There is a phenomena in the world that had been kept secret far too long. It is time to address this and make it known to the masses. It is simple yet misunderstood. prevalent yet ignored as insignificant. It is real. Very real, and it is world-wide.

It is, the man cold.

On the surface it seems to be the same as the ‘common cold’ suffered by both genders, treated with the basics of tea, vitamin C, chicken soup, fluids and rest. In as little as eight hours results can be seen, felt and often, in less than a full twenty-four hour cycle, one feels  much better employing these methods. Such is the ‘common cold’. This is why it is common. It is easy to deal with and only sets out a minimum of discomfort and inconvenience.

The common cold is the only cold that women get. Women are just engineered to suffer better than men. They can have a six-ounce tea, a single vitamin C tab, sit and think about resting for ten minutes and be about 75% better.  It is rather amazing actually. Must come from the ability to survive child-birth and the having to be paired with males.

So – there is the woman of the house, sniff, sneeze, cough – and – moving on. Men can get the common cold as well and with only wee bit more treatment be on their way as well.

Then there are the times he catches, the man cold. Sure, symptomatically it seems the same as the common cold. But alas my friends, the man cold is far more treacherous and threatening. It is universal among married or cohabiting men. Almost never seen in single men. That would just be too cruel.

When a man has a man cold, that little tickle or scratch in the throat from the common cold is more a strangulation and choking on broken glass feel. The sniffle and sneezing is escalated to flat out underwater creature like snorkeling with sneezes coming in rounds of six to ten with force enough to rip the skin off a green banana at four paces.

A man cold comes not with a head ache but with sinus pressures that threaten to dislodge teeth and pop eyeballs from their orbits. Not aches and pains but full muscular retaliation as if the structure itself has become confused and every attempt to move is a torturous event of limbs flailing in no recognizable fashion.

Now, sure people can die from diarrhea but, with the man cold, no suck luck. You see, this is only part of the man cold because men read the vitamin C bottle and think that if one works for regular daily use, then obviously four or six are needed to fight off a cold.  This of course does not work and the result is a man that has to move to the bathroom with a body in complete denial of his mastery of it. He wishes he might die but – no such luck. He suffers loudly and often.

The other thing about the man cold is that it cannot be treated, cured with just the things that will work on the common cold. More specific and exact things are needed. The first is public TV. Not the programing PBS, KOCE or whatever it is in your neighbor hood. I mean that the TV must be in the most public, common use space in the house. preferably with a sofa most members of the domicile like to sit on. This is where the man will lay, watching TV and moaning. He tends to be more quite when alone. Occasionally little outbursts of misery are heard. Not an actual call for help but, a suggestion perhaps that if someone wanted to come and help, they certainly could.

It does not matter if he has a bigger HD badass home theater system in his bedroom. To get better, a man will give up at least six inches of screen, HD and watch reruns of season 1 NCIS. He NEEDS to be out there. Why??

Because, the other thing he needs to recover is attention. Not this meaningless light banter, “How are you feeling?”. I mean – he needs attention. Soup, snacks, back rubs, warm and cold towels, drinks, snacks, foot rubs, stories, snacks and… stuff. He needs, attention. This is critical. Sure he could lay in bed all alone in a quite room with the big TV and pay-per view but in no time flat the whole room would start to feel like a sarcophagus! In his mind he is already on deaths door mat – stop ringing the bell by sequestering him!

Being locked up and alone, ignored is just that many more nails in the coffin. A man cold needs a woman’s attention, the family’s sympathy and more than anything, the recognition that, “Hey,  that man is SICK!” Really and honestly sick – not in some common cold kinda sick – but one foot in, one foot slipping kinda sick.

I know you ladies are skeptical. I know this because I have had the man cold and listened to a few of your kind talking to others of your kind – mocking the misery I was in. I have heard the same story from other man after their near death experiences too.

Its real though. It is as real as every damn thing that makes your butt look big, no matter what we say.

I’m going back to bed.

A V

The ‘thing’ about expectations is who is most let down when they are not met? If you are the one not living up or if you are the one being let down, both sides suffer some what. I suppose the level of expectation by each the expector and expectee are the key to knowing who is the biggest looser.

