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You Say Mid-life Crisis Like it's a Bad ThingYou got any snarky friends who, whenever you get restless and start to stir things up go around declaring you’re having a “midlife crisis”? Yeah, me too. They aren’t saying anything directly to me, of course, but you can see it written all over their faces – right along with the concern that I should do a better job of looking and acting “my age.” What I can’t figure out is what is wrong with a midlife crisis? Why shouldn’t one, when coming to a transitional period in their life, take an assessment and see if they are headed in the direction that leads to where they want to end up. Old Chinese proverb: “If we do not change the direction we are going we are likely to end up where we are headed.” I think that applies outside of China as well. Can anyone explain to me why we have to lower our standards, stop creating goals for ourselves and not change anything significant once we hit midlife? Do you know what happens when you are no longer working toward a goal – when you have arrived and there are no more paths to explore? You start to die. What the hell do you think all those zombie movies are about? Go to Wal Mart on a Saturday afternoon – lots of people walking around waiting to die. “The Weekend of the Living Zombies” coming to a Wallie World near you! I made the mistake of going into our local Wal Mart one Saturday – had a few items to pick up, so I was searching around for this and that – couldn’t help but overhear snatches of conversation as I passed people. By the time I’d picked up half what I came for I had to put it down and walk out of the store. I went back to the car laughing my ass off – at me. I stood by that car for a while shaking my head, laughing and muttering to my self, “I do not live here, I really do not live here,” over and over for a few seconds before I got in. Don’t worry, I always park a good distance away from the front door – didn’t scare anybody: “Get behind me, kids, there’s a lady over there having a midlife crisis.” Actually I’m on my second midlife crisis now. There’s no rule you can only do it once. The first one I didn’t get quite right so I’ve got to take a do-over. First time around I panicked, got upset and tried to make some of what was going wrong around me go right. I just had to fix it – didn’t work, but my vocal cords got a good work out. There were things in my vicinity that I had detested for years and I was determined to bring about an improvement in that – to get something done! Well, I’ve got a small shed built and a new garden in – finally got a dryer hooked up – wheeee! When that’s earth shattering progress, it’s time to blow something up! Damn, no grenade! I discovered I have tendencies that can be out-waited. Deb will get some idea that she wants to do this or that . . . just wait for a while and she’ll wear herself out trying to get it started and compromise – or if we really dig in our heels she just might give up altogether. Aha! I’m onto that one. If I’m having to effort like crazy it ain’t gonna happen, is it? So I gave up completely and tried to “play well with others.” Damn near killed me! Put that down on your report – “does not play well with others” – yup, that’s me. Do you think something should be done about it – got some nice meds to offer? Here I am smack in the middle of midlife crisis number two – found me something bigger than a grenade and I didn’t even have to pull the pin – it blew up all by itself. Those around me hope I get over it soon . . . well, some of them. Others are thrilled to see me still kicking – and harder, too. I’m fortunate. I’ve got my “You go, gurl,” team. Do you have one? – if not, go get one right now and treasure them. They are your lifeline. They will get you through this. My team is all younger than I am – a couple are starting to just sneak up on a good crisis themselves. I’m their scout – running ahead to survey the territory, find the quicksand, mark the good paths. In exchange they are providing me with purposes and ideas worth living for. Zombie-hood is not anything to aspire to . . . trust me – it stinks of rot. So yeah, lets get it on – midlife crisis – the remix. I’m shedding excess baggage, anchors, tie-downs, anything that is preventing me for living my dream – and I’m adjusting the dream for my new circumstances. No kids that need me all that much anymore – what to do, what to do? There’s the empty nest syndrome – I could try that. Nope, too boring – don’t care to reduce myself to being defined by my children. I know, I’ll go join a ladies social club where we can all do daring new things like have macadamia nuts in our brownies and painting the window boxes on the town bridge a zingy new color . . . hell, we can use words like “zingy” and be a cute, peppy little bunch. Sure, and could we chase that with a handful of Valium and a bottle of Tequila? Maybe “Brave New World” was a good idea after all. Nope, ain’t happening – what to do . . . get some leathers and join a motorcycle club? Ride around, drink beer, ride some more, drink some more beer – hang out with guys with beer bellies. Damn, that was starting to sound fun till it got to the beer bellies. What do you do while you’re drinking all that beer, anyway? I saw a big guy in full leathers smash a beer can on his forehead once. Didn’t do it for me. If this is the extent of your goals by the time you hit midlife – if you decide to take a walk on the wild side and become a non-conformist by joining a social club that shows their liberation by all wearing a daring color – the same daring color for everyone – you might be in need of a good, healthy midlife crisis too. You should consider it . . . how am I doing mine? No, see, that’s the point – it’s not what I’m doing. It’s what you want to do. You want to do what you are doing? You like going to work, coming home and watching some shows on your new flat screen TV, going to bed, getting up and doing the same thing the next day – great, more power to ya, but could I just point a little something out? This world is going to hell. There are all sorts of people who are begging for help, who need someone desperately and there’s no one there to throw them a lifeline. Everyone’s too busy working, watching TV and going to their comfy beds all nice an secure. You could be that lifeline, you know. You could switch something up. You could take some time to make some noise or do something to make life easier for someone. That doesn’t grab your interest – just raises the guilt factor a bit – whoa – oh, I’m not looking to do that – screw guilt! How about taking up trapeze lessons? Become a bodybuilder – take up jujitsu – get some armor and join a medieval sword fighting group. That’s some serious fun, I got to tell you. Gets your body moving radically. If the body isn’t in shape enough get it in shape. It’s good for you! You could extend yourself – move out of your comfort zone. Leave your grandkids a world that is just a bit better or give them a grandparent that can keep up. You don’t have to be a zombie – there are options – and there is nothing wrong with pursuing those options. Be prepared – your going to get some flack for this. That’s what’s so scary about those zombie pictures, don’tchya know. They want to turn you into a zombie too. Zombies are not of the live-and-let-live persuasion. In an earlier time, before they reached total zombiehood they kept track of everybody else’s business and made people’s lives miserable – now they’re making their own life miserable. It’s what they do. A major part of a successful midlife crisis
is finding out which ones of your friends and family are infected with
the zombie bug and getting them over it or at a considerable distance.
