Just when you think

Everything is running just fine on your pc... it crashes. Firefox did yesterday afternoon, so I wanted to start my pc with a new-start. And Windows XP came on as logo, then the screen just stayed black, and nothing I could do would help. And yes, I tried using the 'use the last successful configuration' order, but nada...

Which means having to take Baby Fu to the clinic. on the 1st. I can't get it repaired beforehand, as I am completely out of money. Oddly, the guarantee just ran out.

Whatever.... Posting here will be light for a while. Am using Peter's laptop meanwhile..

just when you think everything is going to be ok

It gets worse.

My father, aka 'the Venerable', sent me an e-mail with the title 'bad fall'. Since he doesn't capitalise or is touch and go about that lately, I 'assumed' it was about a bad-weather autumn. Except it wasn't.

It was written by my brother, N. 'The Silent'. And so I learned that my Dad was out raking leaves, (and I wonder why the hell... other than it might have been a nice day, and he might have felt like being out a bit... who knows why people do things, after all?) and he fell and broke his hip.

His surgery went well, but he has a long way to go to recover.

Reading that, I thought the heat in my place had gone off again, felt so chilled right to the bone. At ninety-four, that is a very serious thing to have had to happen to him.

So am up at midnight, worrying.

And nope, not gonna go drama queen here. When you have a lucid, 94 year old parent, you sort of get steeled for the day that a mail like that arrives, or 'the' phone call you never want to pick up on.

This one was an option I hadn't considered.

So keep him in your thoughts, okay?

just when you think something got buried for good...

It comes baaack!

Ok, ok, I have an allergy, or am algerian against this piece. It keeps coming back to haunt me over and over and over again..l. The music is lovely. Really. Some of it is such kitsch, you could retch. And now they are putting it on at the local opera house, and I am pissed off!

Now there are several reasons why I really get a bee in my bonnet about this. My godmother took me to see it when I was nine, and evening performance... ooo, that was cool. And we came away feeling cheered up and singing some songs from it. But that was at NINE...

That piece of treacle ran en suite for six months in a town of one hundred thousand people. It was cult.

Eventually, I forgot about it, of course. Till I arrived in Salzburg to find a place to stay in the Fall to study. Arrived in pouring rain, drenched to the skin at two in the a.m. with luggage for a year, and a receptionist took pity on me and gave me a room at the Hotel Pitter.

Next morning, I called my friend Susan to arrange a meeting, and fix a room for the Fall. My inner clock was so fucked up, my body didn't know where it was, but that is another story.

And btw... Salzburg gets an average of 265 days of rain a year. You can imagine what it does to the dispositions of the average citizen there. Sour....

BUT.... it was a lovely day after, and you could even see the mountains. Glorious view. So I followed instructions and headed across the park across the street, the Mirabelle Gardens... And was struck nearly blind with dejà vu. 'I've been here before', I thought...

There was a hill with a beautiful fortress on it, and the park before me, and I thought, 'why in the world does this look so familiar????' And then I went a little further, and I saw it... Two naked guys with their arms outstretched, pointing to one another over the exit. (Yeah, even subliminally, it caught my attention when I was NINE.)

And I thought, 'Oh shit, 'The Sound of Music. This is where I landed?'

I will not torture you with the nonsense I had to face every day in that city when it came to the 'true believers', and fanatics who were crazy about that film.

But it got weirder. I had a roommate who was very quiet. And one day in the Fall he asked me to go to dinner with him where his family used to work. He was a quiet, unpreposessing young man, we worked in Munich together, but he never talked about his past, you see.

So I just said 'ok..', was curious... and we bussed out to behind the hill with the fortress, and the place where he used to live... was the Palace of Leopoldskron, set on a small lake. The US took it over after the war, and held seminars for the brightest students in Europe on the most diverse topics.

His parents used to run those seminars. We had lunch on the terrace, overlooking the lake, with those horses just like in the fucking movie? And looked left and there was the glass summer house? Gawwd. Color me speechless.... Turns out his parents had run the program during the filming, and he knew Julie Andrews, and played ping-pong with the kids in it. At which point I was spitless. And THEN he showed me the sneakret door that led from the library to the then archbishop's bedroom.

It was a bit much to take in, believe me.

When I got back from my year abroad, what was the first thing I had to do at my work in a cinema? Being on duty inside the theater. And what was playing? 'The (Fucking) Sound of Music!) It was a curse, somehow...

Over the decades, I have had to deal with groupies who really truly believe that the song 'Edelweiß' from that is our national anthem. It is NOT. Ours is from Haydn.

