Waves on the beach

I'm boohooing the blues back in my hometown, Portland, Oregon. Cool but not freezing, raining but not all the time, and relentlessly gray skies. Yep. Home. I remember why I left. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't built for this SAD-inducing climate. Some people seem to like it. I saw a man talking on the phone outside his apartment. He was standing on the sidewalk. His feet were bare. 

I'm parked in a parking lot, as usual. It started out empty on a Sunday morning. Then the restaurant next to it opened and the place got swarmed. Now the brunch crowd is moving on. Security swings by every half hour. If I had my solar panels out, they would have busted me. Ha. Joke's on them. And me, I guess. No sunshine means no solar. No solar power means my fridge will be dead by tomorrow, unless I hit the road again. 

I spent four days driving and three nights contorted in the front seats of my car. I thought I could put the passenger seat back, but the floor was occupied by six gallons of drinking water. I sliced my mattress into sections and put them across the bucket seats. The ancient foam promptly sank into the bucket, leaving my butt marooned on the console. I put the driver's seat back as far as I could without shoving my fridge on the floor and fit myself into the slot between the seats and the steering wheel. I had my blankets, and it wasn't really cold until just before sunrise, so I was warm enough. But it was hard to sleep with the constant fear of hitting the horn. I managed to avoid that, but in the parking lot of a Bakersfield Cracker Barrel I accidentally bumped the lower panel and set off the hazards. Just blinking lights, no horn. There weren't many overnighters in the lot, but I wouldn't want to disturb anyone else who might be fooling themselves they could sleep sitting up in their car. 

Maybe if I were younger.

I spent the first night on my road trip on familiar desert BLM land in Quartzsite. That was only a four-hour drive from Tucson. The next day I hoofed it to Bakersfield. I realized at that point I needed to step it up if I wanted to make Portland in time to offload my boxes into their new storage home. So I hauled my stuff across the Oregon border, where I was welcomed at the Oregon Welcome Travel Center. Well, it was Friday after 5:00 p.m, so actually nobody was there to give me the free coffee the sign in the window promised. I wouldn't have taken it anyway, but it's the thought that counts.

At that point, I was running on empty, so the slog north on I-5 through Medford, Eugene, and Salem wasn't much fun. Seen through my rear view mirror, white cars with black trim look like Storm Troopers breathing up my tailpipe. Lucky for me, my car was loaded almost to the ceiling, which means I didn't have much of a view out the back. Sometimes it's better not to look.

I booked a storage unit standing outside of a storage place near my brother's house. At that point, I didn't care about price. I just wanted to unload and put my bed back together. It took me three trips with the rolling cart to pack my boxes into their new closet. I don't have much stuff left, and probably I could have jettisoned half of it. Should have. Didn't. Easier to just pack it and move it when departure time is imminent. Sort it out later. 

The two crates and miscellaneous items strapped to the roof made the journey intact. I was fully expecting to see my blankets and pillows flying out in my wake to make the driver behind me have to swerve and dodge bedding I should have donated. I did not anticipate the layer of dead bugs on the front edges of the crates. I fear my journey decimated entire populations. I'm not proud that I'm a murderer of insects, just like I'm not proud that my car uses gasoline, that I throw away four plastic bags every time I poop, and that I go through paper towels like they grow on trees.

The weather in Tucson is lovely right now (so I hear), and I might head south again after I take care of my paperwork. Swapping my Arizona driver's license for an Oregon license should be easy. Registering my car should not be too hard. Hm. I wonder if I need an emissions test. The main issue is that I need to get new license plates. Getting new plates after I bought the car in 2021 took four months, but that was during COVID, so maybe this time I'll get lucky. 

Meanwhile, here I am in the city of my birth. Portland streets seem narrower than I remembered. Maybe I got used to the three-lane Autobahns through Northwest Tucson. The streets here seem more congested. Probably Californians, buying up condos on the River and bungalows in the Albina district because their mansions burned down. Maybe Oregon seems like a safe bet when it comes to wildfires. It's raining now, but all it takes is one stupid kid with a firecracker to set off an inferno in the summer. 

As you can guess, I'm winging it. Day by day is all I can do. One mile at a time, one moment at a time. Deal with the thing in front of me, first things first, and try not to think too much about what is happening in the world, in the country. I'm sad I missed all the marches on Saturday. I drove under a couple underpasses where people were waving signs. The signs hanging from the overpass in the Medford area didn't appear to align with my values. The overpass I went under in the Salem area was definitely populated by my kind of people. I was doing 65 mph and could not slow down to wave or honk. 

I have a feeling for the foreseeable future, if we have a future, these protests will be like waves on the beach: If I miss one, I can catch the next one. 

I'm a character in my own novel

I've been dividing my residence between the Homewood Suites parking lot in Tucson and the BLM Ironwood National Monument land just west of Marana. It's a peaceful hour-long drive between my two residences, meandering through open range, cotton farms, housing developments, road construction, and suburbs, culminating in the land of the unhoused near the Rillito River. I walk on the bike path almost daily when I'm in town. When I'm out in the desert, I mostly hunker in my car out of the wind and blazing sun, only venturing outside to rescue my solar panels when they blow over.

A few minutes ago, a swarm of bees flew past me. I heard them coming before I saw them. I don't think I have ever seen bees swarm. It's easy to forget this is wild land. Although I was in the city when I saw a coyote burst out of the brush and dash across a six-lane highway. It looked confused and a bit desperate as it ducked through the parking lot of a medical clinic. I lost sight of it after that. Wild things come into the city. When I lived in the mobile home park, I saw lots of coyotes, javelinas, myriad birds, a bobcat, a baby rattlesnake, frogs, armies of jackrabbits, and one tarantula. In Portland, we had possums, raccoons, worms, and birds.

My vestibular system tells me when the weather is changing, which is just about all the time. Today I predicted something, and now the wind has picked up. Dust obscures my view of the mountains. I've come to appreciate the rugged beauty of the desert. It's spectacularly unforgiving. Every plant tries to kill you as you walk by. 

I'm making plans to move my stuff to a yet-to-be-determined storage unit somewhere in the Portland metro area. After I get all my documentation lined up the way DMV and the car insurance company prefer, I can get a virtual mailbox service and continue to live life until the next crossroad takes me in a new direction.

I try to approach each person with compassion, unless they are wielding a chainsaw. Then I have a choice to make:  get out of the way or stand up and risk losing a limb or worse. I don't want my blood to be spilled for no reason. I want it to mean something. As if somehow I'll be able to see what unfolds after I'm gone. Ha. I fall into the trap of believing mortality is for others, not for me. 

Meanwhile, I'm learning to handle the nomadic life with ease and grace. Or I was, until the USPS decided it needed to crack down on fentanyl dealers sending product through the mail. Darn, that was a great second job. Oh, well. Now I have one job, ostensibly ushering dissertator wannabes through the dissertation process at a for-profit higher education institution based in the Midwest. I can't seem to get away from for-profit higher education, even though I believe it is pretty much an invention of the devil, designed to suck money from the pockets of people who can't afford it. In the case of my employer, the tuition rates are surprisingly affordable, which means the company sucks money out of the pockets of its contingent faculty. 

Did I mention flies? Got a lot of those. A few honeybees, too, which I try not to kill. I rescued a moth last night. The sky in the desert is a light show of stars. I haven't seen a sky of stars since I was a kid.  

I'm finally making some progress on my book, the third book of the trilogy I began several years ago. This one has been much harder to write than the first two, mainly because I wrote the first two by following the characters wherever they led me. If you want my advice, and I'm sure you do, I recommend you work out a deal with your characters. Give them some free rein, but don't let them drag you away from the outline. When you get to the final book in your series, you will have to wrap up all the loose ends you left hanging along the way. You won't get another chance, and if you let your characters run wild, they will trample your bleeding corpse and disappear over the hill, laughing.

