It is a week of reckoning for many. Ferocious fires, terrible wind and rain. Sphincters tighten over what is happening to the stock market. Covid cases are on the rise. Doom and disaster reigns far and wide as people realize how little control they have over anything other than. . . how they choose to react.
"There's only three things that's for sure--taxes, death, and trouble. . . this I know" (link).
It's hard not to have a troubled mind.
What can you do? I say turn off the television, read a book, and do what you must. You'll be no worse off than the majority of people in the history of humankind. It's a fact.
I grew up enamored of nature shows. Oh, man. . . nature was the thing. Cute little lion cubs, baby weasels, the love of a mama chimp. . . . They romanticized it all. The reality of living in the wild, though was barely mentioned-- ticks and fleas and biting flies, intestinal parasites and infectious disease--and the fact that EVERYTHING is food. Everything that lives, I mean. That's the reality of nature.
My poor little feral cat is truly a wild animal. Except for my twice a day feedings (if she shows), her life is spent in nervous fear. The least little sound will send her scampering. Her life is one of desperation and survival.
When the markets crash, what really has happened. Nothing has changed other than people's perceptions. But beyond the economics of the market, the day before is much like the day after. People just got scared and weird and jumpy and decided to sell off their assets before others thought them worthless. For the majority of people who have no stake in the market, it is a spectacle that will eventually affect them. 10% of Americans own 93% of all stocks. Think about that awhile. For the other 90%. . . .
We have no control.
Wow! Where did that doom and gloom come from? Hurricane season, I guess. Q, his son, and his new bride left California yesterday to start a new life back east. Chances are, when they arrive at their new home, it will be flooded. I'll not give away the location for I have a secret suspicion they are on the run. But Q is heavily invested in stocks. Debbie and the fall of the Tokyo Stock Exchange will give him pause, I'm certain. There is no place to run, really. The earth is a sphere. You can only travel in circles.
It would not be good to be homeless in the Sunny South this week.
It is only good to be young. Hurricanes and stock markets mean nothing. Everything is an adventure. It is all merely fun. Cheap beer, pizzas, and hurricane parties. That is unless you are a meth or heroin addict in the Midwest, but even then those external factors mean less to you than to working class adults.
Jesus. I can't seem to stop. And I'm not even sad. I had a good day yesterday. I got up and read and wrote and had coffee and coffee cake and then put on my exercising costume and went to the outdoor exercise course for a little limpy HIT style run. Oh. . . it was awful, and I thought I might puke or have a stroke, but when it was over, I felt wonderful. More. I drank a quart of Gatorade and sank into a hot tub. It was glorious. A shower and then. . . I made mimosas, plural and serial, as the bottom fell out of the sky and the rain came hurtling down. Thunder. Lightning. Bad things could happen. I sat and watched the storm and watched it pass. Then I grabbed my things and went to the Cafe Strange to write awhile. The same cute goldsmith as always was working the counter, and once again she gave me the Big Hello. I don't know why, but she always does. And then I went to a table to sit and write, only nothing came to me. I had zip. Bagel. I didn't stay long. I finished my drink, packed up my bag, and went back home.
The tenant called from her home state up north where she spends her summers. All was not good. It was all. . . trouble. There are solutions, but they are difficult to see when you are in the middle of a bad thing. I offered up some useless advice before I said it was none of my business. Then I called my mother to see if she wanted me to make a good beef stew for dinner. She, however, wanted to make pork tenderloin, jasmine rice, and broccoli. Sure, I said. That would be fine. And so, not needing to shop, I put on music and worked up a few old photos and felt fairly groovy. It was the exercise, of course, and the endorphin dump I was feeling from the near death exercise experience.
Dinner with mother was lovely. I usually ask Alexa to play some bossa nova music while we eat. When we sat down, my mother said, "Tell Alexa to play that music you like." And that is exactly what I said--"Alexa, play that music I like." And it did, god knows how. The first song was straight up hillbilly bluegrass. Now I have never asked Alexa to play bluegrass, so she only knows I like that shit from spying on me. The next song that played was Bebel Gilberto (link). Oh. . . that song took me back to a girl I was dating when it came out. That's the way music is. At home later, a lot of Beth Orton on my YouTube music station, and I was transported to a wonderfully fulfilling emo heartsick time when I was yearning for someone who was gone. How can you be happy when you are sad? I don't know, but it was incredibly heartfelt and an almost if not actually lovely time.
That happened just after my divorce, and for whatever cosmic reason, I was the object of much female attention. Oh, my. . . it was crazy good fun.
And through it all, I was in love. . . with everything.
That time came on the disastrous heels of Hurricane Floyd and was bookmarked by the terrible destruction of Hurricane Charlie. Physical and financial disasters, each of them.
I do suffer from PTSD when the skies turn dark and the wind begins to blow.
There's only three things that's for sure--taxes, death, and trouble. . . this I know."
Yet here I sit, more crippled but more financially secure than I have ever been in my life. The ways of the world are weird and unpredictable. Who knows? Maybe sometime soon love will come knocking on my door.
I think that hope can be labelled "The Pangloss Syndrome." Perhaps, however, that will serve me better than something worse.
Xanax helps.
I don't know what I'm saying, but looking back, I must be opining on the various undulations and cycles of life. There is little you can do, really. Rain falls and shit rolls downhill. You might as well do what you want. You could open a studio and see what happens. I did. Good God, it was fun.
(link)
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