And... 'The Sound of Music' flopped badly in Austria...just so you know... People still wrinkle their nose if you mention it. And Salzburg named a tiny street in Aigen after the von Trapp family... begrudgingly.

So... I cannot figure out why the local opera would want to put this on now, I really can't.

I am half-tempted to get a standing-room ticket and watch them burst into flames and crash.... And I still think the flash-mob version in Atwerp Begium was brilliant, and I know, I have posted it before, but it is a joy to watch.

It might even be worth it.

Forty years ago, they put men on the moon....

Was just reading some comments at Americablog, people reminiscing about where they were forty years ago yesterday, and what they felt about it as children.

So I added mine. I was at my aunt's house in NH. An awful lot of my extended family was there, although I am not sure if we were actually there to watch, or if it was some other fete...

I was ten. It was exciting for us all, and amazing, mind-boggling.

Presiding over the event was my maternal step-grandmother, and she was approaching her 100th birtday. My cousins and I always used to say she looked like George Washington on the one dollar bill. (that was affectionately kidding, btw...)

And as the transmission went on, she got really put out with us, because she didn't believe it for one second. And 'pitied' us for being so gullible. 'It's staged,' she said. 'Everyone KNOWS that there is no air up there to breathe.'

Who would of thought she was the grandma of all the conspiracy theorists to follow her in the following decades?

Hadn't thought of it in a long while, but had to smile.

At least it was more fun than begging my other grandmother to watch Alan Shepard get shot into space. It was a fine day, and according to her, children belonged outside, getting fresh air. (She still had black and white tee-vee.) She relented, but on one condition: we had to kneel and pray a rosary, facing the wall away from the tee-vee, so we did it all right, craning our necks to see the screen, and doing Hail Marys and Our Fathers to beat the band.

It is funny to me to relate that now, but at the time, I was really pissed off.

Tja, defining moments in history. It always amazes me that one event causes an indelible mark on collective consciousness. You know where you were, what you were doing, shared your feelings... It doesn't happen that often, thank goodness. Although I prefer the ones where your jaw drops for amazement, delight, the ones that make you feel proud, although it isn't your personal acheivement....

Just when you think you are ok, you are so NOT

Have just been through one of the most trying days of my life.

Dealing with social service people, and Bosnian Serbs, and worrying so much about what I should be doing, that I got emotionally flattened. And there are those who would say, 'Told'ja.' And for all the worrying and concerns I have, I had to learn I am DUMB. Or not thinking very well these days...

Which means I am still off the charts for 'reeling'. Oh yes, Preciousses.... Reeling.

Whatever ELSE reaction can you have when you put in fourteen months work jousting at windmills, finally find the real dragon, have it on the ground, and Sancho Panza trips your horse just before you finally hit one?

Some things are so unsettling, I just do not know what to do.

Where are my Proposition 8 rights? Because I know somebody who belongs in a home. Because I can't do it any more. Because it is draining me of any energy I used to have, and I'm not a fucking Duracell battery.

Re-charge, anyone?

Just when you think things are finally going to quiet down in the foreign press

After all the hullabaloo about the guy who kept his daughter imprisoned for 24 years and sired seven children with her.... we get us an axe murderer over Mother's Day weekend. I thought that was a US specialty, and had never heard of it happening here before. (They mostly shoot each other, or throw someone off of six floor balconies. Or knife someone. But AXES? WTF?)

Scuttlebutt has it that the guy is Austrian, but of foreign descent, and the local news went way out of their way to emphasize that he has 'an academic degree'. Uh-Huh...

So, just the facts, as they used to say on Dragnet. The perp kills his wife and young daughter in their sleep, fairly viciously. And then he takes his nifty axe, and drives all the way to Linz, where he does in his parents. Then he goes to some hole in the wall just outside that city, and axes his father-in-law. THEN, Preciousess, he calmly drives back to Vienna and turns himself into the police.

Motive? He had a PR agency, and ran up a debt of EUR 300,000, and he didn't want them to experience him being shamed. (WHAAA?)

And that alone, if it is true, seems to cooberate the scuttlebutt. An Austrian wouldn't have done that. The perp would have shot himself, or jumped, to hell with the family being shamed....

Just sayin'

So I guess it will be another week of German TV pointing their smudged and bloody fingers at us, and insinuating how 'bad' we are, and get into feeding frenzy mode. I am SO glad I get my news on the intertubes....

I only see the tee-vee stuff at lunch time when I am feeding Peter.

And then I lose my appetite....

Well whaddaya know, hey....

Just woke up in the early (somewhat early) evening, and had this 'dream'. Right. Since my kick-out, I have been dreaming some weird stuff. In Technicolor and stereophonic sound. Most of it is so obvious, it doesn't take Freud to figure it out.

