When javelinas fly

I came face-to-face with a rotund javelina a few nights ago. I think it might be one lonely female who wanders the trailer park nibbling on weeds. She moves slowly. I don't think I could call it a saunter, after getting a better look at her. I think she's moping. She is always alone, and javelina normally travel in packs. I think she's lost her family.

Her preferred weeds might soon be gone too. A man in boots carrying a two-gallon jug of some liquid I suspect I would not want to get on my hands came around a couple days ago. I am guessing it was a man. All I saw were hairy legs and large shoes. 

I was sitting at the kitchen table in front of my laptop reading the online news in order to avoid preparing for my Zoom class when I heard a strange rhythmic groaning sound outside. Through the window blinds, I saw a pair of hairy legs and booted feet walking on the rocks between the trailers. Every few moments, the boots would stop. One human hand holding a spray wand would appear and shoot a clear liquid onto patches of green weeds that had enthusiastically emerged after the first rains. Every now and then, the other hand would appear and push a plunger into the jug to prime the pump on the sprayer. That priming motion was the source of the noise. After jamming the plunger a few times, the spray wand was ready to attack more little green weeds. I never saw the man's face; however, I noticed he was not wearing gloves. Or long pants. And it was mid-day, easily 105°F. Wouldn't want that guy's job.

A few days later, the green weeds are looking peaked, but that could be because we haven't had rain for a week or so. Or it could be because they were murdered with herbicide. 

Speaking of murder, on Thursday, after two long months of wanting to strangle the leasing staff at the apartment that supposedly had approved me to rent, I finally signed the lease. A link to the lease agreement had arrived in my email inbox on Tuesday. The lease agreement email came from a no-reply email address, not a strong signifier of good faith. Luckily, another email arrived from an email address I could reply to, telling me about an option to get renters' insurance. I quickly saved that email address into my contacts list.

I went through the lease's many pages and addenda, jotting a list of my questions. The main problems I saw had to do with the lack of specificity about the unit I would be renting and how the electricity charges would be calculated. Signing a lease without knowing which unit I was renting seemed wildly risky, similar to packing everything you own in a minivan and driving 1,500 miles to an unfamiliar city. I certainly didn't want to rent one of the units that fronted on the busy street. I practiced deep breathing. I was ready to accept the possibility that these two months of waiting might have been for naught. 

I called the leasing office and left a message. No response. I sent a message to the legitimate email address with my list of questions. No response.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I visited the property management company website to find contact information and sent a polite email. Their website touted their fantastic customer-centric service, and proclaimed their desire to build relationships with tenants and property owners (probably more with property owners than with tenants, but I admired their inclusivity). Welcome home, they said. You belong here! Right. They manage many properties throughout Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. I'm a marketing professional (sort of, sometimes). I know how it works. 

Because they recently took over managing this apartment complex, I had hopes. Almost immediately, I received a response. Miracle! We will forward your email to the leasing staff. Oh, and what are your questions, maybe we can help. Even though the email was not signed, I was heartened to receive a response from what I'm mostly certain was a live human.

I tidied up my list of laments, sent it off, and waited. No response. I wondered, are my expectations out of line? Marketing is all about communication. I know how it should work. I can recognize when it doesn't.

It occurred me to call the leasing agent again to leave yet another message. Maybe the property management company had succeeded in lighting a fire. Miracle! She answered the phone! The first time in two months, a real person answered the phone! I know it sounds silly, but I'd forgotten how low my expectations had fallen. I was so excited, I could barely speak. I stumbled through my questions, and she gave me acceptable answers! I asked if I could come and see the unit before I signed the lease. Twenty minutes later I had parked my beast outside the leasing office and met the leasing agent for the first time. I felt like I was in the presence of a unicorn. I wore my face mask (she did not), and I treaded softly, not wanting to scare her back into the jungle. After some tries, she found the proper key and opened the door into what I think will be my digs for the next year.

Even though I'm basically moving into a motel with a kitchenette, I signed the lease. The next day, I drove over there to get the keys. I was told I needed to procure a money order first. Would have been nice to know that first, but oh well. Off I went to get a money order, and returned, money order in hand. The hoop appears. I jump through. 

