Who needs extreme sports when Survival is this Exhilarating?

Thursday evening and the world is good again. After a few days of some pretty serious self-doubt I emerge hopeful. I'm looking forward to Saturday and spending some money at Target and the flower shop. What else is there?

Don't think about the future, don't ponder the past, don't judge yourself.

Just converse with co-workers, just smile, just take a break, just take care of yourself.

Well....

I teeter between wishing I was dead, wishing I was better, and wishing I would win the lottery.

Nobody can save you, even if they want to, nobody.

It costs 2 dollars to get into the state park, just to eat lunch at a picnic table beneath a mature tree. The trees are held ransom and then they wonder why everybody is on anti-depressants.

It costs 6 dollars to get into the county park, just for the privilege of walking on a path where the risk of being hit by a car or raped is minimal. They build a landscape for cars and wonder why everybody is fat.


There are so many ways to solve the debt/spending problem.

Stop spending money on roads, make everybody walk everywhere, everybody gets healthier, health care costs go down. See that attacks the money problem from each end.

Everybody boycott health insurance (or outlaw it for all I care) and then let the doctor decide what you need and then just pay for it, like with money that day. If you can't afford it, then you know what you are going to die of.

Eliminate all income and social security tax paid for people making 35k or less. You ever tried to live on 35k or less, around here? You know every penny you pay in taxes. Give them that money back and they will spend it.

Every person I know who makes 250 a year or more is old, white, a man, buys muscle cars from the 60's, plays a hell of a lot of golf, and has a cadre of lawyers to keep his kids out of legal trouble. Haven't seen any of them decide to become a "job creator".

Every "job creator" I know makes way less than 250 a year and the biggest gripe of their employees is they do not have health insurance or any retirement plan.

Stop spending so much money to spy on people.

Teach people to know things, mentor them, let them apprentice in trade.

Stop watching TV.

Let gay people get married and adopt kids...lots of kids...I would have loved to have been raised by gay people.

Cleaning Service

As I move around the house, focusing on this pile and neutralizing this stack and discovering this or that unpleasantness in a corner, I wonder if it is all worth it. Maybe I should be doing something more fun with my day off?

The cleaning ladies come tomorrow. The house must meet certain standards before they will dig in. They could reject me, with a curt note and threats of never returning, the check left upon the table. They are A-rated on Angie's list, they don't need my crap.

Oh the excellent feeling I have when I come home from work and the lemony smell of cleaning products swirls out the front door! I skip into the house and wander around in amazement, gazing at the shiny wood floors, the little vacuum attachment marks on the sofas, the crumb-less stove-top, the expanse of wrinkle-free bedspread with neatly propped up pillows. It's worth the uncertainty and waves of doubt the day before.

The next few days I feel so pleased if someone stops in, and sees the glorious condition of my home. At this time, I would say, it is worth it.

Well I have to go, there are plastic containers all OVER the kitchen....

A Walk in the Woods

I finished reading A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson. I liked it. He thinks like I do and says all the snarky things I would want to say under similar circumstances.

What is shy?

Words that have been used to describe me are, shy, introverted, and quiet. This past weekend while visiting my little nieces they gave me a "personality test" from one of their girlie books. One of the questions was, at a party are you talking to everybody or quiet in a corner, and I said quiet. Unbelieving, they both pealed out a REALLY?!

You see amongst 8 and 10 year old girls I am the LIFE of the party. I'm willing to do any silly thing to get a reaction from them and will do it almost anywhere. I once went out in public debuting about 20 little butterfly clips in my hair since the littlest one had styled it that way. When it comes to pleasing the kids, I'll do it all and with flair.

So what is it to be shy? Obviously shyness around strangers is more common than when hanging out with family. I'll venture a theory that shyness can accumulate over time after a series of negative reactions received from others. Like when people talk over you, or cut you off. Or when people are argumentative and treat every conversation as an opportunity to prove a point.

Of course the negativity can run in the opposite direction too, there is the guilt and embarrassment of letting yourself do too much talking. And you end up saying things you wish you hadn't and the mental filter goes up and your mouth shuts up.

Does that make you shy or wise?