These people aren’t always readily apparent. The ones that sit there
and fuss at you about how you are choosing to live – those are easy,
but they are not your biggest problems. No, the big problem you will run
into is the “nice” people in your life. Ahhh, she’s
so nice . . .he’s so nice . . . stay, be nice too. Here, have a
nice glass of wine and watch some nice TV, think nice thoughts and be
happy. You’ve lived a good life. Now is your time to relax –
enjoy life – die before you use up too much Social Security (oops,
did I say that? Sorry) No!!! Don’t listen to them. Go have yourself
a midlife crisis. Switch the shit all up. Do what I like to do when in
a rut – pull a pin on a grenade and jump really fast, but don’t
get caught by the n-i-c-e patrol. They lie. The quicksand of life has
a sign over it – one word – “nice”. Save yourself
my friend. If you really don’t want to save yourself, you’re
happy with nice, you don’t mind zombies – you are a zombie.
Then step aside, sweetie – midlife crisis comin’ through –
it was nice knowin’ ya. Grow Old Gracefully My Ass!I’m officially old – one friend even referred to me as elderly, though at the time he didn’t realize the age group to which he was referring was the age group into which I fit. How old am I? Well if you are reading this before August, 2009 I’m 59 years old. I’ve given birth to 6 children and I’ve lived hard – no smooth and easy road for this itch. So that’s cool, right? I’ve progressed into the realm of the wise old crone and am now valued and revered – that’s the way it works? Not on your life! You see, I refuse to grow old gracefully and somehow that’s not acceptable in this society. I find myself confronted with accusations of being “afraid to grow old,” like somehow “old” has some socially accepted landmarks which must be met. Is there an “old people’s” union out there I’m not aware of that has set some sort of moral high-ground to infirmity and ceasing to live before you’re body is actually dead? Such comments are usually presented as a simple concern for my welfare, as if being older also makes me so gullible I’ll swallow that poison and call it chocolate. There is something I was supposed to do or have happen to my body by this time that has not yet come to pass and it’s apparently my fault – I’m not doing it right, you see. I’m a traitor to my age group for enjoying new experiences, staying in shape and dressing and acting like I still have a life – like I’m still living a life, not sitting around waiting to die. I find myself defending my choices. Okay, so y’all think you want me on the defensive – it’s on . . . ! Quote by Herbert Spencer: “The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.” Hey, I’d be the first to agree that Herbert Spencer had some serious deficiencies in his thinking. If there’s such a thing as hell he’s a prime candidate for burning in it. He was the true author of the phrase, “survival of the fittest,” and the egotistical fool actually believed that many people were not fit to live and should be killed – oh yeah, and he was just the person to determine who those people would be – aint’ that always the case with those guys. Okay, he didn’t state it exactly that way, but euthanasia is killing no matter how you try to pretty it up. Still, even a rampaging blunder of that magnitude doesn’t mean he got it all wrong. The greatest evil on earth can not exist without decency and truth to feed upon. It takes some mighty strong truths to lubricate the insertion of an obscene concept like eugenics into civilized society – and the above quote was one of those truths. For once the dude was right. There is such a thing as physical morality, or more accurately, physical ethics. Ethics and morality are not precisely the same thing, contrary to what Spencer thought. You have an obligation to reasonably take care of your body so that you can continue to be a fully functioning member of society for as long as possible. Note, I said “reasonably take care of” not obsess about. That body exists for your use – it’s not senior to you. There is no expiration date on human bodies – nothing that says “Best if used by ----,” but if you don’t maintain that body you have then it will have problems and those problems will require money for repairs and time off and who is going to pay for that and pick up the slack? Deciding to keep as vibrant and healthy a body as possible no matter what your physical age is the ethical choice to make in a physical world and that is the choice I tend to make on a daily basis. I swear . . . if I hear one more person holding forth on “welfare mothers” and how they are sucking the hard workers among us dry while that self-same person is puffing on a cigarette over a plate of fatty, salty, processed food and a soda while nursing every crappy self-pitying thought till it becomes their reason for being I shall throw a green and purple snit the likes of which has not been seen since the last nuclear explosion. In my family we exercise, indulge in yummy but not good-for-you food and drink in moderation and do what is necessary to maintain a constructive mental attitude. We pay for medical insurance and seldom need a doctor so many of the insurance dollars that come from our hard-earned money go to pay for the lifestyle choices of those who consider excessive indulgence to be a way of life – to be their right – and it is – right up to the point that they expect me to pay for the consequences of their actions. I’ve no quarrel with those who are confronting genuine illness or disability through no responsibility of their own. Shit happens and I’m happy to be able to help out, but that’s not where the majority of our health dollars go. Most disease and illness today is caused by poor lifestyle choices and ya know what? The people in this country are not so stupid that they don’t know that. Why do we need documentaries and all sorts of articles on how constantly eating fast food, smoking, not exercising and maintaining a loosing attitude will ruin your health – like that’s news that we don’t know?! The only people who find that sort of sorry excuse for news worth the energy and time it takes to produce and consume it are the people who would like the rest of us to believe that their physical condition is not of their own making – that they really didn’t know