The chronic malcontent gives some payback and gets some payback

Testing, testing. Howdy, Blogbots, are you reading me? How's it going? Having trouble breathing? I am. We had a little smoke from a grass fire in the area yesterday and I thought, oh no! I am inhaling the ashes of the Amazon rain forests. The world is on fire. The world is blowing away. The world is sinking under a rising sea. Seems like it's all going to hell in a hand-basket. Again.

Well, I'm sure little tribes of humans will survive in some out-of-the-way places, on some remote islands tourists can only dream of visiting. I won't make it. I can't even afford to drive to the beach. I won't be a survivor of whatever disaster comes this way, certainly, and that's okay. I don't mind, as long as my end is not too messy.

Speaking of messy ends, hooboy. Last week, I took Mom to the doctor for a case of conjunctivitis. What us normal folks call pink eye. Her eyes were definitely glowing.

“I feel fine,” Mom said. She didn't remember that she'd been scratching her itchy eyes just three minutes earlier.

Getting there was no problem. The doctor's office is about a half-mile away from the care facility. We were there early, carrying our gear, ready for anything. Well, I carried the gear, ready for anything. Extra pull-ups, wet wipes, and an extra pair of pants. Good thing, too. Before we saw the nurse practitioner, Mom had to use the restroom three times. Fortunately, it was right across the hall and plenty big enough for both of us. Mom can no longer use the bathroom by herself. So in we went. Two times, no problem. However, the third time, as they say, is the charm.

“Oh, dear,” said Mom. “There it goes.” It, in this case, was the gusher of you-know-what in her pull-ups. I grabbed her walker and she hustled stiffly into the hall. Wouldn't you know, someone was using the restroom at the moment of meltdown. It wouldn't have mattered, I guess. The damage was well and truly done. The staff pointed me down the hall and around the corner to another restroom.

I won't bore you with details I'm sure are way more interesting in your mind than they are in mine. Let's just say, lucky for me, it was stocked with extra rolls of toilet paper. I did a lot of mopping up. I will never set anything I care about on the floor of a restroom again.

Mom went into the restroom wearing elastic-waist blue jeans and came out wearing bright red sweat pants. Her shoes were on her feet. The blue jeans were rolled up, stinky side in, and stuffed in my bag. She doesn't care anymore how she looks, and I have to admit, I don't either. I would have chosen another pair of blue jeans, but the red pants were the only pants left in her closet. She's been having more meltdowns. At this rate, I need to get her some more jeans.

Oh, how about her eyes? Thanks for asking. The nurse practitioner eventually found us. The eye exam itself took about five minutes. Very shortly, we were out the door. We spent three times as long in the restroom as we did in the doctor's exam room.

Last week, I made the mistake of taking Mom down the hall to visit her former smoking partner, Jane. Jane reported that she has started smoking again. “I only have one a day!” she hastened to reassure Mom. Then she looked at me. “Don't blame me if your Mom wants a cigarette.”

Mom looked at me. “Why can't I have one a day?”

I harrumphed a bit and said, “Let's talk about it in your room.” As we walked back, I crossed my fingers that she would forget about it, and my prayer was answered.

Or so I thought. Last night, Mom said, “I want to go outside for a cigarette.” I was surprised. She can't remember what she had for dinner ten minutes ago. I couldn't believe she remembered visiting Jane.

“I saw Tina walking outside today,” Mom said. Tina is the Med-Aide. Last I heard, Tina had been trying to quit smoking. Wonder how that's going. Maybe not great.

“I'm sorry, Mom. Your brain isn't working so good these days. Remember when Dr. Sho notified the DMV and they rescinded your driver's license? This is sort of like that. We have rescinded your license to smoke.”

Her glare made me queasy. I am biologically programmed to cringe when I see that glare. That evening, I consulted with my siblings and two out of three responses indicated I should man up and be the parent. So, backed by the siblings, I feel confident I can now say, request denied, Mother. No cigarettes for you. Not now, not ever.

Another fresh hell. Going and coming, payback sucks.

The risk of living

When I was a young adult, I dressed to be noticed. Being in the garment industry, I felt I had a professional obligation to experiment with norms of decency. I could design and sew just about anything, and I did. Appearance was everything. The goal was to shock and provoke.