I used to think my writing had to offer something pithy and meaningful. I wanted to write literary prose, use unusual words that make people crazy, and tell deep stories with profound moral lessons. You know, a book that will win literary awards, and maybe gain a review from the New York Times. Now I know that if you want to be a best selling author, all you have to do is write a romance novel that gets picked up by a director and made into a TV series. See, easy peasy.  

That is not the kind of writing I do, so I am not destined to be a best selling author. However, I love immersing myself in the lives of my nutty characters to see life through their eyes. Instead of trying to fence them in, I encourage them to run wild through the meadows. Because I write low-dread stories, they don't rip their clothes off as they tiptoe through the tulips. Neither do they stumble up on maggoty corpses when they take naps in the hollows of oak trees. My characters want what we all want: happiness, love, power, and lots and lots of money. 

Okay. Gotta go. A desert rat just ran under my car. That means I'll soon have a nest of babies eating the wires under my hood. 

Catch you next time.

Dragging up on Arizona

The temperature is rising in Southern Arizona. In a month, nobody without air conditioning would choose to stay here, if they could leave. Even many who do have AC and could stay if they wanted to choose to leave if they can. They pack up their Sprinter vans, gas up their giant mobile homes, attach their 5th-wheels to their diesel pickups, and head north for the summer. Snowbirds. 

Southern Arizona summer is hell. I don't believe in heaven or hell, on a normal day, so I can only speculate on the temperature in hell, but I know this: You don't have to die to experience it, if you are curious. The whole burning flaming dumpster fire mess can be yours right now. Come on down. Today it was a pleasant 83 F. In a few days, it will be over 90 F. We're just getting started.

Timing is the hard part when you move with the weather. If the heat wave only lasts a few days, maybe I can ride it out at a higher elevation. The highest elevation near Tucson is Mt. Lemmon. I tried that last summer. It was definitely cooler up there in the mountain town of dry pines, but there's no place to park overnight unless you have a serious off-road vehicle, and the road up and back is no fun. Tried it, won't do it again. Those pine trees are a blaze waiting to happen, just saying. It would take a helicopter to evacuate residents of the little town of Summerhaven.

South of here is Sierra Vista, a slightly higher elevation. They have a decent Walmart parking lot. About two hours away is Globe, higher still. Never been to Globe. To the east is New Mexico, places like Silver City, or even Albuquerque, if I get a hankering for an eight-hour drive. To the West is the Promised Land, also known as California, but to get there, you have to make a frantic dash across terrain that is known to be hotter than Southern Arizona. You've heard of Death Valley. 

If I choose to stay, my only option (besides die) is the mall. 

What's really fun is monsoon, the fifth season nobody warned me about because all the people I knew in Tucson packed up and left before the rains came. I'm from Oregon. I know rain. Nothing prepared me for monsoon. Rain doesn't begin to cover it. Lightning, thunder, haboobs, downbursts, flash floods . . . It's noisy, violent, and shocking. Experiencing monsoon season really makes you feel alive. I'm glad I had the experience. I do not want to be here for monsoon when I'm living in my car.

I can live here for a while in the heat, but it's not pleasant. It's also not healthy. I touched it out last year because I had medical appointments. This time, I have no reason to linger. 

Using the mall as a cooling shelter is a time-tested tradition in Tucson. I don't mind charging up my phone at the power bar with all the unhoused. On some level I can relate, but honestly, I feel like a fraud. I am a snob with a car. 

The prospect of cooling down in the mall day after day, though, is demoralizing. The Tucson mall is cold, noisy, and exhausting. Does spending three months at the mall sound like fun to you? I know what you are going to say: Carol, malls are dead. You should be grateful! You are right, of course. You might be one of those shoppers I've heard about. Condolences on the loss of all your favorite anchor stores.

Based on last summer's experience at the mall, I won't make it through April, let alone May and June. Sure there's covered parking. There are also car alarms, monster trucks, and security guards who drive by and look askance at me if I leave my door ajar for some air. And it's a lot of work to pack my power stations into the mall just to keep my fridge running and my tech powered up. 

Being a nomad is challenging at times.

No, the choice is clear. It's time to drag up on Arizona, for the summer, for sure, and maybe for good. 

Where will I go? I don't know. I think I'll move what's left of my stuff into cheap storage in some obscure town in Oregon, and then take off for parts unknown. There's a lot of road still left to see. 

Here's to you, wackjobs and knuckleheads

This week I got my teeth cleaned. The dental hygienist, let's call her Lulu, led me to the first room, just off the lobby with an excellent view of the parking lot and all the pedestrians strolling by, strapped a bib around my neck, and asked me how I had been since the last time I was there. 

I said the usual bla bla bla that you say when you don't want to disclose your secret traumatic reality to a stranger. Then I said the fateful words: "How is your writing going?"

"I've been working on my dream journal," Lulu said. "My cat came to me in a dream."

"Oh, that's nice," I replied, as she lifted a pointed metal probe. "What was your cat showing you?"

"Not to be afraid." I opened. She went in with the metal stick. "Then he turned into little bits of golden light and ascended into the sky."

"Wow." What else could I say with her hands in my mouth? It came out more or less as "Ow."

"Then my dog appeared and led me up a hill to a beautiful lake." She dug into my gum and then pulled the tool out, leaving it hovering somewhere over my nose. I stared at it cross-eyed as she added, "He was made out of pure love."

Before she resumed her assault, I said, "That must have been really satisfying," or something to that effect. Watching a dental torture tool hanging over my nose, ready to dive back into my mouth at any second, has tampered with my unreliable memory. I'm not really sure what I said. 

Lulu stared out the window and then went back in. "My problem is, I want to put images to my dreams."

"Ungh?"

"Yes, but I can't draw. I can see the images so clearly! I want to publish them in a book, but I don't have the drawing skills."

"Ehh Aay," I said around her hands. "Eeely ice arrr, eeey uhhh caaa ake arrr." I was trying to say "AI. Really nice art. Anyone can make art," in case you were trying to translate my gibberish. 

Her brown eyes examined me through the lighted microscope. She wore a mask, but I could tell she was skeptical. 

I didn't bother complaining about AI scraping art off the internet and not compensating or crediting the artists who created the stolen art. Why get into the weeds with someone who thinks their dreams have cosmic significance?

"All beings are made of light and love," she said, scraping the grunge from behind my lower front teeth. 

Held captive, all I could do was grunt.

She finished picking around and reached for the polishing gizmo. She loaded it up with the gritty minty paste and attacked my back teeth. Rowrr, rowrr, tooth after tooth, with no break, until she reached my bottom teeth. She paused the polisher and held it above my mouth.

"I really think everyone has the power to access the spirit world," she mused, leaving me with my mouth half open. I knew if I tried to swallow, I'd gag, choke, and die in that chair, so I clenched my hands, held still, and tried not to breathe. I didn't nod or blink for fear that would distract her from finishing the polishing task. 

Finally, she finished with the minty grinder (doing a half-assed job, in my opinion), grabbed the water pistol, and sprayed my teeth with cold water for a good minute. 

I resumed breathing and swallowing. 

I felt like I had to say something, so I mumbled, "The world is a mysterious place." To myself, I was thinking, I respect and even admire your interest in the spirit world, and I hope I never see you again. I didn't say it, of course. I try to respect all forms of creativity, no matter how wacky. She wasn't hurting anyone. She was just trying to understand her human experience. 

I used to believe---no, I used to want to believe---that the world was magical and mysterious, that there was some alternate reality in which our animal guides came to us in dreams and led us to new insights. More than once, I meditated in a room full of other meditators, who all seemed to receive something that eluded me. I felt like a fraud, and so I left that group and looked for another path to understanding.

I've come to understand that there is no path except whatever we make up. Who can truly understand reality? Not me. Everything I encounter is filtered through my senses and distilled through my preconceptions and biases. That realization used to bother me, that I couldn't ever know reality. Now I don't care.

What is the human experience? We live, maybe we live a long life, maybe we have a relatively happy life, but in the end, we leave the way we entered, attached to nothing. All the wacky theories we use to explain our experience are left behind, signifying nothing.