and aren’t responsible. Dude, you knew damn well if you lived on burgers, fries and soda and you sat at your desk all day and you kept making excuses for why you didn’t have the time to move that body of yours while moaning about how unfair your life is you would eventually wind up a mess with all sorts of health problems and the rest of us would have to cover for you. You knew! Don’t trot out some sorry crap about how hard you work or how tough you have it to those of us who are picking up the slack for you. We’re carrying plenty of our own problems as well as the ones you’ve dumped on us. Again – those of you who have unavoidable physical challenges – I’m not referring to you so don’t get all defensive. In fact you might want to recognize – you pay a higher price for these people’s indulgences than the rest of us do. You may be paying with your life. How much of our research time and money is being spent on finding drugs, surgeries and other treatments for preventable diseases that could be dedicated to finding a cure or solution for what you’re living with? Yes, we all make mistakes. You fucked without a condom and without checking your partner out and now you have AIDS – bad mistake on your part – bummer of a penalty to pay for a momentary lapse made in a moment of passion. Shit happens. But you don’t get fat and unhealthy by eating a pint of ice cream and zoning out in front of the TV all night a few times a year because you’re feeling down and have chosen to lick your wounds for a day or two before picking yourself back up. I know that for certain – I’ve tested it. Barring unavoidable injury or disease, you have to make the same bad choices over and over and over and over again, day after day after day to wind up severely overweight and/or aging fast and at the mercy of the health care industry for the rest of your life. I feel for ya – I do, I’ve got a serious sweet-tooth demon I fight constantly myself, but don’t make me the fall guy or safety net for what you do. And when age catches up with you and your arthritis is killing you and you look like the accepted version of 60 when you’re, let’s say . . . 55, don’t sit there and say I’m the one with the problem because I don’t look or act the same. Don’t tell me I don’t look and act my age. I do look my age. This is what my age looks like, this is what my age acts like – on me. On you it probably looks different. Guess what – we are not the same person. You choose what works for you and leave me the fuck alone! I don’t care to hold your choices over you until you start insisting my lack of noticeable physical issues is somehow an indication of a problem on my part. How one ages is a private matter – I don’t expect you to explain yourself – now return the favor and let me handle my body my way and age the way I choose. Come back here – I’m not finished! Once past the body issue in general we come to the body issue in gender. This body I’m running these days is female. Where is it written that that means once I pass “a certain age” I automatically become sexless? Apparently when a woman is no longer able to bear children she’s supposed to forget she ever had sexual organs except for her yearly check up at the gynecologist. Oh for heaven’s sake. If we aren’t supposed to use them, why keep them? Why not take them out and be done with it? No – forget I said that. I was being sarcastic, but I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with more than one doctor who actually agreed with that. Fortunately for me, unfortunately for the doctor’s bottom line, I effectively resisted and I still have all the sexual body parts I was born with and, (gasp!) I intend to keep using them. There is such a thing as sex for the glorious pleasure of being totally connected to one who you value, physical loving for the pure joy of stepping beyond social limits and just being together as man and woman – or woman and woman or man and man if that’s what works for you. This is not predicated on the ability to procreate. There is no mandate that once a woman reaches menopause she then must cease to look and act as a desirable sexual being. Supposedly we have evolved past the narrow, controlling view of sex as something that should only be used to produce more bodies a long time ago. We don’t take issue with masturbation, oral sex or any other consensual practice that isn’t going to create anything more than a relaxed and happy feeling – so what’s with the sexless older woman routine?! It is true that bodies change as they age, and not for the better, but experience can make for a skilled and more appreciative lover. Older women who have lived a full and active life do not take their lovers for granted. We have something unique to offer that only comes with years of living and can’t be bought or faked. “Is that how cougars get the attention of younger men,” you might ask. Yup. It’s been my experience that men don’t generally have as much of a hang-up about a woman’s age in relationship to her sexuality as women themselves do. The fact that a few insecure men reach for continually younger and younger sexual partners does not speak for all men. Many find an older woman with some experience appealing, even challenging – and we can heal insecurities as well. We’re not as easy on the eyes, but that is compensated for by the fact that we are much easier on the ego – at least if we’ve been paying attention as we’ve gone through life. We know how to make a man feel good about himself – so much so that if a man encounters an older woman who still makes continual stabs at men’s balls he isn’t going to kid himself into thinking she’s just misunderstood or just “needs the right man.” He knows – pass on that one. Just because an older woman no longer has the physical bloom of a woman in the prime of her reproductive years is not a reason to stop bothering to do anything to enhance one’s appeal, either. Good gawd, what are men supposed to do when presented with a body that screams at them that this person no longer values the gender of her body? You can’t blame a man if he respects that choice and does not see you as a potential sexual partner. He’s reading the signs that you put up and acting accordingly – what did you expect? However, there is another side to this coin. There is a kind of man who just has to see a woman