Upon receiving the keys, I inspected the apartment (can you really call it an apartment, maybe postage stamp would be a better descriptor). I took lots of photos and made a list of issues. Compared to the Love Shack, this new place is clean and dry and free of mold. It's got a tub. It's got a full-size refrigerator and a Barbie-size four-burner stove that might accommodate one loaf of bread, not that I plan to do any baking. It has a walk-partway-in closet. The floors throughout are gray woodgrain vinyl planks—not hardwood, but I've seen worse. At least, the kitchen floor isn't a black and white checkerboard of poorly adhered, chipping, paint-stained linoleum tiles. The walls are off white textured, no holes allowed. Perfect Zoom background. It's going to be fine. 

I just returned from my evening walk around the trailer park. I met the usual residents. For some reason, their tiny dogs decided not to bark at me. I discovered why, I think, thirty seconds later. As I came around the corner, the man in their dog-walking party appeared and said, "There's a javelina crossing the street down there. William in 65 feeds it."

Well, how about that. I'm sure now one sad lonely overweight female javelina wanders the park. We make our rounds at about the same time, just as the sun is setting. I'm walking to keep my blood pressure down, and she's walking to get handouts, which no doubt keep her from getting depressed. As I went along the street, I kept my eyes peeled, and there she was. I was a good hundred feet away. We had a standoff for a minute. She wanted to get past me, and I wanted to get past her. I went across to the other side of the road and walked very slowly toward her, trying to video the interaction with my phone. There was no interaction, really. She skulked along from driveway to driveway, trying to get past. She could smell me but not see me all that well. She tried to hide behind a bush that didn't have enough room to hide her. She seemed shy, morose, and not inclined to linger or nibble, so I went on my way.

The tiger in the grass at the self-scan checkout

I like to scan my own groceries. Call me a control freak, but I feel empowered when I'm the one moving my broccoli from basket to bag. I like feeling the weight of the zucchinis and realizing, dang, those things are expensive this week. Maybe I should eat more onions. I like having time to bag my stuff the way I want, with frozen peas protecting the eggs, and onions protecting the apples. Unfortunately, my pleasant buying and bagging experience was upset today by an interaction I had with an employee at my favorite grocery store, Winco.

I used to think Winco was for losers. My mother shopped at Winco. Then I started shopping for her and found out I could save a lot of money shopping there. Now I shop at Winco weekly. Winco is an employee-owned store. Usually that means people who work there are friendly and helpful. However, it also apparently means that certain employee-owner control freaks are adamant about enforcing the fifteen-items-or-less rule at the self-scan checkout.

I don't go grocery shopping to make trouble. On a sunny day, I tend to smile at everyone, whether they smile at me or not. Sunshine makes me bold. My default sunshine mode is friendly. However, on a sunny day, I don't feel inclined to back down from a confrontation when I think I'm right. If it had been raining today, I might have given in and wheeled my eighteen items to the regular checkout line. I would have slunk out without making eye contact with anyone, another browbeaten customer who will daydream about returning later with a gallon of gasoline and a Bic lighter.

Just kidddding. I'm not violent. But today I felt energized by the sunshine and ready to fight for my right to scan my own. Here is what happened.

The sign above the six self-scan stations says "Express Line: About 15 items." I usually don't bother to count my items. No other cashiers have bothered to count the items in my cart and enforce the fifteen-item limit. The only time the number of items is an issue is when a certain employee is manning the self-scan department. He's a small man, younger than me, I'm guessing, with sandy hair, a sparse mustache, and a stink-eye expression I know only too well from years of looking in mirrors.

When I wheeled my half-empty cart to an unoccupied self-scan station, he stood up straight in his red apron and sent me a look I've come to recognize. Uh-oh, here it comes, I thought. We've had this conversation before.

I waited. Wait for it. I picked up one of my items. Wait for it.... yes.

“This line is for fifteen items only,” the man in the red apron said. I smiled. Bring it on, I thought. Only one other station was occupied. If there had been a crowd or a line, I wouldn't have bothered revving up for this, but energized by sunshine and righteousness, I felt lively.

“I have eighteen items,” I said, lifting my chin at him.

“The sign says fifteen items."

“The sign says 'About' fifteen items,” I said.

He squinted his eyes at me and looked flustered. “About fifteen means fifteen,” he said.

“No, about fifteen means about fifteen,” I replied firmly. I waited. If he told me to leave, I would leave. However, he threw up his hands and surrendered.

“Do what you want,” he said and turned away, furious.