But today's is really weird---and turned out to be true.

All I can remember is Peter having called, and I was stuck on a wall, and the only thing I could see was the chandelier on the ceilingat an impossible angle, and nothing made sense. Where WAS I, hey... I guess I really worked myself up to a frenzy this afternoon. Because I just woke up in bed at ten pm. So I guess you shouldn't mix your meds with a half-bottle of light white wine.

Especially if you are having a very bad day...

On getting up, the computer is running, the telephone horn was on the floor, and all signs point to the fact that I fell off my stool and knocked myself out. I was exhausted and despondent. And Peter probably called from his neighbors' house. And I couldn't figure out where I WAS.

SOMETHING is gonna have to change.... and fast.

Am SICK of being a victim.

Just when you think you are pulling your act together.... circumstances tell you you have a very long way to go....

I do not know how I got back into bed. I have a light headache, but no concussion.

Just when u think it is Spring...

The whole world decides to torpedo it....

Yup...

Gawwwd, I got up this morning, and wanted to do great feats of bureaucratic SHIT. And I filled out my forms, and was ready to rumble. And whaddaya know, hey. I FORGOT to take my ATM card out of the cigarette machíne, AGAIN! (third time...) Between three and four in the morning.

(I was writing something, and ran out. And sleepwalking...)

So... all's well that ends well... but it messed up my day.... Just sayin'.

just when you think you are not a backward-looking person....

( and we all KNOW what the late Tammy Faye Bakker said: 'You can't go forward lookin' in the rear-view mirror of your LIFE.' For all the absurdity about her, that was a good one, just sayin.')

But just when you think that, a 'day' comes around, one you wish had never happened... one that was a watershed development, and so earth-shaking, it is worth taking a moment, and ]]]] look BACK [[[[[ (nah, am not gonna go all 'drama queen' on ya....)

One year ago today, about two hours from now, I took Peter grocery shopping at a supermarket. I had a hard time getting him down the stairs, and actually wanted to put it off to the next day. He said his blood sugar was too low. But he was so hectic, I gave in. Big mistake, hey....

Well, he used to do little things to irritate me, you see? One of them was fidgeting around when I was trying to steer. Or braking with his foot at the most inopportune time. We used to be 'teh' hit at the market with macabre jokes about how I was gonna 'dispose' of him up-river where there are ducks. Sort of: 'scarin' the horses', hey. Gawd, how we all laughed....

And then, he seemed a bit wonky when I rolled him into the supermarket. And then... and then... he fell over to one side, and nearly tipped out of the chair.

And what do you think my first reaction was? I smacked him one on the shoulder, HARD, and yelled, 'What the FUCK are you DOING?!!! SIT UP, hey!. I can't steer!' So how is THAT for 'empathetic', hey? I am ashamed to this day that I didn't see it for what it was, immediately. It happened so fast.

It took me at least one minute to realise..... something is very wrong here. And this 'voice' was in my head, yelling, 'STROKE! STROKE!' and another saying, 'stay calm, sugar too low. ' I got him to the check-out, grabbed an ice-cream on the way as a last hope, 'please tell me this isn't happening' ploy on the way out, and tried to feed him some. And these people were yelling at me, what was I thinking of, putting the pillow so crooked, and making him lop-sided, and trying to right him up. I've seen many a horror film, and liked them, but that was just so off-the-wall REAL... Horrible....

It glopped out of his mouth and fell on his jacket, and normally, he'd have gone ape-shit over that. No reaction. I wanted to get an ambulance, FAST.

He insisted he wanted to go home. There isn't a mule in Missouri more stubborn than Peter. And me in full panic mode. 'He'll never get up the stairs. And then I can call the ambulance.'
I have NEVER ran those three blocks so FAST in my life.

And called the ambulance.

He refused to go with them. He really didn't know what had hit him. They were so kind, and time was of the essence. Didn't want to budge, and I had no real 'status' or 'right' to say, 'You get him out of here. NOW!' No rights, Preciousses...

I was off-the-charts for 'helpless'.

(I fucking hate 'helpless'.)

The Red Cross people couldn't just leave him there. So they called the police. One big BULL of a guy, about my age, and four petite police-ettes. Uh-HUH, I thought, this is REALLY going to 'help'. Jawohl...

But it worked. And in that moment, he was so fucking angry with me. Thinking I had sicced the cops on him. They took him away in an ambulance, and he glared at me out the window. I sort of died inside, at that moment.

Three hours later, he called me and thanked me for intervening.

Fuck. Just... fuck.