Believers are sometimes endearing and sweet, like Lulu. They can also be destroyers, no need to name names. It might be better (safer) to believe in nothing. 

The long strange trip is not over yet

This week I was reminded once again that there are penalties for being a nomad. The USPS, in an effort to stem the flow of drugs through the mail (they say fentanyl but I assume they really mean mifepristone), is requiring all people who rent mailboxes from mailbox companies to produce two pieces of ID that show a residential address, and the addresses have to match. I have neither. What that means is the mailbox I've rented since I moved to Tucson four years ago is now going to be closed at the end of the month. 

I wish the mailbox company would engage in some "good trouble" and stand up to these new requirements, but I can understand their desire not to be put out of business. They will be losing a customer, and I bet I'm not the only one. However, I just renewed for a year last December, so I have eight months left on my box lease. They knew this was coming, and they waited until now to notify me. And here's the bummer: no refunds. Yep. They lose a customer, and I'm out about $250. Plus, soon I will have no mailing address.

What a strange trip this has become. I am having a hard time assimilating the ups and downs of the past ten years. Well, twenty years. Hell, get real. My entire life has been a series of . . . I don't know what to call them. Self-centered fearful choices might be one way to describe them. Safe roads rejected in favor of the most weedy overgrown crumbling cliff-edge trails I could find. 

In other words, I did this to myself.

That's one way to look at it. 

On the other hand, I did not create a shortage of affordable housing. I did not create the tendency for some members of society to ignore, exploit, or abuse senior citizens. I certainly did not vote for the human chainsaws tearing the US democracy into bloody bits. It must be a heady feeling to believe you can destroy a 250-year-old democracy on a whim, and do it in three months. It's a remarkable feat, a breathtaking demonstration of what happens when circumstances place wealth and power in the hands of insane megalomaniacs. I can destroy things, too, but I'm a lot slower. 

Some of my crankiness might be attributable to Keppra rage, but not all of it. There are lots of other reasons to be irritated. I've had some moments of irritation over the past week after compulsively watching the independent media channels I've started following. I know what you are going to say: Carol, why do you watch that stuff? It's almost like you want to be bludgeoned. Almost like you enjoy your simmering rage. Could be you are correct. I always choose the road less traveled. I'm sure you never feel that way.

It's not just meds and politics. Weather is pissing me off, too. Wind and rain are the product of air pressure changes. That means when there's weather, I'm dizzy all the time. My head is like an unbalanced washing machine stuck on spin cycle pounding the wall and making dishes fall out of your cupboards. That would annoy just about anyone.

Consider me annoyed. 

Meanwhile, I'm relocating my domicile to a place where I have the documentation I need to rent a new mailbox. That would be my brother's address. So, back to Oregon I go to become an Oregon resident again, before I hit the road for parts unknown, waiting for the affordable housing shortage to end. 

Wherever you go, there you are

Wherever you go, there you are. It's an old adage, but a good one. Wherever I go, I can't escape myself. I keep trying, but my body goes with me. That means my noisy brain, my vertigo, my aching hip, and my cranky attitude, it all comes along for the ride. There's no escaping the prison, until the final moment when the curtain comes down. Whoever said the body is a temple was clearly having an out of body moment.

I'm writing this from the desert in Quartzsite, Arizona, parked near (but not too near) several large 5th wheel trailers, a toy hauler, and a couple giant houses on wheels, aka motorhomes. The wind just kicked up again. It's been crazy windy the past few days, which corresponds to the turmoil in my vestibular system, so that is how I know I have a new job: barometric expert, not to be confused with a barista, which is more common and way more useful. All I can do with my special barometric prediction ability is predict when the freight train in my head is heading downhill toward a crash. What am I talking about? Thanks for asking. Wind occurs from clashing air pressure systems. Changes in air pressure wreak havoc on my 8th cranial nerve.

I can hear you saying, Carol, what the heck are you talking about? Sorry. I got lost in my mind for a minute.

Speaking of crashes, how about that democracy? Two presidents walk into a bar. It's an old joke. Plus, it's so funny how you don't know what you have til it's gone. Someone ought to write a song about that.

Meanwhile, even a poor homeless person like me (what I mean is, even a broke nomad like me) can't live peacefully under the radar. My mailbox people notified me last week that I need to update the form that allows them to receive my USPS mail. I filled out the form four years ago when I rented the box, so, no problem, right? Well, the USPS has decided that in order to weed out the . . . undocumented? . . . I guess, so the undocumented won't sneak a ballot in a forbidden slot? . . . the USPS now must have two forms of ID with matching residential addresses.

I'm currently between addresses.

I will have to assume my thinking position, which is flat on my back with a pillow over my face. I'm sure by the time I wake up, I will have figured out my strategy.

I'm reminded frequently that it costs a lot to be poor. Everything costs more, takes longer, and feels worse, compared to being traditionally housed. I see only two options: get a job and/or share housing. Given rental prices anywhere in the West and Southwest, I would have to make at least $25 per hour just to earn enough money to pay rent and income taxes. That's assuming I don't eat. And that someone would hire me. And that I wanted to work until I die, to pay rent in a place I don't belong. As far as rooming with someone, , no thanks, been there, done that, survived it, it was grand, don't want to do it again.

Now I'm just rambling. Sorry. The wind is unsettling. The state of the world is unsettling. Some people have the fortitude to unplug, but I find myself compelled to watch the disintegration of civilization. I knew it would happen, but somehow I thought it would be speedier than this. Slow motion train wrecks look so cool on TV but living through one is really tedious. Just crash, already. Let whoever is left pick up the pieces and carry on.

No, we have to have the Sam Peckinpah version of the end of the world. The blood, gore, insults, and humiliations are taking forever, like a Korean romantic comedy. Why make sixteen episodes when you can tell the story in six? Boy meets girl, on again off again, bim, bang, boom, happy ever after. Why drag out the drama when you know how it's going to end? Let's just have World War III and get it over with, the war to end all  stupid human civilization, once and for all. The ratings will suck, but maybe we can beam it out into space. The Muskrats on Mars might enjoy it.

I wish I could see the faces on the aliens who come to excavate Earth. I'm sure they'll be, like, what idiots ruined this lovely place? They'll spend decades trying to decipher the religious significance of plastic. 

Once again, we're on our way to hell in a handbasket. Umbrella drinks all around. See you there.

A tirade for the end of the world

Like most people around the world, I have a hill of beans in front of me. Individually, each one of our little pinto bean molehills is not all that impressive. It's traumatic to us to see our pile of beans, but in the big scheme of things, our beans don't add up to much. Collectively, however, suddenly there is a mountain range bursting up out of the ground. It wasn't there a few months ago. What the heck? Some people are now saying, well, I warned you. We saw that mountain range coming years ago. Others are saying, what mountain range? Isn't it lucky I hate eggs?

I've grown to hate eggs, too, but that isn't the point of my beanhill tirade. The point is, collectively, humans are really stupid. For example, take Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Now we have enough evidence to say, well, duh. However, despite ample evidence that humans have wrecked the planet, some of us will claim hoax right up until the moment the polluted air chokes them into silence. 

I heard this quote today (I know, I'm only a century late to the party): "Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard" (H.L. Mencken, 1916). This quote made me snicker. "Good and hard" is always a funny phrase. "Deserve to get it" says to me be careful what you wish for and you don't always get what you want but you get what you deserve. As a retired idealist, I align myself with the optimistic view that the earth will be just fine without us. All of us.

My rant was inspired by a realization that for once did not flee my brain after it entered, probably because I've had this realization so many times over the years that it's worn deep trail ruts in my gray matter. You could call it the Oregon Trail of realizations. It started in Oregon, so that metaphor works on two levels. 

I came from Oregon Trail people. Pioneers who put their houses in covered wagons and set off across the country to brave the great unknown, searching for land they could take from whoever was there before them. They left Missouri, crossed the Plains, killing whatever they could along the way, and ended up in the fertile Willamette Valley, where they got busy tearing up trees, building farms, and killing Native Americans. It's a time-tested method that not everyone is on board with, but as long as you are White and male, it's grand.

