, hot guys- maybe this is crude of me to point out being that I was at the hospital with a friend- but one of the ER Dr.s was rather easy on the eyes.  Easy on the eyes and half my age…well maybe late 20’s-early 30’s.  Leave it to me to notice, and it was probably a good thing Jerry was out trying to find Bob while I was reeling in my tongue.  I never used to give younger dudes a second look, but since guys my age and older generally are missing hair and/or teeth, and tend to be slovenly and paunchy, I guess I can’t help but to notice the hot young things.   I can hide behind relative obscurity knowing that deep down I remind them of their mothers.

Shame on me, although I still find it unnerving when I observe that some of Steve-o’s friends are rather hot.  These guys are half my age.  Twenty years ago…I would have been afraid to talk to them.  Today I make cougar jokes with them.  Hopefully this means I am harmless after all.

I give Jerry a lot of critique- some deserved, and some not so deserved.  Since I tend to be very harsh on myself, I can also be harsh to the point of cruelty with others.  I have to really watch that in both my attitude and my conversation with Jerry.  In spite of all his idiosyncracies and rough exterior I know he is only trying to shield a heart that is far more sensitive than mine.  He lives in the nebulous world of emotions that I can barely acknowledge, let alone navigate.  I’ve been emotionally stunted ever since I can remember, so it’s exceedingly hard for me to put myself in someone else’s place.  Empathy is not my strong point!  I know that biting sarcasm isn’t the most constructive form of feedback , and there are times when I should certainly hold my tongue more than I do.  I have my own trainloads of baggage and enough dysfunction in my own family to write my own twisted sit-com that would give the drivel on network TV a run for its money.  I can see it now-check it out- the chronically depressed, forty-something, menopausal, PTSD-suffering, pathologically anti-social mutant troll chick tries live with both a painfully “normal” family and  superdysfunctional in-laws!  I’m on Prozac for a reason.  Better yet, send me on a road trip- or like last night, leave me to while away hours waiting with friends at the hospital by making shallow conversation and trying to see the humor in my surroundings.  Hospitals can be filled with hilarity (and even hot young residents…) if you know where to look.  I still think it was funny- the last time my mother-in-law was in the ER Porky grabbed a few plastic bracelets that said “FALL RISK” and stashed them in my purse so I could put them on Jerry when he’s wasted.  The difference there is when Jerry falls while drunk he just sort of rolls around.    Then he spends the next day complaining that the beer shits gave him a wicked case of the hemorrhoids.  At least I don’t suffer from hemorrhoidal itch. Yet.

I try to save the most biting sarcasm for my own personal ruminations- a case of find the humor in it, or cry my guts out.  Maybe this is why I enjoy British humor so much- it tends to be dark and sarcastic.   Some people don’t get the humor behind the scene in Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail when the guy with the cart was coming around to collect the dead.  I get it.  Humor is where you find it.  Life on this earth is a limited time offer.  Might as well laugh when you can.

On the bright side: The above distressed 1985 Camry Wagon is not my car.

Nostalgia is Overrated, Objects in the Rear View, and Ghost of a Lover Past

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I am not one of those people who cultivates emotional involvement with people easily.   This is why I generally save my emotional angst for this blog rather than to live out the drama on the big screen.  I have no problem with casual conversation- I can talk cars or crack off color jokes all day long with just about anyone willing to listen to me ramble at the mouth, but as far as having true friends and confidants I have to wonder sometimes.  I believe I’ve only really had two true friends I could confide anything to, apart from God Himself, and I’ve not talked to either of them in years.  God, I try to talk with daily (and I can certainly attest to the power and the merit of prayer) but sometimes I miss the spontaneity and feedback one can only get when talking to another live body.  Ironically one of the above human friends claims to be an atheist and I’m still trying to wrap my mind around talking with God and then confiding to a person who claims God doesn’t exist.   Strange indeed.

This being said perhaps I am actually getting lonely- me, the quintessential loner introverted freakazoid- who generally craves solitude like a junkie craves a fix, might actually be craving a little meaningful human contact for a change.  I would so love an evening of intelligent conversation, perhaps a drink or two, and who knows, maybe even a roll in the hay.

The sad irony is that it has literally been years since I’ve experienced any of the above with the exception of the drink or two- I decided to throw caution to the wind for a change and drink the last of the Sutterhome that’s been in the fridge since New Year’s.

