Oh No She Did'int

I called my boss a "stupid Alzheimer's-ridden bitch" today.

Granted, it was in an email to my husband but still...when you start referring to your boss in such glowing terms, it's well past time to move on.

I get a daily horoscope emailed to me, and for the past two days, this is what the Career section has said: You've got a bone to pick with a higher-up, but this just isn't the right time to pick it. Sit quietly and bide your time. Give it two weeks.

I hope that means I'll have found a new - and better - job in two weeks. [Aside from the whole panic about not having a paycheck, I don't even think I'd mind if I got fired. Not on an emotional level, anyway. The practical level - having bills to pay - is another story, however.] Or that we'll win the lottery within two weeks. Or that SHE'LL get another job within two weeks.

Naww, I'd rather *I* get a better job. Leave these people in the dust and never look back. I'm tired of that place and pretty much everything in it. I feel hypocritical every second I'm there. If I could out and out say, "I don't like you people so just leave me be, and it'll make things so much easier," that would be fine. But I can't. So I have to smile and to pretend I like them, when all the while I'd rather be having a root canal. THAT is a lot less painful than having to play make-believe every day.

A week or so ago, my husband said, "That job is crushing your soul."

No truer words have been spoken.

Turn and Face the Strange

Autumn, it seems, will be a time of changes.

After living on her own for over two years, Mom will be moving in with us, probably next month. She receives Social Security and wages from a cleaning job, but she's unable to make ends meet, and the logical conclusion was for her to come live with us. She'll basically be inhabiting the lower level of the house, and she's already fearful of being "in our way." Hopefully she'll settle in and settle down without too much anxiety.

She's currently enmeshed in trying to sell her property. She's never liked the old house where we lived and once Dad died, she was eager to sell and move to a place built within the last century. The asshole developers who signed a purchase agreement to buy the property are basically giving her the run-around and have held things up since 2006.

When the idea of selling the land first came up, I had a hard time with it. The old house and surrounding farmland have been in my family for decades, and there are memories and ghosts wrapped up in that soil. I don't do well with goodbyes, but I was able to put my grieving on the back burner when the sale stalled and Mom continued to live there.

But now that she's going to live here, the house will be abandoned, and that makes me incredibly sad. Having to say goodbye is a closer reality now, a chill upon my soul, the start of a hole that will eventually burrow completely through my heart.

I went back to the house on Sunday, and I felt the grief welling as I made my way up the driveway. Moving around inside felt familiar yet strange - it was home but it wasn't.

There's an ancient oak in the backyard - a guardian who witnessed and blessed my wedding, as my husband-to-be and I stood beneath its spreading limbs and pledged our devotion to each other. It nearly died quite some time ago but it came back, gnarled and scarred but still full of life. Once the land belongs to someone else, I'm sure that old friend will be destroyed, and it breaks my heart. On Sunday, I stood with my hand against its thick bark and cried for the grief I feel now and for the grief to come.

I wish we would win the lottery so I could pay Mom for the land and keep it intact - perhaps create a park named for my father so the legacy of my part of the family line would live on, even after I'm gone.

Tears fall like the leaves. I know the Wheel will turn and things will change, transform, pupate from caterpillar to butterfly. I know this to be true, but for right now, I don't have to like it.

Chaos Take Me

I have a recurring dream that features tornadoes. Eventually, I came to the realization that I usually have these dreams when my life is stressful, so I've taken to calling them my chaos dreams.

The setting is always my childhood home - I'm sure there's a deep psychological reason for that, I just haven't quite put a finger on it yet. Typically, the tornado(es) pass by the house or I wake up just before they hit the house. Not so on Thursday night.

In the dream, I was standing in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. My mom was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table and my (deceased) father was in his easy chair, which was tucked away in the corner of the kitchen. There was no panic. A bit of apprehension, but no outright fear. The tornado passed over the north portion of the house. I could feel the pressure inside the house changing, and I felt like I was being sucked upward but I managed to keep my feet on the floor. I kept chanting, "Keep it together, keep it together," as though I were imploring the house to stay in one piece. The tornado moved west and did some damage to one of the sheds on the property, and then I woke up.