I did a version of that as I grew up. I set off into the great unknown of young adulthood, mowing down anyone who said no, you will never make a living as an artist, and moved into other people's territories to exploit their natural resources in my quest to prove my parents wrong. In my secret heart chamber, buried deep under layers of arrogance and self-will, I knew that everything I did was going to end in disaster. What did disaster mean to my 21-year-old self? No clue. Don't remember. 

I do remember seeing a commercial on TV showing a happy man riding a bicycle with a little house on the back. The tall wooden box must have been no bigger than an outhouse, and maybe that's what it was, I don't remember. It seems to me he was wearing pinstripe trousers and a cut-away jacket, quite a dapper dude. No idea what the ad was selling. I was enamored with the idea of carrying your house on your back. Self-sufficiency to the max, no need to rely on anyone, as you explore what it means to have total freedom. As if having an outhouse on the back of your bike would lead to freedom. Ha.

You get where I'm going with this. I've always liked the idea of the self-sufficient mobile lifestyle, and I always knew that the settle-down-and-get-married life was not going to be for me. So, in a way, you could say living in my car was always going to be my destiny.

The other half of this prediction, though, stems from my relentless compulsion to fit in, to do it right, to play the game, even if it meant giving up my creativity, identity, and freedom. Hence, turning from painting to commercial art and graphic design. Turning from fashion design to sewing clothes for people. Turning from failing at business to getting a business admin degree (so I could figure out how to do it right). And then falling into teaching, and choosing to pursue a Phd in business admin so I could be more "marketable" to my employer, who laid me off six months before I graduated. I can keep going. Using my Phd to become an academic editor and a dime-a-dozen adjunct faculty at a for-profit higher education institution not unlike the ones I criticized in my dissertation. 

I'm like a moth who keeps returning to the stupid flame of societal approval, seeking warmth and light and repeatedly getting singed. 

I hear you muttering, Wow, that's so bleak, does she hear herself? I hear myself, and I hear you, too, thanks for caring. I invite you to worry about your own little molehill of beans. If you turn your back for too long, it could become a mountain range. A lot harder to make into frijoles.

You could say I've given up and I don't care about anything anymore, but you would be wrong. 

The only thing I've given up is the quest to mold myself into something I am not, never was, never could be. It may have taken becoming homeless to finally be my true self, but here I am, sitting in my car in a patch of desert outside Marana, Arizona, expressing myself to my endless patient therapist, Google Blogger. The sunset was spectacular.  

I think I have one blog reader left. Bless you, Bravadita. I started this blog in 2012 when I was struggling to get my dissertation proposal approved. I was a flaming bag of rage. Then the teaching job ended. Then Mom took over my life. Then Mom ended. Then I ended up in Arizona, which might be the end of me if I stay here one more summer. 

One thing I know about myself now: I am not a quitter. This blog is proof that even when I'm cranky, I can fake it, I have faked it, and I'm still faking it. 

For example, I show up for my mentoring gig, even though the chances that the artists I mentor are going to make a living selling their art are worse than their odds of winning the lottery. I don't tell them to go get a job, and I mean, a real job, one that pays them benefits and a pension so they will have something to live on when they get to be my age and they can't walk anymore because they need two hip replacements. I show up for my faculty job, offering encouragement to business people who don't care about extending theory, about adding to the vast body of human knowledge, about proper citation format, or locating robust sources. They couldn't care less. They just want to get the degree in the shortest amount of time possible as cheaply as possible so they can get that job, that promotion, that accolade, and walk in the procession wearing the stupid beret with the velvet-trimmed robe they won't bother to iron. 

Hey, maybe this is Keppra rage finally kicking in! If it is, I kind of like it. 

The truth is, if you know me, you know I care deeply about people, about life, about justice, equality, and mercy. Despite my desire for peace, love, and understanding, I know it is not possible to stop a runaway train if it is heading for a crash. It's like telling a teenager, don't drink and do drugs. It's like telling an artist, get a job so you'll have something to fall back on. Some trains have to crash. Democracy is a runaway train. The conductors are asleep at the wheel. Half the passengers are in the club car fighting over who gets the last piece of pie. The other half are leaning out the windows screaming with their hair on fire. Nobody is right or wrong on this train. We're all on the train together. We are going to get it good and hard.

Excuse me, my hair is smoking. Catch you later.

My zone is flooded, how's your zone?

Everyone copes with stress in their own way. For example, one of my family members is writing Substack newsletters identifying and excoriating the lunatics, while another has unplugged from all media. One of my friends is sending out mass hair-on-fire emails urging us to rise up and do something. Another friend is choosing one action they can take to "make things better." 

I've subscribed to multiple Substacks and YouTube channels, adding my puny clicks to help balance the media landscape. I doubt if we liberals will ever catch up to the Foxies but we can try, one scream at a time. I originally subscribed because my hair was on fire. After a while, my hair fell out, and now I congratulate myself on helping the brave liberal media pundits grow their subscriber lists. 

I have given up trying to read or watch everything. The clickbait headlines aren't fooling me anymore. I know it's how media gets our attention these days—even NPR is doing it. Sometimes I sigh, roll my eyes, and take the bait. I'm usually disappointed. Mostly, I just ignore it all. I guess that means I've unplugged my eyeballs but not unplugged from the technology. Hm.

Lately, I'm just selecting everything in my inbox and pressing delete. I can't keep up. I'm not going to fret if I miss something. Head-exploding emails are a lot like waves in the ocean. It won't be long before another one detonates in my inbox. I've taken to watching the highlights. Why listen to anything in real time when other people have done all the emotional labor of chewing, swallowing, and upchucking the news of the day? I don't have the energy to paddle through the muck. 

People say it's not good to isolate, especially in times of stress. I'm not so sure, if the people around you are losing their sh*t when some new catastrophe floods their inboxes. I personally think it might be healthy to avoid people whose hair is smoking. You can usually spot them. They are the ones sending you mass emails exhorting you to do something.

I'm taking the Zen approach, striving for unattachment to particular outcomes. I admit, it hasn't been easy. At first, I was running around like Chicken Little proclaiming the sky is falling. Then I found out the sky might really be falling, not tomorrow, but possibly in my lifetime, and then I realized, I can do nothing to deflect an asteroid. Similarly, I can't by myself move the baby planet nucleus that currently occupies the center of reality into a dementia care facility where it belongs. 

Together, we can do a lot, though. Humans are jerks but we are definitely resourceful. If we can nudge an asteroid into a new orbit, we can certainly nudge an assh*le out of the Oval Office. This is not hard to grasp. The part that requires master Zen skills is the realization that there is a raft of crazies floating in the hazmat zone around that termite-ridden desk. These nutjobs cannot easily be nudged off their paths, on account of they are mean haters who are terrified of losing something they think they have or not getting something they are sure they want. 

This means it is critical to vote early and often. Assuming we still live in a democracy. 

I take heart in remembering that conspiracies fall apart eventually, because humans are pathetic self-centered terrified idiots who are genetically programmed to look out only for themselves. Sooner or later, their quest for power (aka safety) will cause them to eat each other the way caged gerbils eat their young. The way ancient civilizations cut and burned the forests that sustained them. The way ice skaters take crowbars to the kneecaps of competitors. The way the citizens of the winning team tear down their city's signal lights and bash in store windows. I could go on.  

I could whine and say, it's not me, it's those guys over there, the haters, the ones who wish I would die, or at least, cease to exist, so they could get on with whatever they plan to do when their world is finally white enough. When all the grass is in a museum, when anything colorful is behind bars in a zoo or other secure facility. When they have all the money. Although, what they think they are going to spend it on when there's no one left to make the crap they want to buy is probably not on their radar. 