For a moment, I felt guilty, like, wow, should I back down? Should I not have argued? Am I a bad person? Then I thought, hey, I'm the customer here. I don't care if he owns the whole store. Nobody is being harmed by my scanning eighteen items instead of fifteen. And if the employee-owners really cared so much, they should change their damn sign to read "No more than 15 items! Carol, that means you!"

I efficiently (and I admit, somewhat triumphantly) scanned my eighteen items, but as I scanned, I realized I might have missed an opportunity to make someone feel better by letting them win a trivial argument. Instead I indulged my desire to stand up for my consumer right to pitch a fit.

I could have backed down. However, would that have been better? He may have felt triumphant for a while at winning the argument, but sooner or later, an insidious guilt may have crept into his mind, guilt over providing bad customer service. Guilt might have ruined the rest of his day. Thus, I saved him from a day ruined by guilt. Right.

Somehow, though, I sense that he is not likely a guy who would chew up his insides with guilt. If he's like me, he probably turned that moment of defeated frustration into a full day of passive aggressive resentment. Us control freaks get a lot of mileage out of being angry.

Either way, no matter what I did, odds are, he would have been angry, because he's likely unhappy with the fact that his life (and all the people in it) are out of his control. No matter what he does, customers won't behave. Cash machines balk. Nothing I do or don't do will change his outlook if he is as unhappy as I am guessing. He's probably a frustrated artist. Maybe his mother is dying of dementia in a nursing home. Whatever it is, it's not my problem. I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it. He will have to find his own way through the swampy customer service cesspool.

I can wish him well and bless his journey. Next time I see him manning the self-scan checkout, I will attempt to avoid making his life hellish if I can. I might even split my groceries into two batches, no more than fifteen items each. But I won't stop scanning my own groceries.

The chronic malcontent may be a hothouse flower

My shrimpy maternal parental unit braves the wind, rain, and cold multiple times a day to indulge her nicotine habit. She likes being outside. She's like a wild animal, bundled in five layers of fleece. The bulky sweaters and jackets make her look bigger than she is. Her outer layer is an old red fleece zip-front jacket pockmarked with cigarette-ash craters. When she lights a cigarette, she shields the lighter in the crook of her arm. I asked her if she has ever set herself on fire. She said no. Ha. As if she would tell me if she had.

Yesterday I put on long johns under my wind pants and a second hat over my first hat so I could sit outside with her in the pitch black smoking area. The iron shelter covers two iron-backed chairs (which you have to navigate to mainly by feel) and offers no protection from the sweeping east wind. Mom doesn't seem to care. The need for nicotine outweighs her desire to be warm.

I told her I had been to see my doctor for a checkup. She didn't seem particularly interested so I didn't give her any details. Like how I discovered a blob of toothpaste on my shirt front when the medical assistant was taking my blood pressure. I didn't tell Mom how disconcerting it was to realize that (1) I don't look in the mirror anymore so things like toothpaste blobs go undetected, and (2) that my perceptions have narrowed to the point that I don't notice things like toothpaste blobs anymore. No use telling all that to my mother. She would just roll her eyes. Welcome to my world: Get over it. 

I may have mentioned, my neighbor to the south of me got a girlfriend. She's an enthusiastic, energetic creature. They have a sliding door in their bedroom closet (I'm guessing), and she seems to get a thrill out of opening and closing it. It sounds a bit like someone is sending a bowling ball down a really short alley. Then slam! The door hits the end with a bang. Then she does it again. I think she's probably getting dressed. You know how it is, girls and their closets. My closet has a door, but I don't bother closing it. Half the closet is taken up by two rolled up carpets, removed from my main living area last summer during an effort to reduce fleas and dust. I guess I should get rid of them. But where do I put them? This is the ongoing problem with stuff.

Anyway, I digress. My neighbors have a new noise. It started a week ago. I'm not sure what it is. It sounds like a cement mixer. Between 10 and 11 pm, every night, a rumble begins and doesn't end until morning. You know how a jet sounds when it is taking off from a runway? The Love Shack is about eight miles from the airport. When the windows are open, I can sometimes hear jets taking off and landing. It's a rumbling roar that lasts just a few seconds. Right. Like that. Except my neighbors rumbling roar doesn't stop.

The first night I heard the rumble, I was dumbfounded at how loud it was. The sound reverberated through the floorboards and walls of the entire Love Shack. I put my ear to the wall. Could it really be coming from their bedroom? Yep. How on earth could they sleep with that racket going on? I banged on the wall between our apartments. Of course, that accomplished nothing but sending the cat slinking under the couch.