Intelligent conversation (face to face with a live human)- I think the last one I had was maybe 1998?   I don’t even want to try to figure out the last time I actually had conjugal relations although I do know I have “done the nasty” a few times after my son (aged 19) was born- late 1990’s or maybe early 2000’s?  I think Clinton was still President at the time.

Jerry can’t help the fact that he has ED as well as a whole trainload of psychological baggage that would negate any chance of us having any kind of sex life again  (as if we ever did, even when his johnson actually worked.)  I married him and in my mind that means I have to stay chaste no matter how much I don’t like it.  Sex once in awhile would make the dearth of meaningful conversation a bit easier to take, but as it stands, I have a 53 year old toddler to babysit and clean up after most of the time. I blame his dysfunctional family as well as his inability to overcome a lifetime of dependency and alcoholism for a lot of that.  I also blame my misplaced sense of pity and naive desire to be needed.   Hindsight is 20/20 although I believe there is a purpose in such a difficult placement.  I just wish that every once in awhile I could talk with someone on my own level and occasionally get some action.

I do obviously have a moral dilemma.  I want to remain chaste for a number of reasons.  I want to live as God would have me live, which means I shouldn’t be ruminating on how much I would like some paradise by the dashboard lights, especially with someone I’m not married to. I don’t want any communicable diseases. I don’t want to live with the guilt of cheating, and I really don’t want at my age to try to forge any kind of emotional connection with anyone new.  I don’t even maintain the very few I have very well.   I’m not one of those people who gets into the concept of  “friends with benefits” either.  I don’t just land in bed with any random dude.

The only one I would even seriously want a physical relationship with is not available to me for a number of reasons. If I were him I wouldn’t want to even speak to me because for years I’ve been ambivalent and elusive and downright defensive.  Even if he did want to talk to me a big part of me would want more than conversation but then the rational side of me (the side that usually wins) wouldn’t- all the old demons and guilt would be right back there to haunt me.  The very friend I wish more than anything I could talk to, I am scared to death to get in touch with.  I am terrified to meet up with him in person because I know full where it would lead.   Sin, disappointment and all sorts of chaos for a few stolen moments.  Lord, help me.

I can’t justify any of that.  I can’t make excuses.  God willing I have to take the high road and not use my loneliness as a springboard to jump into trouble.

I just wish that the objects in the rear view weren’t so vivid and that memory wasn’t so compelling.

Smells Like 1982, Innocence, Arrogance and Ignorance, and Fair Food

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I have to admit, in 1982 I was 13 and as most teens, didn’t really appreciate the situation and the place in time where I was until much later in life.  It seems those things which are irretrievable  become more precious and vivid in memory as time goes by.  What I wouldn’t give for just one day of the vitality and mental acuity I had at that age- now with all the scripts I have to take and from the ravages of time and disease I am doing well to stay awake and just function.

During that halcyon late summer of 1982 it seemed a particular cruelty was inflicted on the final year’s inhabitants of Marion Harding’s Freshman Building.  The idea- putting all the high school freshman students in one building- was actually a pretty good one except that the building itself was in a notorious state of disrepair.  The city had condemned it a number of times for various wiring, heating and plumbing failures, but the school system always managed to do just enough stop-gap repair work to keep the doors open.  While the building was built with good materials and put together with as fine of craftsmanship as was available in 1915 (far superior than the pre-fabbed nightmares of disposable architecture popular today) the science of indoor plumbing was in its infancy as were the technologies of central heating and electrical wiring.  Most of the wiring, heating and plumbing in that building in 1982 were still the original, and believe me, 70 year old toilets do not function well in any situation, let alone in a high school.   The steam heat system was not much better than the toilets- from room to room one could go from Arctic cold to stygian heat.   Windows were known to fall completely off and crash to the ground if one attempted to open them.  It was prudent not to sit close to the steam registers as it was not uncommon to get scalded should a register shoot up a fountain of boiling water.  To add to the fun the entire building- especially the kitchen and cafeteria- was infested with roaches.  This was not the fault of the builders- the structure of the building was so sound that in the process of demolition the wrecking ball broke- but to the near complete lack of necessary repairs, maintenance and upgrades being made over time.