No, it's not me, it's not my fault, but I'm part of the human collective, therefore, I am part of the problem. I drive a fossil-fuel burning car, I buy stuff from big box stores, I want the easy path to the cash and prizes the American dream promised me when I was in art school. 

Therefore, it is me. And you. It's all of us. The outcome we get we deserve. 

I reserve the right to blame drug-induced rage

When the world seems to be falling apart, when up is down, and nothing makes sense, I recommend finding something to alter your mood. For some, that might mean filling the cabinets with rum. For others, maybe Rocky Road is the drug of choice. Those are just two ideas. The possibilities are endless. Me, I am trying a new anticonvulsant, because, you know, the end of the world is no time to be convulsing. After six doses, my head is still doing it's spastic freight-train washing-machine antics, but the side effects are helping me cope with reality. So far, I'm too tired to care about anything. Being boneless is the bomb. 

Eventually I have to get my bones back together, what's left of them, anyway, given how arthritis is carving up my hips. That's a story for another day. It's so weird, though, how everyone I know is needing joints replaced. What's up with that? It's almost like we're getting old or something. I know. So weird.

I had a great idea for a blogpost, and once again, I forgot to write it down. Gone, off into the ether, to seek another writer whose brain can hang onto ideas for more than thirty seconds. I'm sure that other writer will do a great job with my great idea, whatever it was.

I'm not mad, although I could be. One of the side effects of my new med is rage. I know you are thinking, Carol . . . wait. What are you thinking? I'm trying to predict what you would say, and I'm coming up empty. Am I normally a rageful person? It's so hard to know from the inside. In fact, the neurologist told me I won't know if I'm acting like a jerk. I have to rely on the people around me to tell me. 

She was serious. "Let them know," she said. "Ask them to tell you if you are unusually angry or mean."

I texted my sister to tell me if I start acting snarky. I asked my Scottsdale friend to let me know if I suddenly start being mean. They both said they would. That covers the people I'm close to. But what about all the innocent folks I run into daily? The kind Walmart associates who check my receipt when I leave the store to make sure I haven't stolen a big-screen TV? The nice guys who changed the oil in my car and told me I'd soon need new brakes and a battery? The dude who hit me up for spare change in the parking lot with a sob story about being homeless and living in his car? (Like, get real, dude, who isn't?) 

Am I being mean to them and they are too polite or too hurt to show it? 

Maybe this is how Dr. Jekyll felt. 

Don't we all have reasons to be pissed off right now? Even in calm happy times, there's never a lack of things to get mad about. This seems to be a special case of world insanity, but I think I'm meeting the moment with equanimity. I haven't felt my blood boiling yet, so maybe I'm dodging the side effect of uncontrollable rage. On the other hand, maybe some righteous anger would be appropriate. I say, bring it on.

Speaking of righteous anger, I filled out contact forms for both my U.S. Senators and for my U.S. Congressperson, who happens to be a Republican. I made sure I wasn't snarky, mean, or angry. I was aiming for polite, somewhere south of flabbergasted. I didn't present a frothy emotional appeal. That never works. Cold, hard facts don't work either, though. So what are we left with? Relentless phone calls, emails, and marches. 

I got new marching shoes. I'm ready. 

There can be no rest. 

The intersection of angry and old

My lovely sojurn in paradise, i.e., Scottsdale, has ended, and I'm back on the road. I've stopped enroute for a couple days to enjoy free camping in the desert near Marana. Tomorrow I'll head into Tucson to check my mailbox, visit my possessions in the storage unit, and prepare for my afternoon neurology appointment. I'm joking on the last one. There's nothing to prepare. I have very low expectations that anything will change. I had my two months of remission. I'm grateful.

Meanwhile, as the world falls apart, I have had the luxury of complaining about the challenges of aging with my friend. Everytime we tell a story, we begin with the words "Have I told you this before? Stop me if I've told you this before." In my case, I don't remember what anyone tells me until halfway through the story when I realize I've heard it before. My diagnosis is I'm halfway to dementia. Wheee, look at me go.

The sun is setting over the mountains. The desert is half in shade, half still golden with the waning sunlight. It's a remarkable landscape. Mostly dry desert dirt, rocks, some scrubby bushes, and quite a few short green trees. In the distance, the mountains are varying shades of gray-orange with purple and blue shadows. If you've ever seen a Maxfield Parrish painting, you know what I'm trying to describe. I have grown to love the winter desert. In the summer, this place is an inferno no one in their right mind would visit, much less choose as their home. I'm lucky to be here at the best time. Along about April or May, I will vacate the desert and head for clouds and rain, i.e., the Pacific Northwest. I don't like gray skies, but I prefer them to baking to a crisp in Southern Arizona.

I thought I had something to write about in my weekly rant. It was going to be some eloquent poignant diatribe about the unfairness of growing old. Now that it's Sunday, I find I don't have the energy to complain. No one cares, and I include myself in that bunch. 

I emailed my U.S. senators. They are both Democrats. Preaching to the choir, I know. Now I'm composing a message for Republicans. I just need to figure out who to send it to. It's not a frothy plea for mercy and empathy. I know better than to go to the hardware store for bread. It won't be a threat, as in, I'm coming for you if you don't do my bidding. I don't believe in retribution. I'm a live and let live kind of person. I hope it will be a reasonable message from a person who cares about democracy and who hopes others do, too. 

I'm not sure what I will say yet, but I'll think of something. 

Meanwhile, we persist and soldier on.

Here's to the Resistance. 

Sometimes you have to let the train crash

In theory, when my life is free of conflict, there shouldn't be much to write about. Maybe today is one of those days. I haven't had any arguments, nobody has upset me, I don't think I've upset anyone else (no more than usual, anyway), and mostly everything is going well for me. It seems odd that my perception of how my own life is going is so different from my perception of how life on the planet is going, as if I'm standing on some other planet observing the ongoing implosion of human civilization. It's kind of sad that humans feel compelled to take everything down with us, but nothing is really precious if everything is precious. Stardust comes and goes. 

I have no idea what to think or say about the unfolding human train wreck. We've always been greedy, lustful, ambitious creatures. We've always separated ourselves into predators and prey. We've always felt as if we were the center of the universe. The multiverse. As if there could be no species in the universe more intelligent than us.

Sometimes writing about something helps me understand it, but in this case, the conundrum of why humans seem to hate each other so much is beyond my comprehension. I don't have the energy to try to figure it out. I definitely don't have the energy to hate anyone, no matter how much I might find reasons to do it. I just don't care that much, I guess. 

Maybe this is despondency. Maybe it's denial. Maybe I've finally reached the Zen-like state of detachment from ambition and greed that my mother achieved through dementia. Hm. Maybe this is dementia.

I thought I had a blog topic for today, but I didn't write it down, so of course, I lost it. My ability to remember things fails more than half the time now. I sometimes feel resentful when I hear about people twenty years older than me whose minds are "sharp as a tack." That's the phrase I usually hear. A failing memory is not entirely bad. I've already forgotten my resentment. I don't have the energy to berate myself for my failures. I think I've finally reached the Zen-like state of detachment from . . . wait, did I already say that? 

How do you cope with uncertainty? Do you tell yourself it doesn't matter if you don't know what is going to happen, you can't control it anyway? Do you imagine you are an empty boat on the river of life, going with the flow with faith and trust that everything is unfolding as it should? 

Yeah, me neither.

Usually, it feels better to say, I knew this was going to happen . .  the fatalist's view. Or, how bad could it be? Maybe it won't be as bad as I fear. That's as close to Little Mary Sunshine as I can get. Or, my favorite (Debby Downer): Who cares, it doesn't matter, we're all going to die. 

The universe survived just fine before I existed, and it will go on without me.

I don't like to think of all the suffering that will most likely be coming over the next few years. Knowing humans' ability to whitewash, gaslight, ignore, and avoid, no matter how bad things get socially, environmentally, financially . . . some of us will always be ready to point the finger at someone else and say, it's all your fault. Some of us can't accept that we might be at fault. The pain of admitting our wrongs is worse than the pain of watching everything fall apart. 