only as her gender. He can not relate to her as anything else. Now if these men would confine themselves to women who see themselves only as female that would be fine, but the damn fools see in every woman they deal with someone who must bend to the expectations that they have of her because of her gender. If that is what a woman is surrounded by I can see where she would be inclined to just cut the gender routine off altogether once the kids are grown and gone – maybe even before then – if she wants to be taken seriously by the opposite sex. You guys are a pain in the ass when you get on this kick. Don’t say it’s just very masculine guys who do this and not today’s more enlightened man. It’s the really tough, masculine men who are most likely not to try to force a woman into the role of her gender. In fact, I’ve found that the strong men are inclined to expect a woman to function as an individual first and a woman second – and they can be quite surprised and disappointed if she does not. The enlightened feminist male is the one I’ve found to be a screaming walking set of gender assignations and assumptions. He’s just got to try to force his considerations on what women are or should be into my reality – it never works – just pisses me off. Guys, never try to teach a pig to sing. You’ll frustrate yourself and irritate the pig. Don’t try to teach me to be the woman you want me to be either – same results. This body I have, it is getting older. It takes more to maintain it now than it did and it’s not at the same level of function it once was, but it ain’t dead yet. I intend to get as much use out of it as I can. I don’t know how long I have it for – no way to accurately assess that. I’ll be 60 this summer – me – 60! I never saw that coming. When I was younger I was sure I wouldn’t live to where anyone would think of me as “old.” If I’d known I’d get this far I’d have done a few things differently. I don’t expect to make it to 80 now, but just in case I do see the other side of 80 – or 90 – or beyond I’m making sure that the experience will be worth the trip, for me and my fellow travelers. I’m eating better, exercising more and embracing a more emotionally healthy outlook. That is the ethical choice. That is how you grow old responsibly – fuck the graceful part. Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Good advice – these rants are my practice so when this body finally fails me I can get it on with a good rage. Think you’ve got a better idea – be selfish – don’t share it with me. This piece was written a number of years ago. My own children are mostly grown now, but there are plenty of other parents out there that would say the same thing today.
WITHOUT APOLOGY Enough already with the moaning and groaning from all you “child-free-by-choice” folks about the burdens of having to put up with and/or subsidize our filthy, ill tempered, snotty-nosed children. First of all, your portrayal of the nature of children is excessively inaccurate when related to the vast majority of kids; I assume, being at best unfamiliar with them on any large scale you are basing your opinion on what you were like as a child. Part of the problem is a simple matter of differences in lifestyle: you want to be able to take a plane without listening to screaming kids (guess what - so do we actually, but child rearing has made us realists), we just yearn for an uninterrupted bath. Those of us who have chosen parenthood or had it thrust upon us (might as well be honest, an awful lot of parents are of the “ooops” variety) are not exactly whooping it up while we are molding society’s future. You don’t like the job we are doing? Weeeeell, you know what they say, “If you want a job done right, do it yourself”. This is a job that has to be done before all others. What do you think would happen if a disease swept through humanity and only wiped out the children – all our future generations? There would be no one to take your place when you were ready to retire, no one to ineptly wait on you when you need groceries, etc. Do I need to go on? Are you capable of using your own imagination for just a minute to figure out just how much of your cushy lifestyle depends on those future generations being nurtured, coddled, taught and loved – by others since you won’t do it? Now that I have your imaging capabilities cranked up a bit, let’s review some of your complaints. The one I hear the most is that you want some adult time; you don’t want to deal with kids with their jammy fingers in every part of your day and all of your activities. Boy, can I ever empathize with you on that one!!!! Those of us who are parents feel the same way, but unlike you, we do not have a nice undisturbed home to retire to when the world filled with noisy, messy children becomes too oppressive. Home is ground zero! For many of us, time away from the kids consists of when they are asleep (without that few parents would ever be able to manage more than one child). Oh, before I forget, there’s dinner out once a year on our anniversary; the latter preferably at a very expensive restaurant to lessen the likelihood of their being any kids there (not many parents can afford to treat the little ones at expensive restaurants). So you see, we are almost of the same mind. Where we depart is the source of our considerations. Our wish for some peace and quiet and order comes from an urge to temporarily escape the trenches, where as your wish is one of complete avoidance of anything to do with a job that must be done for your continued welfare. You probably think cleaning your house is better done by someone else too, leaving you to do the more important work. Great, but what would happen to the work you do if all those other people were not there? If we don’t have children around to bother us, many of those you depend on to do this or that won’t be there by the time you’re old. You owe those of us who are raising these kids. We’re bearing the lion’s share of the work from which you will most definitely benefit, from which you benefit now. I’m serious – you owe us! Then there is your complaint about the way children behave in public. I’ll be the first to admit that some of them horrify me too, but what do you expect to happen in a world where parents are both encouraged to work fulltime and leave the kids in daycare? That’s