finding the time

Mom and I are fixing up her house for a college reunion, so it's hard to find the time lately for things like shopping, laundry, blogging or pancakes. Mom likes to beg off on letting me use the kitchen for pancakes because they take time and make a mess, which also takes time then to clean up.

And blogging? I culled about 1000 words from email and chat but haven't had time to edit and post it!

But now, finally today I took the time to make pancakes. Now, pancakes are a treat. 900 calories of pancakes have the joy and satiety factors of 1800 calories of my regular foods.

That reminds me of how nice it was to eat the wonderful food at St. John's College cafeteria. I would eat there while taking time off from school and even after I graduated. 1800 calories. I'd count 'em and be done with eating for a while -- all for the $10 cover price.

Roasted in Starfire

Yesterday's sunburn was no joke. I was working so I didn't dare scramble for safety. Nor did I realize how burnt I was getting. I thank God and my mother for the straw hat that saved my face and scalp.

The previous day I'd tried sunscreen one last time. I said, maybe if I keep it below my eyes it will not end up in my eyes. I was driving blind when it did somehow end up in my eyes. I pulled into a gas station and washed it off. Sice they didn't have soap, I used dish liquid.

Now I really think that if you get enough exposure to roast the skin that's directly exposed, it's not too good for the rest of your skin either. You know, UVB rays get the direct-exposed areas and (I hate to say it but) doesn't UVA get the rest? I've had enough sun-exposure trouble in my life and I hope I didn't just bring on more.

At the supermarket I saw that most all the other white folks were roasted pretty good too. There's no fool like us old fools. Doesn't April bring the summer sunshine every year?

Suicide Prevention

Tread carefully if you ever call the Suicide Prevention Hotline. The wrong operator could make you feel worse. Early this morning I was having one of those times we all have where we'd like to die and go straight to heaven, but we're not going to kill ourselves because that could be a terminal sin. I was on the verge of wishing I could catch a stray bullet that would dispatch me painlessly and blamelessly to eternal bliss, but I willed myself to leave it up to God whether He wished to deliver me or keep me in the battle. I was anxious, scared, angry, couldn't sleep. (Never mind what it was about. If anyone out there cares enough to ask I will be very surprised, especially in light of what happened next.)

... So I called SPH and gave a succinct answer to the operator's question regarding the nature of my problem. Then she asked, "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss tonight?" I said no. Surely it would be enough if she could comment on what I had already said. No dice. Instead she crisply said, "Well, have a good night then." Was she closing our conversation before it even opened? I recovered from shock in time to say, "Hey! That's not nice. You were supposed to make me feel better." But she rejoined, "Well, I'm sorry if I didn't," without missing a beat.

SPH's website says you can call if you merely need to talk to someone who cares. But if you really need this, I hope you have a better option or that you at least get a better operator.

Obamarama

Just for fun I googled "Obamarama" and I got a little story by Ralph Nader that I hope is unfair. It depicts Obama as ... well, I hope it's not fair. Obama is a politician, so he's going to make some unsavory friends. So what? Would he be doing his job otherwise? If you wanna check it out it's http://www.counterpunch.org/nader01072008.html . I guess Ralph Nader won't be getting a cabinet appointment anytime soon.

Some of My Artwork has been Digitized

I found this old disk with some of my art on it! I hope I have enough time to upload at least one image. C'mon image ... Ok, that didn't work. Later, then.

There is so much for me to write, and so much for me to do. It isn't like being unemployed, hanging around here. One quiet thing I could do so as to be productive while Mom is relaxing after work is to research HTML guides since mine is missing and she wants me to write her a website -- something I haven't done in 14 years.

In Fairness to my Mother

Some corrections regarding recent posts (all dated April 2009:)

#1 Mom did everything possible to save her tooth, notwithstanding the cost. I hadn't known that.

#2 Mom generally fed us much better than I've seen my sister feed her kids. What I said about us eating that way when we were kids was in reference to occasional simple meals designed to get us through a few hours between substantial meals.

#3 Mom had a response to the letter I published. We discussed it and I think we both learned something.