Despite the disrepair, the quirks and the unauthorized insect life, the building itself had an odd warmth that was endearing.  I loved the high ceilings and the expansive windows.  It was a far more human-friendly building than most modern buildings.  The library was my favorite place, with its huge oak tables and chairs and expansive plate windows.   Even though I enjoyed being in this old building more than most other places on earth, (especially in the dead of winter) few things were more frustrating than being locked up in school on those perfect (and perfect days are very few and far between in Central Ohio) late summer/early fall days when it is neither hot nor cold, and the sun is shining through an almost painfully clear blue sky.  Even worse was being restrained during the Popcorn Festival- when all around us street vendors and rides and various attractions were being set up and started up. 

The library’s huge windows (some of the few that could be opened without falling out of their frames) looked out over Downtown Marion.  One could see and hear- and especially smell- the Festival from there almost as if one were walking down the midway and trolling for such delights as elephant ears, Italian sausage, cream puffs, etc. ad nauseam.  I don’t have much of a sense of smell left after years of sinus infections, exposure to various chemicals in automotive shops and so on- but the whole festival/fair food thing takes me right back to that long-demolished library. I travel back to innocence, back to the ivory tower exemplar, back to the very core of where my mind lingers.  I get that whole sense of wanting to be set free to wander the sights and smells for myself, that sense of the whole world being right outside for me to experience, the world before heartbreak and disappointment and disillusionment.  Hindsight is 20/20, this is true, and I am sure I am not the only one who would have approached life far differently had I known the course of events to come, but apparently screwing up is half the fun.  I know I have done my share of screwing up and I have my fair share of regrets.  Some of that I can change, some of it I wouldn’t change if I could, but over all I would have to assume I come complete with the whole mid-life crisis of “would haves, should haves, and why didn’t Is.”  At least I stayed out of the tanning salons.  I’ll die with a clear complexion if nothing else.

So much for the vicarious life- I am one of those who tend to live more internally than externally so I really don’t mind living vicariously, wandering in the garden of memory, and observing from the ivory tower most of the time.  Even though I am not among the risk-taking or adventurous by any stretch, experience is still a valuable currency in my world, because it recharges the batteries of memory.  I sort of enjoy the surreality of wandering a street fair at night even if I can’t (and most definitely shouldn’t) partake of the bounty of overpriced, overportioned, overly greasy and/or sugary fair food.  I did make a small exception at the state fair and got my Bahama Mama smothered in sauerkraut and brown mustard but at least I did stay away from the cream puffs and other sweet stuff.  The fair-food smell alone is divine- not so much because of any culinary excellence or nutritional value- but because of the memories that smell recharges.  It’s as close to a time machine as I will ever get.

Of course the street-fair experience would not be complete without the freak show.  As time goes by I think people get less and less aware of how much blubber can be packed into a pair of hipster jeans (woof) and that if your weight exceeds say 130# that halter tops or any shirt that shows midriff is not flattering.  It’s amazing how many very large women don’t understand that Daisy Dukes only look good on near-anorexics.  I don’t qualify to wear any clothing less revealing than a t-shirt and Bermuda shorts (as if I would want to) and I am well aware of that fact.  Even though I get very hot very quickly coverage is a beautiful thing.  It’s not so much about modesty as it is not wanting to subject people to things they would rather not see.  It’s simply being polite. 

The guys are not blameless either.  Nothing says “uneducated redneck” louder than sporting a wifebeater t-shirt with crusty, hairy beer gut hanging out of the bottom.  I need not express my disdain at guys (of any size or weight) who feel it necessary to display the plume of hair springing forth from their butt cleavage by wearing their pants at just barely above privates level.   The only thing worse than poorly fitting male garments is poorly fitting Dale Earnhardt memorial clothing.  “The Intimidator” has been gone for almost 10 years,  Bubba.   Get over it already, and while you’re at it, the XL shirt that fit you in 2001 needs to be a 4XL if you hope to conceal that massive beer gut you’ve grown since then.

It’s no crime to be large.  I am proportioned like a mutant troll and am well aware of that fact- which is why I dress accordingly.  I dress for coverage and comfort, as cheaply as I can.  I am no beauty queen by any stretch of the imagination so there is no reason for me to spend a ton of money on clothes.