It's no surprise that this dream was visited upon me right now. My life feels quite out of control at the moment. My job is going to hell (which is probably ironic, considering I work for a church); the plumbing in our house has been screwed up for over a month so we haven't been able to take a shower or a bath, and standing in the tub pouring a bucket of water over yourself doesn't quite cut it; money has gotten tight, which makes me nervous; and there's always the low-level concern I feel about the state of the world.

Hopefully soon, our plumbing will be fixed (plumber's coming out Monday); I'll get a job I enjoy; we'll win the lottery (which would preclude the whole job thing completely); and a new president will be able to create some semblance of sanity from the wreckage left by the Bush administration.

Breaking Point

I believe I have reached mine.

We haven't been able to use our upstairs bathroom for about a month because all three water-consuming facilities (toilet, tub, and sink) are leaking. Hopefully we'll have some resolution (in the form of gods-awful expensive repairs) by the end of the month.

The downstairs shower is leaking so we can't use that. If you read my husband's blog, you'll know why we can't use the downstairs tub, whose repair hinges on a type of faucet that they apparently don't even make anymore.

Due to the downstairs tub issue, we've had to rip up part of the carpeting because it started to stink like a wet, dead dog, and I'm going to assume we'll have mold growing inside the wall under which the water seeped.

Something so stupidly infuriating happened at work that I was ready to quit on the spot and am now entrenched in the hunt for a new job.

I might need an MRI for an ongoing back problem.

We took our cat Oliver to the vet today, and he has gum/tooth problems that will require (expensive) teeth cleaning and perhaps tooth extraction. This is stressful to me in a multitude of ways.

Add to that the troubles of the world which I can't totally block out, and I'm ready to curl up in the corner and cry until I'm exhausted.

While the logical part of me realizes that none of these are "end of the world" scenarios, the emotional part of me is fed up and wants to pitch a holy fit complete with insane crying jag.

Bridges Shouldn't Fall Down

When the clock reads 6:05 p.m. today, it will mark the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the I-35W bridge.

Blessings of comfort to those who lost loved ones in the disaster.

Blessings of peace to those who survived but who are still suffering emotional or physical trauma.

Blessings of gratitude to the first responders - police, fire fighters, medical crews, and "regular" people who did what they could to help. Peace to them as well, for whatever post-trauma battles they may still fight in their dreams.

Blessings of healing to my native state.

Let There Be Peace on Earth...

...and let it begin with me.

Sy Miller and Bill Jackson wrote the song "Let There Be Peace on Earth" back in 1955. It has since snuck into hymnals - at least it has in the church where I work. It's a nice thought, isn't it? A world with no war, no violence. A brotherhood of man, as John Lennon sang in "Imagine."

It'll never happen.

We can't even stop people with 11 items from going through the "10 Items or Less" checkout lanes at the grocery store. Yet we hope that someday, people will join hands across the globe and base their lives on some sort of universal "Be Kind - Rewind!" mantra? Come again?

I don't have much hope regarding the greater good of Mankind. I guess that sounds pessimistic but personally, I think I'm being realistic.

There are pockets of exceptions, but overall, humans are hard-wired for survival at all costs, and as the gap between the Haves and the Have-Nots gets wider, the Have-Nots respond by losing their interest in keeping the peace. When resources are in short supply, the Haves tend to tighten their grip and hoard their treasure like Smaug the dragon. Let the doubloons corrode into dust and the great stores of wheat rot, but they'll be damned if they're going to share.

If your neighbor has the last loaf of bread in the village, he's probably not going to be willing to share any of it with you because he's concerned about keeping himself alive. Driven by hunger and survival instinct, you may very well mosey over to his hut, bonk him on the head with a club, and take the bread for yourself. If he had split the loaf in half and given you a share, two people could've lived half as long. If he kept it all for himself, one person would live twice as long. Which of those scenarios is better?