Myself, at my age, my level of experience, I have come to expect that I will not live up to anyone’s expectations of me. (Not the good ones anyway). Seems I make a good first impression then steadily fall off the pace until folks walk away scratching their heads trying to figure out what they were expecting in the first place. Why is a common question. Why did I think he would do/say/provide _____________(fill in the blank)

Those same years and moments have left me a bit weary as well. I often look forward to certain things, expect things from others. I am just as often let down. Not by them but, by my misunderstanding and my desire that there is someone out there that will actually a) not expect me to be more than I am, who I am not, b) live up to being what I expect them to be!

You see, this will not work.Cannot work. Had never worked to date.

I am flawed as a person on both ends of this situation. I cannot be who everyone thinks I am. Somehow I need to bring ‘the real me’ to every party, dinner, walk in the park, talk on the phone, from the very first moment. Not lead anyone to believe there is any more there than there is. Save us all a lot of time and energy.

I also need to stop expecting anything from anyone else, at all. To take everything as it comes, a surprise when nice, not a surprise when not. Not to lose sleep over what did or what could happen. Just go to sleep knowing stuff will happen – if I expect it too or not.

This by that way is not a social commentary on all people. I have met, know people I could expect the world from and they will find a way to deliver if asked. This is about me not being one of them. This is about me not choosing those type of people to expect things from.

Time for another cough drop and to delete emails, photos, files and all expectations.

A V

PS: self-fulfilling prophecy created by expecting the worse? Yea but, topic for another day.

Recently someone commented on my being a theist. This individual has known me  a very very long time and knows well my fluctuations  from casual Christian to Atheist and all points in between. Hung out in the deist camp quite  a bit. Lolly gagged around the Eastern and even broke a sweat with North Americans a few times.

I had to go back and re-read the note as the phrase, a theist, is so remarkably close to atheist I had to be sure what I was being accused of! Labels are fine, when appropriately affixed.

It occurred to me then that there is such a tiny space between us – those that believe and those that do not. The lazy “i just don’t know” Agnostics can go to Starbucks and shut the hell up for a while. I am talking about people who believe in something. Or, in this case, nothing too.

You see, it is no longer about what to me but about why. Why do you have the position you do? Can you explain it? There are so many sheep on both sides. Empty heads that store a few lines of someone else’s reasoning to regurgitate like a speaking toy with a pull string.  A Pavlovian response to a few key words and the vomit like spewing begins and continues until the speaker is out of breath.

Please notice I do not apply this specifically to either side. Both camps have the same thing to over come. Members of the  club you really wish had not learned the secret hand shake. They make it really hard for the members that actually know what they are talking about.

In the end we believe what we choose to because we choose to believe it. There is no proof. There most likely will not be any time soon. Science, the physical world stuff, is not made to work in the non-physical world, if there is one of course. (Sorry that last line was attempt to remain neutral! Fail. Lack the word skills.)

What there is however is a lot information on both sides of the aisle. Go get some. Read it. Read some of both sides. If you take any stack of data and have a predetermined conclusion you want to reach, you will find a way to manipulate that data. Starting at the end is not the best way to learn something.

If you want to believe in the Judeo-Christian God, you will see him/her everywhere and see proof everywhere. If you want to believe only in the physical Newtonian world you will see a lack of proof in anything but science.

The trick, in my mind, is to know and be able to articulate your reasoning. Name calling, belittling, slurring and slinging are not necessary. (Unless you are lazy agnostic – read a book damn it!)

This of course is  nothing new, not saying anything a million much smarter people have said before me. It is just that, that little space between, the difference ‘tween a t and at brought it back to the forefront of my thoughts this morning.

That tiny space between has been the cause of so much misery, treachery, senseless cruel death,  villainous bigotry. Amazing that the difference is so small, I almost missed it. Even more amazing is how big the human creature/creation can make something out of the smallest thing.

I know that what someone believes is a big thing to them. As it ought to be,  a big deal! But why is what someone else believes also so important to them too?

Any way, I gots stuff to do today. Just felt like typing.

Peace,

A V

Well, that’s over. Thanksgiving of course, what did you think I meant? The holiday of excess. A pastor I know noted it – “gratitude and gluttony” Well done.

I am actually quite thankful for many, many things at this time in my life. I was not however all the excited to go through this particular holiday this year. So many people expected to hear about my thankfulness. To sit and listen to the tales of how God had done so many wonderful things for me. How so many amazing people stepped up or into my life. People expected me to be thankful and in turn they expected me to tell them all about it.

(run-on sentence full of expletives deleted)

Do I have anything to be grateful for? Yes. A wheel-barrel and a half full of things. Not just the typical, everyone has, everyday things. I gots stuff to be thankful for. I know it. I recognize it. I express it to those people that are directly involved with it.