So, here's what I believe. 

• All borders separating nations should be abolished. 
• All white people should undergo mandatory abortions.
• People who make a lot of money should be taxed at a higher rate, and the funds should be distributed to lower income people and used to provide infrastructure, safety nets, and services that benefit everyone.
• The climate crisis should be treated as an existential threat. 
• Everyone deserves adequate healthcare, food, and shelter, no matter who they are or where they live. 
• Kids should learn civics in school. 
• The moment they invent a vaccine for stupid, we should all be forced to get it, whether we want it or not. 

Don't hold me to any of this. I won't remember it tomorrow. 

Where do we go from here?

Greetings from sunny Scottsdale. Yes, I'm back in paradise, walking the dog, taking out the trash, and pretending I'm a friend of the family and not the hired help. Am I a guest who happens to get paid $25 a day to feed and walk the dog? Am I just here for dog love? It's a curious conundrum I don't spend much time contemplating. What's the point? It's great to have dog love, and did I mention there's a tub?

Meanwhile, I am getting some writing done. The third book of this trilogy is not obedient. The characters are determined to develop themselves, as if I have nothing to do with their goals and dreams. The plot stopped thickening about thirty pages in. Now it's so thin, it's running off in all directions like the coffee I keep knocking over in my car. Just like the drips of stale coffee, I keep finding loose ends, blind alleys, and pointless panoramas. Who cares if my hero steps in a bucket? Is that necessary? Or is it just a joke that means nothing to anyone but me? 

In the end, I have to write for me. If I don't find it funny and entertaining, then what's the point? I'm not writing to impress anyone. I'm sure not writing to earn money. I'm sad my one and only fan has been contending with the L.A. wildfires. She may not have a house anymore. It's unlikely she will be replacing the previous books she bought from me, let alone buying this new one, if I ever finish it. Still, it's heartwarming to know I once had a fan.

I have a mental map of my life. A gold star proclaims "you are here." The path behind me is unchangeable but blessedly hazy. I remember snapshots of humilations, regrets, and unfulfilled dreams but not much else, not without photos to prompt me. The path in front of me might be predictable, if past performance were actually a predictor of future results. However, if you have ever invested your IRA in small cap funds, you've seen the disclaimer. You may not have read it, assuming the market would always rise, but the warning label is there. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. You could lose everything. Then again, you could win the lottery. Just because my past trajectory suggests disasters will compound in my future doesn't mean there aren't other possibilities. 

For example, my writing might get discovered by someone who has enough presence to influence others to buy my books. I know it's not likely, especially given that TikTok is on life support and possibly dead. I have a Ph.D. in marketing, after all. The first challenge for any new product, even before being findable, is to generate awareness of its existence. My books are findable, but nobody knows they exist. It stands to reason: Readers have to know about my books before they might consider buying my books. Sadly for me, I am a social media avoider. I'm also an extreme introvert. Therefore, my only hope is magic.

I am not retreating into magic for the next four years, in case you are wondering. I am keeping my options open. I might write postcards, I might submit exhortations to certain politicians to stop being assholes, I might drive my minivan to Washington and sit outside the Capitol Building with a sign. I'm not sure what the sign would say, but the internet will help me find an appropriate meme. With any luck, I'll make the national news, especially if I self-immolate. If I were young, attractive, and persistent, like Greta, no worries. However, I'm old, wrinkled, and tired. Nobody cares. It would take a seriously drastic action to make the front page of the New York Times. I'm not sure self-immolation would actually be newsworthy. Everyone would claim it's AI and Photoshop. Nothing is real anymore, not even self-sacrifice.

Plus, if I did something that final, I'd miss the show that is coming. Like a typical reader, I want to keep turning the pages to see what happens. The ending might be disappointing, maybe a bit bloody, but sometimes it's the plotlines and characters that keep me going. 

Tips for coping with reality

Now that I live in my car, I'm a new person. It's as if all the years of art school, business school, teaching, editing, taking care of my mother are artifacts of someone else's life. Who am I now? That's always a useful question to ask, if you want to do a reset in the here and now. I'm not normally interested in being in the here and now (as if I had a choice), but as a seeker, I always enjoy figuring out how to reframe my current situation so it doesn't make me insane.

I still have moments of surreality. The sordid necessities of living in a vehicle tend to outshout my curiosity about understanding it. Worries such as, do I have enough trash bags, water, wipes, and alcohol take over worries about more esoteric considerations (like who am I? Where did I come from, and how soon can I go back?). Mostly, I've come to accept my strange lifestyle. (I know you are going to say, Carol, shelter solutions exist: you can always share housing, get a [real] job, marry a rich person, win the lottery, move to another country . . . any number of possibilities, so quitcher whining.) I will not give your comment any energy by responding, except to say, where did you come from and how soon can you leave?

I hope vehicle dwelling is temporary, but I know it's real. 

Right now, I'm parked on Bureau of Land Management land outside of the town of Quartzsite. You might wonder, why there, Carol? Thanks for asking. Quartzsite is the winter roost for vanlifers, who drive many miles to escape the snow, ice, and cold rain back at home. The winter gathering started a few days ago and will run through the week. I'm not a very social person, but I do enjoy being around other people who are doing the exact thing I'm doing: living in a vehicle. Some are in fancy motorhomes and travel trailers, some are in posh sprinter vans, many are in minivans, and I even saw one intrepid nomad who lives in her Smart Car. I'm going to stop complaining about my lack of space. Compared to that car, I live in a mansion. 

The main thing I like is that nobody here thinks I'm weird, bad, or wrong. In fact, everyone here supports, applauds, and celebrates this nomadic lifestyle. Some are part-timers, some are full-timers, but we all have one thing in common: We live life on wheels. 

I'm a helping person, so in case you are thinking about downsizing into a home on wheels, here are a few tips. 

• If you use something, put it back right away. Odds are, if you put it down somewhere, you will never find it again. If you lose something, check where it's supposed to be (and check again, no, I mean, really check). If it's not there, check the trash. Check under your blankets. Check the space between your mattress and the wall. If you don't find it, you either dropped it at Walmart or you're sitting on it.
• Resign yourself to the idea that you will buy things repeatedly because (a) you forgot you already bought it or (b) you forgot where you put it. 
• Don't be alarmed if sometimes you just sit there, wondering what to do next. 
• If you cook with a portable gas stove, stand upwind, use a wind screen, and don't spray water on hot olive oil if you want to keep your eyebrows. 
• Give some serious thought to the question, how many pillows do I really need?
• Expect to pay three to four times as much as you should have spent on your build as you come to accept how little you really need to have a healthy useful mobile life. Get used to going to Goodwill. You won't have time or space to sell your castoffs on eBay. 
• Get more trash bags, wipes, and paper towels than you think you could possibly need. You will need them. And dump your trash quickly and often, or be prepared to smell poop all night.

There you have it. My tips on surviving life on wheels. Yes, there are constraints to living in a small space, but the upside is if you don't like where you are, you can drive away. Of course, wherever you go, there you are, but that's a different post.

Hope your new year is off to a good start.

Cheers from the Hellish Handbasket.

The year of no thinking

I'm swearing off thinking for 2025. I know that sounds radical, even impossible, but let me make my case. Before you say, I'm with you, Carol. We humans spend far too much time in our heads, not enough time in our guts and our hearts, I disdainfully disgree. I think thinking and feeling are highly overrated. See, there I go again, thinking. It's a chronic compulsion. I'm sure I've ranted about this before, but seeing as how it's a new year, it seems like it might be time for a recommitment to my goal to stop thinking. 

Thinking often leads to feeling. Not always, but for me, until now, there has been a direct line. Think about something, then go nah, way too hard, or yay, sure to bring happiness . . . in other words, conjuring feelings of pessimism or optimism, somewhere on the scale between. 

