Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes . . .

 

There are people who find authoritarians comforting.

For a while.

Eventually, though, they discover that know-it-all people who have to have it all their way, are generally not consistent, because they aren't happy people.  What they thought would make them happy yesterday fails and they require new things from those around them today, which will fail too, given enough time.

It is the never ending story of trying to please the terminally unhappy.

Eventually leading to standing in line, waiting your turn to be thrown under the bus for doing your best to be a yes-man, or woman.

Tired

 

This has been an awful year in every single solitary way. Politically, our whole country has gone down the tubes. Our country's motto is every man for himself, do whatever you want to get what you want and use everyone to get where you are going.

Environmentally, it appears we are closer to the end than we realized.

Health wise, we have to deal with the coronavirus, but we are doing it without leadership, truth, or science. We are all expendable if it helps someone else get where they want to go.

My personal health has been on a roller coaster of ups and downs that make no sense and are exacerbated by a run in with an egotistical doctor with questionable education and judgement last month.

Add to that the life long job of dealing with a mentally disabled child independent enough to do as she pleases, but often in selfish and childishly greedy ways --  and I am exhausted.

I am tired of being the voice of reason. I am tired of being the mother. I am tired of trying to do the right thing and I am tired of being nice.

Dream a little dream

 

Dreams are defined differently depending on who is talking about them. 

As a member of a Jungian dream group for over ten years I am intimately involved with my own dreams to this day and lately they have taken a very dark turn.

Imagine finding myself back in my grandma's Big House where my bed is in the kitchen far away from everyone else's. I try to get in bed with my grandma or great aunt, but am made to go back to the kitchen where my bed is tucked into a corner. The place I had to sit, in real life, on a chair, when I misbehaved as a very young child. It was never a traumatic punishment. I would just watch all the people working in the kitchen, or coming and going outside the window. But in this dream I realize there is someone in bed behind me and when I reach back I can feel the large, brown, stiff, dead fingers of my father! I scream for help because there is a long dead body in my bed, but no one comes.

Then I dream that I go upstairs to Lizzy's room and it is covered in blood! I don't see the reason for it, but it is everywhere. I can smell the metallic scent of the blood and feel the thick viscosity of it as it congeals. The floor is made of rough concrete with dips and uneven places where the blood has pooled. I try to clean it all up before her parents see it because I know they will be upset. As I continue to mop it up I am careful not to destroy the delicate lace decorations it has splattered on. I finally get it all up and go in the bathroom only to find more blood when I hear her father coming up the steps. I know he will be devastated and I feel guilty, but I don't know why.

I cannot imagine where these dreams are coming from, but they are truly disturbing. Neither one is based on actual experiences in my life, but both occur in places from my past with people I actually knew and had good experiences with. 

Sometimes remembering dreams so vividly is more of a curse than a gift.

A vote for Trump

 

A vote for Trump is voting for four more years of Trump campaigning to keep Trump in office. 

It is a vote against democracy.

It is a vote against everything a human being should hold dear. Earth. Air. Health. Peace. Life.

People voting for Trump are people are people who do not believe in science, or truth, people who just like the idea that there is someone who can rub the noses of a world they don't like, in the dirt.

Trump's government is all about him. Whatever whim strikes him in the moment becomes the primary target for his need for revenge. If it isn't about him, it is bad. He thinks the world exists to promote and adore him and anything that gets in the way must be removed. Right now. At any expense.

And this will eventually include you.

very late night thoughts

 

I have a cousin who thinks he is one of the five princes of the universe. It is an obligation that takes up a lot of his time, especially when they are called to convene and discuss certain things.

When he told me all this, it was the first time we had been able to sit down and visit in probably twenty years. 

I didn't want to interrupt him.

Now I wish I had asked more questions.

Maybe I am one of the princesses they lost along the way!

Obituaries

A person dies being who they are. Nothing magically makes them better people just because they died.

If someone is lazy, dirty, selfish and neglectful while alive, it is wrong to write a glowing obituary making up things they did not do, could not do and didn't care to do.

Passing on lies about how they did all those things they talked about, but never really did, is discourteous to the people who knew who they actually were while alive.

Feeding on the attention their death brings you on social media is wrong. Going to their funeral and pretending you were close to them is wrong. Grandstanding for attention is not an honorable thing to do.

People live and people die and they have a right to be credited with the things they actually did -- good or bad. 

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Making the list

History will remember those names associated with Trump just like they do Hitler and Himmler, Stalin and Khomeini. Even Vlad the Impaler does not pale next to them.

They will not be remembered as esteemed members of the United States, but as despicable white supremists who tried to take advantage of the country to make themselves wealthier. 