I was not looking forward to this holiday because it was ‘personal’ this year. Not the pedestrian stuff, like getting through the awful recession without too much difficulty. Like not only being healthy but having the ability and resources to find out you are healthy. Like having family that not only cares for you but that you care for as well. If you are one of those that just said, “Well, of course!” go back and count that little gift over again. Family is a nightmare more often than not.

I could go on for several more paragraphs on the standard thankful-for list but why? Really, you know it. You probably rambled your way through it more than once, maybe even in the guise of a prayer you perfunctorily offered up while wondering where the jello mold was on the table.

What am I thankful for then? Lemme tell ya. More than anything else, I am thankful that I know the position I am in today, this very moment, is ALL due to decisions I made. Some a very long time ago. Others not to long ago. All my own doing. I am thankful that at this time in my life, I know that. There is no entitlement, nothing owed or deserved. There is what you work for and what you are willing to accept when it comes along.

There is what you work for and what you are willing to accept when it comes along. Amen. I have been fortunate enough this year to get both at the same time. Many of the people around me know I am not all that good at asking for help. (I know some of you disagree and you are entitled to you opinion. I am entitled to ignore it) I will, and do ask, I just really hate having too. That I am, have screwed up so much and so often that it is something I have to do is the real issue.

So – this year there has developed this balance, people that know I am in need, that supply opportunity for me to earn it. It sounds simple, like “Get a job!”. Well, that is not so simple. I have been looking, and looking and looking.  I was considered not qualified to spend eight hours a night in a rest top on the I-5 keeping the bathrooms clean. The letter actually said, they had found someone better qualified for the position. There is a very small difference between humbled and humiliated. Almost impossible to distinguish between the two.

What had occurred, what I stared to talk about in the previous paragraph, is the people, the have stepped in to offer me things to do, to earn some money, to work for what they would have just as happily ‘loaned’ or given to me. They know it would not have been refused. They also know the damage that help would have brought with it.

There are people better qualified than I to clean toilets. Easy to see that there are much more qualified people out there to do all of the things I was offered this year.  I am aware of that. I am thankful that I was able to do something, anything to earn the gifts. That is the short distance between humbled and humiliated. What I offered back was my very best effort. All I have left. And I a damn grateful I still have that to offer.

On the more standard list, I am in doors due to the true love and generosity of a friend. I am not hungry, because of so many others coming from the same place of love and generosity.

A dear friend’s struggle with cancer had been very positive, a ‘clean’ test only two weeks before the 26th.  Another dear friend called on me, accepted my offer, to be there on the day she was tested, for same. We are waiting through this long holiday weekend to find the results of those tests. It may not seem it but, to be asked, “will you come with me” is a gift and an honor.

As much as I have bitched and complained of my own situation regarding heath care, I must say, I am thankful I have been able to make some progress. Myself, waiting through this long holiday weekend for results of tests done on the 25th.

Contact made with a past friend. Peace with the choice to let another relationship go dormant. Doors open, doors close and I have not had a finger crushed! YEA!

Traveling vicariously through the eyes of friends while able to reminisce and share tales of my own travels.

Learning and teaching.

Still sober, still not interested nor tempted.

Still full of faith and doubt – HUGE gifts, both.Still carrying the minister title into the world of weddings and doing a damn good job for those that hire me. My very best effort, regardless of what it ‘looks like’ to anyone. I am good at this. “My couples” get a kick-butt wedding for having chosen me.

Still loved, no matter how much I struggle to understand or accept it.

Still crazy, mental and physical. Thankful for those few short months of sanity, that make me aware of it.

Yea, my life is abundant with gifts. I know it.

I do not think I shall give up bitching about things nor wanting or wishing for others. I will however, make a better effort to be just as loud about the being thankful for too.

A V

Ya know how to tell one opossum from another? Me either. Ya know why? ’cause they all look the same! If you find this smacks or racism or bigotry against opossum kind all I can say is, you my friend are so far to the left you are sneaking up on the right from behind. Put your PCness where your thumb most certainly is more often than not.

This is not however about perceived or real discrimination against really big rodents. It is in fact a tale of tolerance, acceptance and understanding of our, mankind’s encroachment upon the wild life left in an overly crowded space.