Not going there. 2025 will be the year of action. Thinking will be allowed only in the service of making goals and the tasklists to achieve them. Feelings will henceforth refer not to emotions but to physical discomforts like hunger, thirst, fatigue, and urgent bucket needs. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Meanwhile, the journey continues. I won't say the nomadic life is all roses and lollipops, but it has its . . . let's not call them joys, that would be much too close to the emotional hole in the sidewalk. Maybe advantages is a more neutral word. Doesn't quite convey the idea . . . perks, maybe? 

Let's say it's not all good, it's not all bad. On the futile continuum of judging one's lifestyle, its somewhere in the middle. I muddle along from day to day, focused on the basic daily activities of living. I try not to think much about the state of things, internally and externally, except beyond the physical needs previously mentioned. People are not in my control, even when they seem insane to me. Circumstances do not bend to my whim. Weather defies me continuously, too hot, too cold.

I could get angry. I see a lot of angry people. Angry people do unpredictable things, sometimes violent. I can understand, but in this new year, I'm not dwelling on the whats and whys of insanity. It just is, like weather. It happens. Deal with it.

I admit, sometimes it takes some effort to stop thinking and feeling. Today, for example, I felt sadness. The fourth anniversary of my mother's death is next Tuesday. Even though I would not want her back from the dead, I miss her. I wonder what I would say if she asked me how I am. 

When I start to feel things, I get back to basics. Is the sun shining? Can I get solar? Do I need to drive to recharge? These things matter to me. I'm going out to Quartzsite next week to be near other people who would not consider my lifestyle weird or wrong. Before I go, I need to get water, trash bags, food. These things will be hard to find and cost a fortune in the small town of Q, truck stop for motorhomes on the I-10. I'll shop at Walmart. Fry's, probably, to stock up on the basics of my nomad life. It's not bad, it just is. 

Happy 2025 from the Hellish Handbasket

Here we are again at the end of a year, with a new year staring us in the face. I remember when time moved so slowly, it seemed as if the school year would never end. Now I can't believe how fast time passes. It's confounding. Digging in my heels and making skid marks only works in the cartoons. 

Do you set goals for yourself at the start of a new year? I have a friend who makes a list and then tracks her progress on each goal. At the end of the year, she publishes a cute pie chart showing how she spent her time and a bar chart showing how much of each goal she accomplished. I've heard that tracking a goal makes it more likely to succeed. When I wrote my first novel, I tracked my word count daily. I wanted to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I wrote 90,000. Overachiever. But the point is tracking works.

I have not been tracking my word count for my current novel. However, I am writing a lot. My goal was to finish the third book of my trilogy. I'm only a year behind. 

I could blame my new lifestyle. Well, yes, I blame my new lifestyle. Living in my car makes it harder to focus on creativity. I spend a lot of my time thinking about mundane things like water, trash, food, power, and gas. Not to mention plastic bags, wipes, vinegar, and alcohol, as in, do I have enough of these things to last another few days, or do I need to stop at Walmart? 

I remember a time when I swore I'd never set foot in a Walmart. Ha ha. 

This tiny keyboard is hard to type on. I probably look a lot like Linus when he's playing his dinky piano. Which proves my life is pretty much a cartoon.

Speaking of cartoons, my brainiac head doc is on vacation until January 6. Can you believe it, the nerve of her taking time off over the holidays when I'm a vestibular-challenged puddle of dizzy goo. It's a travesty.

Speaking of travesties, politics. I'm not an eloquent writer on that subject, but I subscribe to writers who are. I'm not alone in my sense of impending doom. Maybe doom is already here. Hm. I read that AI could kill off humans within thirty years. Could. It makes sense to me. AI will have no need for humans. 

I'm sure more could be said, but I'd just be barking out my butt.

Happy new year from the Hellish Handbasket.

Christmas in a car

'Tis the season for all the people in the upper Midwest to migrate to southern Arizona. It's not hard to understand why. Days here are mild and generally sunny. For example, yesterday was 80°F. Nights hover around 43°F, rarely dropping below freezing. Compared to Boston's 12°F, this place is a winter paradise. That's why you see license plates from Minnesota, Montana, and North Dakota, especially on RVs. In the winter, Tucson hosts RVs of all shapes, sizes, and conditions. However, the real action is happening now in Quartzsite, the mecca of nomad life. I plan to head that way in mid-January for the annual meetup. Yes, I'm officially a nomad. Meanwhile, I lurk around the Tucson area, soaking up solar when I can and trying to stay warm in the early morning hours before sunrise. 

I remember my first Christmas in Los Angeles. 1977. It felt surreal. Royal palms are not a substitute for a freshly cut Douglas Fir dragged into the house and set in a red metal dish of water, where it is supposed to stay green until New Year's, when you take off as much tinsel as you can and chuck the thing in the trash. Eventually the Boy Scouts offered recycling programs for dead trees. If you really cared about the environment, which we did not, you'd buy a live tree in a pot and then plant it in the ground, where it would be dead by summer. And if you had given up on the whole stupid thing, like my mother finally did, you'd buy an artificial tree, store it in the basement, and pull it out on December 15, still decorated from last year. 

I dread going into stores at this time of year. The music, the stench, the crowds—it's all too much for my introvert Grinch. However, today I went to both Walmart and Target, looking for something cheap and specific. I couldn't find it, but I did notice something surprising: There were no crowds. It was mid-morning, prime shopping time, and I saw fewer people than I'd see on any regular Sunday morning. 

Maybe everyone already bought their penguin pajamas, beer, and gift wrapping. 

Maybe they all fear crowds as much as I do and did all their shopping online. 

Maybe they've sworn off consumerism in an effort to do their part to save the environment. 

Nah.

'Tis the season to wish each other well, so here goes: Wherever you are, I hope you are as warm as you want to be and as happy as you will allow yourself to be. 

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket.

Two brainiacs walked into a bar

I drew this picture in 2003, long before I had any reason to whine about medications. Back in the old days, when I was young and naive, when I thought because I didn't drink, smoke, or eat meat, I was therefore invincible. Back when I assumed I'd live to be a hundred. Ha.

I won't say my life is ruled by meds now that I'm older, because that wouldn't be true, and plus, it would be giving way too much of my brain space to the conundrum of mortality. However, I take a lot more meds than I used to. Less than many, probably, and I'm grateful to have healthcare, which I assume will continue even if the C-suite happens to meet with an unfortunate accident. 

I know it's foolish, but taking all these medications sometimes makes me feel like a moral failure. However, I admit to a thrill of triumph when I see the impressed look on the med aide's face when they take my blood pressure. It only takes two blood pressure medications to keep my BP looking good. 

I probably mentioned my brainiac neurologist disagrees with my diagnosis of vestibular paroxysmia. Why she should trust her years of eduation and experience in favor of my imprecise, anecdotal tales of woe is beyond me. I'd be happy with a little empathy. I've heard surgeons are incapable of empathy, which is why they go into a field where they (mostly) don't have to think about bedside manner. It might be the same with vestibular neurologists. I bet most of the patients this doctor meets are weepy, anxious, wobbly whiners who can't describe their symptoms beyond "I fall over and I can't get up." I think I might be an anomaly. I know my malady is kind of rare, but the fact that I show up having read the NIH articles about my condition might be something she has never encountered.

Anyway, all that to say, after Med #1 lost some of its effectiveness, she prescribed Med #2. She said I should know after the first week if it was going to work or not. I appreciated that information. I stuck it out for two weeks and reported that the new medication had not only made the symptoms worse but also given me a new set of symptoms to complain about. She told me to keep taking Med #1 and stop taking Med #2. She's cooking up Med #3 as we speak. Not literally, I hope. She's a brilliant brainiac, so you never know. She might have a lab in her basement.

Yesterday I was at a grocery store parking my empty cart in the cart parking place like a good little shopper when I noticed an older white-haired woman pushing her loaded cart in circles, scanning the parking lot. I could tell right away she'd lost her car.

"Do you need some help?" I asked.

"I can't seem to find my car."

"What are you driving?"

