He was PUSHED!

Y'know, I've known Joe Wilson for several years.
I know he retired as a Colonel from the National Guard, and that all four of his sons serve in the military and have been to Iraq - so all of those morons screaming about his ignorance of Iraq and his lack of patriotism can kiss my entire ass.

I know what he has done for all of those folks who now call him "racist" for standing up for what he believed in - his constituency is about 40% black. What he has done to raise their standard of living and help provide jobs and education for them is incalculable. And of course - as is so common in SC - the very people whom he has helped have turned on him for one instance of heated and emotional outspokenness, and called him names.

And for what? For speaking - as he always does - the truth, forthrightly and plainly. I have argued with Joe over points, and he never gets mad - but then he and I are friends and respect each other. Joe was tired of the disrespect shown to the American people and to the Congress by POTUS; the endless lies and half-truths finally got to him. So he simply couldn't help himself. It wasn't orchestrated, planned - it was simply the visceral action of a man who has tirelessly for many years tried to discuss and reason and play fair with others, and simply couldn't stand the lies any more. Pushing Joe Wilson to stand up and cry out, "YOU LIE!" means that the perpetrator repetitively refused to enter into a real discussion, the opposition had refused rational discussion time and again, and had purposefully and deliberately set himself up as the one telling the truths "to the American people" when all around him knew better. Joe rarely loses himself or his gentlemanly demeanor - so mark that one on your calendar. He had to be pushed to the limit of his reasonable, intelligent, and rational mind to do that. You can only kick a dog so many times before it turns on you. Joe turned and bit.

When it happened, I took one of the photos of Joe and me to work the next day to show my friends. They had all heard about it - and all were in his corner. My other friends whom I sent emails to all signed up on his webpage, and many sent donations and encouraged THEIR friends to back Joe. Some are even asking him to run for President in 2012. His response was much what others said they were screaming themselves, unheard and perennially ignored, in the privacy of their homes during that speech or in town hall meetings across the country. Because they won't drink the POTUS KoolAid, they are called "terrorists" by their own government officials.

Damn the Democrats who pretend to be the lily-white offended party - who as a group booed President Bush, and then self-righteously talk about decorum. And damn the pathetic limp-wristed and weak-kneed NeoCons, the RHINO (Republican In Name Only) cowards who are demanding that Joe apologize. You bunch of self-impressed Froot Loops - it's about time you realized that you are representing no one but your own special interests, and the thinking, reading, and cognizant American public has had enough of you. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Now thay have a rallying point and a leader - and his name is Joe Wilson. Yes, it is time to clean House and Senate alike. Time to take this country back from the socialists and liars, who slide on their bellies like insidious snakes into our living rooms and tell us how much more they will give us, while taking everything from us.

Good Riddance

Ted Kennedy died of brain cancer.

Who the hell cares?

I'll bet the Kopechne family doesn't - if there are any of them left.

Now of course we will be regaled for the next two weeks about all of Kennedy's exploits; one of the people who was the most instrumental in the past 30 years in destroying the Republic and making his home state of Massachusetts a tax hell-hole and socialist nightmare.

Like Paris, Britney, and Michael, stupid, drunken, stoned, selfish and greedy idiots are portrayed in the media as being people who should be admired and praised and followed after.

Like the folks who follow 'reality TV' that isn't real, and the "Survivor" shows that are pure bullshit, too many people mindlessly follow after unadulterated garbage, mouth breathing and panting after untruths and falsehoods while neglecting what is going on right in front of them. We really are going to hell in a handbasket when people like this are lauded and praised, and good and decent, hardworking, successful-by-their-own efforts Americans are sneered at and criticized by the media and the idiot public.

I hope Mary Jo has the privilege of escorting that worthless drunken bastard to hell.

"Oh, NOOOOO!!"

So Glenn Beck, the new darling of the Neo-cons, has discovered something evil and subversive in the new "Cash for Clunkers" program - ALL information entered into this new Welfare system can be tracked by government agencies foreign and domestic for whatever reason.

They're after us! They're after us! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Dumbazzes. We've been tracked for years, since before the Patriot Act, and NOW they're freaking? Reminds me of Madeleine Kahn in Blazing Saddles, "It's Twue, It's Twue!" Star Wars was already firmly in place in the heavens, long before Ronnie Reagan broke the news. (I know - my brother worked on it in the '70's.) So were a lot of other things - things that people insisted were mere conspiracy theorists' maunderings.

Like the Tea Parties and all of the other hysterical reactions, this stuff just cracks me up. Where was everyone 20 years ago when this really started happening? Most folk today weren't even born in 1914 when the Fed Reserve was started and started printing money without backing in gold. Yet like good little sheep they have followed along, going along to get along, whining about the dot.com revolution and Enron and the housing scandal and Madoff that cost them millions in unsecured funds -because they were not smart enough to understand that WHEN THERE IS NO INTRINSIC VALUE, money means nothing - literally nothing. It is a fantasy of "legal tender" that has no basis in reality. And because it is not reality-based, tangible and fungible, it can be manipulated by anyone seeking "riches" and power. Just like their 'freedoms' and their 'rights', that have been expanded so far with hysterical hyperbole, emotionalism, and fear, so as to mean absolutely nothing.

They think the whole think started when they woke up last year, when it has been going on for decades while they danced and sang at all the parties funded by nothing, backed by nothing. They are screaming, ranting, and raving at the end, not at the beginning. And there is nothing that can be done to save them now - all of those self-satisfied people who have suddenly had the rug snatched out from under them, whimpering and whining because Mommy, it hurts! Kiss and make better!

Economics 101 - FAIL

One of my fondest memories is watching John Rogers, the headmaster of Thomas Heyward Academy, pound his head on a cement block wall when Jasper County Chairman DP Lowther announced - "We were in the red but I borrowed more money so now we're in the black, and everything is good!"

What IS it with stupid people who don't understand how money works? Not even the basics?

The American public bailed out GM with money that it didn't have; it borrowed on future hopes and dreams, not reality. Then they started the "Cash For Clunkers" program that was supposed to go until November - which it didn't, it is already out of money as people have turned in their "old" and not-so-old cars to government-owned-and-operated GM for new cars and trucks. So now the government wants to borrow even more money to ensure that this program lasts, "because it is doing so well". WHAT THE FUCK?

Is no one thinking AT ALL?

Where is this money coming from, and will it ever be paid back - and by whom?

The whole idea for "trade in allowances" is so that the receiving dealership can make money on used car sales - either on their own lot or with sales to a broker. That won't happen, because the money forked out for these cars, FAR OVER THEIR ACTUAL WORTH, is gone. GM doesn't care, it isn't "their" money, it's the government's. The "buyer" doesn't care; s/he's got their cash and their brand new vehicle. Whether or not they will still have them, or be able to pay for them, six months down the road, doesn't matter. Whether they will have a job six months down the road, or even food to eat, doesn't matter. Deguvmint is givin dem money now bygod and they will take it, and the purty shiny new car too.

Thanks, I'll stick with my Toyotas. No government had to bail them out; quality vehicles that sold for far less than a GM plastic fantasy. Tough and impossible to kill, even with bullets in the radiator. Paid for and proud, no cost now, except taxes, tags and insurance. And the fuel to run them (not very often, I don't go anywhere much). Not for me the lure of increasing debt and then the inevitable casting off of the unusable, overly expensive GM albatross from around my neck, no thanks. I won't buy into the whole "gubbermint owes me a car, too!" scam being perpetrated on the stupid. Although I do know who will be eventually paying for it, just like Jasper County's dream of being in the black while delving ever deeper into taxpayers' pockets. Betcherass.

My beloved friend John must have concussed himself by now. Are people really this stupid? Yes, by god, they are. The Cash for Clunkers program is a success, oh, my yes indeed. Until the time comes - and it always does -to pay the piper.

No Roller Coaster, thanks

Yesterday my next door neighbor came up to the house in a mild panic. She had gotten all of her stuff together to paint (oil-based) and - had forgotten brushes. She thought she had some big ones but didn't. It's a 40 mile trip one way to buy brushes, and she was in a hurry. Well of course we have brushes - tons of 'em, use 'em all the time since last year, fixing the place up. So we gave her some.

Then she is having karaoke at her bar this weekend and needed posters. Everyone in town now knows that I have a smashing art program and do great posters, so she asked me to make her six. I made 8 - just in case - and put them up around town for her.

My fee? Drinks at karaoke night of course! LOL

Contrast the busy working atmosphere and aggressive fun challenges of everyday life with the desperate and pathetic drama queens I'm used to dealing with, and the comparisons are stark.