My new digs come complete with wild life. Not just the two domestic cats but also, raccoons, opossum, skunks and yes, drunks and punks. The latter are spreading like a plague. I fear there is no peaceful place present to perch my self and enjoy only the sounds of the natural world.  But, I digress. Happens when I am tired.

One of the joys of this joint is the tell-tale sound of something other than a resident feline eating said felines food. You can tell by the quick crunching. A completely different sound than that of a prissy spoiled arrogant cat eating.  This sound is made by opossum or skunk. Raccoon on the other hand announce themselves by loudly tossing around the water bowls. Seems they prefer to wash their ‘hands’ and food. With complete disregard for the white tile floor I might add.

So, while on the sofa watching whatever has been added to the DVR (a very nice tool by the way) and the unmistakable rapid chatter of cat food being consumed by non-cat leads to two things. Noisily heading in to the kitchen so the animal in question has the opportunity to run back out the door it came in from. This door is open for the cats. Their food is 10 to 12 inches inside this door.  Second, get some of the low-end, low-cost pet food purchase solely for the purpose of feeding said scavengers and put it in the bowl, outside, provided just for them.

Now – if you are the serious animal lover that lives here, you have done your homework and know that opossum also like banana and yogurt. You know that these things are good for them. So, you take some of those things, kept on hand for human consumption but unsparingly shared, and place in the outdoor bowl too.

This works. The rodents stay out and eat their food. It helps too that you close the screen door behind you and let the cats just deal with being outside.

Of late we have been surprised at how often and how much eating ‘our opossum’ has been coming ’round. Last night, the answer presented itself, in triplicate!

My roommate had left for an evening out. I headed off to shower, going to kitchen first to put a cup in the sink.  As I entered the opossum was standing near the empty cat food bowls. Not a big deal, used to it now. What happened next was new to me.

‘Our opossum’ turned, ran its head into the glass door, turned a bit more and ran right past the open door, through the kitchen, right into the laundry room. Crap! OK, this is easy. Just wander towards it and it will run away as it always does. As I do this I realize it will have to run past me to get out. Something it is not likely to do.

Strategy time. Go down the hall, through a bedroom that has a door to the laundry room. Open this door, spook and shew the little guy back towards the open door without being in front of it. Easy!

As I round the corner to head down the hall to and through the bedroom I encounter a surprise. Another opossum! I am at first stunned at how fast they moved and how it opened the door. Finally settling on the notion that this was in fact, a second opossum! A second one the was spooked by my sudden appearance and darted into the bathroom. Crap.

Strategy time.  Pull the bathroom door closed to contain #2. Continue on mission to eradicate #1. As I go into the bedroom I spook one of the resident felines. It jumps off of and scampers under the bed.  I open the door slowly to look for #1 and asses things. Freaked out kitty cat takes this opportunity to run crazy fast out the open door and just about right into #1.

Kitty bolts to the right and out the open door I was hoping to see giant, extra thick rat like tail going through. Instead, I see it disappear between the washer and the wall. CRAP!

Strategy time. Go back to take care of #2 and let #1 settle down.  This goes much better. Aside from messing up the bathroom floor rugs location a bit, this one heads out the door, thankfully makes the right and not the left and quickly follows the cats lead out onto the patio.

I take am moment and ponder the audacity of these guys. If the cat food bowls are empty, they just go searching around the rest of the house?!?!  Also laughed a bit that it had not occurred to me there might be more than one opossum. Silly me.

I took my shower hoping #1 would take that time to get out too. Assuming the best, I head over to check things out, wrapped only in a towel. The first thing I see as I turn the corner into the kitchen is a little opossums ass and scary big tail heading out the door. This is a very good sign. Full of confidence that the wild kingdom moment has past, I head into the laundry room and flip on the light. Nothing down this side. Nothing down that side. Better look over the top and behind, just in case. Holy CRAP!

There, behind the dryer is #1 AND huddle with it is, what I must assume is #3! What the hell is going on here?

Strategy time! Well, right about now my roommate comes home. First thing I need to do is get into something more than the towel. This is going to take some effort.

I poke at them a bit with the broom handle and make zero progress. For small creatures on a linoleum floor, the are a pretty well stuck down! We decide to let them chill and just make and enjoy dinner. Leave the door in the laundry room open for them to just wander out while we ignore them. Even put their bowl over there to entice them.  Didn’t help. #2 however enjoyed the banana.

Dinner finished and the thinking that we cannot leave the doors open all night comes into play. Well, just gonna have to get physical it seems. And here we go!