These are the people who used their power to elevate themselves at horrible costs to the American people.

These are the names of those who tried to usurp our entire government for their own profit.

Misleading an entire country until people died by the thousands. Needlessly.

Trying to hijack our post office and elections and even using our military against our own people.

Using every available tool to destroy our health, environment and anything else that did not make them personally wealthier.

They were willing to lie to us, cheat us, let us die, burn to death and drink bad water just to make a buck.

Ignoring science, utilizing racist views, denying what every educated person in the world understands, there was no step too low for these people to pursue in their own personal rise to victory at our expense.

Remember them.

Remember their families.

Memorialize them so that this never happens again.

Justice

 

The only problem with being real is that then the consequences become real.

I am really disillusioned with my country, it's politics, it's president and many of its voters who are part of my family.

I am frustrated that the world is run by rich players whose only focus is themselves and their money.

I am sick of all my ideals being destroyed by people who pretend to be honorable.

I am horrified that justice no longer exists in today's world in any meaningful way.

I am angry that most of the people in power nationally right now are crooks, liars, pedophiles and narcissists.

I wonder how the world got to this place.

I want the people who don't believe in science to suffer without the rest of us joining in.

I want the people who treat other people badly to suffer the same treatment.

But then that might be justice.

Right?

Please pass the peas

 

I guess a quarantine leaves people open to reminiscing. 

I look at pictures from 45 years ago, pictures of people I don't even know, and see things that make me homesick. The black and white china, tablecloths, good silverware, big tables full of friends and family. It was a way of living that seems mostly gone now that people eat on paper plates with plastic silverware in front of televisions.

I miss the style of living based around people entertaining people with conversation and not just setting up social networking pictures, or grandstanding for show. I have seen pictures of people laughing, eating, even sleeping again and again, but the words are always small, or replaced by emojis.

We seem to be forgetting that life is an experience, not a photo op. That those balanced forks, knives and spoons, are about sensual joy not just shoveling food into our mouths, that fine napkins and a few manners give us a sense of stability lost when the Kardashians set the pace for so called reality.

I've been to homes where people feel that putting serving platters and bowls on the table violates the restaurant atmosphere of one plate per person sparseness. It is more about how it looks, than how it feels or tastes. Free flowing conversations interrupted by please pass the peas has become a luxury no longer afforded the masses. 

Graciousness has been sacrificed to more mundane things, which I guess some people define as more real, but for me nuances are the spices that make life exquisite.

What is your habit like

 

I am fairly certain that style is often dictated by the people selling it and the people who feel compelled to buy it because it is new, or touted as in.

How else could they sell new refrigerators all the time, or new televisions? They have to convince people there is a reason.

The same is true for hair. If everyone quit dying their hair, or cutting it, what would happen to all the people who make hair dye and scissors and all the stylists who work on it?

There really isn't anything wrong with this as long as you realize it is not really necessary. It might be fun, but unless you want it, just skip it.

I have a couple of things I wore for thirty or more years because they were well made, thoughtfully cut and I loved them. People used to do this all the time. Expensive coats, dresses and suits might be taken in, or let out, but they weren't tossed.

I know people who change their cell phones like socks, but unless you need it to do something different I don't understand why. I am not a gamer, so I used my first apple phone for nearly six years. 

It's not that I'm frugal. I go through nice purses frequently. I just love the style, or color, or size, or something about them. The very best ones are packed carefully in my closet. The rest I give away. 

I'm just not into the other stuff right now. Most of us are not made of money, so we have to choose our habits carefully.

Life at seventy

I never imagined old age the way I experience it.

I saw the women in my grandmother's Guest Home sitting around all day. I saw the old farm women coming into town to work at seventy when their husbands died. I met the wealthy women having teas and coffees with my mother-in-law. I saw idealistic articles and stories about grandmas surrounded by smiling little ones as they baked cookies. And I saw couples traveling on buses in foreign lands.

Of course I am only seventy. Things could change rapidly with very little provocation, but my life is mostly solitary during this quarantine. Eating is my big pleasure, reward and bane. I spend a lot of time looking forward to what I eat next and trying to keep it so my blood sugar, blood pressure, kidneys and weight don't get out of whack. I walk for exercise, but my feet, ankles, and the rest of me seem to get a kick out of making this hard.

I read, write, clean my apartment, draw and talk on the phone.

Trips to the library, grocery store and window shopping are out now. 

I am grateful for what I have and can do, but I miss volunteering and going out with friends.

Mostly I feel like I am living in some dystopian reality.