I really did want to snatch them up, shake them by their collars and shriek in their pathetic faces, "SHADDUP! STOP WHINING!" - but then of course that made me 'mean', 'unsympathetic'. I don't understand the attraction of drama queens to others. They can't hold a job. They can't stay in school. They can't they can't they can't - do anything on their own. They'll see doctors endlessly and come up with different diagnoses every time - and different drugs. Then of course they get "addicted" to the drugs. (Bullshit. They don't know what an addiction IS.) Then of course they lie about not only their diagnoses but their drugs. Then they lie about their jobs. Then they lie about their lives. Then they lie about their motivations. They tell different lies to different people, never thinking that -hey - some of these people know each other and might talk to each other. When caught, they say they were misunnerstood - or blame it on the drugs, their desperation, etc. People whom they say were dying weren't even sick. Trips they had to take to save someone else were non-existent. Rapes and assaults that never occurred, could not have occurred, in the time frames they give. Lies, lies, and more lies to cover up those lies. It is a never ending fantasy life with them, and they drag people into it as rapidly and voiciferously as they can.

WHY do they do it? Because it works for them. They get the attention they so desperately need and demand, 24-7, from people who enable them as surely as some parents, friends and family enable drug addicts and drunks. There are always people around who NEED to play the strong and protective type, who NEED other peoples' endless dependence on them, who are gratified by the drama queens' endless helplessness and whining, lies and manipulations, because it makes them feel superior. And the Drama queens LET them feel superior, all the time thinking that everyone around them is soooo stupid to be manipulated - and that it is they, the queens, who are really superior. ("Look how many people I can get to buy into this crap, over and over again!") It is an endless and gripping, roller coaster fantasy world of mutual dependence and mutual disgust, mutual superiority and mutual disdain. The word "respect" - either self respect or respect for others - is lost in the endless drowning waves of self-indulgence and sympathy.

Yawn. So glad I'm out of that. My definition of passion is mutual respect, mutual effort, and mutual enjoyment. Those who need the endless Sturm und Drang, highs and lows, of dependence and desperate, whining, crying, lying, self pity and self-indulgence, are fooling themselves. But hey - whatever floats their boat. Straight-up and point blank is where I live. Don't like it? Need that soft cushion of lies, dependence, and simpering giggles? Go for it. Just don't make me listen to it. I have a real life, and real relationships, not founded on lies and self-delusion. Don't tell me you've found your permanent career (for the third time this year) or your One True Love for the fourth marriage. You bore me. Lie to yourself all you want. Just stop lying to me. We both know what you are.

Now, what should I wear to karaoke night? On with real life. At least when I pretend to be something I'm not, it's obvious, tongue-in-cheek, fun, and no one gets hurt.

You have GOT to be kidding me...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

There I was yesterday, talking with my daughter on the phone, having a good long conversation about any and everything. Suddenly the phone 'blipped', alerting me that there was someone else trying to call. I looked at the phone to see who it was.

The number was for someone 'back there'. Now, let me tell you about this person. For 20 years she was one of the nastiest, meanest, rudest, most backstabbing, lying people in my life. She thought she knew everything, especially about me. She accused me of everything under the sun. She even sat in front of my DH at my last meeting, making snide comments and calling me a liar out loud with her dau-in-law. She always insisted to everyone who ever listened that I was doing everything that I suppose she wished she could do - cheating, sneaking, and stealing. She was vicious and had no sympathy for anyone, ever, at any time - except herself. She was a "good churchgoing Christian woman"- the type that one would not attend any church she went to if one could help it, because her face was always in everyone else's, telling stories and shoving her own lack of self-respect and common decency in everyone else's faces. No matter how polite anyone was to her, she was adamant that she knew everything, and always demanded that she be catered to. Did she care that she hurt my children with her lies, or that she insulted my husband with them? Of course not! Did she feel anything for the friends of mine whom she harassed and did her best to insult or embarrass because they were my friends? Don't be silly. She couldn't care less.

So, over a year after I leave and go 1700 miles away, why on earth would this person track me down and try to call? I gave maybe three people back there my phone number... mainly because, between my 60-acre farm and my job responsibilites, I am rarely near a phone. Email is about the only way to reach me with any certainty.

One of my new local friends said it best "She misses you. A dysfunctional relationship is better than none at all. She's probably ran out of people to insult and torment. Why not invite her out to see the sights? Our area has a lot of places where bodies will never be found - and haven't been for YEARS."

See, that's what I like about where I live. Blunt speaking and honesty, and no false sweetness and light. Termagants aren't permitted to try to run peoples' lives out here - they are told off and put in their places.

I don't know why this poor, pathetic, purposefully cruel and vindictive creature suddenly, desperately, needs to speak to me. But I do know that she will get quite a shock if she calls back. Because, you see, I don't have to be polite or nice to her anymore, don't have to listen to her, don't have to put up with her rants or rudeness or self-righteousness any more.

The funny thing is that I have been good friends with her daughter for years and years. Her daughter is her mother's exact opposite - funny and fun and crazy, full of love and intelligence, and not afraid to speak her mind or show her affection. She has always been a bright spot in my life - and I never wanted to offend her, even though she knows exactly what her mother is. We simply don't discuss her mother, we just discuss things amongst ourselves and enjoy each other's company and emails and conversations. I don't judge her by her mother, just as she has never judged me by mine.

I'd hate to lose my friend. But if that phone rings again and it's her mother, what I will say to her will of course be repeated and exaggerated and embellished and lied about, like every other thing I've ever said to this cruel and vicious, hatefilled woman. But it will be said... and I will be laughing at her and enjoying every damned minute of it. You see, I don't have to put up with that sort of hysterical and vicious hate, that severe and open mental derangement any more that other people excuse as "just her way" - it may be sad and pathetic and just too bad, but it isn't my problem any more. And don't think that I won't let her know it, in no uncertain terms.

And if my daughter has to put up with her cruel crap, she won't hold back either. She's heard enough from this insanely jealous, insanely cruel woman all of her life that she has had enough, too.

Busy? No, TG, Not at All

And so life goes on.

Dad always said the old 'hole in the water' - If you ever think you matter, stick your hand in the water and pull it out. The hole that is left is how much you matter.

Which is totally what I expected - no matter what my friends said - and said that they wanted.

When one of my new friends asked what we were doing for the Fourth, I said, "the potluck picnic in the park and then the fireworks."

"So you don't have plans?"

I spent the last 20 years of my life having plans. Being at everyone else's beck and call. Going to their parties and having meetings, not being able to just sit back and enjoy food and desultory conversation. Not having many real friends, but only business acquaintances who wanted something. Being treated like I was "Special" even though they and I both knew I was not - they just wanted something. Or working to make sure everything went as planned, all of the people and things in the right places, all of the plans and meetings going off as scheduled and desired.

Unhappy? Desperately. I'd much rather sit around with some friends new and old and talk about plants and weather and places we've been and why we don't want to be there any more. Some new friends - a brand inspector and a cowboy - sat with us and told us about their adventures in Wyoming, Kansas, and Colorado - and why they came here and didn't ever want to leave. All of us at the table agreed it was the people that made the difference. Sure, scenery was nice, but the political crap and liberal garbage was draining and boring and ever-present. Better here where everyone thinks the same way, feels the same way, and appreciates the same things. Good food, honesty, and hard work. Quiet fun, not forced smiles and forced activities that no one really wants to do. NOT having to smile indulgently over other peoples' rude, ugly, and stupid whiny children and listen to their just as rude, ugly, stupid and whiny parents gush about them. Here, children are seen and not heard - they go play and don't bother the grownups. You can appreciate them and their parents' parenting skills even more, when the kids all say, "Yes, mam" and "No, mam" and "Excuse me, mam". Had my kids been raised here, they would have fit right in, not been considered freaks like they were back east, polite and honest and never intrusive.

So, yeah, as I fade into the sunset and other peoples' memories, no longer a "threat" to their insecurities, I fade quickly out of their lives and mutual and shared hysterias and fanaticisms. I disappear off of their minds and Facebook pages and forums and blogs. And I am content to do so. Now I'm just "the lady with the white fence with roses on it". The lady who does ceramics in her basement. The lady with the wild garden and the strangely painted boxes that scoot between the rows of her garden, where the chickens cluck and scratch. Or even just the school secretary. I am no one, and no one needs or demands anything from me any more. Thank God.

Glad to be that hole in the water, glad to be that empty space so quickly filled in with the gush and roll of nonentity. Glad to be with people who really do think and act and behave and believe as I, who don't need to be cosseted and cared for and handed their lives on a silver platter, because they have no idea what to do with them and never did. Glad to be very far away from those miserable, angry, and pathetic people who can only feel empowered when they lie and cheat and steal and grind others underneath them and their sick and sickening desires.