I move the appliances to one side to they have a big exit lane. I tap them on the ass with the broom handle to motivate them in that direction. Seemed like a good plan. Too bad they were not in on it. Instead of the big ‘get out of here’ lane, they run over each other to get tightly crammed into the corner where there is no way out.

I move the appliances to the other side, recreating anther way out. I tap with handle. They run to the other side, again. Repeat this two more times. Obviously, this is not working. Time to step it up. My own version of shock and awe coming up!

I find something to divide the space by half. Even if they run the wrong way again – only have to move one appliance! Forget the handle end, time to just sweep these guys out the door!

As I said before, how these guys managed to glue themselves in place is beyond me. #1 or #3 (I can’t tell them apart still) makes it all the way out and into the laundry room. I get in a lucky broom block him like an NHL goalie as he tires to retreat. With an open door only two feet away, he runs right past it and begins to try and climb up the front of the washing machine. Come on!

No longer caring about the risk, from pure frustration, I grab the little bastard by the tail, pick him up and just put him outdoors! One down. One to go. Or #3 or whichever one is still back there. I can’t tell.

This one required one more appliance move and some really stout brooming. Once out it took the high road! That is to say, it went out the way it came it, through the kitchen and past the still empty cat food bowls and into the night.

Before you go on about how feeding them is bad and why there come around, I already know that. And I dont care. I like the gentle giant rats about 10X more that most humans. I was more amused than anything else.  Especially at the effort they made to thwart my efforts to remove them.

This is their world, habitat too. We both need to co-habitat and adapt.

I am sure there will be low-end cat food, yogurt and banana set out no matter what.  I am sure there will be other occasions of wild-damn-kingdom-in-the-kithcen in the future too. And, I will still not be able to tell the little bastards apart!

A V

The important thing is to write. All the time, every day as much as possible. It really is just like any other activity, practice, practice, practice! With that having been said, I have not written in a while.

Oh sure, a few notes in class, directions while on phone, a note to pick up toilet paper, butter and condoms. (No particular connection, really) I use things like, school and moving as excuses. Ye old ‘too busy’ bullshit. Or, then there is the ‘I don’t have any thing to write about’ whine.

Truth is, writing is a release, a salve, magic potion, 2 bit snake oil, cure-all for me when I am not feeling well. It takes the edges off the shattered glass shards of my feelings on occasion. I makes sense of the senseless that frustrates me into paralyzing rage.  It lets me get out the things that are destroying me from the inside in a controlled destruction. (Compared to a verbal assault with tangents and volume changes, facial expressions and tone that more often than not leave irreparable damage behind)

I have also felt that to be to open, to let you see too much is not so smart either. No matter how much it helps me to clear up and out, to repel and defeat the demons, let loose (and there for take the strength from) the poisons that flow through, no matter that I need to write, I do not do so much anymore.

It has been suggested I write my really dark and ugly stuff under another moniker, one that could not be easily found when simply looking for me by name. I will not beat this dead horse, if you don’t know why letting your inner feelings be known to anyone with an interest in you by name, you would not understand my apprehension.

So, here I am forcing myself to write but without a topic, direction or goal. Writing for the words sake alone. This is the hardest. Be interesting without saying anything. Be thoughtful without revealing anything. Which begs the question, what’s the point?

Practice. Practice. Practice. For what and to what end I’ve no idea. Long dead is the idea writing could or would be an option for income. I really have yet to even figure out how ‘blogger’ became a job. Then again, if you have something to say or write about, you know the basics functions of grammar, then you can get a regular following. Like a single pane cartoon – if you’re good, you’re good and people will notice.

Not interested in rehashing where I went wrong to end up here. Not comfortable telling you what it feels like or how it makes me feel. Nothing coming up to share about. Just working the phalanges and trying to find my misplaced alliteration.

Someone wanted to hear about Africa – maybe next time. As it approaches six months past, a fresh and clear review could be in order.

A V

OK – did you know you can actually do quite a bit of stuff with electricity and electrical ’stuff’ without turning off the electricity?  Really – just a matter of not touching too much stuff at the same time. Easy right? Black is hot, white is neutral, green is ground.

For instance, the project I had been planing was to replace two outlets, switch from two prong to three. Easy. Remove the old one. Add a ground wire by screwing into the metal box. Replace black and white wires, one at a time, being careful to not grab  both sides of the new outlet by the black and white wires. EASY!

Well, mostly easy. Old, solid copper wire can be kinda stiff. Trying to maneuver them to the places you want – the terminals on the sides of the new receptacle can be especially hard when you buy a low-cost (cheap ass piece of crap) receptacle.  Then you have to hold the damn thing, twist a bit so as to apply pressure to hold the bare end of the wire where you want it while attempting to screw in the screw that is to hold it in place.

This sounds so freaking EASY! And most often is. Unless, just as you think you have the screw tight enough, the bare end pops out since the cheap ass part you have is not doing its job. You forget a bit about where your fingers are as you try to re-maneuver the loose wire into place again. One finger is touching the white wire on the other side. Then, anther finger touches a black wire – completing the circuit and – shocking the same fingers just mentioned.

I did this four times, lightly. That is, small, light short shocks that only served to remind me I was being foolish and to pay more attention. I am quite surprised it did not work well enough to keep me from the two really not too light shocks. The kind that make you say, holy crap, no wonder this crap kills some people!  Electricity is freaking dangerous!

The other scary dangerous part came when I had to push that low-end piece of electrical equipment back in its hole. One of the old solid core wires decided to break. Barring its solid self enough to touch on the metal box it normally lives in.  There was this sound, like something from a Frankenstein film. BIZZZEPT!!  Along with large sparks and the smell of melted wire insulation.  Nice addition to an already long and bothersome process.

Finally, some stupid amount of time later the damn thing was in and whatever I plugged into it worked. So – at least that part was good.  I put the other low-end receptacle in a drawer. I went and got one for about three times the cost of the first one, still under five bucks.  In less than fifteen minutes, with no shocks light or large, no sparks or smells, it was in and whatever I plugged into it worked.

So – did I learn to turn the power off to safely work on electrical items? No. I did learn that saving two-fiddy is just not worth the pain and aggravation sometimes. A damn good lesson yet still, I learned something not quite as obvious as you might think.

Shocking!

A V

The made plans and all that amazing literature that followed leave me with nothing more than a heavy sigh and some freakish fears and concern.  Why? Oh my am I glad you asked!

You see, nothing about the tale has anything to do with this post or why I feel fear. It is however appropriate since my plan for the day failed on such a scale as to make me both laugh and nearly cry. How could something this easy be so freaking hard?

The this to which I refer is adding a wireless modem to an old, slow PC so I can achieve internet access at my new domicile. The room I am renting does not have cable. The entire place does not actually. Dish TV and DSL internet.

Easy right? Put in the disc and follow the instructions. Hmm. That’s funny. Not only does it not work, the process seems to have rat-fucked the would be host machine as well. Now, not only do I have two computers that cannot access the internet, my gracious host has two too that do the same not connecting.  Already very happy at taking my unemployed broke ass in, I can tell.

Being much more savy than I, I abandon ship to allow quite work and unabashed cursing of me. And also to come continue packing and prepping to be out of this place in two days.

While I am doing this packing it occurs to me that all those jokes of be the homeless guy with a lap top, sitting at the Coffee Bean sipping on the same small cup for two hours just for the free internet, are all coming true!

Whole – Lee – Crap!

I have spent a lot of time thinking now about not being in touch via the internet. My cell phone does not do it. It may, I don’t know. Just know that I do not pay for it to do it. It makes and receives calls and (of course) has replaced my wrist watch.

I find my self somewhere between really angry that I could not figure the thing out and really freaking stressed out over not being on-line. Creepy. Have I become so used to the never present – never real – never soft touch of others, experiencing ‘friends and companionship’  only in electronic format that without it, I am feeling lonely and anxious – before it has even happened?

Whole – Lee – Crap!

I am making lists in my head of when I can be at the bean. What kind of auto reply I can use to let people know, I am on limited connection times. How weird and dependent will it look to do that? How much a looser do you look like with only 90 minutes of internet per day? What if someone wants my services but I take to long to reply? What if someone has the offer of a life time, OF MY LIFE TIME and I miss it while in line for a Large Extra Fat Whole Natural Mothers Milk Mocha?!?!?

Don’t you get it? Life, MY LIFE, could be occurring with unchecked acceleration and one handed steering while I dither and dally and read PRINTED WORDS! I will be, a non-connected person. I will not know the latest, the newest, the sickest, the fastest of everything that really has nothing to do with nor affects me yet; I have become dedicated to reading and knowing every day; three to four times per day!