We might think ourselves above such survival-based narcissism but until we're truly in that sort of predicament, can we really say without a doubt's shadow that we wouldn't act like a baser animal, intent only on living for another day, kindness and social protocol be damned? I would like to think that I'd share my resources. I would also like to think that I wouldn't commit violence to obtain the resources of someone else. BUT I've never been put into the precarious business of clinging to life by the very tips of my fingernails. How do I KNOW what my reaction would be?

Let's face it. Even if we consider ourselves good people, we still have our moments where we want to smack the mother-lovin' bejeezus out of the person who cut us off in traffic or the rotten kid throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of the store. We nearly get an orgasmic rush as we imagine the thick palm of our hand connecting solidly with the back of some jerk's bony head. It's a luscious sensation, isn't it?

But, being civilized people, we sublimate those feelings and go about our lives in a mostly non-violent manner. We don't act on our emotions. We may mutter blackly under our breath about unfit parents and mandatory birth control or, in the case of the snotwad driver, scream at the top of our lungs...but that's as far as it goes. We don't run the driver off the road or body slam the shrieking child. Granted, problems can arise when we never allow ourselves to let off steam in an appropriate way. Note the sexual abuse of children by priests - they're forced to stuff their natural sexual urges and it oozes out in unacceptable ways.

Too, if you think about having total peace on earth, "all good" isn't really much better than "some bad." There's no contrast, no friction. If it's sunny 365 days a year, you don't fully appreciate a sunny day. Let it rain for a couple weeks and then see how you feel when the sun comes out again. There's no such thing as "light" if you don't have "dark" to create a comparison. Death is necessary for Life to continue. As in all things, balance is essential.

Does that mean I like when bad things happen to good people? Of course not. I'm not a sadistic nut who gets off on other people's pain. I still grieve when I see a dead animal alongside the road. I still mourn the state of the world when I read about a 90-year-old woman who gets stabbed in her apartment by a creep who wants to rob her or about an 11-year-old boy whose life is cut short after he's hit by a drunk driver. I still ask "Why?" when a bridge collapses into the muddy waters of the Mississippi, killing and injuring people who wanted nothing more than to go about their evening's business.

While I don't foresee peace on earth, I WOULD like to see people dial it back a bit. Let's do our best to get rid of extreme violence - murders, rapes, torture, war. I think a few slap fights, a screaming match every now and then, and perhaps some vulgar hand gestures and a hard-fought game of Candyland would be enough to maintain the balance between Good and Not-Good.

It wouldn't be universal harmony, but I think it'd beat what we got going on now.

45 Years

I've wanted to write about this topic for some time now but when I think about it, I get so angry that my brain implodes, which makes forming complete and coherent sentences impossible. I'm still angry, but I think it's well past time for this post.

The price of gas has become a thorn in the sides of many people over the past few months. As the cost per gallon rises ever higher, we hear cries of "Produce more oil! I don't want to drive slower and consolidate errands and reduce my consumption! Start drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge!"

To the people who make these outbursts, I respond with the following: You are idiots.

Why do you think it's called "fossil fuel"? Perhaps because it was created millions of years ago? It's a NON-RENEWABLE energy source, you short-sighted morons. In case those words are too big for you to understand, I'll dumb it down so your reptilian brain can grasp the point: When it is gone, it is gone. Poof. Bye-bye.

What good will it do to continue drilling for oil when we're using it faster than the planet can replace it? But that's what most people will say, that's what their solution will be - find more oil deposits and suck them dry. That'll fix the problem, right?

An optimistic estimate [note the word optimistic] states that at the current rate of consumption (and we all know the current rate will rise), we will exhaust the resources of oil left in the ground in about 45 years.

45 years.

That's it.

Less than a lifetime for people who will be born in the next few years.

Why worry though, right? I mean, most of us will already be dead by the time this happens, so who cares? We'll get ours. Why concern ourselves with discovering RENEWABLE energy sources, which will neither run out nor pollute the planet further? Why bother conserving energy while working to perfect solar power or fuel cells or hydrogen engines? That seems like way too much work. Let's just drain the rest of the Earth's blood and let our children worry about the future.

Bluntly put, I am appalled and disgusted by the human race.