Well. OK then

Hi there, dear reader....(the very idea!)

Feeling somewhat less depressed...better meds....more energy...

It's snowing already....a very short, unsatisfactory summer, followed by a much too early winter.....harrumph.....

I know we can do better!!!  Who is in charge here?

Oh yeah, that would be us.  Well we're idiots, obviously.....that is, each generation must be trained to deal with their environment....social and environmental...because it's so hard for older generations to change their learned, lived habits.  I'm getting to those generational altitudes, and I see clearly, there's no changing ( or very little) at this altitude...all of our lives we've been building fires, driving cars, increasing our energy usage.  The next generation is a bit better.   The generation after that will drive electric cars, only burn for entertainment, install solar powered electric generation for the home...eat local...

It just seems a very far reach, now.  And it rankles that I knew..and we all discussed, this very thing at the end of the 60's...wtf, as we say, now....wtf.....that's why I think we're basically idiots. 

But what do I know?....Obviously, I've not solved all the puzzles I've encountered. 

Pretty happy with my home and family, however....so maybe that's the thing to recognize, to be thankful for.  It does feel pretty good. 

Probably the meds.

About Reading

More than anything else, I read.

I have this method in the library....I avoid authors who have written a lot of books...I like it if they've written more than one...but not if they take up a whole shelf.  Then I look for interesting titles...if the titles are good, I'll open the book and read the fly....if that's good, I'll read the back fly about the author...

There's a lot of good, readable books out there...a surprising number....a veritable corncucopia of possible reading experiences.

So, I read a lot....I generally can get through a book in a day or two...average length....2 or 3 hundred words...takes longer, obviously if the novel is longer...I do like those longish books providing they are well written....

I very often forget them right after I've read them, and enjoyed them,...and thought about them....and their various imports, so to speak....and valued them, etc.  And then I generally forget them.

I count on the idea that even though I forget them, the important part...the gist...the message...the essence, as it were..is added to my stock of general information and makes me a wiser person.

Ha ha.

Important part is, I am transported out of my current actual existence into someone else's ... the author's, presumably, or the character's that has been created....I live that life...I adopt those values, those imperatives, priorities...I have those experiences...those views...those encounters...

And my own time passes.  I get closer to my own end...and I'm glad not to have had to live through my own life during the time I'm reading, by which I mean, I think, my own thoughts, values, priorities....

It is quite hard to get my life into focus...I feel, at every stage of development, as though I've been the dupe of some illusionary ideology...some system of belief...some programing that was inculcated into me...or that I bought into in some desperation, that was totally erroneous....and the waking up to the illusion is traumatic each time...(because each has provided such comfort, such resassurance...) 

So you can imagine, reading is a great escape...fiction, of course...sometimes science fiction...

That's why the news is such a great distraction...it's not me....All this blogging...it's all about me...how boring is that???On the other hand, how would we write otherwise?  I have to write about what I know..what I experience, what it's like to be me...
That doesn't, I hope, preclude the fact that there are others out there who are not me...after all..who the hell would I be trying to communicate with if it weren't those others?  Ok ok...Jeeeez

A little tangled up there.

Perhaps a good time to sign off...

Interesting....to the narcisist in me....the last post says it's done in September....the "record" says July....
How in the world could this have happened .....or   be important?

Just for the record, THIS post is affirmatively done 9/24/18....I looked at the calendar...it's Jordan's birthday...I'm sure of the date....

Time does slip away

So anyway.  Watching the news...and increasingly unable to really comprehend the disaster that is Trump...and/or "Trumpism" in my country...is it possible my neighbors actually do not percieve how amoral, unethical, dishonest, self absorbed, and unequiped to be a leader this guy is????  Dear god, it does make one think of WWII Germany....

And the "Me Too" movement seems more and more evocative of the McCarthy era....

Certainly we are in a period of change regarding sexual behavioral expectations....at my age I'm probably in a transition era where I experinced men and sexual behavioral expections one way and then have observed a social change...I do support the change...how lovely if men and women were able to respect one another, even when their hormones are dumping and their instincts are driving them to mate...that's be great...I'm all for it....my own adolescence was as fraught as anyones.....believe me I know why women complain.   Believe me I complained myself....plenty. Believe me I was also driven by hormones and the instinct to mate....hard times.  Confusing times.   Dangerous times....

But, really.....why is it OK for Trump to be an avowed sexual predator, and still be president, while this other guy (I am actually so glad that he won't be a justice)...is axed for high school behavior???  Trump was an assaulter while a married adult....why don't his supporters care???  Why do we care about this (Kavanaugh) now but not Trump??

I'll admit it's lovely to see women taking charge and taking names....maybe I shouldn't question the details.

9/8/18.....I think

Helloooooooo...
Who ever you are.
I feel like writing tonight for some reason.  It's been a long time.

I think I'm grieving...too many losses in a short period....but I notice that many many other humans have experienced much greater loss in at least as short a period of time.   I am not special.  I must actually absorb these losses and carry on.  Egad.  Do you have any idea how hard this is?

Argh.

Well,....Big thing is that there are many of us experiencing this...
And come..on....it's a big deal...
We understand that we all die...there is an end....a beginning and an end.....an entire story...and that we are about to get to the final chapter....
One's stomach does that going down the slide thing.

shrooms, eclipse, and others

So remember the eclipse? It was, at today's point in time, last month...we were all agog at the time...a total eclipse right here in our neighborhood.  Oh Boy.  My friend in Denver decided to drive up for the occasion.

Happily enough, this friend also proposed we take some magic mushrooms to accentuate the event.  Hadn't accentuated anything for some time, so the idea had considerable appeal.

Big day arrives; mushrooms dutifully consumed; friend gets on his "pad", i.e. computer device, and facebooks the entire time.

I'm in the hot tub.  I'm hallucinating on tree bark.  I'm listening to bird chorus.  Friend is getting "likes" on facebook, which is clearly way more interesting.

I say, "why is digital reality so much better than reality?"...but only hear "I get "likes" as a response.

Then I'm required to watch his high school marching band.....recorded and posted on You Tube lo these 40 years later.

No, really.  This happened.

sigh.

It's hell to be 70....one's friends are all so old and stodgy and neurotic.
Also, at 70 we tend to say whatever we think, and often this is not what our friends wish to hear.
Certainly what they are saying to me is frequently not what I want to hear...

But my point is that there is a dischord here....these friends who have been part of our reality for 30, 40 years...begin to be irrelevant, irritating, boring....and new friends are too much trouble.  You know?

Is this a general phenomenon or is it just me?