I am going back twenty years! One giant step backwards after another! At this rate , my mother Betty will be in labor again for Thanksgiving oh-10!

No face book, no yahoo news, no fantasy racing, no random surveys on jock itch, toe jam, erectile dysfunction, lower mortgage rates, higher returns, young singles or old money! WTF will I do?!?!

The thing is, the only thing it does effect is work. I can walk to the bean in the morning and check email, reply and note in said reply, do not expect reply again for 24 hrs.  In a few months, if all goes well, I will have some extra cash to get  the router that works with the AT&T modem (since they refuse to offer support for the one I do own without charging to tell me the info I need)

Until that time I will live like did in the dark ages of the 80’s. Shame I got rid of my Members Only jacket just last week as I packed for this move. Good think I still have the books – the very same books I disparaged for their bulk only a few day past, wishing for a kindle or equivalent! HA! Lesson learned.

Look for the smoke signals my friends, a stray symbol upon a cloud, feather on the breeze, perhaps a message in a bottle.  Please, just keep looking, as I will keep trying to put myself out there, somewhere, somehow, just as I am.

Peace,

A V

So, this is just one of those ‘one of those things’ things, ya know?

I live in the same town as the Western White House.  Past president Richard M Nixon’s vacation home on the coast in Southern California. It is also known as La Casa Pacifica. I had the opportunity to work there for a few days as grunt labor for a painter I know. Offered and accepted a short peek around. Public viewing and tours do not happen here.

“This is where Nixon met with Brezhnev”, “This is where the Nixon’s slept” Sort of – The current owners have made many changes over the years.

This past weekend, I was up in Ojai California, again working but in a different capacity. Being a long drive I was in my casual travel clothes with my fancy Sunday best on a hanger enjoying the view from the back and side window.

Upon arrival I shown to the guest house where I could relax, clean up and dress up. This space is arranged as a work-out room with small bedroom and bathroom off to one side. I commented, “This a very nice house”. I meant it, it is a really nice place!

The home owner took that time to present me with some history. The house, and the house next door as well, were built by/for a famous actress of the 1940’s era. It is also the house that Richard M Nixon stayed in while remodel and new construction as being done at La Casa Pacifica. Go figure.

This time, I was in the very same room that Nixon, Kissinger and Salinger sat in. I was in that room in my boxer/briefs dressing up to work. Later I was in the very same room that the Nixon’s slept in.  I was all dressed by then.

There is literally no point to any of this. Just a coincidence and curiosity. Made the 6+ driving to and from so much the better. Besides, the place is beautiful, the owners and family members that had me there were exceptional hosts! I felt and was treated more like a guest than a ‘vendor’.

So – some Nixon-ish stuff I have to call my own.  In fact, today, while I am moving, I think I will take  break to drive on by and wave.

Peace,

A V

Let me start by saying that moving, changing residence, is one activity that I truly despise. Really, I hate this process.

It is however the better option on occasion. Adapt, Migrate or Perish. These being the only three choices you have in any situation, I have opted to migrate.

Adapting would mean tolerating (learning to sleep through) the bullshit supplied by mentally unstable neighbor and the noise created by young drunks. Not interested.  I will not allow it to make me sick and tired, to challenge me any further, to have my life shortened by it. Others perishing would be a lovely thing but unfortunately I do not see it happening with any convenience.

That leaves migration. Admittedly, the new local will not be a whole lot better. It is what it is and I just need to get away from here before something very unpleasant occurs. I do not believe anymore I will ever be able to afford the kind of place I would be happy at. Certainly not where I currently live, Southern California. Only the very very rich can afford personal space in So Cal.

I suppose a bit of peace and quite is just to fucking much to ask for. To lay down to sleep and not be woken up by loud music, drunk +10 volume talking, people screaming into their phones while wandering around the common area. People too drunk to know where they are breaking things, stealing from me.

Quite – that is all I want – some quite.  One day of quite on this earth so I can (and will !!) die happy. Makes me sad to wish it would hurry up and happen already.

There is an odd freeing feeling that comes with ‘loosing the stuff’ – having to downsize and eliminate. Pick and choose what is important or at least replaceable. I wish more big stuff was less important and the little (light) stuff was. Not working out that way. About 50/50 if that is even possible to qualify that way.

Finding and appreciating the big picture, the effect this will have on  ‘the plan’, that oh so mysterious bright side, is what I need to do. Hello bright side, come out come out where ever you are!

A V