Pursuant to Previous Post

It occurs to me that the guy I quoted was overlooking the idea that his assertion is dependent on conditions; sometimes demand is the controlling factor, but sometimes supply is, right? I mean, the banks couldn't lend if they had nothing to lend, right? So now they have something. I think they should be emboldened to embrace the demand that's right there in place right now, even if it means, as another respondent suggested, having loans underwritten by the government and made through the banks.

Giving Credit where Credit is Due

I took the liberty of cutting and pasting this comment from an MSN feedback space. The writer was responding to the MSN journalists' assertion that TARP participating banks' continued cautionary lending practices were necessary and for the best.

KOJAK41#8
Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:04:46 PM
Kenyes said that trying to end a depression by giving money to banks is like pushing a string. Businesses invest and banks lend not because they have money, but because they see a demand for their products on which they can earn a profit. You have to stimulate demand to get the system going again. Of course you also have to make sure the banks are still there to make loans and cash consumer's checks, but restarting demand is the key.
ReplyReport Abuse

OK, good, start demand. That sounds good to me, for whatever it's worth coming from someone who took up 9 credits of economics. It sounds like the President has that end in hand too.

But what about the demand that's being wasted because applicants for loans are being turned away? Another respondent likened the banks' behavior to the bad guy in Total Recall turning off the air so all the Martians suffocated.

Oh, what to do, what to do. I wish I were smarter than I am, and I'm glad some people are smart enough to fix things.

I'm also glad that the economy is something seeded within our species that will naturally reassert itself despite vicissitudes. After all, even feudalism didn't kill the economy, because an economy was right there in place for Renaissance merchants to pick up and improve on when the time came. A few robber barons won't get the best of us if a slew of feudal lords couldn't.

Pictures

I have to save up a few bucks to liberate the rest of my pictures from my phone, but here are a few nice ones that I have already sent (to my own email address, by way of harvesting them from the phone.) They include some very recent photos of myself, about an hour old.

History will Not be Kind

Some of the radical right-wing emails made their way to me via a friend in Pennsylvania who's not always judicious about what he sends on (and sometimes sends silly things just to see what I think of them.) I remember a quote from one such, "... health care is a privilege, not a right."

When a Care-2 journalist wrote that tea-party protesters who tried to label the president as "Fascist" and "Socialist" should probably get it together and decide which one, one of the people said journalist referred to as "wing-nuts" wrote to his comment space saying, "Fascism leads to Socialism. What part of that do you not understand." Then it clicked -- right wing propaganda began to make some sort of sick sense to me. To these people, any government powerful enough to implement a healthy dose of Socialism to help the people is more powerful than it has a right to be.

I walked into a barbershop the other day and saw a pastel portrait of the Gipper on the wall. On the opposite wall was a picture of the relatively benign Mrs. Reagan, whom I actually kind of like. In any event, it seems to me that the radical right uses the Gipper like the radical left uses Che Guevera -- they use it to offend any moderate who comes through the door.

History will not be kind to the radical right.

(How do you spell Gipper, by the way? And where did he get the moniker -- from a movie, perhaps?)

pursuant to last post

OK, lemme explain that: Dad pulled me out with a clumsy contraption that could not have been used to get me very far, just out of the ditch. He bumper pushed me a few yards to the side of Ripken's driveway so that I would not block it.

what happened last night

Last night's events deserved a blog post carefully crafted by someone who had nothing to do but blog. Unfortunately, it'll get a brief treatment by yours truly instead.

One of my sisters -- call her Caroline -- is staying at my house, which is why I'm not. She's taking great care of the place and of my cat. The problem is, she can't help me pay the taxes on the place because... she hasn't been herself... she's so ill she doesn't know she's ill.

I rode in and tried to talk her into getting some disability benefits, which she may do, but not because she aknowledges her illness. She'll likely go in (to the government office or a law office) and talk about her "broken" back and all the conspiracies she imagines are being perpetrated against her and maybe some savvy bureaucrat or lawyer will pick up on her affliction and send her home with a fortune in back-benefits. That's what I hope will happen, not because I'm jonesing to get my taxes paid, but because she should have the money and the therapy. I or my father could file for a temporary guardianship of her to apply for benefits on her behalf if she won't do it, or if it somehow doesn't work. There are things we can try. I querried the neigbor's mother who's been through this, and she knows her way around the system somewhat. She's in our corner.

To get my sister's attention I splurged on an $18 meal at a diner for us, but she spent much of our time talking to the waitress. Still, I made some progress.

One interesting thing is, she seemed to be afraid that I wanted to get her into section eight housing and out of my house. It was after I told her that I wanted her to stay that I really started making headway.

Late at night, on the way back to my mother's house, I took an exit near the Mason-Dixon line in pursuit of gas. I was running low, so when I took a wrong turn and lost sight of civilization I pulled over and turned on the flashers. A stranger stopped and offered to lead me to the gas station, but when I turned to follow him the car died in a ditch and I supposed I had run out of gas, but I was wrong. Later the stranger returned with his calling card and $25 wherewith I could fill the tank whenever I managed to get out of the ditch. When my father arrived to pull me out with a tow hitch, he and a cop checked out the car. The timing belt had broken, something the cop said was inevitable. After we had it safely parked near Cal Ripken's driveway to await a more affordable tow the next day, my father said that I had not run out of gas; it was all the timing belt. Thank God. I didn't want to be at fault for that misadventure. Dad is paying to have the car repaired, and Mom still hasn't noticed that it's missing.

I need to write to the stranger who left his card!

And I should not neglect to mention the other stranger who, like my father, brought me gas. I'm sorry I didn't get up and shake his hand as I did the other stranger's. At the time I might have done so, the police were already there and it was cold and the thought of getting out of the car didn't have time to process and bear fruit.

as ignorant as a 21st century tea partier

Pursuant to a recent post, I realize that, to some degree, people are all ignorant. I'm sure there were people among the tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of people at the rallies who knew lots of stuff that I don't know and vice versa.

The point really is, how can they protest something they don't really understand? By now they must know that there's homework to be done, and the ideas are all pretty accessible via newspapers and the internet. I'm angry because they chose to make fools of themselves and menace the rest of us without doing their homework -- in at least one case without bothering to think things through.

The one case I refer to is that of a woman who's afraid of the layoffs she's having to make and the changes she's having to go through. And for this she wants to pin the tail on us donkeys? It's like there isn't a thought in her head -- just a bestial, emotional reaction. (I read about her on MSN shortly after the event happened.)

more bitchin' 'bout sissy's kitchen

Um, it's like, she said she only has one pot. That sounds like a dead giveaway that meals don't include a variety of food. And that's what we figure kids need -- variety, lots of amino acids to combine for great nutrition.

midnight munchies -- why I should always count calories

Here's why I should always count calories. I've got the midnight munchies, and I don't know if I should be hungry or not -- whether I actually need the nourishment or would do better without it. As it is, I'll try to grab a quick workout (even unemployed, it's so hard to schedule anything -- been doing daywork for Mom and scratching chores off my to-do list, while sharing space and resources) and have a banana.

What I ate today was cereal with nuts, 6 fl oz of peanuts (700 calories?) a fistful of chocolate chips, rice, asparagus, banana, 1/2 apple, toast with jam, and two bites of chicken pattie (terrible thing to do to a bird, but it wasn't my idea.) You know, I think I'm entitled to my midnight banana.

Adventures in Babysitting

My neice Ally, aged 13 1/2 can't be bribed. I asked the girls what it would take to get them to go outside on a beautiful day like today. "So many times people try to encourage kids to do things that are good for them, but they forget the power of the 'almighty' dollar." But Ally answered for all of them, saying that she does what she wants to do without being paid, and no amount of money could get her to do anything she wasn't already inclined to do.

The shattering glass shattered my evening when a glass pot lid exploded in the kitchen. Big cleanup without the proper tools. Sad waste of food; fortunately, it was only the pasta that was compromised and had to be thrown out.

I had bought some food to supplement what my sister left me to cook for the kids. I wanted us to be nourished, but all she'd left us was pasta and French fries. The kids and I ate bananas, tofu, tuna, veggies, baked goldfish snack crackers ("the snack that smiles back") and some reasonably wholesome ice cream and cookies. They passed on the beans and yam. Amy (my sister) said I shouldn't have spent my money that way, that she had enough stuff in the house to nourish her kids, and that, well, OK, it was up to me if I wanted to spend the money. But what could I do? How can kids go eight hours with a diet no more varied and inclusive than pasta and French fries. I know we had that stuff when we were kids, but that's back in the day when people didn't know any better. The body knows how to heal itself, but it needs the right stuff.