The recent rise in popularity of tattoos amazes me too.  It used to be the only decent people who had tats were Navy and Marine Corps Veterans, and I have all the respect in the world for any American military Veteran. Otherwise if you had tats it was proof that you had either served time in prison or you were a prostitute.  Now everyone almost has a tat somewhere but I still think it’s tacky.  To each his or her own- I know a lot of nice people and even close friends who have tats and it’s their business, but those things are going to look God-awful when the person sporting them is 80 or 90 years old.  My grandfather (the one who served in the Navy) had hideous tats on his forearms.  I think at one time they were supposed to be women, but by the time I saw them they looked like some sort of deformed sea monsters or poorly drawn, distorted anime dragons.  When I was a little kid I wondered why Grandpa wore long sleeves regardless of the weather.  When he was dying in the nursing home I finally discovered why.   He was deeply embarrassed by those tats.  Maybe back in 1943 when he was 18 and got inked with the other sailors they didn’t look so bad, but from 1943 to 2003 let’s just say they didn’t improve over time.   I’m glad I never saw them when I was a little kid because I’d probably been terrified of Grandpa forever. I was spooked way too easily as a kid anyway.  I was terrified of the PBS station identification commercial, flying insects, and walking past windows at night,  just to name a few of my irrational and overwhelming fears.   I shudder to think of the terror I’d have experienced as a child from the sight of deformed anime sea monsters on my Grandpa’s arms.

It is interesting to see the kinds of stuff people will have permanently inked on their bodies.  I am especially amused by unfortunates who tattoo their lover’s/spouse’s names on their bodies and the ex-lover or ex-spouse’s name is forever ingrained in their epidermis.   No thanks.  I have enough unpleasant memories of past relationships without visible reminders emblazoned into my skin.  I wager that tattoo removal will become a huge industry in the next 20 years. 

Maybe it’s arrogant of me to make such observations, but I would say from where I am right now it would be better for me to avoid making any decisions that may expose me to hepatitis or AIDS, so no tats for me.  I couldn’t even decide what to get if I were to get a tat.  Jerry’s buddy Bob (a Marine Corps Vet) has FTW tattooed on his butt.  I don’t want anyone to see my butt long enough to draw anything on it, let alone inject it with permanent ink, so this isn’t an option for me.  Tats really aren’t an option for me anyway so it’s a moot point.

Stygian Heat, Like I’ve Never Been Gone, and So Much for Tranquility

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This unfortunate choice of vanity plate has inspired me to make a few observations.

1. Are the powers that be at the Ohio BMV unaware of what the initials “FTW” stand for?  I can’t believe the BMV is completely devoid of bikers.  Maybe the owner of this Passat is named Franklin Thomas Williams or something, but if my initials were FTW I don’t think I would want to advertise that on a vanity plate.

2. If the owner of the Passat truly subscribes to the FTW mentality, then why would he give an “F” about wildlife?

3. If I were the owner of the Passat  I would have to take a secret delight in  basically flipping off the world via my license plate.

It is bloody hot here in central Ohio these past few days.  What most people don’t realize is that 95 degrees here might as well be 115 degrees because of the humidity.  Lovely Ohio weather- either cold and damp or hot and humid. Right now we are in the “hot and humid” season. “Cold and damp” will resume sometime in October.   Right now the air conditioner is struggling to keep up but at least I’m in where it’s cool and so far have avoided being carted off to the ER for heat stroke.   I have my iced tea and Powerade Zero so I’m staying in.

The dogs have the right idea.  So I think I’ll go back to sleep as long as people leave me alone.

No More Government Sharecropping, Equal is as Equal Does

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Well, well, well. What an interesting day. It sucks when one is too busy to even blog although this particular hiatus has been rather interesting. It’s amazing how boring things can get at work when there’s no internet access. It’s virtually impossible to get any work done- and I have more than enough work that could be getting done if I could get online. The only reason this is appearing at all on WordPress is that this musing originated as a Word document I copied and pasted, he-he.

No sense in typing twice.

My trip to NC last week was quite lovely. It was extremely hot but otherwise a welcome reprieve. Of course I was in the boonies and no internet access there either. I had the laptop but all I could really do with it was watch all the George Carlin and obscure old Journey videos I downloaded. The closest I got to electronic fun down there was the DS, sporadic cellular service, and satellite TV that loses signal in cloudy weather. Electronic entertainment wasn’t really my aim there anyway. It was nice to simply toss the cell phone aside and float in the lake for awhile. Coming back to reality is the hard part but I can’t just float in the lake forever.