So... happy anniversary, Peter. I so SO wish it had gone down otherwise, but am not clairvoyant.

And the next time someone wants to tell you about 'teh gays', and their supposed agenda, think about how that felt for me. How it is to have NO RIGHTS. And that fucking helpless....

We are just people, too. It really does not matter whom you love. One of the best things you can say in your life, is THAT you loved, with all your heart, and it really doesn't matter whom it was. What MATTERS is if they gave you that little piece of their heart and loved you back, as imperfect as it is.

And NOTHING is perfect. We all know that.

So.... now that I have THAT outta my system.... can we look forward now and see what the windshield TELLS us, hey?

Just don't tell me more storms on the horizon. I need time.

Just sayin'

Just when you think you are fucking indestructible...

Your body betrays you.

Isn't that a hoot....

Sometimes I do NOT 'get it' until it is too late.

So have been throwing up like some anorexic ballerina, as Jo would say. (I always LIKED that picture in my head, but do NOT like it in reality and if it is happening you you. Tja, fantasy and reality, Precsiousses. )

My heart is acting up.

To the point where it scares me, and there isn't much that scares me. (did you hear that, mr. K? Almost nothing fucking skeers me.)

Unlike what some fucked-up people think, I have always thought I was pragmatic. But I was never afraid of ANYTHING in my life. And stood up for whatever I did, and was never ashamed of any of it. I think I have been a decent person in my life.

Whatever, my heart races so horribly, it gets frightening. I get short of breath when I do something trivial for lifting stuff.

I should get my sorry old ass over to a hospital, but am stubborn. Have to see a doctor tomorrow anyway. And hey, whaddaya know? I KNOW that the cause is psychosomatic. But it has REAL consequences, I had a fucking psych major before I switched to German, so am not exactly stupid, but who would have thought, hey...

So... am off to bed again.... And Nah... my heart is just racing along as if it were a Porsche at Monza. Creeps me out.

Update. I slept most of the afternoon. Went to find something to eat at the supermarket.... We're having Mordor weather. The air stank so bad, I could hardly catch my breath. I hurried to try to get back home in time, but I didn't quite make it, am afraid.... Started to cough and then I did a not so graceful double Rittberger, (am rusty) and projectile vomited into the gutter for the edification of the people waiting at the bus stop who really did NOT need that, as if it were that horrible thing in that Monty Python movie. I don't know the english title. 'The Meaning of Life' or something like that.

And no, it is not the flu. Now I know why Truman Capote went off the charts when he got majorly dissed.

Just sayin'....

I guess Monza is over for the time being, and the Porsche won, or came in second at least. That is a nice thing.... But I think it needs a carbeurator change, or a new muffler. Because it sort of hurts over on the left side. Sort of behind the scenes dull pain.

And oh FUCK, I just needed that, right? (god, just in the bathroom again... how the fuck much can you have in your stomach, hey? Just watery stuff... gross.)

So am just majorly boring myself here. How FUCKING stupid of me. Will not, so NOT do another post on my 'Befindlichkeit'. Some people were out to hurt me and badly. And I am just going to have to deal with it. Somehow I have the sneaking feeling..... you aren't having any fun.

Just when you think you KNOW that a worst-case scenario

is about to turn your life up-side down, and you are steeling yourself for the shock that life is about to dish out and knock you metaphorically k.o. yet again, whaddaya know, some god-damned, heretofore docile Rottweiler smells it, and decides, (wtf???), to ATTACK out of left field.

And there you are on the virtual floor again, looking up at the ceiling, groggy, and trying to make sense of it. Only the ceiling is a fun-house mirror, and there is nothing you can recognise in it. Double bitch-slap and two super hard punches to the solar plexus comes close to describing it.... (I was ready for the other, more or less....) But only just close. The reality is worse, actually.... but what do I know, being 'cowardly and only superficial in my thoughts'? Uh-Huh...

(Which keeps bringing some stupid song from the Sixties or early Seventies going round and round in my head. 'They smile in your face--back-stabbers...' Only I forgot the rest of the lyrics.)

Let's face it, I'm getting old, whether I want to or not. Less resiliant, thin-skinned, but at least still objective... And after all the turbulence of the past year, I am only functioning at one third of what I used to be able to do. It has taken all my inner reserves to get through it without a trip to the Sigmund Freud clinic, and yeah, that is exactly what you think it is... Just when you are at your most vulnerable, hey, they attack.

That has been my 'wonderful' week.

So you are all gonna haveta excuse me while I call for someone with a virtual spatula to scrape me off the virtual floor, and I get my balance back. I'll probably be back in a few days.