Thank God for the food bank I frequented in Seattle. Unlike the food banks I had been used to (Hanover, Pennsylvania,) they provided fresh fruits and vegetables.

[This post was pre-empted by reality when someone else needed the computer. I decided to post it as written, without going back and trying to finish it; that way it's a more realistic slice of my life.]

Ignorant, radical fringe hosts "tea parties"

Yeah yeah, we know, we know.

I wrote this to a friend, and it sums up my frustration:

I'm so angry at the anti-tax protesters right now that I had to tell someone. (You're the only one who wrote back to me today so I decided to tell you. Thanks for letting me vent.) Don't they know anything about Keynsian economics? How much do they think their currency is going to be worth if it sits in their pockets while the country sinks? If we can just grow our economy the payments on the national debt will be chicken poop. I know that you know that. Why doesn't everybody know that? Ignorant people have been whipped into a frenzy by sore-loser politicians.

Mom lost a tooth trying to save the house

... I wish she hadn't done that. Your health is your true wealth. That's where the investment belongs. I know everyone needs a home to be healthy, but I wish she had taken out a reverse mortgage so that she could have retired and taken care of herself.

It's tricky because everyone needs a legacy, and the house is her chosen legacy. Still, if she could only afford half a house as her legacy, wouldn't that be OK?

I don't remember how many times I tried to talk her into that reverse mortgage. I hope it wasn't just that once, after it was too late (the house had lost value.)

And I wish I hadn't bummed money from her when I needed it (usually for taxes.) As far as I can see, people who do this either buy their relative's impoverished lifestyle or they buy themselves some karma. So maybe I've bought myself some karma...

But I didn't choose Mom's all-out self-sacrificing campaign to save the house. So maybe it's not karma. I can't quite wrap my head around it. But one thing's for sure. It sucks to see that tooth missing.

Letter to Mom

I dashed off this email to my mother. To an extent it's self-explanatory to outsiders (and the rest of the meaning doesn't signify to outsiders,) so I think it makes sense to post it as is. It's interesting that a note like this could come from someone like me, because I'm actually very meek, but the note is quite assertive and doesn't bother with tact.

I'm very nervous in the hour before you head to work, because this is an hour during which I almost certainly will be severely chided for something by which I am completely blindsided. I didn't hear you ask for your butter tub of food this afternoon. As far as I was concerned, you'd already packed (as in, put in your lunch bag on the chair) any food you'd wanted to take, but had forgotten the bottle, which was the only thing i heard you ask for. Sure, I heard you say you were packing a butter tub of food last night but it didn't signify (a) because it was several hours ago and (b) because, again (and again and again, since it didn't come across to you when I said it) I thought that was already in your bag or purse, or on the chair. And these are not conscious thoughts of mine -- nothing at the forefront of my mind, nothing being actively thought about, because the only mention of a butter tub of food I EVER heard of was over TEN HOURS ago -- completely outside of the context of this afternoon's request.

Getting someone in a position where they can be shouted down [I should have somehow indicated that she had raised her voice and my heart rate without actually accusing her of shouting, because in fact she was not quite shouting] at any time without warning puts them on red alert for the ENTIRE time. And our lives have enough stress without you doing this. I'm letting you know now, because if you care, you'll stop. If you don't care there's nothing I can ever say that will influence you.


Speaking to my father today, I recalled some impressions of my mother's stress-inducing behavior that I had when I was six. I felt like, when Mom was around, strife could appear out of nowhere without warning, so it was a little nerve-wracking to hang out with her. When I was ten I used to meditate to get my stress level down, but my mother would sometimes yell at me for meditating because I looked like I was doing nothing. When I tried to explain to her that she was undoing my healing and that I would need more time to heal again, she insited on taking it as a threat that I would be idle to somehow requite her for interactions I didn't like. She therefore took my statement very, very badly, furiously intoning, "I will not be threatened."

It's a Heartache

Mom said she hoped my blogging was something I could do quickly and get out of the way. The whole idea is very sad. To me, blogging is the most accessible and likely thing that I can savor and enjoy if I ever get around to doing it right. With Mom, it's too often a matter of figuring out how much I can forego. Is there something that makes me happy? Then how little of it can I get by with?