This is my Eternal Summer

My life is so very different now.

I only 'work' 10 months out of the year; of course there are times when I do have to go in during the remaining two months. Next week I'm scheduled for a class to keep/enhance my certification in what I do; I have State reports to file the first of every month, and I have to sort and distribute supplies when they come in - which they will, off and on, for the next two months until school starts again.

Which is perfect for me. I have a HUGE garden - well, actually two of them, all told about two acres. There s the West Garden, which is all of my 'everyday' garden foods - tomatoes and radishes, collards and mustard greens, spinach and lettuce, squash and zucchini, and carrots and cabbages and corn and green beans and onions and... well, the usual stuff.

The East Garden is my 'experimental' garden. Here I'm growing not just things that I know will grow well here - like potatoes - but things that I've been told won't grow at all, or have never been tried, or that sprawl out too much for a smaller, more precise garden plot. A row of pumpkins, a row of watermelons - the small, 'early' type, that grow quickly and don't take 120 days or more of hot weather. Cantaloupes and 'muskmelons'. Oats and wheat. peanuts, and potatoes - two rows of potatoes.

Oh, crap, I think I've planted too many potatoes. I really didn't expect them all to come up - some were just old potatoes from storage. But it seems that every one of them is determined to grow. Every. Single. One.

There's strawberries, too, in between one apricot tree (I planted two ) and the plum tree next to the apple tree down the driveway. Gooseberry plants and blueberry plants, too. It's a long driveway.

Now that everything's in the ground, I have to weed them and feed them and keep them bug-free. There is the cutest HUGE pair of bunnies that gambol across other peoples' yards - not mine as yet. Hassenpfeffer, anyone? Because for sure I'll be looking for them if they wander into the gardens. There's a four-foot king snake in the East Garden - and I won't bother her. She eats gophers and they say that watching a king snake fight off a rattler - and kill it - is something to see. I planted the onons and garlic on the perimeter of the West Garden, and that plus the fact that there's a lot of horse poop and other compost in the rows may be off-putting to the deer. If not - I have a big freezer.

I may end up loading the quantities of produce into the back of the pickup bed and selling them by the road. Anything that's left, that I can't can or dehydrate or freeze or cook right away, just might be for sale... or left on neighbor's back porches, even in their unlocked cars... ahem.

Then there's the chickens. 10 hens and 10 roosters, just a month old so far. I'll put one of two roosters - the most obnoxious ones - with five hens each in chicken tractors, chicken coops with attached yards on runners, built to scoot between the rows in the garden, to keep down the bug invasions that happen the end of July here. They will spend their fertilizer between this year's rows, preparing for next year's rows. The rest of the roosters will be fattened in a separate pen and will be trussed up, lined up hanging upside down, then their throats cut, then processed for the freezer. THAT will be a messy weekend in August. Then my 10 'girls' will be producing their big brown eggs starting at the end of the summer...

We had to replace the wall oven. The old one will make a perfect miniature smokehouse; we stashed it back. I'm raking up the spoiled hay from the winter horse-feed bale out of the barn, and using the dry hay to mulch, the rotting hay and horse poop to start the new compost pile. We have to take down the storm windows and clean them and the huge old fashioned leaded-glass windows in the frames have to be reglazed and recaulked. We did some last year before winter set in, but not all. It is a challenge. Then there's things to build and things to rebuild; wood to chop for the cast-iron stove and set up to dry and cure for the winter.

Doesn't sound like much of a "vacation", does it?

But I'm planning on taking a short trip the end of June to my brother's in Idaho. My brother - whom my mother abandoned in a boardinghouse when he was six - and I found each other again 10 years ago. Since then we have taken great pleasure in each other's company. But there's a national miniature cattle show not 60 miles west of him. I have sparked his interest in these cattle; 22% butterfat in the milk, makes excellent cheese and butter, and they are foragers, like goats, don't require the hay and corn and grain feed-ups that the big cattle do. He has a house and money with no real property, and I have 60 acres. We are talking about starting our own little herd here; of good grass-fed beef and good cheeses and butter. Most times I preach against going into business with family, but, well... The long weekend in Idaho sounds like such fun, whether we buy cattle or not. They're not in the Plan for another two years, but..

Then of course there is the Star Gazer's Party in July; where everyone gathers at the local river and national park for a whole week to lay on their backs and look at the stars. DH and I missed the one last year, he had bronchitis. But this year I am determined to go. The astronomy professor from UN brings his class and telescopes down to the river and holds free classes on the stars; where they are, what to look for. There is no refraction of city lights here; nothing to get in the way of star-viewing on most nights. The skies here are so covered with tiny points of light that just sitting outside and looking up is like looking into black velvet with a bright light behind it; billions and billions of tiny sparkles. Of course when I say "everyone" - that means about 500 or so people. We are quite glad to be in flyover country.

This is why I moved, what I've always wanted, what I've worked toward and lived for my whole life. To grow things, to produce things, to create things, to be a vital part of life and living, to cast off the Disney World and China Mart existence, to seek after the real meaning of life, the real adventure of it, the real promise of productivity and joy that I find deep within me. My life is my vacation. And even when the snow flies, even when I go back to work full time, this is my Eternal Summer.

The Difference

I used to be on a Festival Committee, and am on the one where I live now, too.

This past weekend was my new place's Festival. First we had a parade that was announced by me (I was asked at the last minute; wth, I was already bringing the equipment we'd borrowed to do it anyway). Then there were children's games and horseshoe pitching in the park. Then there was a rodeo, then a huge supper with barbeque, potato salad, beans, cake, and drinks.

I had to spend three weeks calling people to work on the buffet line and bake cakes. All of my volunteers showed up, and we had cake left over - all different types. The folks in charge of the rodeo had different tasks; the guys in charge of the pit BarBQ had different tasks, the folks in charge of the beer garden and dance had different tasks. But it all came together in one day.

Unlike in the past, I didn't have to beg anyone to work, and neither did any other organizer. All of my people showed up, and NOT ONE demanded to be paid for it - again, unlike in the past. Even the one deputy - yes, that's all we needed, ONE, for traffic control on about 500 people - was a volunteer! People didn't pay to be in the parade, it was volunteer. People DID pay for their barbecue dinners - $4.00 for adults. They also paid a dollar or two if they roped or rode in the rodeo. Everything they wanted they paid for - even the Methodists' concession stand. No entrance fee or cover charge for the dance; the band cost $500 and played from 8 to 1 AM. The Beer Garden cost $1.00 a beer. There was no violence, no drunken behavior, no rowdiness. And at 1 AM everyone who hadn't left already went home.

Such huge differences from what I'm used to seeing; the rude behavior, the selfish demands for people to be PAID for their time to get a festival up and moving, the rowdiness, the destructiveness, the demands for everything for free. Even though I worked all day on the festival, I still paid for my and DH's meal - because that is the way it is done and supposed to be. We volunteer to keep the festival going, not to get a freebie. I always did it before - did it all for free - but was constantly surrounded by people who would only do it for so long and for so much. It always used to piss me off that they were so mercenary, and cared so little about their community, that they thought they should make a profit off of it.

Now I don't have to deal with that crap any more. Here you not only help each other, but you don't demand to be catered to, you don't make a profit off of others' efforts, and you don't have to listen to the endless whining about "someone else might get more than MEEEEE!" or listen to the "Well, what you SHOULD do is -" from people who won't lift, who have never lifted, a single God-Damned finger that didn't profit them somehow. And that is the biggest difference of all.

What makes me Tick?

My "guilty pleasure" is backing underdogs, making them feel like they are not worthless, giving them a grasp on reality rather than being swamped by adversity.

Nothing makes me angrier than to see some person who thinks a little differently, or acts a little differently, become the scapegoat for many self-convinced, self-righteous people, feeling badly because he feels the whole world is against him - and he's often right.

The most recent 'case' I'm working on is a teenager who has been told most of his life that he has to conform. Now we all know that teens are just not that good at conforming anyway. But this kid - and several other 'misfits' like him - are constantly being harassed by adult do-gooders who think that it is their bounden duty to make these kids act like other 'perfect' kids. My 'misfits' all hang together, all do things together, before and after school. Their parents take very little interest in what they do. Their teachers claim that they are the worst troublemakers. Their peers are encouraged, subtly and not, to make fun of them and mistreat them.

So where do these kids come for a friendly voice and support? Me... I know, you'd never suspect it. But I married a "bad boy" - not because I had a sick yen for a "Bad Boy" but because I could see that he wasn't a bad boy - he was just really really smart, honest, and, yes, deep-down kind, not the artificial kind-for-a-reason type of person.