And that will be the end of this topic. There are some things I do not write about, because it would be taken wrong, and damaging. So? That's all he wrote, hey. Go read something uplifting, meanwhile, okay? James Wolcott is always fun...

I wanted to 'adorn' this with a photo of dog-shit on the sidewalk, but they are seemingly scooping the poop of late. Or a good one of puke on the sidewalk, but there wasn't a high school prom across the way the past couple of days. Or a used snotty Kleenex about to be flushed down the toilet, but I ran out of Kleenex. And used toilet paper would have been just too crass, if fitting.

Because that is how I feel. Aren't you lucky I didn't get lucky....

(/end topic)

They did it with scuba divers

This event was scheduled for six p.m. It is someting groups of divers do 'for fun' in Advent, I learned. And they gave everyone candles for peace. It rained like crazy. I figured it would. When the morning sky in the post below looks like that, it is always a harbinger for bad weather later in the day. It was cold and all I saw when I got there were some candles on the rocks along the riverside, and an Advent wreath out in the rapids, but the wind and rain soon blew the candles out














Looked a liittle lonely out there, and I thought, someone is pulling our collective leg here. Then I learned that the actual event would be at seven pm, because all the scuba divers were at Mass nearby. (It's a church-sponsored thing, you see...)










So I tried to kill some time and finally get a half-way decent photo of the Island in the Mur at night from the riverbank.










Once the divers finally got ready, they started by floating little candles for peace out into the river.










And just when I was sort of disappointed, and wet despite the umbrella, the whole group went into the water, and all of a sudden, things took on a different look.










And that is how they set the river on fire. Magnesium flares.










And then there were more and more.










So it was sort of cool-looking after all. Then I went home and made a very strong pot of hot tea.

Tomorrow... they are going to set the river on fire...

to demonstrate for world peace. At least that is what they hung on a banner from one of the bridges downtown.... 'die Mur in Flammen', hey. The Mur is the name of the river, and Flammen means flames, ok?



Is it just me, or is there something totally not right with that concept? Am I missing something here? Because I do NOT get the connection, you know? Anyone out there who knows something about }}}conceptual art{{{ and can come up with a conceivable explanation? Because I am just baffled, hey. Will go downtown tomorrow and see what the hell THAT is really about.... And take pictures.

Today is another sort-of holiday, and half the country shut down. The 'Immaculate Conception', uh-huh. Annti is gonna get a shot-gun and hurt me if she discovers I even WROTE that. My short-lived Christmas cheer got on her nerves, and she asked me if we were 'through with the Christ stuff now?' And I promised, 'yes we is through, Precious.' I'm only mentioning it, because again, I do NOT understand, you know? It's just a fact, and this one really makes me feel stupid.

Downtown, the stores that are open, well, it looks like Black Friday in the US. So I stayed home
and got the last thing I had to buy this month per Internet. I love Amazon. No one pushes or shoves you, and you can take your time and look through everything.

Oh well, back under the bed. Just when you think the world is rational, or something, you get all this weird stuff, you know?

The day of the Krampus... and just when you think traditions are fixed entities

They go and change them on you, for pity's sake. The big Krampus meeting was last Sunday.
So I went into town at twilight anyway, looking for a Krampus. The sign says 'surface damage' in case you wonder.....












They have an Advent village, a Christkindlmarkt in front of City Hall on the main square.
What I do NOT understand is this display over one of them. Did Disney bribe them or something? And the damned things move, as well, hey.










But there was the usual Kitsch, which was reassuring....




























Pretty, shiny, aren't they?










I have this sneakret desire to ride that carousel, just once. But let's face it, at fifty-eight, that would really be anything but seemly....



















This is a créche in sculptured ice. Bill O would be so proud, hey. No war on Christmas here, hey... They have a second one in the freezer somewhere that they will trot out when this one melts. The weather is too mild.










It got darker and darker, no Krampusses in sight. I felt like the kid who just learned there is no Santy-Clause. So I did my only one time a year mulled wine at a stand, after attempting to shop, and I NEVER shop, hey. I bought a suit jacket for work for only 27 Euros. Had to be a product of slave labour. I shouldn't have done that, it only encourages the damned manufacturers.










Whatever, at the stand I saw my first Krampus. This one is 'Sophie'. (stress on the second syllable, please.) The guy next to me was way into his cups, had bought it for his girlfriend, and named it after her, as she is wild, or something. I haven't laughed so much in a very long time, hey. And THEN! A real Krampus appeared! Oh, they love being photographed. (Actually, I think you have to be a bit twisted to go in for this stuff, but they put a lot of loving care into these costumes....)