right, I said “encouraged.” A lot of families do not really benefit from the mother working. Crunch the numbers yourself; an average salary, minus daycare, the difference between ready made food and “from scratch” cooking, that second car, work clothes, miscellaneous work expenses, extra doctor bills and medicine due to increased child illness, therapy for the little brat if you are more upper crust, the change in tax status because both partners work – on average, moms (or dads if mom makes the greater salary) are working a 40 hour week for about 30 to 60 dollars. Would you do that? I wouldn’t, which is why I stay home, and possibly why my kids are so well behaved in public – they have to be, I have to put up with them all day. For that matter, what do you expect to happen when the raising of kids takes such a low rating in social importance and significance? I am constantly besieged by feelings that I have wasted my life raising kids instead of becoming a scientist as my guidance counselor once insisted should be my destiny. It does not help that y’all look down on it too! Most of my friends are childless and my own children are fairly well behaved, but they are kids – they slip up at times. I remember a time when the saying, “Children should be seen and not heard” was relegated to mean and cranky Scrooges. Now it is the mantra of trendy singles. Now we get to the nuts and bolts – money. You resent the tax breaks we get for having kids. Do you have any idea what it costs to raise a child? My husband and I are, as I write this, what would be economically considered middle class. Many of my kids are now grown and doing well. We still have one at home and we struggle with the costs of providing for him while paying off the expenses we incurred raising those who have left the nest. Because of a change in the student loan laws of this country my husband and I are also in the enviable position of paying off his student loans and my daughter’s student loan at the same time – lucky us – we sure are asking a lot when we go for those parental tax breaks – just livin’ the high life, we are. I sit here in a hand-me-down shirt that was my son’s, nursing some sore teeth that I can not afford to get fixed, getting ready to change the ice containers in the fridge that is now an ice-box thanks to the fact that it conked out the night before Thanksgiving – we haven’t found a used one we can afford to replace it with yet, and you actually think that I am sponging off you because I get a tax allowance for the one child that is still at home. I get to type this because it is the weekend and son and husband are at a kiddie basketball game. When I am done, I’ll indulge in a bath (can’t afford to put a shower in) and then try to clean the house – why? - I don’t know, t’is like patching the roof in a hurricane, and I’ll be sure to give thanks while I’m doing this to all you childless-by-choice folks who sacrifice so much putting up with children, financing children, all those difficulties that you have to live with whenever you encounter one of us breeders. My gawd, I don’t know how you do it, but I’m sure glad you do, so that us slovenly, greedy, no-good parent types can selfishly raise the future generations that will be shaping how you live the rest of your life. Do you have any idea how unbelievably out of touch with humanity and the real world you are? I’m directing this only to those childless folks who do not like and complain about children, the rest of you are helpful and encouraging and boy, on a tough day with the kids, it is appreciated mightily! For the rest of you, “GET A REALITY CHECK! YOU ARE NOT ROYALTY! WE ARE NOT YOUR SLAVES TO BE TROD ON AT YOUR WHIM!” Y’all need to get off that high horse and join the rest of us on planet earth, and no, that does not mean go rent a kid at the local orphanage for Christmas. CONFESSIONS OF A NON-DOPER I was a teenager in the 60s . . . and my mother taught at Franconia College, one of the ultra liberal colleges that overflowed with dissent and drugs at the time. The vast majority of my friends in those days were heads – one came back from France with a great deal of Sandoz Acid – as good and pure a form of LSD as was possible to get – made by a legitimate pharmaceutical company. Did he sell it? Heck no. He set his alarm for 7am each morning, woke up enough to drop some acid and went back to sleep so he would wake up tripping. That’s the sort of era it was. This of course would mean I was a head too, right? Wrong. Not because of any form of pureness of thought on my part, but because my body refused to cooperate. I turned out to be allergic to the majority of drugs available. My attempt to smoke pot failed miserably. Not only did I not get high, but I developed laryngitis and couldn’t talk for a week – a truly horrific fate for someone of my nature. All this resulted in my going through the 60s trying to “drop out” without any of the popular crutches to assist. I was frequently the only straight and sober person in my group. Remaining straight when all about you are stoned is boring. Everyone is busy being cool and deep in a way that only those who are stoned can understand. To the straight one, it starts to look silly after awhile: “Hey man, hey man, coooool, I mean, water man, it’s life, man.” “Ummmm, yuh, it is.” “Hey man, this is so profound – it’s life man. It’s love. Love is life, water is life, water is love man.” “Guess so, that’s what you said last time, so it must be.” “Naw man, this time it’s different, I mean, water is LOVE man!” OK, the first time, to a teenager in NH, this can sound profound, but around the third or fourth time it starts to sound just straight up stupid. I started to realize that drugs weren’t the answer to living, news that did not thrill me. I was looking for an answer – a quick, easy and certain answer. Drugs were supposed to be it. They cured disease, calmed nerves – and now they were supposed to let us in on the secrets of our mind. It didn’t happen. The druggies did have some laid back ways – they seemed happy. Some took too much and seemed, well, a bit too happy, and some moved on to amphetamines and fried their brains. I watched intelligent, radical, politically active friends learn to accept what was and just chill; saw talented musicians loose all ability to keep time – it was a mess. I started to pay close attention to that man behind the curtain. To this day, drugs are not something I take except under extreme need after a doctor has jumped through multiple hoops convincing me that the prescription he wrote for me is indeed safe. Even then, I resent their intrusion in my life and work toward removing their need. One could say I’m a bit of a health nut. I don’t smoke, never even tried it, don’t drink alcohol beyond maybe one glass every month – might have 3 glasses in a week at Christmas – again, not out of purity, my body just doesn’t tolerate it. I like to use a bit of caffeine once or twice a week and in summer I will actually have caffeine daily at times in the form of a delicious iced tea that I make. I never see tea and coffee as benign drinks – I see them as drug use. I’m not prudish about these things, have even worked as a bartender and/or cocktail waitress, but I don’t kid myself about what the activity of having a couple of drinks or a cup of coffee is, and I don’t think their use on a regular basis is optimum. If my body cooperated and allowed me to do that I still would not do anything differently than I do now. I also see the laws against marijuana as straight out evil. I know police officers that smoke pot. Even those who enforce these laws don’t always obey them. The laws prevent little and harm much. I would rather deal with a pot head than a drunk. Straight up – pot heads do less damage than drunks. Of course, you can enjoy a drink without getting drunk whereas it would be pretty stupid to smoke a joint that didn’t get you high, so pot, over all, is still less benign. I keep alcohol at my house, I won’t allow pot on the premises. No, I don’t give a damn about the laws. I just don’t want it here – it’s my place and I don’t like dealing with dopers when they’re stoned – ‘nough said. When I moved back to Northern New Hampshire with my family after an 18 year absence I ran into yet another reason to not like drug use. My husband is black and suddenly was being invited to all sorts of parties – by pot-heads. A visiting friend of my daughter (also black) was shocked at how many times he was offered pot or invited to parties with an open offer of drugs. He asked me after one such experiences how it was that these people automatically assume that he does drugs. Yeah – that is a good question. Why is it that black folks are automatically assumed to be dopers around here, guys? Neither my husband or my daughter’s friend have shown any indication that they might be into that – so what is it about them that has you thinking they are . . . hmmm? Just askin’ to be difficult – y’all know I know the answer to that one. Yes, this means what you suspected – this brand of weird I’ve got goin’ on is not chemically induced . . . not chemically controlled by meds either. Isn’t it interesting that the same folks that were turning on and dropping out in the 60s are now offering drug solutions to all life’s stresses today. Wonder where that idea came from. Maybe it was that assignment we all had in high school to read “Brave New World.” Smoke enough pot while you are reading that, you could come to think it was written as a good idea. WATCH YOUR MOUTH Words are the evidence of our thoughts. They expose us for who we are and shape the concepts we develop of our world. In cultures where there is no word for a particular feeling or idea that feeling or idea is unknown except for a few difficult individuals who keep reaching beyond the boundaries of space and time to find something more – something they can’t quite put into words, but they know is out there – you know, those mentally ill folks like me. Pity the poor soul that should happen to find himself in a culture that doesn’t have words for things he just knows exist – and isn’t advanced enough to have those lovely Dr Feelgoods to hand him some meds so he can forget about the whole thing. There’s a few folks who’d like to see me on some meds. They can kiss my ass. In this country we have the words, but we tend to be pretty sloppy with our use of them. The ones that bug me the most these days are the words “sensitive” and “aggressive. I’m old enough to remember when “sensitive” was preceded by the word “too” and “aggressive” was a compliment. Lately it’s a good thing to be sensitive, we even force people to take classes in it, and there seems to be no limit to how sensitive one can be before the adjective “too” comes into play. Young men today are properly sensitive or they are not accepted. They leave me wanting to kick them in the balls so they find out they have some, but I’m out-voted. It’s not polite to whack some 20-something young man up-side his small head and holler, “Boy, go on an adventure, cause trouble, challenge the establishment, make a whole lot of noise, get arrested, join the military – jeesh, at least move away from home! Do something that a young man at the peak of testosterone would naturally do! It’s a sad, sorry state of affairs when a woman in her 50s is more inclined to question the established society than a 20-something male. My gawd what are we doing to ourselves? This just is not right. These boys (the term “man” really
shouldn’t be used for a hyper-sensitive male) didn’t cause
this. Our culture caused it with our choice of and twisted definitions
of words. The boy is just doing what he’s been raised to do. “Men
are rapists.” “Men are the source of domestic violence.”
“Men are the reason for our wars.” “Men dominate the
arts and sciences and it’s all their fault.” It seems folks
believe men just contribute way too much to our world on both ends of
the spectrum and they need to stop doing that – to step back and
let women have a chance. Women can’t step up and just do it because
women are victims of men and can’t speak up or protect themselves
from even one man, let alone a whole society of them, so it’s all
men’s fault – all of it. Whatever it is, if it sucks there’s
a man behind it. If it’s powerful, there’s a man behind it,
If it dominates there’s a man behind it. If it’s good and
pure it’s because of a woman’s touch. If it’s struggling,
well it’s because women don’t have equality. If it is victim
– it is female. This, by the way, is not to imply that women shouldn’t
be police officers, soldiers, fire-fighters, etc – got that? Yeah?