Every night, the rumble commences around 11 pm news time. I'm aware of it as I watch the news, as I watch Stephen Colbert, as I watch HGTV. I can hear it in my bathroom while I'm taking my before-bed bath. I can't get any further away from it than my bathroom. I can hear it in my bedroom as I'm lying in bed, wishing the damn plane would just land already.

At first I thought it could be a treadmill or some other piece of exercise equipment. But who would run on a treadmill all night? I doubt they actually have a cement mixer in their bedroom, so I'm going to guess that it is some kind of heating device that has a rumbly forced-air motor and the contraption is sitting on the wooden floor. They turn it on to heat their bedroom, and they turn it off when they get up in the morning and go wherever it is they go during the day. The rumble is not present when I get up at my more leisurely hour. Sometime during my sleep cycle, the machine, if that is what it is, is switched off.

Am I a hothouse flower like my mother? I certainly wouldn't want my neighbors to freeze just to preserve my precious silence. Last night I practiced a new tactic: I blessed their relationship and wished them pleasant dreams. Oddly enough, my rage subsided. Funny how that works.

A phone company and a cable company walk into a bar...

And I bet you can guess who pays the tab! Yep. My mother. The phone company and the cable company are fighting over who gets to be my mother's telephone service provider. There can only be one winner here: The apartment building is wired for cable voice, not for phone company voice. We are trying to get her old number ported over to the new apartment. But the phone company is hanging onto her for dear life.

When two bullgods clash, humans are no better than ants scurrying for cover. The Titans toss lightning bolts while I sit with my mother's cigarette smoke-infused Trimline phone to my ear, tentatively dialing 0 to talk to a representative. Their messages fly through the ether, barely missing each other: While I'm on the phone with the phone company, the cable company is leaving me messages at on my home phone, telling me that this entire frustrating telecommunications hell is happening because the phone company won't let go. I picture some muscle-bound demi-god holding my scrawny twig of a mother over a fiery abyss (laughing loudly, of course, because you can do that when you are a demi-god). Luckily, Mom is oblivious. Her main concern these days is selling the condo. The fact that her phone never rings doesn't seem to bug her as much as it bugs me. Probably because she's not the one trying to get through to her on the phone.

Through a strange technological twist of fate, my mother can dial out on her cable-company phone line, but no one can dial in. The disembodied recorded voice says, “This number is not in service.” Not what you want to hear when you are trying to reach your 86-year-old mother. We are stuck halfway between the two companies. Meanwhile, Mom is paying her bills like a good soldier and wondering why I looked so stressed out.

Meanwhile, Bravadita has had a bad week. On Wednesday, she had a breast removed. Wait, that sounds so bloodless. Let me rephrase: Her left boob was trying to kill her so the doctors cut it off. With scalpels. She lost a lot of blood. Then they put some wadded up padding in its place and sewed her back up, with some drains left hanging to squirt out the leftover juices. What the hell!

Vertigo was bad yesterday. For the first time since this whole stupid vertigo thing began last May, I had objective vertigo in addition to subjective vertigo. That means not only did I feel like I was on a boat on the ocean, but the ocean and the boat were spinning around me like an invisible hurricane with me in the middle. For a few minutes I sat very still. As I squeezed my eyes closed, feeling my stomach begin to roil, I saw my life disintegrating into complete disarray. Wreckage of the future, here I come! Next stop, bus bench, shopping cart under bridge. Then I did the Epley Maneuver on my head, first one direction and then the other. The waves subsided. The hurricane stilled. I sat up, a little wobbly, and carried on with my editing job like nothing happened. Because, really, my life is good.

Meanwhile, as our planet groans with the insults we heap upon it daily, people are uprooted across the Middle East, fleeing for their lives from a disaster the United States helped to create: You broke it, you bought it seems to apply here. I pondered the state of the union and the state of the planet on this 14th anniversary of another bad day as I walked in 90°F heat 30 minutes to get to my meeting. I think I would be willing to open up my home to some refugees. Maybe a couple of teenage girls. We could talk about makeup and boys. I don't mind sleeping on the couch. Maybe I could eat some yummy Syrian food. Maybe they would be inspired to vacuum occasionally. I hope they like cats.

After the phone call to the phone company, I was wrung out. Because it was almost dark, Mom let me take her car. As I left, she slipped me an envelope full of cash (not enough to do more than buy some groceries and put gas in her car, but enough to prove she loves me). When I got home my smoke alarm was chirping loudly, and my cat was waiting by the door, glaring.

The chronic malcontent is stuck in telecommunication hell

The past couple weeks I've donated my life energy to communicating with the telecommunications monopolies that rule our town. They are surprisingly difficult to communicate with, considering that communication is their business. Go figure. I can now sing the cable company's hold music, albeit somewhat off key. I must say, I like their jingle better than the classical music that fills the interminable gap between their weary phone reps' I'm going to put you on hold now and the third-party verification software system, which wisely bypasses a live operator altogether (leaving no one to scream at).

You never know what can go wrong in telecommunications. Then things start to go wrong, and you are amazed at how much stuff can go wrong. The list of wrong things doesn't seem to end. Telecommunications is currently the root of all my woes. I'm seriously pondering what it would be like to simply cut the cord completely and go live in an ashram. Well, not seriously. Where would I find an ashram in my mother's new neighborhood? I'm not even sure I know what an ashram looks like. Now that I think about it, I may have walked by twenty ashrams on my way to Target and never even known it. See what I'm saying? You never know about things. Wrong things and ashrams. What's next?

This all started with Mom's move to the retirement community, which uses the evil cable company monopoly for phone service instead of using the evil phone company monopoly. Mom, bless her bumpy little head, wanted to keep her old phone number. (“I've had this number for 50 years!”). That was our phone number when I was a kid, when we had a party line and the first two numbers were actually letters, standing for ALpine, our telephone exchange. So, of course, Mom wanted to keep her old phone number. But therein lies the problem. That phone number belongs to the evil phone company monopoly. In order to move (port) the number over to the evil cable company monopoly, you (meaning me... that is, I) had to go through a lengthy third-party verification process to prove that yes, we really did want to move this phone number over to the new company, even though it meant some dire things could happen in a power outage (which of course we had the next day, requiring my 86-year-old mother to search around on hands and knees in her new office to find and reset the cable company modem).

As I waited for the beeps and shouted “Yes!” periodically into the phone, I reflected on the way technology screws with us. You see, I did all this last week: called the cable company, listened to the hold music, got the third-party verification, recorded all the appropriate responses after the beep... and for a few days, it almost seemed like it worked. When Mom called me, her good old Alpine number showed up in caller ID. I thought, maybe there is a god!

But then, it slowly became clear that no, apparently whatever god there is cares nothing for telecommunications. In a twist of pure communication bedevilment, Mom could call out on her new cable company phone line, but no one could call in. In other words, the old number was stuck half in, half out of some port somewhere in a bank of computers, where I am pretty sure the cable company and the old phone company were fighting over who would get to have it. It's mine! No, confound you, it's mine!

I think it's Mozart, some classical crap by Mozart, that plays between during the hold time between the cable company and the third-party verification software. On my speaker phone, the volume swells and fades in a most annoying fashion, making me hate classical music more than I already do. (And no, I don't like country music, either, just so you know.)

Maybe you can tell by my snarky tone that I'm harboring some resentment. Yes, it's true. I wish it weren't, and I'm implementing all possible rituals to divest myself of said resentment up to and including small critter sacrifice, if that seems called for (millipedes have invaded the basement). In the meantime, I'm declaring a telecommunications moratorium. If you want to talk to me, send me a damn letter.

I'm not even going to tell you what happened with Mom's cable television. Imagine everything that can go wrong. Multiply that by ten.

The maternal parental unit goes AWOL

On Saturday, my brothers and I got our 86-year-old mother moved into her new retirement apartment. With an eye on the clock, we scrambled to assemble one disorganized load, drive it four miles, and offload it before 4:00 pm when the truck turned into a pumpkin ($39 for another day).

We filled the big yellow truck with Mom's full-size bed, headboard, and frame; dresser and mirror; rolltop desk; computer desk, chair, computer, and monitor; frenetically flowered multicolored living room rug; flowered (and stained) sofa; wingback chair (also flowered); coffee table; round kitchen table and four chairs; TV stand and TV; plant stand and plants; about a dozen framed photos of my brother's cats and dogs; about a hundred framed photos of my niece and her 2-year-old son; a half-dozen or so acrylic paintings painted by yours truly when I was 18 to 20 years old (neither improved with time); 30 boxes of miscellaneous crap, mostly paper, collected over a lifetime; several armloads of tiny red, fuchsia, turquoise, white, and black polyester knit tops and slacks; a box of dingy white Easy Spirit sneakers; two boxes of half-used lotions and shampoos; a brimming box of vitamins, herbal remedies, and pill bottles; four boxes of paperback books; and a box or two of half-used cleaning sprays, bottles, and cans.

The new building uses the cable company rather than the local phone company for telephone service, so Mom's landline will not work in the new apartment. This means until she gets connected via cable, Mom has only her cell phone to communicate with us. Her cell is a cheap burner phone, fueled by phone cards. And she isn't all that clear on how to use it. (“Mom, hold the phone to your ear!”)

As it turned out, her cell phone skills didn't matter. The morning after the move, my younger brother called me to say that Mom was not answering a knock on her door. Apparently, she had set her cell phone down on a little display ledge outside her new apartment (next to a tiny green frog figurine) and walked away.

“Uh-oh,” I said. With no cell phone, Mom was incommunicado. I pictured my scrawny mother doing a fist-pump in the air, saying to herself, Free at last, finally, free at last! 

My brother searched the dining room: No mother. He went back and pounded on the door: no answer. I texted him: She's probably at the condo. He drove over to her condo and found her packing some kitchen stuff (half-used bottles of condiments and spices). Apparently, she hadn't missed her cell phone at all. Later, when we told her she'd left it outside her apartment door, she said, “That's what everyone keeps saying,” in a skeptical voice that suggested to me that she thought we were all trying to gaslight her.

For the past two days, I've been going over to her place, taking her car to the condo, loading up boxes, and driving stuff to her new place, unloading boxes up the recalcitrant elevator, and parking them in her living room and kitchen. One trip a day is all we can handle. Three trips waiting to go up and down the elevator with my hand-truck precariously loaded with boxes—and dodging scooters, walkers, and shopping carts—has not turned me into a paragon of patience.

I guess I moved some things she didn't want moved (hey, how was I supposed to know!?) Yesterday, we hit our limit. Luckily her neighbor across the hall came over at that moment to introduce herself. Coincidentally, they both have the same first name. I stood by and watched the two pint-sized old ladies move close together so they could see and hear each other. As I gazed down at the top of their heads, I thought, she's bonding. She's making friends with the other kids at boarding school. That's my cue to exit, stage right. I murmured my good-byes. They barely responded. I faded down the hallway, smelling my own freedom just steps away.

The end of the world is nigh. That means.... run!

It's so weird how you can be having a conversation with someone you think is completely “normal,” and then they say something like, “I'm think I need to spend my rent money on a bug-out bag, so I'll be ready for the impending bank crash.” Wha–? It's like the fabric of reality suddenly shifts and you see a whole new world: beef jerky, locals only, BYO guns and ammo. Really? Here I've been so focused on the possibility of rain, and I should have been worried about a financial crisis? Wow. Where have I been?

After I got off the phone, I googled impending bank crash and found lots of propaganda from wackjobs who are making a ton of money pandering to the fears of anxious middle-aged women. Articles written by faceless ne'er-do-wells with no last names (My name is Michael, and I am a strong Christian) exhorting us to head for the hills. Books about how to survive the coming apocalypse. Really? It's so Y2K. This poor woman on the other end of the phone was seriously considering spending her modest retirement fund on a used car, a tent, and a camping stove. She wondered if I thought she should put her money into CDs.  All I could think to say was, you expect a bank crash and you want to buy CDs from a bank? What am I missing here?

I like the term bug-out bag. She assumed I had one. “I have an earthquake kit,” I said. You could call it a stay-put bag. Well, it's really just a plastic tote bin stocked with bottled water and toilet paper, but I didn't tell her that. As she kept talking, I thought, maybe I need an escape plan. Hey, what do I know, maybe she's right, maybe there is a financial crash coming. If the U.S. banking system fails, if everything falls apart, I have no contingency plan. Not on my radar, what with the awesome weather, my crappy job, and my marathon dissertation saga. Maybe I've been too self-obsessed. Have I missed the warning signs?