I wish I had brought the DS today. I could have played quite a few rounds of Scrabble, Solitaire and Bookworm.

It’s interesting to note that nobody really wants to say anything derogatory about the dead. The death of the illustrious Senator Byrd is a case in point. The guy was a Grand Dragon in the Klan at one time for heaven’s sake. He’s also probably one of the main reasons why WV is so steeped in poverty. He got them government pork – and increased their dependence on government programs and Welfare. I think it’s sad that so many see this man as a hero especially given his open racism and self-serving aims. If being a sugar daddy gets you re-elected so be it I guess, but I find it very sad that people so soon forget the Democrats were the ones behind segregation, Jim Crow laws and racial inequality. Of course the Democrats are consistent in their support of racial inequality- only today it’s in a backhanded way. Not even Senator Byrd would openly support segregation today- but he supported many policies that in practical application have consigned minorities to share-cropper status.

Affirmative action, quotas and special perks for minorities spring from a belief that certain racial groups are inherently inferior and therefore need special government subsidies to compete. So minorities are convinced that Byrd and his protégés are out to help them with special gimmies, but in reality their “charity” is based on two objectives: political expediency (everyone votes for the sugar daddy) and keeping minorities from succeeding through their own hard work and merit. True equality means leveling the playing field, not reverse discrimination. The problem is that government entitlements discourage hard work and merit across the board. Minorities settle for government handouts- at the expense of white people who have always had to work for a living. White people are doubly disadvantaged by quotas and affirmative action, because the reward does not always go to the best qualified, especially if the best qualified person is white. Why is it white people are conditioned to be ashamed to be white- as if white people today are personally responsible for racism against minorities in the past? Oh, well, the internet is back up…time to go.

I am not a racist, white supremacist or anything like that.  I sincerely believe that there will be no equality unless the playing field is level- no quotas, no affirmative action, but the freedom to achieve based on one’s own hard work and merit.

Delayed Reactions, the War Between Good and Evil, and the Inevitable Emotional Atrophy

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“And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’  So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.”- Genesis 3:22-23 (NIV)

As it has been since the Fall, so it continues to be.  Humankind unfortunately really knows how to choose evil.  Sometimes evil finds us even when we aren’t looking for it.  This week I’ve been stress on a stick.  Along with the constant worry about money and the lack thereof, and the eternal quest to scrounge enough money to keep Steve-o in school, I have other demons to contend with that no amount of money or time can assuage.  The main problem with me and emotional distress is that I don’t deal with it while the situation causing the distress is in progress.  I deal with the rational/practical implications as the situation unfolds,  but I don’t feel anything.  It’s as if I am watching a movie.  I am detached from the situation as it unfolds.  My body does what it needs to do to respond and my mind simply records the details- so I can fall apart over them later, usually at a most inappropriate or inopportune time.

Monday night Jerry insisted I let the dogs go out on the lot even though we knew there were still young feral kittens that the dogs were trying to get to.  Clara is the fastest and the most prey-driven of the three dogs.  Unfortunately somehow Clara got ahold of one of the feral kittens.  I heard the fracas and went running, screaming, “Clara, NO!” but by the time I got close enough for her to let go of the kitten she had already crushed its skull.   The kitten died in my hands and mercifully so because it was obvious it had been mortally wounded.  It was a lovely black and white kitten about four weeks old,  and appeared to be of good size and health- at least before Clara decided to rearrange its head.

Logically I know I should not be so upset about the loss of a feral- they are (barring extraneous circumstances) doomed from birth to short, violent lives and often ghastly early deaths, but this was sad.  I don’t like being this close to death and the knowledge that there wasn’t one single damned thing I could to do prevent it is still eating at me.  Feral cats can be socialized if they are captured young (before 12 weeks) but there are too many of them to socialize them all. Yes it is a commentary on people failing to spay and neuter cats, but it is also a sad by-product of necessity.  Without feral cats our homes would be overrun with vermin.  While they are not native species neither are the vermin that humans brought along with them.  The lesson of the Great Plagues in Europe was that it really isn’t a good idea to kill the cats.  We need feral cats on one side, but it is hard to see the way that they suffer especially compared to pampered house  cats.

The other part of this slaughter that disturbs me is that it brings home the knowledge that gentle Clara can also be a ruthless killer simply because she carries ancient and powerful instincts, and she is a large and powerful dog.  The same dog that protects me and sleeps in my bed is capable of unprovoked bloodshed, even as she allows the house cats to sleep on her and groom her.