You are who you vote for

Is anyone else bothered by all the ads saying, "So and so is almost winning, send us money so he can?"

Then there are the shaming ads that use my name and say, " Jane Doe, you are allowing John Smurf to win by ignoring our pleas for money."

And the claims that someone will match my donation by X number of times?

I understand that campaigns cost money, but the constant begging for every Tom, Dick, and Harriet, who could win if they just got more money from me, again, feels odd. I do donate when I can for people where I think it will make a difference. 

Are the people in our country so ignorant, jaded and uniformed that they will only vote responsibly if someone is in their face on television right up until election day?

Because I don't really believe we will change anyone's mind who is still going to vote for Trump at this point. These people do not respond to reason, or truth, or anything except a gleeful need to be whatever it is in their poor demented minds they are. They live in a dark fairy land where wishes are gold and evil is king. All the so called Christians who are against abortions and totally willing to watch people starve, suffer and die for lack of food, medical care and asylum, are living up to their sadomasochistic religion that gets off on Christ's suffering for them. 

I have never been more disillusioned with a country in my life.

This modern world

 

We like to believe that we live in a thoroughly modern world and we do have so many conveniences available that were not here years ago. Washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, toasters, memory foam mattresses, wash and wear clothing, cars that get amazing mileage, air conditioners, even robot vacuums. Doctors can vaccinate us against smallpox, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, treat us for high blood pressure, diabetes, even depression.

But for all this, we are hardly more than savages.

Beyond a certain point all doctors really know how to do is remove bad things with surgery or chemicals. People still believe the color of skin makes us better or worse human beings. We are greedy, preferring to hoard things and accumulate money rather than work for the common good. We judge each other on superfluous things believing that if you have expensive houses, cars, jewelry, clothing, it some how designates you as a better person. How many hours we work means more than what we did with those hours.

In the end, many of us are not much more than magpies flying around eating, procreating and collecting shiny objects for our nests. 

It may be modern, but there must be more. Somewhere there must be kindness, empathy, actual caring, not just passive aggressive posturing.

As long as people still starve for lack of food, die for lack of medical care, suffer for lack of justice, the world may be modern, but it is certainly not humane. Being a human is not necessarily laudable.

Long and winding road

 

Health care is a vital part of modern living. It is a shame that in our country it is not provided for everyone. My son's family cannot afford it. It would take 48% of their earnings to pay for insurance. I am retired and fortunately have decent insurance with Medicare.

That does not guarantee good health care, though. I had a good doctor through Advocate, but they sold us to Carle and the doctor I saw there was brutal. She sees you only at scheduled appointments that take several weeks to get. In between she has a nurse tell you to go to prompt care. Who wants a doctor who won't take care of you?

Today I am going to a relatively new clinic, all based locally, but also with it's own lab and even on-site counseling services. Whole care. I hope it pans out.

And it did! I feel vindicated and I am also back on my regular medication.

But I am totally exhausted after surviving the last few weeks.

Lend me your ear

 

It is amazing what a phone call can do.

I live alone and that has never been a problem before this pandemic. I had tons of friends and was out and about so much that my time alone was cherished.

Now I have basically been alone, really home alone, without coffees, or lunches, or movies with friends for going on six months. That is a long time. Book club on zoom just isn't the same. We gave it up. The same with coffee. There is just something about sitting at a table among living, breathing bodies that changes the atmosphere. But we are social distancing and I am vulnerable.

I am not bored. I have books to read, an infinite number of movies to watch with the internet, I have gone to an occasional outdoor picnic, or local ballgame with my daughter (maybe four or five total,) but sometimes I find myself just feeling trapped and old and lately, ill.

Bestest calls me every morning and that gets me out of bed. It's amazing how important that time has become.

My younger son calls me when he is driving somewhere or doing work that is just physical, or after his runs in the evening. Sometimes we talk for hours, even four or five hours. 

Even when it is just a few minutes, these phone calls leave me rejuvenated and feeling better. We may just talk about nothing, or we may discuss world affairs, but I think it is the human contact that makes them so miraculous.

I find it interesting, because I have always felt like a bit of a loner, but evidently I do need a certain amount of real human contact and I am so fortunate to have people to give it to me.

One bad apple can kill you

Forced to find a new doctor three times in two years because the first two left town, I had no idea what I had let myself into with the third. The first two were gems.

I asked her to refill my major blood pressure medicine prior to our first appointment because I had to wait so long to get into her. She only refilled it for half the dosage! I assumed it was probably a clerical error and there was enough that I could continue at the dose I had taken during the last seven years, but when I saw her, she implied that I had been taking it wrong for seven years.