What would follow a widespread bank crash? Martial law? Rationed gas? Grasshoppers and squirrels for dinner? I can't picture it. I'm such a city kid, the idea of roughing it is beyond my imagination. I can't even camp. I would be useless in any kind of crash, bank or otherwise.

It seems clear that the woman is troubled by her beliefs about the end of the world. Mine look different from hers, but are no less troubling to me. I don't belittle her beliefs: She could be right. I'm no financial expert. I'm not sure there is such a thing. While we were talking, I didn't question her beliefs or try to talk her out of them. She just wanted what we all want, to feel heard and understood. I get it. Nobody wants to feel alone when the world is coming to an end.

Beyond this point lie dragons, demons, and monsters

When I'm under pressure from life and want to escape, I read whatever sleazy paranormal romances I can find at the thrift store. I'm always searching for smart funny authors, authentic characters, riveting stories. I can immerse myself in fantasy worlds where all the men are hunky sex gods and all the women have doe eyes, pert breasts, and the ability to have multiple climaxes in the space of five minutes, just by looking at the hunky sex gods. (Look ma, no hands!)

Actually, the best stories are the ones where the men aren't men, but demons, vampires, werewolves, or dragons. And the women are witches, telepaths, vampires, or faeries. In other words, where nobody is human. For the space of an hour or so, I can suspend reality and pretend such an exotic world might really exist. Where men aren't mean and women don't stink. Where love and sex get along like old friends.

Inevitably, however, I must bump back to reality, where no one (no one I know, anyway) is a hunky sex god or goddess, where in fact stories are boring, life is ho-hum, and the only demons reside within us, thankfully mostly hidden.

But not always hidden. Under the ho-hum surfaces of our public selves, our demons are alive and watching for opportunities to manifest in the form of our quirks, our foibles, our peeves, our fetishes... our monsters. We all have them. Don't lie, what's the point. Everyone else can see them, even if you can't. I've mentioned my personal seven dwarfs in a previous rant. I could add a few more: Meany, Slimeball, and Stink-Eye. Oh hey, look, my personal dwarfs are waving at your personal dwarves. Hi, how ya doin.

I know my internal monsters prevent me from having successful love relationships. I don't care. I'm old. I'm all used up. But it's hard to watch others falling prey to creepy villains over which they have no control. Creepy for me, though, might be thoughtful, loving, and kind to someone else. Hell, what do I know. It's not like I have such a great track record.

I used to believe that we all have a soulmate, that special someone we search for through successive lifetimes, the one who completes us, the one that makes us feel alive like no one else can. Having been to relationship hell a few times, I now know that idea is complete and utter shite. The likelihood of finding a perfect soulmate is zero. Even if I could define “perfect,” the idea that somewhere there is only one special someone for me is laughable at best and cruel at worst. Really. The world is a big place, and I'm not all that hard to please. There are probably hundreds of people alive right now, maybe even a few living in this city, who could tolerate me and my personal dwarfs. Right. Then again, maybe not.

Never fall in love with an Internet service provider

After weeks of Internet connection trouble, the monolith known as Century Link, arrived on my doorstep today and commandeered my Internet life. I could have opted to keep my Internet service provider, a local company I love, but I would have to settle for half the speed I'm paying Century Link for.

So I did the prudent, logical thing. I said goodbye to my ISP. I had to break up by email, because I was weeping too hard to speak. What the heck? I laughed even while I cried. I'm just a customer! Customers come and go. Why do I feel like I am losing a friend? I didn't weep when I cancelled my 24 Hour Fitness account. Why am I so sentimental over cutting my ISP loose?

After I wiped my tears, I pondered the question. It could be I'm weeping over other things that are lurking in my subconscious. Like the entire past six years of the graduate degree grind. That would be enough to make anyone gnash their pearlies and wail to the moon. It could be I'm grieving the loss of my eyebrows concurrent with the growth of a mustache. Argh, enough said. It could be I'm teary because, I don't know, because it's not 90 degrees, I'm not young enough, thin enough, or smart enough, and my car is over ten years old? Hell, the world is going to hell in a handbasket: It could be anything!

Except, I don't cry much anymore. Mostly my life is remarkably serene. There have been a few bumps—the deaths of my father, my friend Karen, and my cat Meme. I cried at those events, and still feel sadness when I think about them. I remember I cried when my 1987 Honda CRX blew its engine. (That was a sad day, let me tell you.) But I am not sure why I am classifying my ISP among that special group of angels. I've never even met the guy who ran interference for me with Century Link. It seems somewhat ironic and terribly unfair that all his excellent customer service just lost his company a customer.