My 'misfits' are all that way - all smart, funny, and the 'give you the shirt off your back' type of people. They simply don't follow other peoples' ideas of the 'perfect child'. They are so smart that they are bored by schoolwork, frustrated by it, and that frustration is read as being stubborn and stupid. My favorite came to me the other day, almost in tears (that he won't let anyone else see - he's TOUGH, dammit) and said vehemently, "I'm a f**king genius!" I said very calmly, "Yes, of course you are."

He stopped the beginning of his frustrated rant and looked at me, quietly amazed. "You mean that?" "Of course I do," I replied, because I did and he is. "You, T____, B_____, C____ - you are all geniuses. You are simply frustrated by what is going on here. Smaller minds and smaller spirits always try to drag people down to their level. You resent that - and you should. But not the way you are doing now. You can show ALL of these people - if you only put your mind to it! Think, J____, THINK. Don't react to them, don't let them make you do what proves them right. Outthink them, out-reason them!" He was floored. Then he went to talk to the other guys, and they all agreed - they were going to do the right things, the decent things, the things that made them happy, not miserable, and not give a damn what pigeonhole anyone else tried to stick them into.

I love doing that. I love making people see their potential, making them realize what they can do, far beyond what anyone else expects of them. I've often been accused of being a nasty, mean spirited bitch, and I enjoy that reputation; I promote it, and let others expound on it. Because it hides what I'm really doing - life by life, person by person, teaching people that they really are somebody, really are worthwhile, without all of that artificial bullshit, the socialist do-gooder hype of conformity and equality. Why shouldn't children or adults become everything they can be, everything their talents have meant for them to be, without conforming to someone else's ideal of right or wrong?

And so it begins...

A swine flu epidemic breaks out in Mexico, in four different regions, that at first the Mexican authorities say there is 'nothing to worry about' - and now they are shutting down public places and pulling people who 'look sick' off of trains. There are people infected in NYC, Texas, and California - no comments yet on whether or not any of these are illegal immigrants (we'll never know, thanks to the politically correct). Much as when my neighbor became infected with tuberculosis, the doctors asked him point-blank if the truck he drove for a living was unloaded by illegals, and his worker's comp wouldn't pay the bills because he couldn't "prove" he got it on the job - although everyone, even his employers and the doctors, knew that he did. Let's pretend it isn't a problem, that open borders are still ok, and that there is nothing to worry about from people coming here who are coming from poor animal-raising and farming techniques, poor or non-existent sewage and water treatment - where fertilizing crops or feeding pigs and chickens with raw human or other waste is still ok. Coming from places where cleanliness of not only persons but food production is not an issue. Coming here.

I'm not too worried, personally. Not a whole lot of folks come where I live on purpose. No illegal immigrants, no legal ones, either. Everyone knows everyone. We are an isolated pocket of humanity that grows its own food, has its own clean underground water supply, travels little (no time!) and rarely seeks medical treatment or crowds.

But for my friends and wide-flung family, I worry. I know where they live, and I know what surrounds them - miles and miles of people who think that the world owes them a living. People who, during a pandemic, will kick down doors looking for meds and food - and even the healthy ones will use it as an excuse to pillage for their own wants.

Of course it won't get that bad. The CDC will stop it, just like they've been able to stop the tuberculosis. If there is a serious outbreak, the National Guard will come in and lock down any violence. Martial law will be declared if necessary. They'll keep the contaminated food and the carriers and Typhoid Marys from spreading the diseases. Our government will protect us as always.

Of course it will.

You keep right on believing that.

No Sympathy for Fools

The bedding plants - over 1,000 of them - are up and we're getting ready to put them in the ground; the chickens will be in the second week of May, the fruit trees in about a week or so. I got my rabbit and deer repellent, gopher repellent, bug repellent (I am a fan of Sevin dust) and the sulphur to put in the soil for the blueberries. There was the annual sale on strawberries - buy 25 get 25 more free.

Then we have the Future Farmers of America banquet tomorrow night, Prom Saturday, Graduation in 20 days. 20 days! How time flies.

Then there are the emails. Hundreds of them every week. Friends panicking, losing their jobs - what will really happen to them? No one knows. During the bubble far too many investors threw money at far too many ridiculous ideas that didn't (couldn't) pan out, and now friends and enemies alike are paying the piper. As much fun as it is to be able to say, "I TOLD you so!" it is sad to watch my friends suffer under my enemies' deserved comeuppance. And of course those same enemies are in complete and total denial still. At least in public. What they are scrabbling about doing behind the scenes to save themselves ,and still be able to screw others, remains to be seen.

I have never lived my life on the Panic Principle, though I know many who do. They LOVE the hysteria of "OHMYGAWD WHAT am I going to do next?" Occurances that are easily predictable, or that even come every year, they don't plan for, don't think about, don't worry about - until they arrive. They deny natural and predictable results, angrily or sarcastically, insisting that these things could never, will never, happen to THEM. Then, when they inevitably do, they rush around shrieking and wailing, "HOW could this happen?"

The reply - "Because you are stupid" doesn't sink in.

My friends keep trying to draw me back in to the embroilments. They don't understand that, like Bill Murray, "I don't - oh, what's the word - CARE." Honestly, if I cared I would still be there, fighting and standing up and being counted. The problem is that it cost me in money and time over 30 years to stand and fight for other people - stupid people, who refused to learn from their mistakes, who insisted that the status quo was right, who insisted that no matter how their skin was crisping and their guts were boiling that they were NOT on fire.

99% of all people are sheep or lemmings, following each emotional leader over the next precipiece, whining about what happens to them as they bounce off of the rocks on the way down. I quit. I gave up. They don't want reason or common sense, they want mommies that tell them that everything will be all right, poor little babies. They make me violently ill. Why would I want that emotional and constant Sturm und Drang, the endless prattling, the endless nattering, the alternating terror and vicious stabs at each other that these mindless prattling children go through, every day - that they desperately NEED to feel alive and functioning?

Nope. I have a life, and it has nothing to do with them any more. It never really did - what I did with my kids, what I grew in my garden, how I lived my life, was totally seperate from dealing with people who whined to be saved - and then gloated and postured when they WERE saved, pretending that they did it all on their own.

I'm busy, here. Through trying to educate the stupid, through trying to help the helpless, through arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Fiddle while Rome burns around your ears. Yawn. Your shrieking is endless white noise. You are determined to remain blind, ignorant, selfish, foolish, and arrogant. Rot in it. Wallow in it. Enjoy it as only you can. Animals wallowing in your own filth, claiming it for attar of roses. "Sympathy" is in the dictionary, between "syphilis" and "shit". Accuse anyone else who even starts to view things, see things, talk about things, or sound like me of being me (the most pathetic and mindless stupidity of all). You have GOT to be kidding. But, of course, you're not... you are that blind.

A Friend's Poem on the Economy (Ha. Ha?)

No I didn't write this but I wish I did. A self-described octogenarian, friend of mine who lives in Columbia did. An ex-DJ, ex-radio broadcast news reporter, wrote it. John Wrisley, a fracking genius though he doesn't know it; funny, friendly, concise, and a voluminous writer and blogger.
It just doesn't get any better than this!

We'll Find Our Way Back

The great middle class has been knocked on its ass
And doesn't know what to do.
The bubbles have burst, and, expecting the worst,
They are bidding their fortunes adieu.

There's no room for mirth when we see our net worth
Drop eighteen percent or more.
We're poorer today than we were yesterday,
And the pain is too harsh to ignore.

401(k)s in a swoon, pension plans out of tune,
Add up to a great tale of woe.
Whom shall we blame? Who'll bear the shame?
Who is it made off with our dough?

When stock prices dropped, and real estate flopped,
Where did all the wealth go?
Did some son-of-a-bitch get filthy rich
While we became burdened with woe?

There's been hanky panky by young Doctor Bernanke,
And tricks by Tim Geithner to boot.
Look behind scenes to see what it means.
Lets trace the distress to its root.

In days of old, true money was gold -
Four-hundred-eighty grains to the ounce.
A unit of measure that one could treasure,
And keep honest tabs on accounts.

A means of exchange, gold helped to arrange
The commercial affairs of mankind.
It brightened the world as its value unfurled;
As trade 'round the globe intertwined.

But it was tough, there was never enough
Of the bright shiny metal called "gold."
"It's holding us back. Please cut us some slack,"
Said the bankers from inside their stronghold.

"Let us use paper and we'll cut you a caper
That will turn this old world on its ear!"
Mistaking paper for wealth, the entire commonwealth
Was convinced it had nothing to fear.