In the late 1970s, I made strapless blouson dresses of gaily flowered cheap poly-cotton, accessorized with chunky beads and a crown of pigeon feathers. I let my artist friend draw circles of purple, white, and black makeup around my eyes and on my cheeks. The outcome was a weird white-girl interpretation of a generic African native dance ensemble. My best audience seemed to be old men at bus stops, who indicated their approval by . . . you know, letting it all hang out. My friend and I rode the bus to dance clubs, so we saw our share of weirdos. We fit right in.

In the early 1980s, jumpsuits made of vinyl with shoulders the size of small turkeys were my favorite for going out. Back then, I was about twenty pounds overweight; thus, I believed the wide shoulders made my waist look smaller. I didn't have money for nice fabric, opting instead for cheap vinyl, cotton chintz, and antique faded rayon crepe excavated from the attic of the fabric store that employed me for $4.75 an hour. With my spiky hennaed hair, I was quite a sight.

Gradually, over time, a few run-ins with crazies motivated me to shift my attitudes about attracting attention. I began to think it might be safer to be invisible. Age did the rest. Now I can go just about anywhere, at least in this white part of America, and be unnoticed. I have grown to prefer anonymity, except when I'm trying to get service at Best Buy or Target.

These days, I pray to outlive my mother. I am well aware that leaving the house is risky. I could slip and die in the tub, I know, but my chances of survival decrease the moment I walk out the door. To avoid incurring the wrath of other drivers, I drive carefully and courteously. I admit I sometimes drive too slowly, and that behavior on occasion has inspired people to honk and speed around me. So far no one has pulled a gun and taken a shot as they roar by, but I am aware it could happen. Hey, guys, I drive an old Focus. It has a top speed of 35 mph.

Getting out of my car in a parking area makes me a target. To avoid attracting negative attention and possibly tipping a passerby into a rage, I paste an inane smile on my face. I dress in shapeless unremarkable clothes. I have no bumper stickers on my car. I try to look harmless. I hope to be invisible. I don't want any random psycho to see me as a threat. I probably look like a nut myself, grinning and talking to myself. If you must know, I'm praying. My prayers are along the lines of please don't let me hurt anyone today and grant me the serenity. You know the rest. This is how I remain calm.

After the sad events of the past weeks, well, really of the past few years, well, really of the entire history of America, I realize I am always walking the moment between life and death. A stray bullet, a wildly swung blade, or a curb-jumping SUV could take me out in a few seconds. I could be a random victim, I could be a target. Wrong place, wrong time. Just another casualty of western civilization. It's not that I want to die. It comes when it comes. I just don't want my family to experience the grief and inconvenience of losing me. Mom would have a harder time getting her gluten-free cookies and cashew milk ice cream.

Last Friday evening I caught the tail end of a documentary on the 1966 Clocktower shooting. Reeling from the recent mass shootings, I found this show both riveting and horrifying. Oddly enough, I have compassion for people who come to believe the only way out of their misery is to take others out with them. From a certain perspective, their actions make sense. They aren't insane. They may have lost touch with the reality we all sort of pretend to agree on, but they aren't nuts. They are hurting.

Fear drives us to see the other as an enemy. Fear drives us to elect leaders who say they can keep us safe from people who don't look and think like us. I doubt if there is much hope for the human species if we don't figure out that love is the only path to peace. It's deliciously ironic though, that our effects on the climate will take us out before we can spread our madness outward into the universe. Maybe there is a god.

I can't leave it there, I suppose. Please don't text me to find out if I'm okay. You know I use this blog as a vehicle to express my feelings. Once expressed, they often dissipate. So weird how that works. Anyway, now that my fears are on the page, I can continue on with my day. For example, I washed some clothes this morning while I was cooking breakfast (multitasking, look at me go!). My next action item is to design a new course to help artists figure out . . . stuff. I don't know. I'm an artist: I haven't figured it out. But I will by end of day, I promise.

I don't subscribe to the idea that life is so precious, I should focus on sucking from it every drop of pleasure. I don't know what the purpose of my life is, but I don't think the end goal is just to be happy. I'd be thrilled if I could unravel the mystery of disappearing socks before I die. Happiness is dandy, but the real challenge is bringing more love and less fear with me as I go about the job of living. What do you do to bring more love and less fear into the world?