Do you ever wish you could freeze time? Shut off the clock, silence the calendar, you know, take a vacation from the daily detritus of life for a while? Before things get worse? I know it isn't possible. I'm just frustrated at stumbling over an endless stream of stupid obstacles. I want things to be easier. Or at least, not any worse. I realize life isn't so great now for most people on this planet. Life is precarious for all but a handful of humans. I'm not one of them, but still, I know I'm lucky. Born in the right place, right epoch, right skin color. Wrong gender, but I cope. My complaints are luxury problems, compared to what some people are facing. Recognizing that fact doesn't stop me from complaining, but it does put my trivial concerns into perspective.
Another little snafu. My former landlord sent me some mail from Portland, consisting of three pieces of junk mail (Medicare, Carol, the sky will fall if you don't take action!) and two pieces from the IRS addressed to my mother. The IRS letters were duplicates sent a month apart. For some reason, the good people at the IRS thought they needed to tell me twice that they needed more time to figure out how to respond to the letter I sent them in January. Looking back at my files, I believe the letter I sent them was to inform them of her death. Maybe their computers are locked up trying to parse the impossible task of communicating with a dead person. I don't know what their issue is. I communicate with my mother all the time. I told her the IRS is after her. She didn't seem to care, not enough to respond, anyway.
Now the next thing pulling at me is the horrible prospect of upgrading to Windows 11. I still remember the trauma of upgrading to Windows 10. I had to get help from some professionals, who augmented my old computer so it could receive the gift of new operating system software. This time, Windows Update informed me my computer would not be able to handle an upgrade to Windows 11. They weren't particularly gentle about giving me the news. They have no idea the pain they are potentially unleashing in my technological life. I will dig in my heels for as long as I can. Eventually I will need to get a new computer. It seems like I get one problem ironed out and a new wrinkle appears. I really hate to iron.
Last week I took my car in to a repair shop recommended to me by a Tucson friend I trust. The mechanics at this shop are really nice, which somehow made it hurt a little less when they handed me the estimate. I won't tell you how much I paid to get the fuel injectors cleaned out. Apparently this car was ridden hard and put away wet, not once, but many times. I should have sold it to the Dodge dealer when they offered to buy it from me, but then I would be carless. I've been carless before. I can do it, but it seriously dents my self-esteem. It's one thing to say I'm poor by choice, you know, that old saying about we are volunteers, not victims. After a while, though, it's hard to stave off the waves of self-pity.
All that to say, I'm all in on this car. It's a touchy, sensitive beast, but it's my touchy, sensitive beast. I'll keep throwing money at it and when the money is gone, I'll park it somewhere and live in it. No worries. That was always going to be my backup plan if things here in Tucson go gunnysack. I'm the queen of contingency plans.
In other good news, I'm getting ready to publish my second novel. Too bad I can't tell you what it is, this being an anonymous blog and all. In other bad news, I saw my second adult-sized cockroach in my apartment today. Welcome to Tucson. In other bad news, the vertigo continues to pound my head into a sloshy pulp. In other good news, Medicare!
After a while, it's obvious nothing is all good or all bad. It's just life, dragging me into the future, one day at a time.
