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.