She told me the make and model, looking worried and chagrined. "I parked it and pulled through to the next slot, you know, so I could get out easily?"

I reassured her I did the same thing. "What color is it?" 

"Green."

"Is it dark green?"

"No, light green."

I trotted around and eventually found a very pale greenish-gray car I thought might be hers. I ran back and verified the license plate.

"You've done your good deed for the day," she said, clearly greatly relieved. 

As if someone would have stolen her car in an upscale grocery store in an upper-income part of town. I guess it could happen, but not likely. Now, if she'd parked in my usual neck of the woods, she might have come back to a car on blocks and stripped for parts. 

I patted her shoulder. "Happens to me all the time."  

Merry Christmas and all that happy horse pucky from sunny, warm southern Arizona. 

Everybody roomba!

My dogsit vacation at the Scottsdale resort is coming to an end. For the past three weeks, I've been living someone else's life. At times it's an uncomfortable persona, because I know what is coming next. However, I'm intent on being a person who is enjoying the last few days in paradise. 

Not only does this place have a stove, a refrigerator, running water, and a toilet, it also has a robotic vacuum cleaner. It's running around the floor outside this bedroom as I type this, bumping over the grout in the tiles and banging into furniture. The dog snoozing on the bed behind me appears to be oblivious. 

In addition, this Club Med housing development has an artificial lake, walking paths, and about a thousand dogs, all of whom are despised by the dog in my care. Maddie is not a big dog, and she knows it. She'll leave the bigger dogs alone, but any dog her size or smaller is fair game. She lunges on the leash with teeth bared and lets loose a barrage of insults that you wouldn't think could issue from such a puny creature. She is not a yapper. When she's pissed off, look out.

Maddie is not an obedient dog. She goes where she wants. If I happened to lose my deathgrip on the leash, she would be in the next housing development in a heartbeat. She doesn't care about ducks snoozing on the lake shore. It's the enticing aroma of old dog poop that really floats her boat. As I'm trying not to gag while I bend over to pick up her poop, I berate for the millionth time the dog owners who don't give a shit. Oh, pardon me. I mean, those loving pet parents who for some reason think their dog's poop is a gift to the rest of us. 

Curse you, irresponsible dog owners. 

The robot disk grinding in the other room just ran into the door stopper. Thwangggg! Maddie and I looked at each other, like, wha—? I investigated. The device backed up and went around it. Techology is amazing and frightening at the same time. Now the thing is banging on the bedroom door, like a 6-inch tall ankle-sucking murderer. The first time the robot cleaned, it ate a shoelace. It tried to eat the shoelace, that is. It couldn't ingest the shoe attached to the shoelace, so it came to a halt and wailed for assistance. I unwrapped the shoelace from its wheel and sent it back to work. 

I'm writing a lot on the final novel in a trilogy I started three years ago. My writing process is this: I start out as a planner and end up a total lost cause pantser. The only constraints I have are the easter eggs I wrote into Book 2, with no clue how I was going to resolve them in Book 3. I had to reread the first two books to remember the characters and find the clues I would have to address in this volume. I regret a few things. Yesterday I had a sinking realization I'd written myself into a corner. Last night as I soaked in the bathtub, I found the way out. Tubs are amazing. Showers are okay, too, if you don't have balance issues. Walking is good. Sleeping can be productive, although I never remember the hilarious plots twists and endearing characters in the morning. I have to believe my great ideas are out there somewhere in the ether, hoving around, waiting for an opening, and they will return to me when it's time.

Another disconcerting realization I've had to come to terms with is my failing memory. I used to be an excellent speller. I consistently won my 6th-grade spelling bees, the only time when I felt like a star instead of an alien from another planet. Now I can't remember the difference between its and it's. Well, I know the difference, but if I don't go back and edit my work, I don't find the errors. Like in this blog. I regularly omit articles. It's humbling, especially because I'm supposedly a professional editor. 

We carry on.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket. 

Liberated from the most wonderful time of the year

Did you have a good Buy Nothing Day? Great, I'm so glad. Doesn't it feel good to know you aren't contributing to the consumer madness that ruins the day after Thanksgiving? My family stopped giving gifts a long time ago. It's liberating. I'm a big proponent of Buy Nothing Day. I recommend it. 

It's a little embarrassing to complain when it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. I'd like to say everything is rosy, but you know how it is with a chronic malcontent. Nothing is ever good enough. There's always some bone to pick, some axe to grind. I guess I could be grateful that I'm naturally gifted when it comes to looking on the dark side. It's one of my strengths. 

Dang it, now I have that song in my head. I hate that. It's hard to escape the ear worms that proliferate in this season. I don't know what the appeal is. I mean, if you've heard one version of fill in the blank, you've pretty much heard them all. All holiday songs were deliberately crafted to stick with you, kind of like stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy. We'll be singing this stuff until spring. 

Snowbirds flock to southern Arizona in the winter. I totally understand why. If you live someplace where it's chilly, rainy, snowy, or icy, say Chicago or Minneapolis or Boston, you probably dream of warmer climes while you shiver in front of your roaring fire, if you are lucky enough to have one of those. It was 73°F here today, with some high clouds. In the shade, I felt cold. In the sun, I felt hot. There's no just right in the winter desert. That is hard for a Goldilocks person to accept. 

In a week or so I'll be done with my dogsit gig in Scottsdale. I'll pack up my gear and head back to Tucson, where I will pick up some stuff, drop off some stuff, rail at my neurologist (via the portal), and feel resentful when she tells me to get more blood drawn so we can find out how close I am to complete disintegration. I won't hang around long. It's almost time for the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Quartzsite, where I can park for free on federal land with half a milllion nomads and not feel like a homeless pariah. When I get tired of the crowd, I can pack up and go someplace else. You can do that when you are liberated. I recommend it.

Happy stupid cold overspending season from the Hellish Handbasket.

Here we go again

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Dumb platitude, but it feels true this holiday slash election slash stupid weather season. Haven't we seen this movie before? This hole in the sidewalk of American cultural insanity seems awfully familiar. Didn't it take years to crawl out of it last time? What am I talking about? I have no idea, but I suspect we haven't actually crawled out of any hole. We are not just still falling, but still digging the hole deeper. It's the American way. Rah rah rah.

So here we go again, into another stupid cold season of consumerism, fascism, and possibly alcoholism. I didn't think alcohol was my particular drug of choice, but never say never. However, when the stress hits the fan, many of us hit the bottle. I can see the appeal. The world looks better when it's somewhat blurry. The fear doesn't kick so hard while it's riding my back like a scream of wild monkeys if there's a layer of numbness. The cold is mitigated somewhat by dulled nerve endings, and the spectre of rampant shameless consumerism can easily be left on the doorstep simply by staying inside for the next month and a half (depending on how you feel about ringing in the new year). 

Speaking of ringing, I've got a new drug. 'Tis the season to experiment with remedies. I'm finding that remedies often create new maladies, which prompt a quest for new remedies. It's a vicious whirlpool that benefits only insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers. And by extension, shareholders. Don't forget the real power behind the throne of commerce. Gotta keep those shareholders happy. 

Anyhoo, I'm sure you want to know all the details. Well, sorry. Not going to happen. Suffice it to say, the first drug for the vestibular paroxysmia stopped working almost the moment I set foot in Arizona. Weather occurred, as it is wont to do here, and my head went wonky with it. I blame Arizona. The drug prescribed by the neurologist stopped working. What's more, it's chipping away at my white blood cell count, which is apparently not ideal. Which leads me to mention this new drug. I've only taken three doses. So far the benefits have not appeared. However, the side effects have been interesting. 

It's too soon to know if this new drug will work. I'm sure you will stay tuned, because this drama is so interesting and you want to know what comes next. I'd write an upbeat new episode if I could, one with a happy ending. In truth, I wish I could forget all about this endless dramedy, just cancel the show, fire the writers, take it off the air, especially because this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, and everyone deserves a little holiday cheer. Even the Chronic Malcontent.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket