If they can do it, why can't I?

I'm delinquent again on posting my weekly blogpost. My apologies to my five readers. I noticed I have written 606 blogposts. Jiminy crickets. I wonder what would have happened if I had decided not to post anonymously? Probably I would have been fired from my teaching job and thus would never have had the income to get a PhD. I would never have been in a position to take care of my mother for five years. If I had chosen to write under my own name, I would probably have been living in my car since 2013, that is, if I had one. Hm. On the bright side, maybe Mom would have gone to live in my brother's basement, derailing his career instead of mine. Well, I never had a career, so that's not fair. Derailing my descent into whatever the hell this is.

Anonymity can extend to erasing one's preferences. I can hear you asking, what do you mean, Carol? Thanks for asking. I will tell you. While I was riding my bike (or the deceased Linda's bike, I hesitate to claim it as my own) around the mobile home park in the gloaming this evening, it occurred to me that I perhaps don't know myself very well. I mean, when I'm immersed in other people's environments, I start to forget what I like and what I don't like. I take on the culture of my surroundings.

Let me give you some examples. 

When I was dating a runner, I took up running—well, jogging, in my case. When I was living with a surfer, I hung out on the beach (no, I never surfed, not once; apparently even I have a line I will not cross). When I was living with a golfer, I learned how to play golf. Do you see what I am doing? I'm blending in. 

Now I'm in the mobile home park. A bike happened to manifest (thanks to Bill's dead wife, Linda). I was content to cycle around the Park wearing my straw hat. However, my housemate is an avid and competent bicycle rider. This means I am now fitted out with front and back blinking lights and a bike lock. It was also brought to my attention that if I wanted to survive I should wear my bike helmet and a neon yellow vest. This is so the old drivers will see me and hopefully not run over me like they do the lizards I see flattened everywhere. And if I do get squashed, maybe the helmet will leave my head intact so my family can identify my corpse. 

Here's another example. Given that I may soon be living in my car (I mean car camping, don't freak out), I mentioned to my housemate my interest in getting a folding bicycle, thinking, you know, how handy a little bike would be for getting to the campground pit toilet in the middle of the night. Next thing I know, a Craigslist post appears in my phone: folding bike for sale! My housemate is a dynamo.

Do you see what is happening? I'm morphing into a bicyclist! 

Besides knowing all things bicycle, my housemate is skilled in the kitchen. I have been advised to consider eating seaweed and natto. I know what seaweed is, having stabbed many kelp bulbs on Oregon beaches, but natto was a new word to me. Japanese in origin, I was told. I have a rather dreary history with Japanese food, beginning with a MSG-laced quail egg in 1988. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, that quail egg ushered in a decades-long episode of food additive aversion that lingers to this day. Name a food additive, I react to it. So you can understand my inclination to nix the natto. However, I can't say I'm not intrigued. Will the promised benefits outweigh the risks? I predict I will soon be foraging at the Asian grocer.

Mostly I try to keep my life simple (and therefore ostensibly under my control). My food plan is somewhat spartan. I continue to pare down my possessions. However, I do get impulses to binge and buy. My impulse to buy things is slow-moving but it is powerful. 

Let me give you an example. 

I ride around this mobile home park at dusk. I look into the bright windows. What do I see? Big-screen TVs showing the Kardashians or Survivor or football. Poufy little dogs barking at me through the window (and a few cats, who don't bark). Old women who resemble my mother sitting on flowered couches playing solitaire or knitting. Shelves full of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. What happens in my brain? I think, hey, I've been deprived for so long, I need some stuff of my own. From there, it's a nanohop to believing I need shelves to store and display that stuff. Then I think, I might have enough money left to buy a mobile home, not in this fancy place, but maybe in a less friendly, more decrepit trailer park in another part of town. 

This thought runs through my head every time I ride or walk through this mobile home park. Even though I know these so-called homeowners don't own the land their manufactured homes sit on; even though I know they are at the mercy of the landowners, who can raise the rent, set the rules, and sell the land at any time; even though I know most of these trailers would crack and crumble if the owners tried to relocate them to another park; even though I know I don't have the income to maintain a car, let alone a mobile home . . . even though I know all that, I still in my mind think, if they can do it, why can't I?

That is how my brain is constantly trying to kill me. I look at people who spend money and think, if they can do it, why can't I? I look at people who drink as much as they want and eat granola, pudding, pancakes, and potato chips and think, if they can do it, why can't I? 

Truth: I could do it. I could do all of that. Nobody would try to stop me. The consequences would be painful and debilitating for me and disgusting to witness for my friends and family, but I could say, eff it and jump off that cliff. If I knew I had three months to live, I would probably do it. Mm, pancakes.