The game worked many years, and amid the loud cheers
We were taught to get "rich" on the cuff.
We loaded up debt and we're paying it yet -
Now the future looks exceedingly tough.

It doesn't seem fair to be forced to foreswear
Those freewheeling days of the boom.
But an irritation brought on by inflation
Leaves us little but gloom.

The boys in D.C. behave outrageously
As they pretend to know what to do.
What really rancors is their gifts to the bankers.
The last one they'll help will be YOU.

And they're not really helping, despite all the yelping!
They're just piling up trillions in debt.
We hear all the blab, but who'll pay that great tab?
It'll be all our kids, you can bet.

As depression bites deep, we may wake from our sleep
And learn from the lessons of old.
We'll find lunches aren't free, and - doubtlessly,
We'll find our way back to gold.

~John Wrisley, March 28th, 2009

Back, Succubi!

"The sky is falling!! The Sky is falling!"
"I lost everything and had to declare bankruptcy - but I'm still gonna party and go out and enjoy life."
"I don't make him spend money on me. Gee, how could I STOP him? (giggle giggle) Oh, looky, I got what I wanted - again!" Tee. Hee.

"I'll let you know if I survive the surgery two weeks from now."

"DO you SEE who's getting a bailout this time?? Isn't it outrageous?? Aren't you upset?"

"Join the "National Tea Party" movement, the "We Surround Them" movement, the "News with Views" subscription group, and get the word out!"

Yawn. Go. AWAY.

For 25 years I tried to educate people, help people, and tell people what was going to happen. They dissed me. They insisted I was wrong. They smiled indulgently. They sneered and criticized voiciferously. Now suddenly they want my SYMPATHY?

What a bunch of drama queens.

If you could read and write and do simple math you had to know what was going down. Now your heroes have feet of clay? And now you 'discover' the ones who wrote the exceptions in the bailouts got campaign contributions from the very ones they 'saved'? And now the hopeyfeeleychangers are either scuttling back into their burrows or still stridently insisting that their Saviour will save us all? And now you think is the time for everyone to rally round and fight?

Go play with yourselves. Talking to you is an exercise in futility, and listening to your screeching and endless meeeeeeeism is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Go wank, as the British say. Waste your seed and your panting useless sweating efforts on your all-too-brief self-satisfaction. Again.

I do admit that it is sometimes fun to watch those who have been making excuses for ten years or more, continue to get defensive and make the identical excuses over and over again. They should tape them so all they have to do is play them endlessly on their voicemails, post them on their facebook pages, a litany of self-excuse and self-pity and self-righteous indignation. All you have to do is prick them a tad bit with a tiny needle, and off they go again, hysterically insistent. It's like tormenting a chihuahua. You know he's going to growl and posture in exactly the same way, teeth bared and bouncing, every time - and that's what makes it so damned funny. Look, there he goes again! Bark, Peppy, Bark! Nothing changes.

But I am tired of the repetitive plaintive whines for attention, the constant emotional manipulation of the stupid by the stupid. You deserve each other. Go bark at each other for eternity, trapped in your senseless and noisy hell.

Join you? Help you? Care about you? I don't even like you. And you are nothing like me - and never will be. Dream on. Don't try to validate your simpering incompetence and pathetic misunderstanding of yourselves by asking me to be a part of it. Don't whine that you "Didn't know, had no idea!" Yes you did. But in your own mind, you told yourself it couldn't, shouldn't be true. You lied to yourself, to me, to everyone around you, and now you want my indulgence, my attention, my help, my participation?

HA. Simper, whimper, and whine your way out of this one, this time, all by yourself. Your eyes are not opened even yet to all the damage you have caused by your own ignorance, selfishness, greed, and prating. Stop grabbing for me, trying to read me like braille, trying to find the sympathetic bumps you can use to try to manipulate me to your side. Go find someone else to suck the life from. Back, succubi!

Heritage - An Excuse to Party?

I'm Irish. And I have never been to St. Patrick's Day in Savannah. Never went to the parade, never stayed on River Street during that time, never drank green beer.

Of course I'm Irish, and of course I like to drink. I've been to Irish pubs, especially when they've had Irish performers, and sat and drank and sang the 'auld' songs. Irish folks are moody; sometimes happy, sometimes in deep depression or anger - but they sing. They sing anyway, in spite of, or because of. When my father used to get depressed, he was the epitome of the Irish - mournful, sad, soul-searching. He taught me that depressions were normal, even healthy; that you make up your mind to feel that way until you don't, any more. He taught me my Irish history when I was very young, as well as our family history - none of it written down, all by word of mouth. He took me to where the family lived, and their brogue was so thick still you could cut it with a knife. Every time we visited the family for a week, for six weeks later I had a distinct accent!

Juxtapose that against the hysteria and phoniness of what happens every year in Savannah, and you can see why I couldn't care less about socializing with the people who get drunk and pee in the streets, who think that green beer and green fountains are Irish, who have never tasted corned beef and cabbage or shepherd's pie.

Tonight I'll go to my friend's little pub and have corned beef and cabbage and a quiet, neighborhood party. We might sing the songs - or we might not. But we will have good and peaceful camaraderie. The children of all ages will be there - as they usually are - shooting pool, talking, playing pinball and throwing darts, hanging with their parents and friends, respectful and friendly, just like good Irish children are. Why does anyone desperately need an excuse to get drunk, fall down, fight, drool, or be a part of a huge uncaring crowd that has no reverence for St. Patrick and no idea of what he really did for Ireland? No concept of what it is to be Irish, to have family that fled tyranny and slavery and starvation for a better life? Who have no idea of why the Irish work or play so hard, or sing so boisterously, or with such deep and tearful emotion? No, thanks. I know who and what I am, and that's all I need to know - or to be around.

An Inspiration? Hardly...

I was talking with my son a few months back, and he was telling me how much I had influenced him; strong work ethic, planning, setting goals and working for them, being creative and thoughtful, firm and decisive, without bullshit or artifice. Always being who I was, and be damned to those who didn't like it. This has, he said, influenced him to not only run his acting troupe, but to plant and can vegetables every year, to keep going upward in his job, to further his education, and to do the things he loves to do. He has become an instructor for "Leave No Trace", a group that protects the environment by, not yammering after others to wear leaves and go off grid, but by responsibly, individually, quietly, noticing and caring for their own individual environments.

Just this weekend my daughter said that she never felt that she could live up to me; I was so firm, so decisive, never scared, always doing research then making common-sense decisions. Never caring what others thought, but following my own path, doing what I felt was right, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. She always felt like she couldn't even approximate all I had done and even all I still intended to do. This from a young lady who worked full time since she was 14, was valedictorian of her high school, and went on to graduate summa cum laude from college as a biologist. Who didn't quit, who worked three jobs and ate Ramen noodles to put herself through college - and still found the time to work a potter's wheel and play on the basketball team.

Somehow I've never thought of myself as an inspiration to others. I just did what I thought was right; made the choices that felt right, and told others what I thought. Very few people saw me tossing and turning at night, knew that I felt that frisson of fear deep in my gut, knew that I would sit down and make lists, all the time, with "Good" and "Bad" checkoff columns. When I got sick, I didn't sit and whine or make a big deal about it - I was embarrassed because I had so many things to do and I didn't like my body rebelling and not permitting me to do them. So I simply went on ahead, as hard and as fast as I could, making fun of myself and my illness, belittling it and making it seem less than it was. Mostly because it pissed me off - limits of any sort piss me off.

I don't know what to do with compliments or gratitude. Honestly, my father raised me to be suspicious of them; the flattery of others was always suspect. Usually it had an underlying purpose and a reason other than to make someone feel good. I find it so weird that people are impressed by what I do as a matter of course or a matter of conscience.

But it is nice to hear from your own children that they were positively influenced. A lot of parents wait their whole lives to hear that. Some never do. I just wonder that the people closest to me never saw the angst, the late nights up pacing, the constant worry that I HAD to accomplish, HAD to do all I did... and did it, much of the time, with a clamped-down feeling in my gut. It wasn't easy. Not a single step. And not being positive, every step of the way, didn't help at all. But being able to recover from downfalls, to spring back fully formed and girded, snarling and ready for the next step, was an imperative. I'm glad my children have that rebound. And I'm glad that they know now that each step was NOT assured and was NOT as easy and as effortless as it appeared. But when you want things, you do things. And if those things don't work, you step back, take a good and reasoned look - and do them differently. If they learned nothing else from me, I hope that they learned - resilience.

The Difference

Want and need.