You want to explain how that works to me? If men in their natural, aggressive state are the cause of all that is wrong with the world, why would any healthy boy want to become a man? If he loves and respects his mother and she’s promoting “sensitive” as a synonym of goodness and “aggressive” as a synonym for a wife-beating rapist he definitely won’t want to – mustn’t victimize Mommy-dearest – she of the “I am victim, hear me whine” school of feminine strength. He must be a sensitive boy, a good boy, a boy that is never, ever aggressive. He must deny his urges, deny his strengths, deny he has a dick and balls at all. Then, and only then will he be acceptable to our modern women and they shall not set upon him like a flock of hungry harpies. To those people who make a bloody religion out of being sensitive – y’all need to get over yourselves. There is such a thing as someone being too sensitive, and if you even pay attention to how sensitive you are – that would be you. And aggression? Got news for you – you do not want to stamp that attribute out. When the sky turns black and angry and lightning rips through the clouds all around – when the wind tears at your door and your lights blink off leaving you without heat, refrigeration or a way to cook – let me tell you – at that moment a whole lot of very aggressive people, most of them men, are out there climbing poles, dodging falling branches and praying they don’t get electrocuted so you can stay warm and safe at home. Aggression is a very good thing far more often than it is not. As a woman I know I can be as capable, as strong, as smart and as aggressive as a man if I choose to be – I know my condition in life is ultimately my responsibility and I defy anyone to try to take that from me. As a strong, proud woman I find this perversion of the words “sensitive” and aggressive” to be irritating beyond belief. You don’t agree? You need to step up and recognize! GET OVER IT! Have you ever found yourself in a group and stopped yourself from saying something that seemed perfectly harmless, maybe even funny, but you were afraid someone might be sensitive about it? Can you keep track of all the different ways someone might be sensitive? It’s a hell of a conversation checker, isn’t it? Sensitivities have become the new bludgeon of social conversation that make people shut up about all sorts of slightly anti social or simply off-beat feelings they might have and once a person has had a couple of experiences saying something about, oh, say the weather, and found out someone in the crowd is sensitive about that too, thereby leaving the speaker feeling like a callous clod, they pretty much learn to keep to nodding their head affirmatively to everything. This is handy for the truly bigoted among us. It trains them well to keep their thoughts of hate to themselves and only voice them when amongst like minded people, thereby ensuring that they will never be burdened with any dialog that might require that they take any fresh look or new assessment of their feelings. For the rest of us though, we who stumble through life basically trying to do the right thing and not make anyone feel badly if possible, it negates any opportunity for growth or increased understanding through social discourse. I want to know how sensitive someone is over a particular issue about
as much as I want to see their scar from their last surgery, unless it’s
the scar from where the shark bit them. Now that might be interesting!
There could be some sort of “shark bite” types of sensitivities
that might be interesting too, black Americans could probably lay claim
to one, but for the run of the mill, back-of-the-hand-to-forehead, “oh,
how could you say that?” sort of stuff, naw, not interested. Then I tried the reasoned approach. “Let’s look at the facts of the situation. What is really being said here? How strong a person are you? How does this issue measure up in the grand scheme of life? Ha ha ha, yeah, that’s tough, but at least you aren’t living in (name any recent war zone here)”. That got me either agreement, followed by a grand sulk complete with heaving sighs and downcast glances, or a how-dare-you argument – and we’re off! Oh shit. If there are other people around when this happens they would usually look at me like I stepped in some, too. Next I went for the duck-and-cover. INCOMING – run!! You know, these sensitive types are heat-seeking missiles. You can not run long enough or far enough to get away. It gets worse! No matter where you run to you are bound to slam smack dab into yet another dripping case of the sensitives. You start to feel like you are in some sort of horror movie, you ran from the zombies, you got in the house, you bolted the door, you turn around and, “eek”, there are more in the room! I am now onto the “clear the area, stabilize and isolate” approach. “Ooops, I bumped into a sensitive bomb here and now it’s ticking. OK, everybody out! All clear? Good. Now bomb, I am so sorry I bumped into you and started you ticking. You are a lovely little bomb, a sweet little bomb and bombs like you are sooo special. Heh heh, you know I didn’t really mean to joggle you like that, don’t you? Thaaat’s good, you stopped ticking. Whew!” Then I tip-toe out of sight and make a note of the location of that particular bomb so that I do not come too close to it again. If I can, I’ll place markers to warn others, but usually I just have to settle for empathy when I see them stumbling out of the vicinity. “Oh, I see you ran into THE BOMB. Yeah, I ran into that one last October. How bad did it get ya? Aww, don’t feel bad. It was pretty hidden – didn’t see it in time myself.” Do you think I am being callous with this attitude, perhaps cowardly?
Well, from where I stand those folks fling a lot of shrapnel. They are
primed and ready to blow at the slightest touch. They are all full of
wires of different colors and there is only one that you can cut that
will defuse the damn thing. All others will blow it up if you so much
as wiggle them. I’m no expert, but I’ve tried to defuse a
few. Got the wrong wire most of the time and caused an explosion instead.