Isn't he gorgeous?











This guy seemed to think he didn't need a mask. Eeew. It's supposed to be Krampus, not Night of the Living Dead, you know? He just planted himself in front of me, and posed. I was too skeered NOT to take his picture. I don't know what he would have done if I hadn't. And no, it wasn't the mulled wine. He was scary.











This one could make little kids have nightmares and wet the bed...










I mean, really. Isn't he wonderful?










This one sort of looks retarded, somehow. Not so scary.










These do look better if you open them in a new tab.














And THIS is my guy, hey. Best Krampus I've seen in years. He took it off later? Just an ordinary, white-bread Austrian. Tja.











pretty lights. They still only use white ones, not garish coloured ones. Tja. And then I went home.

JUST when I thought I'd spotted the door

leading to the parallel universe where time is different and you don't age so quickly.....it moved out of sight, the clocks rang midnight, and I crossed the threshhold into the realm of....

}}}}}Oldiehood{{{{{{

(Tm. I get twenty-five cents every time you use it, and bank details available on request.)

Eeewwww.... Fifty-eight, hey. Why that is more than half a century... (/disingenuousness) It hasn't been quite fifty minutes, yet, but fully expect corporeal disintegration to begin and continue over the next twenty-three hours, for sure. (/snark)

Seriously, the only birthday that ever bothered me was turning thirty. Since then? Just another day... Someone today seriously thought I was about to turn fifty-one, so I guess I'm holding up ok on the outside, at least. (gg) I got up to some mischief the past couple of days. If it works as I plan, I might give three people a little moment of happiness. That would be the best present I could give myself. If it works. Will find out in a week or so....

So will soon turn in, and then make myself some chicken and a salad, go to work, and the entrance into the new world will have been accomplished. Or I turn into a pile of sawdust this time tomorrow. Who knows, hey? That is how life is, after all. Full of surprises, although most of them tend to be of the not-so-nice-didn't-see-it-coming variety. So what can you do, you know?

Have a few things planned for the coming week here, so stay tuned. Between work and having to see doctors, (which is what we Oldies do, you know, just to read the old magazines for free in the waiting room, and test our memories to see if we remember what happened eight weeks ago), haven't had much time. And please do click on the Trex link in the blogroll. He is the KING of snark, and the only 40 foot therapod I would EVER approach. (Don't I wish....)

Just when you think you did EVERYTHING to make things RIGHT

The person fucks it up and FUCKS YOU OVER.

Isn't that a hoot?

Isn't that just a laugh-riot.

Isn't that just pitiful.

And after thirty years, you get to decide, hey. Sorry, still ill and do not know what is really going on. But....

I thought I could go back to work this week, still wonky, but hey, two day shifts and then do two days off, rest, then five evening shifts. Since I consider myself indestructible, I went in Monday, and it started all right. I got there an hour early to upload all those photos, on my time, not work time, because my pc won't do it. Then an hour later, I started feeling odd. Dizzy. I never feel dizzy. I thought I was going to fall off the chair. My lovely colleague came in and literally rescued me. (I have some of the nicest colleagues in the WORLD.)

So I saw my doctor. My blood pressure was off the charts for high. It has always tended to be low.

(There IS a point to this by the way....)

I went home, and he told me to lie down for a while. Just when I did, whaddaya know, the fucking phone rings.

My Ex, the one supposedly in assisted living? Was at the old house, and he lost the key for the bottom lock. There was some sort of confrontation, and he either got kicked out, which is my assumption, or went into overdrive. So he gets back into the old place, which has been cannibalised, more or less, no electricity, no heat, and it is COLD here, nothing edible since July, and says he is so glad to have his peace and quiet. He didn't pay his phone bills, although I TOLD him to turn it off, and so he can get calls, but not call out. A nightmare.

And they moved all the old stuff into his house, and he is the epitome of a caricature of Miss Havisham. (The crazy lady in Great Expectations who causes the tragedy....)

The vultures in the place who had already taken almost everything from him began gathering. The 'concern' was so GREAT, I got the dry heaves, literally. TROLLS. Now concern trolls and I'm the bad guy who put him into a very horrible place. Hokay....

And with that, I LEFT, Preciousses. I'm on sick leave, and not supposed to be out of the house. I just unlocked the door, gave him one THOUSAND pieces of my more or less incoherent mind, and left. This past year, I worked my ASS off to find a solution, it wasn't perfect, but it was a starting point. And I was the one who was THERE every day of hospital as best I could.... Well isn't that a kick in the PANTS, hey, as Harvey Fierstein said.

I have NOT been back. His problem. Oh, I called, of course. Just to make sure he hadn't fallen down in the WC again. He's happy....

Just when I feel at my weakest point, the jackals gather. It wasn't pretty.

So for all the people who told me he just used me all these years, yup, probably right these past several years. So get out the balloons and the things you make those jeering noises with, and celebrate, because I have HAD it.

But before you get all euphorious and everything, think of this. Did you ever consider me so stupid? Because when you criticise, it always comes down to: I was STUPID. There have been many reasons I made the decisions I made, but I have never been blind, nor stupid. There WAS a time, long ago, when he touched something deep within me, and made me feel wonderful, and desirable and even attractive, and taught me so much. Otherwise, I would have dissed him as I did Hellmut. (See 'Scraping the Barrel' in the Graz section. And there was a lot more to THAT than I will ever tell....) As far as my Ex goes, those feelings are long gone, but gratefulness..... also only stretches so far. So I tried it with Christian feeling. He was so ill, and I OWED him so much. I've paid him back.... I thought it my Christian DUTY... it's a stupid Catholic thing....

Thirty years is a very long time, ok? You go through good times and bad times. But THIS time, am at the end of my wisdom, and throw in the towel, hey.

And then he just threw it in my face.

Which is not helping my blood pressure much..... Tja..

and I thought they only did re-runs in the summer.... right

Just when the driver thought it was safe

to get out of the car and save the rabbit who seemed glued to the tarmac and blinded by the headlights for over fourteen months, he opened the door, and the pretty cuddly bunny hopped away on his own and disappeared after sadly looking back just once.

See? I can be terse, sometimes. A whole tragedy in one sentence.

It doesn't need further explanation.

So yes, no birfday present this year, and the chances are huge that all I get is coal in my stocking. Yup.

Update: Goodness, after seeing it up there, I just realised, I could enter that in the Bullwer-Lytton fiction contest. I only did that once, and got a citation in my name, with the line: 'Whose pen is less mighty than the sword'. And I worked HARD to get that. I was so proud.... The contest involves writing the worst opening sentence imagineable for a novel. This one just slipped out. Go figure.

Just when you think you have seen EVERYTHING,

or at least heard of it.... there is this!

Not to mention this

Just the idea of it is so messed up on so many levels, I do not know where to begin.

One of the first things I thought was, 'how subliminally racist.' The second link sort of reinforced the idea....

I've been told this is old hat. Well, just yesterday, some guy in Finnland had just heard of it and was wondering where and how to get his done. Which led me to the links in his comments section. I'd never heard of such a thing before. How nice that I lead a secluded life..... With all the terrible things happening in the world, there are people who worry about the color of their anuses?????!!!!! And pay their hard-earned money to have them bleached??!!!! I really should file this under 'just give me a BREAK, hey...'

People's little winks may be pink, or not. But if you are inspecting them that close, and considering what color they are, and whether the pigmentation is a turn off or not, at that point, you have some sort of huge problem, Preciousessss, oh yesss. Big problem indeed. And would suggest hormone therapy for you asap. Not to mention a trip to a shrink to explore your subconcious racial biases. Just sayin'

So Where Does the Faulty Perception Shit Begin, huh?

This is just a follow-up to last nite's post. I'd sent a few thoughts about Pam's article to her per mail, and she was kind enough to send a thoughtful reply. Which surprised me, because she is a very busy woman, and her post stirred up some controversy, so she has a lot of mail to answer. I hadn't expected it.

What I have been musing about, dwelling on in my head lately stems from an encounter I had a few weeks ago. When I first came to my adopted country, there were no people of color. (Ok, a few, maybe but nation-wide you couldn't fill up all the fingers of both hands that I knew of, anyway...) So you would think that people would have no preconceptions about people of other races. And that would be wrong. Over the last several years, we have many refugees from Afrika. Nigeria and Mali, mostly. Some Somalians and so on. Where I live, you go out on the street and it's a rainbow of skin color. Pretty.

We have federal police who come in and check our hotel guest books daily, looking for wanted criminals. And time and again, I hear this shit from them about how hard it is to catch the African ones, (a minority of Nigerians deal in drugs, and make it quadruprally hard for the good ones) 'because they all look alike.' I have never understood that. WHY? Because they do not want to SEE the person behind the skin color? Where the hell does that shit COME from? And it isn't even racist, they really are incapable of distinguishing features. (This extends to asians as well, btw. They all look alike!) And EVERY time I hear that, I get really roiled. And a few times I have really exploded with some of the dumber ones, and snapped, 'Well then, I guess you aren't looking, are you?'

With some very choice expletives in my head that would turn this blog quickly to a triple x rated one..... and gotten me in a bit of trouble....

Several weeks ago, I was very late and had to take a taxi to the assisted living home. The driver was an African man, unusual, because most of the refugees can't get a work permit, but I was in a hurry, pre-occupied, and never really looked at him. Happened again a few days ago, and so I said, 'Didn't you drive me down there two weeks ago?' And he laughed and said, 'No, I know we all look alike to you.' Which was mortifying.... And added: 'When I first came here, you all looked alike to me, too. It took me a long time to tell the differences.'

Now THAT fucking floored me. Because I thought that that 'they all look alike' meme was solely a stupid moronic stubborn being oh-so-superior WHITE thing. And the guy was being perfectly honest. We quickly had a very intensive conversation, very friendly, and it was a revelation.

So where does this shit come from? How do we build in barriers into our perceptions so we learn not to Look at anyone who is different from ourselves, unless they are acting crazy? When does that begin? When does the perception of 'otherness' suddenly become some vaguely threatening factor in our lives? When do we begin feeling so careful not to be hurtful or get hurt, or not politcally correct that we shut out any chance of getting to know one another and enriching our lives by learning from one another and think distance is good? When does the distance turn to resentment or even animosity?

For myself, from childhood onward, faces were always unique landscapes, every one different, interesting, but one of a kind, so I have never understood the mechanism of this, ever. They build up a barrier which prevents human beings from really encountering people outside their own little group. Is it something genetic? Clannish? Whatever it is, that is very sad in my opinion. I am so grateful to have encountered so many people in this world, sometimes very intimately, who did not look like me, or belong to my ethnic group, and they enriched my life immensely.

So I am stymied by all that. Pam Spaulding is a very brave lady, that is for sure. Trying to get an honest conversation going about race issues, especially now, when things are only getting worse world-wide.

So.... anyone have any ideas? I always thought no one ever ever looks at this blog, one of millions in a vast sea of people just having this need to voice their thoughts and frustrations, and so on. Three days ago I finally figured out how to install Sitemeter. So it seems some people 'out there' stumble across what I ramble on about. So leave a comment, hey.

Just sayin', I'm not made of glass and I don't break.

Update: Just about at the second-last paragraph, I ran out of snigarettes. My neighbors were out in the stair-well smoking with a friend of theirs. They are all 26 or so. Jeff introduced me, and said, 'this is our neighbor, and he is sooooo coooool.' If you are pushing sixty, that is quite a compliment.... So we ended up there till four am. They asked me what I was doing up. They are nearly finished getting their master's degree in biology. So I told them. They both maintain that it is genetic, and humans are 'animals', we run in packs, and we only perceive 'our own'. Well, that is a rational explanation, I guess, if very depressing.... But it was interesting. And VERY depressing.

They feel they need to go and get some credits with some Uni in the US. I said, 'The way things are going, it won't help, it will discredit you. You'd come back thinking the world is only 2000 years old, and people used to ride tamed dinosaurs. NO.' Their little friend LOOKED at me. 'You're kinda cool, you know?' he said. Somebody just shoot me. In my youth, when it counted, I was the nerd. Go figure.

Just when you think you are a tolerant person

someone comes along to teach you you might be wearing blinkers. Pam Spaulding had some very thoughtful things to say which I read this morning. What hit me the most was the following:

"What is the explanation? Oh, I could think of several, but overt racism isn't one of them. I have a couple of theories.

* "It's not my area of expertise". This is an old saw used to avoid discussing race -- it's uncomfortable for white folks and they want to avoid land mines. the easiest way to do that is to say nothing at all, which still speaks volumes. Just about anything can be viewed through the prism of race; in this case it's not solely about race, the story of the Jena 6 is about our system of justice and how it can be affected by color, class, power structure, and the almighty dollar.

* "It's not my issue": Sorry to say, this gets reinforced by the professional race-bating, blacker-than-thou crowd such as Jesse Jackson, who chastised Barack Obama for "acting white" on the issue. That only makes otherwise supportive whites further paranoid. The "black enough" nonsense is divisive and so reflective of old-school mentality often seen in the establishment civil rights set still clinging to power. Of course then Jackson and his ilk will then criticize the lack of diversity in the group of marchers. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy."

That first really struck me hard. She's gotten a lot of flack in the hours since she posted, but my take was that her thoughts were honest, non-polemic, and this reader spent a lot of time reflecting on this issue later. So if you stumble over this, please go read. Sometimes it's good to look into a mirror that isn't the one on your wall of your consciousness which shows you to your best advantage, you know?

Worth reading. Oh yes, and Trex at Fire Dog Lake has a link here.