Some people "need" a new coat or new shoes, when they have a closetful. Some need a sushi fix, or a doughnut fix, or a white chocolate mocha latte. Some people need to get out of the house every night or at least every weekend.

Some people I know need to feel loved, need to feel - something, anything at all. They'll go to Disney World or the movies or a new bar or a new restaurant, desperately looking for their fulfillment. They'll squeal when they see people whom they've seen all week as if they haven't seen them in months. They'll sit and gaggle and gossip and giggle, ooohing and ahhhing over everything, pointing out people to other people. The guys will sit and talk about the game (whichever one was on this week) or about their women or their friends. And the evenings pass in hazy recollections and giggling unremarkable incomprehensibility. But they NEED to do that every weekend.

I have friends who need to leave the quiet certainty of their homes to go to other cities and towns, to meet other people, to shop in other places. I have friends who will drive 250 miles one way just to shop somewhere. They need to get away, they need to do and go and see.

Even friends on the edge of bankruptcy need to keep their heads up and their chins up and make people think that they are just fine. They spend what little money they have left to gad out and about, pretending to others and to themselves that things are not as bad as they seem.

A long time ago I read a fictional book about terrorists blowing up the Stock Market - as well as destroying it via an internet virus. All of the information was destroyed and would have to be rebuilt from the archives - which could take months. One very smart man stood up and said, "Look, the Stock Market is purely fantasy anyway. We can put up arbitrary numbers and no one is going to check them; they won't be able to. So we'll just say that we had a minor glitch but the problem is fixed already, and we will run the tape just as if there was never any interruption." In the fictional book it worked. Somehow, knowing what I know about politics and the gullibility of the American public, I think that it would work in real life too. People would rather believe desperately that everything is fine Fine FINE than to face the truth and deal with it.

So many people, so bent on the superficality of life, bent on having everything they need, need, need, not ever stopping to reason and think and plan or at least look at what they are doing, where they are going. So many people who cannot be honest with themselves, much less others, who prate on and on about their latest purchases or their latest trips or their latest entertainment. So many people talking about what they need, what they have to have, what they are determined to have, even if their pocketbooks and their common sense dictate otherwise. So many people, demanding that their lives reflect the high drama of movie sets, desperately needing the Sturm und Drang of shrieks instead of smiles, heights of joy and depths of tragic sorrow and pain, needing the rapid slides from one to the other, needing more and more excitement and furor as their lives go slowly to hell. Having no real beliefs, no foundation, no basis for their thoughts and hopes and needs and dreams, as well as no plans or goals for themselves, they must manufacture the uproar in their lives to feel alive, important, and valuable.

Yes, it is all to easy to fool the sheeple, who have to buy the latest Shamwow or Snuggie to prove to themselves that they are on the cutting edge, that they matter, that they are important.

How pathetic they truly are, they have simply no idea.

Stone Carvings

I have been all over the lower 48, from Washington, DC to Seattle, Washington, from Orlando through Nawlins and San Antone to Albuquerque. The West is one of my favorite places; clean air, skies that have no glaze of humidity and through which you can see for miles. Dark and brooding thunderstorms that spring up at a moment's notice and shatter the air with thunder and crackling lightning and bursts of sharp rain and even sharper hail - and then a rapid clearing and a fresh washed scent. Snow that seems to melt away before it gets dirty and muddy and fouled with scraped-up trash and car sediment.

But I had never seen the Badlands, or Mount Rushmore, before last year. Odd, because I am all about history and impressive nature. These two historical monuments, one blatantly man-made and the other a massive formation of nature, deeply impressed me. I know, it isn't endless streams of gaudy fun like so many people need to survive their boredom. But standing on a massive cutaway edge, looking down at the sedimentary rock that looks like a layered cake cut by a giant hand, takes my breath away, impresses me more than I can say.

Look at the colors of the sedimentary rock here, slashed away by a Great Cataclysm of what they assume was the lava flow of some volcanic activity that dumped tons of ash elsewhere in the Badlands Park. Imagine traveling thousands of miles over wide open prairies, and then suddenly having to figure out how to get over this with oxen and wagons. To go around would have taken them hundreds of miles and days out of their way - not good when a winter was coming for which they were unprepared and unsheltered. The Badlands hid not only Indians but rustlers and criminals of the day, so making the choice to go into these bare and fearsome canyons hald a lot of peril, both natural and man-made.

Here you can see how quickly a storm can come up; look at those amazing thunderheads. Yet we had no rain where we were; the rain fell 50 miles north from us.

Here is a deposit of some of that volcanic ash. It has been carved by wind and rain into interesting shapes. It looks hard as rock, but if you pick it up it blows away into dusty ash.

A hundred miles west of the Badlands is Mt. Rushmore. You can take a 100 pictures of it and they all seem to look alike. But what you usually can't see in all of those pictures is that the shadows from the changing position of the sun alter the expressions of the carved faces. In some, they look wise and pompous.

In others, there is a shadow of a smile or frown on one or two of the stone faces. We were there before "the season" - over Easter Weekend at the end of March. Tourist season doesn't start there til the first of May, when there are lots of things for the kiddies and those ennui-infected tourists to do. When we were there it was chilly and not very crowded, and almost everything was closed, except the monument itself.

Stone carvings, old and new, manmade and nature made. All amazing, all different, and all expressions of voluptuous passions and profound elemental drives. Yes, the West is amazing - for those with eyes to see and hearts to hear. The peace and stillness belies the endless movement, the restlessness, the drive to do something, to move, to live, to become something else. The very earth here goads one to become bigger than s/he is. Maybe that's what those who say that the West frightens them with its big and open spaces really mean - that they are afraid of all of this wild and rampant power, afraid to tap into it, afraid to try to become and create all that they can. Afraid of the endless silence that forces them to see who and what they really are; without the endless chitchattering of voices and moods and liars and cheats and advertising filling their ears, their hearts, with the superfluous, the empty, the mindless and purposeless nattering.

Choose

Yes, my Conspiracy Theorist friends are ranting still, more voiciferously than ever; this proves that, and they were right all along, see see see?

Well, of course they were - and are. So what? Even Newsweek declared two weeks ago that "we are socialist" - like THAT was any big surprise. What was that Ben Franklin said? Ah, yes - "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." Ben Franklin - April 17, 1787.

Virtuous - clean living, honest, full of integrity, never straying from a positive and forward looking life. Ol' Ben wrote, in his 20's, 13 steps toward a more virtuous life, and strove to emulate them throughout. But what I have seen in the past 30 years is people who think that "virtuous" means screaming in others' faces, lying behind their backs, and justifying their vicious, self-promoting, and self-seeking actions based on their belief in one god or the other. Be it the god of the skies, the god of the earth, the god of mammon or government - their behavior is all excused by their god. They point their fingers at others' violations, ignoring the mote in their own eyes. God help someone who tries to live an honest life; they will drag him or her down in lies and disrepute. The most honest and decent folks I know have been dragged through the mud and filth of lies and jealousy and hate. Either join them in their shrieking, animalistic behavior - or suffer the consequences of same. Those are the choices these self-righteous and non-virtuous people offer.

Not me. I step back. I step away. I deny them. I refute them. I choose - to go where my heart leads and my mind can think, where my dreams can be fulfilled, where I can live without their usury, their grasping demanding power plays. I choose. I choose not to shriek, not to be a part of the endless joyful sadomasochistic agony they have built for themselves. Let their fingernails scrape on the rocks of the Hell they have built for themselves. Let them batter themselves to death on the hatred they manufacture for each other.

I have no need of, no desire for, a master - nor to be one. And that is the one thing that no one ever seemed to grasp about me - that power means nothing to me. Life is too short to live without joy, without laughter, without the simple pleasures of sweat and production, sharing and caring for those whom we love. Power is the crutch of the insecure, the desperate, the poisoned souls who can find no joy in themselves, but must seek it in the domination and direction of others. Too bad they never realize how pathetic they are.

Circle of Friends

When I made up my mind to start a new life and to choose to go into a different direction, I knew I would catch a lot of flak from people. Even though I had never made any secret of what I wanted, where I really wanted to be, and what I really wanted to do in and with my life, many folks had pigeonholed me in a certain persona. They were shocked - some were even angry - because they didn't know me but only thought that they did. Some were downright nasty about my choices. They didn't like the fact that their little problems and knifings and gossipy false nastiness simply didn't matter to me - they resented that they didn't matter to my life, loves, future and pursuits.

So they were pretty nasty when I went ahead and did what my real friends had always known I was going to do. Vicious. Vengeful. Saying even more nasty things than they ever did before. They just KNEW that the gossip that they had always spread about me was TRUE, and my moving away from all of the 'lovers' and 'incomes' that they had assigned me in their own perverted, tiny minds refuted that. That made them angry. And never moreso than that little group who said those nasty terrible things - right in front of my husband, without even being aware that he was there, because most of them did not even trouble to know that I was married to him!

Well, one of my old friends invited me to join Facebook. Here I can have little conversations, IM's, and emails back and forth with the people whom I choose to allow onto my page. I have 16 friends and family on there. Very limited. Only people who know me well, and whom I know and am fond of - and trust. We play and send each other drinks and pillow fights and little fun notes, and cheer each other up and share each other's playful senses of humor. Because humor is the most important qualification between me and my friends. Like children in a daycare without supervision, we play happily, and no one needs a timeout or a spanking. We share our day-to-day and are happy in our own little spaces, sending each other hugs and cuddles and giggles and memories.

So what should of course happen this week, but one of those mean and nasty, backstabbing little gossips suddenly wants to "be my friend" - i.e., have access to my pages on Facebook! Apparently she has run out of people to talk about, and needs to pry into other peoples' lives again. Needs to empower herself by sneering once again, stealing from others' lives once again, to make herself feel all better about herself once again.

Um, no. That's what the ignore button is for, and you better believe I'll press it any and every time one of those nasty backstabbing small minded folk tries to invade my happiness. I don't have the time to waste on them. I don't feel like having them comment endlessly on what me and my dearest friends do to or with each other, because we love each other and want to continue to share that closeness over time and miles. They don't - will never - have that, so they are jealous of, and have to destroy those, pick apart those, who do. They are pathetic, have always been and will always be pathetic. Emotional vampires, living off of, sucking the joy out of, and trying to destroy others purely for their own emotional empowerment. I don't have time for them. I never did. And that is what pisses them off most of all... that they don't matter to me, my friends, and my life All of their gossip, their lies, their intentional vicious cruelties have no impact on what and whom I love, nor how much I care about them.

Sorry, Sunshine - guess you'll have to gossip about the same old tired people still. You are not - were never - a part of my life, no matter how much you insisted that you had to be. Go wallow in your own filth; you are through making up and slinging filth about me and mine. We still love each other and care for each other, and always will; no matter how hard and desperately you tried to destroy that. If I thought about you at all, I might pity you for what you do to yourself, and to all of the other people who innocently trust you until they find out what you really are. But I don't have the time nor the energy for even that. Yawn. You are nothing to me and my loving caring circle of friends, no matter how badly, how desperately, you need to feel otherwise. You are nothing more than a fly - you talk shit and bother decent people. Go bother someone else. Consider yourself firmly swatted. And ignored.

I'm going to go send my friends some drinks, kidnap a couple more, and keep that pillow fight going! Whoo hoo! Take THAT, with the Tootsie Roll pillow! Did you get the virtual lingerie? did you like it? Hee hee. Let's PLAY! Life is good, we love each other, and we enjoy each other's company still... those long evening chats, those early AM rushing-arounds, those weekend giggles. Did you get the Valentine's card? Did you like it? What did you think about what she said? Did you get those taxes done? Hee hee. Look at THIS picture - bet you've never seen anything like this before! Oh, look - another quiz! What did you mean by your answer to #8? Oh, man, that's funny! Did you hear about...

Playtime. Love-time. Sharing time in virtual space with people we love - the next best thing to being in each other's homes and holding each other, telling jokes and giggling side by side. I took off on a Tangent - a 1965 Convertible Tangent - and we all shared the ride. It's life, fun and crazy, affectionate and caring, and no one around to snoop and sneer and infer evil things from the love we all share. Why screw up something perfect?

Pop pop pop music

Everything on my iPod is upbeat; walking and workin music, even driving music. Bad enough when I sing to music; the iPod is for when I sing when I'm by myself, because most of the time if you can't hear the words, you might mistake it for two fighting tomcats, or something in pain.So this is what I listen to -

Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band - everything they ever made. "The Fire Down Below" is so true; I sing it for one of my friends.

John Denver - my passion and my only country indulgence. The "I am the Eagle" verse always gets me...Alanna Morrissette's "Black Velvet" (I HATE whiny women's songs; this is one of the most seductive ever made)

Jimmy Buffett - I am a closet Parrothead. "Boat Drinks" is my favorite, but "Pencil-Thin Mustache" will make me grin and tapdance.

Neil Diamond - I am soooo square. Sigh. But "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" - man, if I could sing, I'd make you cry listening to that! "Comin' to America" reminds me of my Irish family's quest for independence. Grampa came thru Ellis Island, had his name changed by the folks there, got a job as a cop, and raised a family of five. Grampy jumped a ship bound for Austrailia, and swam to the Island. He married a Sioux Indian woman, and raised a family of seven on a coal miner's salary, because he could never send back for his wife and kids in Eire. There were 10 but 3 died; two at birth and one in the mines when he was 16. From Grampy I learned patience, from Grampa I learned Gaelic. So that song still makes me cry, wth pain and pride.

The entire "Messiah" - I had to learn all the parts to the whole thing in choir, even though I was a first soprano; because I had to help the guys come in at the right time. Nothing says Christmas to me like "The Messiah".

There's a few other diddly-bop songs; "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Vogue". No teary-eyed or unrequited love songs; my music has to make me move, lift me up, inspire me.

My karaoke signature song "The Rose" is on there; because it isn't a crying song, but a song that reminds me that no matter how dark and dismal things may appear, there's always a little spark of life, of love, somewhere. Like the kid with a shovel in a roomful of manure, I keep digging for the pony that just has to be there!

Usually by the time I get through all those tunes, I'm done with my work or have gotten to where I am going! Not, of course, without a few strange looks along the way!

No No No NO!!

It's happening again!
Grrr. When I came here last May, I started exploriing the politics of the area, to ensure that no idiots were going to change this place into the same avaricious and overrun,, mean and nasty, grasping and overordinanced sort of place I came from. Well, I met a guy who turned out to be the head of the Economic Development Board for the County. My age, forceful, intelligent, and frustrated. He knew what he wanted but didn't know how to go about it and couldn't convince any of the others - stuck in the same development mode of the 1980's - to see things in the right light. So I gave him all of my PowerPoints, everything I had used in the past, to show what and how things could be done. I attended three of their meetings. The last one - back in Spetember - I pretty muh let them have it. They were trying to figure out how to get some development into the area - with the same-oh same-oh, TIFs, let government (i.e., taxpayers) foot the bills, etc etc etc. I laid out for them exactly what it WOULD cost them and why they shouldn't do that. I gave them the basics of a plan. They offered me a job. I turned it down. No way did I want to drive 40 miles one way every day to work. I wanted to stay right where I was. I had stuff to do. I wasn't invited back.

Then last night I got an email from the Director. They are nominating me to be on the Board. My area needs to be represented, my input needs to be put into operation. The past few months they have reviewed everything I gave them, and they are anxious to put it into effect. Anxious - not whiny, not fighting, not protesting for the sake of protesting, or making stupid accusations out of their own self-enforced ignorance, as happened before, where this plan was first implemented. They are educated and intelligent and know a good plan when they see one. And now they are going to implement it and want my help.

Crap. I have things to DO here! Here, at my home, in my town. I don't have TIME for this!!

But you know I'll do it. Dammit. There are things that I want to do here that will require political involvement to ensure that I can continue to do them. I have to keep this place pristine with intelligent and directed development so it doesn't impact me and the folks around me who enjoy the same things that I do. Gotta keep the development thieves, the control freaks, and the slobbering liberal idiots, who want to give everyone else's prosperity away, out of here.

Dammit. Oh, well, at least this time I'll be dealing with people who have actual brain function; who don't see education as a curse or hard work as an anathema, who don't sit on their butts with their hands out, demanding that everyone else succor them. Sigh.

But I have stuff to DO!

Painful And Personal Thoughts

I've always described myself as a SLUF - Short Little Ugly Female. I didn't mind being unattractive - I was clean and 'had a great personality' and could think for myself. I liked pretty and comfortable clothes and could use makeup and jewelry - but my most outstanding feature, to me, was my forceful personality.