The bottle was clear.50 mg. morning and night. 

She changed my statin and doubled up two of my minor meds.

She told me I needed to get all kinds of tests and exams, so I did the blood work right away that day. She acted like I was using a pain medication that my last doctor prescribed back in April as an addict. I had only taken four, the rest of the bottle is full, but she didn't ask, just put a cryptic note on my record.

 She prescribed an antibiotic for a sinus infection.

I picked up all the new medicine and discovered she forgot to order the statin, so I called and left a message. That's another thing. Every time I called for an appointment, or to talk to a nurse I only got a recording. Once the nurse called me back to reiterate, "The doctor said if you have any problems just go to prompt care." I told her my blood pressure was over 204 and she said, "Well maybe you should go to ER." It was clear, I was not to see her, or talk to her, no matter what, until scheduled appointment weeks away.

She never called me again and in desperation I did some work on the internet to discover that the pounding heart, nausea, cold sweats, chills, anxiety, shaking  were all symptoms of withdrawal from my heart medicine if it was cut in half abruptly. 

I called the front desk to leave a message that I wanted to switch to another doctor. They did call back to tell me I could only do that if my present doctor agreed!

Now, nearly two weeks later, I am doing a little better. My blood pressure which was in range before all this started is still very high, but not over 200 most of the time.

I have an appointment with a new doctor, in a new office, on Wednesday and I am so grateful. 

Gone

 

Who understands death?

How can so much power cease to be?

Where did it go?

How did it escape this body I know and love?

How can so much love and creativity be gone?

Did someone flick a switch, turn out the light?

I search everywhere for you.

In every waking moment, every thought, every dream.

But you really are gone.

They don't need excuses

 

If you are still rescuing your child, from him or herself, at forty, there might be a problem. 

You can give too much. You can give so much that there is no need for them to ever grow beyond the rebellious teens, assured that you will scoop them up, give them everything they've lost and set them back on the road to glory no matter what.

Because, in fact, you cannot give them everything they've lost. You cannot give them the twenty years of growth they lost being your constant cause.

Part of life is learning to take care of yourself and ideally we do that as children. Good parents realize that their main job is to give their child the skills to survive in today's world. Love is pretty much a given, but how that love manifests can make all the difference in the world.

Give them a home to live in, clothes to wear, food to eat, a car to drive, money to pay for whatever they want and ask them for nothing but to be good? This might work if you had already instilled a work ethic, or sense of duty in them, but by forty, if that isn't there,  you are not on track.

I'm not sure how you instill character in someone forty years old, but it isn't by giving them everything and just hoping they won't do anything "bad." They don't need excuses. They have plenty of those.

Seriously, it isn't going to be easy. You have to do what should have been done over a period of 18 years while they were growing up. Giving them what is good for them and requiring them to earn privileges like cars, gas money, new clothes, eating out, recreation. They need a job even if it is at MacDonalds, or bagging groceries. 

It won't be easy, but if you can't tough that out, you'll be living Groundhog day in hell for the rest of your life. 

Hope springs eternal

 

I have been told that I am a survivor.

If that means I am always grasping at straws,

That I always believe I might have misunderstood.

That I feel I am wrong so often 

That not having hope might be another mistake.

So that, in despair, I lean towards the bright side,

Then it is true.

I am a survivor

By default.

Exacerbation

 

I read that they believe the coronavirus is creating a whole new world of insomniacs. I can understand that, but I don't think it is just the virus.

It is the state of the country.

I don't wake up at 2 AM worrying about the virus. 

I wake up worrying about the man who would be dictator and the secret police.

I worry about little children crying themselves to sleep in strange places with strange people. Not knowing where Uncle Sam put their parents. (Or maybe, God forbid. Who he sold these children to.)

I worry about the people who can't afford medical care, or groceries because their company insulted the egomaniac running our country.

The virus is terrifying, but our political status is more terrifying. It exacerbates everything else going on.

Everything is a photo op for some people. Even death and desolation.

How much longer

 

One might think that I would know myself quite well after seventy years, but I am constantly surprised.

It wasn't until this year that I discovered the intensity of movies becomes almost too much for me almost exactly half way through. 

Growing up I knew programs were thirty, sixty, or ninety minutes long and they started on the half hour, or hour, so all I had to do was look at the clock to know how much longer I had to wait for the tension to end.

Now that all my viewing is done via the Internet, things can start and end at any old time, but when I cannot bear it anymore I can pause and look to see how much more time is left.

It is always within a few minutes of halfway through!

Not earth shattering news, but interesting to me that I am that consistent.