And persuant to my previous post, it turned out the way I had feared it would -- I didn't get a pass on all the time I spent being frustrated and faked out. Mom said I hadn't been productive enough to justify all the time. I just knew that would happen. But all the while, I couldn't find a way to prevent it. I tried. When I thought I had a few minutes to fill before I could enjoy the computer (without the television dominating the room or Mom hovering and wanting to interrupt,) I fed the dogs, cleared away things in the kitchen and mopped some floors. After that, I didn't know how to fill the blocks of time because I could not anticipate how big they would be. I might have done laundry if I could have seen the future. But I really thought from moment to moment that my chance to do my own thing was just around the corner, and that I would miss it if I committed to anything that took two minutes or two brain cells. I got anxious because I could see (again, from moment to moment) that there was no way around the predicament. In the end I was going to get rushed and shushed through the little joy at the end of a challenging day, and then I would be told that I hadn't accomplished very much.

Brain Dump

I ran out of money and Jobs in Seattle. My sister is living in my house in Pennsylvania. So I'm staying with my Mother indefinately. The dynamic is a challenge. Starting when I was twenty and increasingly thereafter, my mother has insisted that I be productive when I'm around her. It was a shock I've only recently gotten used to. While she was watching TV tonight I went nuts trying to go be productive somewhere so that, when she and the television surrendered the livingroom, I would be allowed to use her computer without ultimately being challenged over how little work I had gotten done. She faked me out a lot. For the last two hours she said she was leaving the livingroom, and eventually she did technically get a few feet distant. She would come back to the computer and then later on ask me to look at some paperwork and I felt like my attention was being smeared around like lip gloss on a billboard. I didn't know what to do. It was all start and stop and hurry up and wait. And now I feel like she's hovering, waiting to ask for more attention without notice. I told her I needed a strategy for nights like this. She said they only come at tax time, but I doubt it. It all feels too familiar.


Throughout my days, I think of things to write about and I'm lucky if any of them ultimately make it to my blog.


Friday and Saturday I'll be babysitting. My sister's three kids, aged 9 - 12, are almost too old to need this. It's only because she'll be away for many hours that she needs someone to be there for most of the time. I'll need money for this. I'm broke. Two of the young ladies are sick. I hope I don't catch a virus. I just got rid of one.


I'm still feeling the anxiety of a frustrating evening. It shows in my writing even when I'm not writing about the things that challenged me this evening. I want to relax and write creatively. I want to reach inside for something wonderful to say. It's not happening yet.


The gal in the picture is an elephant whose name I forgot. I saw her dancing at the zoo. Apparently she is self-taught (as a dancer,) having grown up at the zoo and not at a circus. Apparently she is self-motivated, repeating her routine when a new crowd assembles to watch her. Maybe the elephants draw straws over who will go out and entertain the crowd on any given day. Surely the elephant knows she is adored and wants to make us happy.


My computer screen was damaged in transit... and now my mother is talking ... and now I'm back. Yes, my computer is not functioning ... and now my mother is talking ... and so I have to borrow my mother's computer. Could I drum up $50 for a used monitor? Maybe, but here's the thing -- That kind of money is generally spent on "the top emergency," which may not be a computer monitor in the very near future. Same thing with the art guild I'd wanted to join once. $40 was never ventured on a membership, because membership was never the top emergency. These are the things that are one step beyond the things you merely can't afford. They're just a little further out of reach. Although I have to admit, the monitor is closer to emergency status (and therefore more accessible) than the guild membership. Because every night when the boob tube goes on I will be reminded of its importance.

Anwar, my Egyptian. I'd had something to say about him but I forgot it. I just remembered it. I seem to be at a loss when it comes to discerning peoples' boundaries, so I realize I can't get anywhere near Anwar's. He has a new lady, so he probably doesn't welcome any communication from me. I'm lucky I thought to send this before the door closed ... Oh, never mind what I sent. Who cares. Nobody reads the boring stuff I write. Mom just did another famous fillibuster. I can't be as productive around here as I'd like to be because I'm simply not allowed to concentrate.