Splattered green slimy stuff on the poor souls within earshot too. I got
the right wire once and thought I had learned how to defuse bombs. Next
bomb that got jiggled I said, “No problem folks, I can defuse this
thing, just step aside.” They all did, gladly. I cut the same wire
that had worked the last time and BLAM – shrapnel and green slimy
stuff in all directions, everyone is looking at me – and they do
not look happy. Damn, it’s a different wire on different bombs! Let me confess a little bad habit I have. The tears bomb? That really pisses me off. The tears bomb is a dirty bomb. I will attack the tears bomb if there are no children present. “I don’t care if you are going to blow up! I’m going to rip out every damn wire I can find. You may blow up here and now, but I will be DAMNED if you will ever blow up like this again! Bomb look on this face. Remember it honey, cause it is going to teach you the meaning of the word fear! Next thought you get to blow up – you will remember this day and shut your damn mouth! Now eat this!” Then I shove the biggest, nastiest wad of reality I can get my hands on right down its throat and keep shoving till it chokes and turns blue or breaks and runs. Ummm, I didn’t offend anyone who’s sensitive about violence with that paragraph, did I? Don’t want anyone to start cryin’ now. When I go after a tears bomb some well meaning folks will try to come to my target’s aid. That’s where things get tricky because they could be another bomb, in which case I need to protect my flank, but they might just be someone who does not know what it is that I am grappling with. You have to identify them or you will be in danger of creating a ‘bomb protector’ out of an innocent who is just trying to make things nice again. There are folks in this world who will start a campaign to protect a mass murderer as he is bearing down on them, machete in hand if it looks like someone is making him uncomfortable. “He’s probably been abused. Be nice to him.” “That may be so, honey, but for now, let’s keep this one from cutting our throats so we can live to do something about it later. Ya can’t change what’s done and ya can’t fix the future if there is none.” These folks do not understand that there are people who have no intentions of playing nice. If they’ve made it to adulthood and are still holding onto this belief, they are not likely to ever face that fact, so when you have to defuse a sensitive bomb it’s best to first get them away from the carnage if you can. Other men and women will sort of shift and wiggle uncomfortably. They’ve been bludgeoned before by sensitive types and came out looking like a Neanderthal. “Oh honey, I see you’ve been Bluto before too. Wanna come help me here? No? Cool brother, I understand. Enjoy it though. This show’s for you with my compliments.” PUSSIES Okay, so there’s this female I know – calls my husband up – my husband’s a nice guy – too nice, but he can survive it because he’s got this pit-bull he’s married to and if anyone wants to give him trouble they can wind up dealing with me. Anyway, this one woman is not even sort of on anyone’s good list these days. She’s duplicitous as hell and we’re all on to her games by now – no one wants to deal with her. She won’t call me – doesn’t dare, so she calls my dear hubby and asks about something that she had wanted from us. He tells her that he brought it down to his office for her to pick up the first time she asked and she never showed up – so now she wants him to go out of his way and bring it down for her again. He says he will – did I mention my husband is one of those nice guys? He is, but he has his limits, bless his heart, so when she starts in on how the furnace in the house is wrecked (because she was too stupid to drain the pipes of water when she shut it down would be my guess) and starts hinting around that maybe my husband could get on his white charger and go find her a used furnace and solve her problem for her he just tells her there are plumbers listed in the phone book – start calling. My husband is a nice guy, but he’s not an idiot. He will say “NO” eventually. The thing that drives me up a wall on this one – and I’ve seen it multiple times before – is this bimbo is so on a helpless female circuit she isn’t even looking around at her circumstances. She had a husband who was the ultimate hero type – would charge off to save the day over and over and over again. She wrecked him – wore him right out and then discarded him, just like she did with her first one and now she’s in need of a hero again. So she’s still playing the same routine that’s worked so many times in the past. Trouble is, she’s not the pretty young thing she once was and that routine doesn’t work so well when you no longer have the looks to make a man stupid. As the looks go a bimbo like that has to find dumber and dumber men and eventually she’s got to scrape so low in the man barrel that she winds up with one that causes more problems than he solves. So this bimbo thinks she can still play the helpless female routine to the point that she is out of touch with reality. We all know her way to well, she’s burned every bridge. She doesn’t have it goin’ on in the looks department anymore to get a smart guy acting totally stupid and she’s still playing the same song. She’s a freakin’ walking pussy! Any woman who goes through life functioning off the pretty helpless female – “poor me – oh kind and brave knight come save me for no apparent reason except I’m female and I need saving” – is a walking pussy and nothing more. There comes a point, though, that the most determined cunt needs to wake up and look around at her circumstances and start operating in the real world. Now, y’all think I’m bitchin’ at this bimbo, donchya? I’m not – I most certainly am not! What is wrong with you men?! Why do you fall for this? You’re the ones who saddle the rest of us with these spoiled, useless, sorry-assed excuses for a woman – you encourage them! They aren’t women, you know – the only folks who name them properly are certain gangsta rappers. These are the females that some rappers refer to as “bitches” and yes, they are 100% correct about the treatment that women like that deserve. Hey, at least they are honest about the problem. However, that is not the solution. That not only leaves the female in bitch mode (as in female dog in heat, not as in a strong, but difficult woman), it also leaves the rest of us with a bunch of cunts walking around loose and most of us would rather not be forced into pimp mode to handle them properly. No, what is needed is not to label these women correctly, though I must confess one day after dealing with this woman I’m speaking of here I put a Snoop Dogg CD on for the drive home and was really feelin’ the sentiments expressed there-in (hopefully, Snoop Dogg will never know a 60ish white woman’s been lovin’ his songs – would ruin his day). Still, that’s not the way to handle this. These women need to be fixed! No, I’m not meaning in the sense that they can no longer procreate – though seeing how they raise their kids that’s not such a bad idea either – what they need is, they need to get their act sorted out and be brought up to speed with the real world – and every single one of you egotistical “knights in shining armor” who keeps coming to the rescue for some walking piece of pussy – I don’t care if it’s to get your dick stroked or your ego – whatever – each one of you who does that is putting off the day when these females will have to face the consequences of their actions, and the rest of us are then stuck with the consequences of your actions. Stop that!
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