What I've learned from this startlingly soppy experience is that business is based on relationships, and relationships are built on trust. I trusted my ISP. I felt great comfort when I received terse, polite emails from him, knowing he was handling everything for me. I pictured a geeky guy hunched over a computer, monitoring my Internet connection with one hand while waving a laser sword at Century Link with the other.

Oh mi gorsh. Can you believe it? My Internet connection just went down again. I really hope Century Link is working on the line somewhere, because now I have no one to turn to, no one to call. I have the Web equivalent of a flat tire, and nobody to call to come rescue me. I just broke up with my hero, my knight in shining armor, my beloved ISP. I'm stranded on the information highway! Curse you, Century Link!

Abolish the fences: give me your tired, your poor...

We have an abundance of fresh water here in the Pacific Northwest. Right now, as the meteorologists proclaim the wettest month on record and rivers and streams are flooding, it's hard to imagine there are places on the planet that hardly have any rainfall. Ever. If I lived there, I'd try to get here.

Which inspires me to wonder what it would be like if people were allowed to move freely about the surface of the earth. I sometimes wish there were no fences, walls, or boundaries, that people could be free to come and go as they please. With only natural boundaries to hinder them, would most people eventually wander to the temperate zones, where usually there is enough water, where usually the land is arable, where usually the weather is not out to kill you? Political boundaries are imaginary. What if we all imagined them gone? Well, I guess even though they are man-made, not natural, they are real enough to get you killed or imprisoned if you crossed one, even accidentally. So maybe my imagination has a death wish.

When I am lucky enough to teach Verbal Communication, there are usually a half-dozen or so students in the class. I often assign a group exercise in which the class must work together to choose a topic of vital concern to the entire world, propose a solution, and present it to the audience (me and anyone else I can wrangle). The topics usually are environmentally related, but one particularly memorable class stands out in my mind. As I recall, there were three young male criminal justice students in this group. Two of them I was rather fond of: we instructors called them Frick and Frack, two oddballs that became friends by reason of close proximity. The third was loud, opinionated, and oddly charismatic, despite his buzz cut and security guard uniform.

The students chose the topic of illegal immigration. Their contention was that illegal immigrants were taking over America. Their solution: build a 30-foot tall, 30-foot deep fence along the entire border between the U.S. and Mexico.

One of the things I try to teach students in Verbal Communication is to know the audience. If they had taken time to ask, they would have discovered that I am probably the only person in the U.S. in favor of immigration. I support everyone who seeks a better life for their families, as long as they abide by basic principles of human kindness and decency. This group of students failed to ask me my views, and so I was regaled with a litany of selectively chosen and obviously mangled facts, ethnic stereotyping, and offensive recommendations. I sat there and took it. I focused on the delivery, not the message, not the messengers. I listened. And I felt sick.

Truthfully, even if they had asked, and had I been brave enough to answer, they would probably have done their best to convince me that my position was untenable, if not downright insane, and that, after listening to their presentation, I would be persuaded to change my humanistic beliefs for something a little less humanistic. But more American.

You could say I'm not a very good American. I don't fly the flag on holidays. After September 11, I didn't put little flags on the four corners of my Honda CRX and prowl the streets like an embassy diplomat. I don't go to parades, baseball games, or eat apple pie. Don't misunderstand me: I am glad I was born here rather than the Ukraine, Afghanistan, or Somalia. It was just blind chance, though. A geographical blip that put me here rather than there. I don't take my good fortune for granted. (Although I wouldn't mind a little less rain.)

Rather than patriotically proclaiming my fortunate status as an American, I favor the moniker global citizen. Is there a flag? I would put it in my window if there was one. Citizen of the Planet Earth. When the day comes that we have colonies on the moon and Mars, and those colonies rise up, fighting to be free from Earth's evil tyranny, I suppose I'll be required to fly that flag. Or emigrate to the colonies.

I know I'm just barking out my butt on this one. If you knew where I lived, you'd probably have to kill me. Can I claim in my defense that I read too much science fiction? Well, it really doesn't matter, does it? We're all going to hell in a hand-basket sooner or later, if we don't stop destroying our habitat. And in terms of geological time, my life is a speck. In another earth breath, in another earth heartbeat, I'll be dead and forgotten.