Six years ago I developed a sore on my face, right on my L cheek. It grew into a scar and really looked bad - but I didn't worry too much about it. It was just - there. My daughter, a biologist, didn't like the looks of it and sent me to a pathologist. He said it was a lupus lesion, a classic sign of lupus. It could be removed, but it would just come back - and eventually would spread all over my face, in what they call a "butterfly" pattern - both cheeks and across my nose. More research proved that I had systemic lupus - which explained a LOT; how and why I would get massive infections, even sepsis that forced parts to be removed so I could survive, the constant urinary tract problems, and what was causing them. My own body, my own immune system, revolting against itself. The female doctor I saw wanted to put me on steroids; but I HATE steroids. They damage the bone and don't really prevent anything, including the progression - they just make whatever is happening not strike so hard or last as long. So we agreed I would just take the antibiotics when I had a flareup, to help my immune system beat whatever infection was next on the list. At least antibiotics go away after awhile, and don't damage bone and connective tissue. I also had to change my lifestyle, drink different fluids, eat different foods, change everything about my intake, avoiding certain things. It's hard, but doable - especially now, when I live where food is so much fresher and the water is so much purer.

Well, this past couple of weeks, I have watched a couple of developing 'blisters' on my nose and on my R cheek. I can't wear makeup any more, of course - the lesion doesn't like it and starts to bleed and suppurate, the scar tissue underneath refuses to hold it, and any coverups just don't work. So I have been makeup-free for about a year. These 'blisters' are the exact same way the first lesion started. True to form, the disease is progressing.

Because of how it looks, I went to my boss this week and told him that the lesions, even though they looked bad, were not contagious, not infectious, but simply a form of the disease. I felt that I had to do that - as the first person that anyone sees when they walk in the door of the school, I didn't want any parent to think that I was going to give their kids something.

This was awkward for me, because I hate whiners and complainers, and don't like to share my feelings or personal life with anyone - usually because (and I proved it last May) small-minded and vicious people use them to insult and lie about, and to try to hurt, me. But something had to be said, because I preferred the blunt open truth to whispers that build behind one's back.

I have never been a beauty, but this painful and really ugly outward development depresses me. It would be different if it was painless and didn't suppurate, but it isn't and it does, and makes me feel sore, and look as if I have a terrible contagious disease. ARRGGHH.

I'm just glad I'm not around those terrible nasty people that I was last year, who use what they perceive as others' weaknesses as a club to beat them down further, just so they can prove to themselves that they are superior. My "weakness" is my stupid body that can't keep up with me, that refuses to do everything I want it to do, that hangs off of me like a demanding child or gummint-dependent whiner, demanding attention just for existing. Here at least I am not on call 24-7, having to listen to everyone's constant complaints and whining, where I can rest this battered and weakened body, and not have to feel like I am under public scrutiny every single waking moment. Life is simple here, and is what I needed - especially as my stupid disease with its painful and miserable effects progresses.

Like my longtime friend Gina, who when I told her I had lupus, said "What scar?" - some people see what is within, ignoring what is on the outside. Unfortunately it is the common nature of the bestial-minded to stone the 'pink monkey' in their midst. Better to be upfront and rational, to forestall any such reactions - or to be prepared for them.

But it is really a nasty-looking progression... maybe if it didn't hurt so much, it wouldn't be so bad. Just another PITA to deal with... sigh. I'm just glad my friends can't see me now - their expressions of loving sympathy would be too much to bear. I don't want sympathy, I don't understand it, and I don't like it... I don't like being pitied. I like being normal. I hate being deformed - as if being short and ugly wasn't enough... arrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh.

"Everything Goes When the Whistle Blows"

That used to be one of my father's favorite sayings. In other words, when trouble happens, it happens all at once, slamming you from all quarters, like the parking lot of a factory when the end-of-shift whistle blows.

Last Friday I went in to work. I didn't have to; wasn't scheduled to come back until this Monday. But it was the 2nd - and I had some State filings to do that could only be done after the 1st of every month, and I wanted to get everything arranged and my computer ready for the following Monday and the re-start of school. I wanted to be prepared. Shawn was due in to put the new parts on the newer copier, and we were going to be prepared for the new start and new school year.

Well sure enough the main program I use had apparently lost its little mind over the holiday. I got on the phone with the programmers, and of course they had never heard of, much less seen, the problem with which I presented them. Being good folks, they got right on it, downloaded the info as well as my back up (TG for backups), cobbled it all together, and got it fixed within the hour.

Unbeknownst to me, they had also changed the information pathway, though. So Monday morning when I got in, the program - was frozen. That plus the copiers - both of them! - were immediately pounced on and immediately gave up the ghost. Then my boss the superintendent, got a call - his mom was very sick. Then my associate in the office, the bookkeeper, got a call - a bull had shoved into her husband's leg while he was a-horseback herding the bull into the chute, and broke her hubby's ankle.

By the end of the day, the principal and I were holed up in the boss' office, eating chocolate and trying to figure out what to do next. We laid out a plan for recovery, and implemented it Tuesday morning. By Thursday, all was back to semi-normal. Problems solved, kids taken care of, teachers put straight, machinery back in working order, program paths replaced and information recovered. Whew.

Today is Friday, the last day of the week, and a welcome ending to an insane period. We went down to the local bar and grill last night, and there sat some of the same folks who were involved in the whole mess - and we ate and laughed and commiserated. The HS basketball team came in after practice, and we all sat and watched the first quarter of the Oklahoma/Florida game in the BCS championship, cheering on the Sooners. Life was good - again. In spite of the usually moronic, blithering announcers who had apparently decided to canonize the quarterback for the Gators - no matter how many of his passes were intercepted or how many times he was sacked in the backfield...

Yep, everything does go when the whistle blows - and recovery just takes stepping back, reassessing what one has, and rebuilding on it without wasting time panicking, worrying, finding fault or blame, pointing fingers or raising heck.

Pieces of a Life

Today is the customary day to take down the tree and decorations. There is a blizzard blowing outside - 25-35 mph winds - , but the house is warm and peaceful. So we'll do the inside stuff now.

I heard something this week that made me laugh incredulously. Apparently some people think we are rich. Hmmmm? What are you smoking? The tree and decorations so lavishly displayed, the house with everything just so, the car and truck in the driveway, the fact that we aren't very social - are these the clues that we are rolling in it?

As I was taking down the tree I thought about this. Here is the red and gold tinsel, that I bought on sale after a Christmas 8 years ago because no one wanted it. Likewise the red-rose and gold wire ribbon. Every year they are used - I have several other color schemes too - they are taken out of their carefully folded wrappings of news paper and reused. Then every year they are laid out or rolled up respectively, and stored away in taped boxes until next time.

Here are the tiny plaster ornaments that the kids and I painted one year. We painted so very many; teddy bears and kitties in pajamas, Santas stuck in chimneys, toy boxes, Christmas trees, gingerbread houses, angels. There's only half of them left, though. Because a friend had her house burn down three weeks before Christmas, and I knew that she had had a huge collection of Christmas ornaments, gathered over the years. So we took some of what we had made to her. If one loses precious memories, it's time to make others.

Here are the glass ornaments with the intricate roses painted on them. My living room has always been done in red with roses. Here are the ornaments left over from my father's tree - barely faded now, with the black glass underneath, like dark water under brightly colored ice. Here are the porcelain ones, the handmade lace ones, the brilliant glass icicles - all bought on sale or given as gifts. And don't forget the 20 or so birds; the big blue jay and peacock, the tiny wrens and chickadees, bightly feathered and perched everywhere, discarded from this decoration or that. The ornaments that the kids have made over the years are here, too; their names printed in childlike hands. They all go into the ornament box; everything packed carefully and tightly so it doesn't shift and roll and crack, for next time.

On the wall is the huge Scarlett O'Hara print; she is in that vibrant red dress for Ashley's Birthday Party, one eyebrow cocked, waiting for the threated and usual resentment, vituperation and criticism, apprehensive, yet still defiant. She was on sale, too - a place going out of business, having to sell everything including their numbered prints. She is not only the representation of what I have striven to become and overcome - she is an investment. No, I "will never be hungry again", either.

The furniture is old but it was what I wanted, what I saved for, what I finally got. It is sturdy and quietly beautiful. Mike's car and my truck are what we needed, and what we wanted - things to last us many years, things we had to have, for his comfort and my work. Nothing fancy, nothing over the top, no frills and furbelows.

We don't eat at the latest advertised restaurant, or indulge very much in anything at all. Over the years we have seen good food descend into mediocre food, and from there descend into highly spiced and highly processed garbage, each new fad swiftly replacing the last, and most of it pretty foul - glazed horse poop with a piquant sauce. Tomorrow I might make a roast, and we'll dine on it all week - from slices to stews to soups, we'll make it last. And it will be nutritious and still taste good, too!

No we are definitely not rich. What we are is reasonable and practical... we see what might happen and what might come, and settle in, just as one closes the horses into the corral when the wind blows from the north and the storm clouds gather, seals the doors and windows, and lays a fire - just in case. We save what is valuable and discard what is not. From Christmas decorations, through our friendships, to the small things of our lives, the pieces we save and cherish are what make us whole.