Is good always good?  Or is it more correct to acknowledge that all creatures are tainted with the evil unleashed in the Fall?

Why should I shed tears for a doomed feral kitten simply because I had the foul luck to witness its death?  I can’t blame Clara for being a dog even though she is well-fed and did not kill the kitten because she intended to eat it or because she was starving.

I don’t deal with emotions well at all.  If anything I choose not to deal with them and then something out of the blue will trigger a memory that will cause me to break into tears or anger or most commonly, depression.  I am hopelessly emotionally crippled.  I try to make up for it by being logical and thinking things through, but sometimes logical answers seem pale and cold and barren.

Sometimes I have to stop for a moment and weep for a dead cat, whether it makes sense or not.

Wading My Way Through Boredom, Apathy and Stygian Heat

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Maybe apathy is the wrong word.  I do care, but only about certain things.  Staying remotely cooled off is one of those things, and I had a hard enough time with that over the winter.  I don’t know what I am going to do when summer brings 90+ degree days for days at a time.  Obviously staying in the A/C is a must already. 

A bit of perspective here though.  I might have had better temperature regulation this time last year, but compared to Aunt Flo and her curse a few hot flashes are really no big deal.   Breaking my arm was like getting a mosquito bite compared to suffering through the curse-  it was that bad- especially in the few months before my surgery.  Even if I had to sit in the freezer (and I have contemplated it) to stop sweating for a moment,  dealing with the heat  is better than dealing with everything associated with Aunt Flo and her agonies.  Menopause doesn’t last forever but I wish it would hurry up and get over with, at least the hot flash part of it.

I’ve never been the outdoors type.  I appreciate the beauty of nature, I really do, but heat, bugs, dirt and all that sort of spoil the mystique for me.  I love swimming- but since I scorch something wicked in the sun, sometimes even in spite of the Factor 50, and I detest unauthorized insect life, I’ve always preferred an indoor pool even when weather conditions allow outdoor swimming.  If I go to an indoor pool I don’t have to worry about third degree burns on my face and shoulders nor do I have to worry about swarming insects that manage to end up in the pool water with me.  When I was a little kid I had a pathological fear of flying insects (probably because my sisters liked to throw live stinging insects in my hair for shits and giggles) that I have not fully recovered from.  I hate bees and wasps and any other potentially dangerous flying insects.  I don’t like anyone or anything touching my hair at all.  It takes a lot of restraint to let someone cut my hair.  I hate the thought of anything sticking in my hair especially if it is a live insect, a booger, or anything other than hair.  I had way too much gross stuff land in my hair when I was a child apparently. It didn’t help that I had thick, straight, long hair that went past my butt for several years, then I had spiral-permed big hair after that.  I like having my hair nice and short like it is now as there is less surface area for unauthorized gross things to land in.

My idea of camping is  have at least an RV with an air conditioner, flush toilet, shower and kitchen.  I had enough of primitive camping in Girl Scouts when you had to sleep in tents and use latrines that were infested with spiders and Lord only knows what other foul critters.   I had nightmares about getting bitten on the butt by a snake or something trying to use one of those nasty latrines.  That would be my luck, although I was smarter than the girl that ended up in the hospital because she wiped with poison ivy.  Rumor had it she had to have a catheter in for a week just so she could pee.  The Girl Scouts teach you, “leaves of three, let them be,” for a reason.   I never liked the idea of substituting leaves for toilet paper to begin with.  If I must drop and squat outside I will consider myself fortunate if I keep from peeing all over my pants and I really won’t worry so much about drip-drying for a moment or two, or getting a drop or two in the pants.  Guys should be thankful they can do trucker bombs from the privacy of their own driver’s seat.   I hate to break it to the unenlightened, but that yellow stuff you see in that soda bottle along the freeway is most certainly NOT Mountain Dew.  Unless of course the Mountain Dew is used.

Poison ivy is yet another reason for me to avoid the great outdoors.  I have found that if you know you’ve gotten into it and you wash immediately with dish soap (dish soap is primarily a degreaser) that it will take the oil that causes the allergic reaction off your skin and you won’t break out.  I don’t like taking chances with it though, because when I get it, I get it wicked bad and usually end up having to get a shot to get rid of it which of course, sucks.