Got my oil changed and suvived to write about it

I'm always shocked when my car speaks to me, but I've learned to listen when the horrible chime jangles my nerves to tell me something needs attention. Most of the time it's the dreaded check engine light, the bane of my existence. Once it was an issue with the gas cap not being closed all the way. Recently the message in the odometer window was "low tire." My car plays coy, though. Not going to tell you which tire is low, ha ha, you figure it out. Given the weather had turned cold, I suspected it was all four. I am now the proud owner of a tire inflator machine. So fun. 

I'm glad my car has enough of a brain to tell me when something is wrong, rather than shutting off with no notice and leaving me stranded, as has happened with cars in my past. They did the best they could. I'm sure someday if I live long enough I will have a car that actually talks to me. Not like that car in Knight Rider. I'm thinking more along the lines of My Mother the Car. I can just imagine my mother being reincarnated as a 1994 Toyota Camry. Nothing fancy. She would say "I need an oil change and Jiffy Lube is having a special, but don't let them sell you an air filter because I don't need one yet, and you can do that yourself." 

My car has the brain of an infant savant, more or less. It doesn't speak, but it makes noises that get under my skin, particularly that gruesome chime. I hate that sound. When my car dinged a couple days ago as I was firing it up to go shopping, I was confused at first, because the check engine light was blessedly dark. Then I saw the message in the odometer window: oil change.

According to the sticker dangling in the corner of my windshield by the last oil change provider, I should have had another thousand miles, but I stopped patronizing that shop because I finally figured out, after thousands of dollars, that they had taken advantage, and not only that, they smoked weed as a group in the back of their shop, which is right by the bike path where I frequently walk. Nothing against those who indulge, as long as they aren't working on my car while they do it. Anyway, I found a new mechanic in the neighborhood. So when my car told me it wanted new oil, I went there.

Sadly for me, the gray clouds that had threatened to explode finally did, which is good if you like rain, as we often do in the desert, but this rain was the kind I know from the Pacific Northwest, that is to say, the kind that moves in and squats over the city like a brood hen trying to hatch a cold dead egg. In the desert, I've come to know the nature of monsoon, the weather phenomenon that boils up out of nowhere, destroys the place with lightning, hail, wind, torrential rain, and flash floods and then evaporates, leaving you wondering what the heck! This week's rain was not like that. The radar showed Tucson under a huge green splat, which meant it was going to be raining for a while.

I drove to the mechanic and dashed through the rain to the office. I was greeted by a surly middle-aged man who reluctantly agreed to do the oil change on the spot (well, within three hours) and what kind of oil did I want? Like I would know the answer to that question. I said, "You are assuming I know the answer to that question." He looked at me with that long-suffering look I've seen on countless sales reps' faces over years and years of me not trusting that I know more than I think I do. Finally we figured it out, and pretty soon we were getting along. 

"Are you going to wait or are you going walk around the mall?" he asked. 

"Oh, I'll go hang out at the mall," I said, like an idiot. I had a raincoat. How bad could it be?

I'd forgotten it was a few days until Christmas. I don't pay attention to the holidays, except to be annoyed that they encroach on my routines. I guess I assumed yet again that everyone else was like me but you know what happens when we assume. I headed off in the rain toward the mall and soon realized I was way out of my comfort zone. Even on a good day, malls are trying to kill me. During this Christmas shopping season, a sense of desperation and panic hung over the whole retail neighborhood. The streets were jammed with SUVs all trying to turn into the mall parking lot without getting T-boned by oncoming traffic. Pedestrians had no chance, but what choice did I have? Sit in the waiting room? I chanced it. 

I wandered the edge of the wide parking lot past the empty Sears store, crossing the traffic lanes near JC Penney, and meandered past REI and the Container Store, loathe to actually go inside the mall itself. As I stumbled over curbs and puddles, I got the bright idea to walk up the street to Best Buy. I needed new headphones, and it wasn't too far away. On a good weather day, it would have been a pleasant stroll. Not today.

Between the rain and the speeding cars, I was a soggy ragged breathless mess by the time I got there. Unbeknownst to me, my raincoat had lost its ability to repel water, so I was drenched through my hoodie sweatshirt through my T-shirt through my tanktop to my skin. My sweatpants, so cozy just an hour earlier, were soaked from the knees down. I was half-blind from glasses covered with raindrops. Lucky for me, not expecting to have to walk very far, I had worn my thirty-year-old waterproof Merrell mules instead of my sneakers. Thus, although tired, my feet were warm and dry. 

I made it to Best Buy, found the things I needed, and ventured back out into the slogfest. No letup in the rain, no letup in the traffic. If anything, both seemed to be growing more intense by the minute. At the intersection between me and the mechanic's shop, I made sure to press the walk button. With my eye on the walk sign and the opposite curb, four lanes away, I watched for oncoming traffic making a left turn in front of me. All good. 

Lucky for me, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the huge black monster truck making a right turn as I stepped off the curb. I don't think the driver saw me, at least, I hope that is the case. I hate to think they made that dangerous turn on purpose. The holidays can make people do things they would not normally do. I can be magnanimous now, given I lived to write this blogpost. 

I stopped walking and let the truck blast by in front of me, close enough to touch. I had time to admire enormous rugged tires. I wasn't thinking at that moment, oh, nice tires. In that moment, I yelled and gestured, which felt pretty good, actually, since I rarely yell and gesture. I dashed across the street and made it to the far curb unscathed, calcified heart valve pounding. 

As I continued my walk, I was gifted with more opportunities to yell and gesture, this time at the drivers who sped through the standing water, drenching me as I walked on the sidewalk. If it hadn't been so miserably uncomfortable, it would have been hilarious. I could have been starring in a rom-com. Hapless hero facing conflicts before achieving the goal of happiness, which in my case was getting back to my car alive.

I returned early to the mechanic and sat shivering in the waiting room scrolling through my phone like a zombie. Eventually my car was ready. Now I know the holiday spirits were looking out for me, partly because I survived the walk to Best Buy and back, but mostly because the mechanics didn't find anything else wrong with the car, other than the obligatory notice to get my fuel injectors cleaned. I'll wait until my car tells me its time.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Handbasket. Hope your new year is better than the last.

I do not heart monsoon

It has become very clear to me that my inner ears march to the unseen unheard drumbeat of fluctuations in air pressure. I am a creature of the weather. I did not anticipate this problem before moving to the desert. In fact, I didn't know what monsoon meant, except in a general way, like a whole lot of rain dumping all at once. It is that, and more. Sometimes monsoon is exciting. When the lightning gets going, it's really quite festive, in an electrifying sort of way. Not a good time to be out riding a bike, but there's nothing like a clap of thunder overhead to elevate the heart rate and make you feel alive. Sometimes in the desert, it's hard to tell. Siestas exist for a reason.

The air pressure graph for Tucson is a series of jagged peaks and valleys. No smooth transitions here, no gentle slopes signaling the serene passing of highs and lows. The line is either shooting to the top of the scale or plunging to the bottom, no refreshing pauses in between. My ears never have a chance to catch up. The bucket of mucky goo in my ears is constantly on the move. And being a human, I'm constantly on the move too, at least when I'm not laying prone on my bed with a pillow over my head, trying to block out the crackling and hissing in my right ear. It's very hard to hold completely still. Have you tried it? Sooner or later you have to breathe. Monsoon sucks.

Last February, I visited an ENT doctor. I was coming off two weeks of relatively stable air pressure, feeling fine to the point of ebullience. She couldn't do much for me but clean the wax out of my ears and set me up for a follow-up appointment in six months. During monsoon. If vertigo was going to return, she said, now would be the time. 

Well, here we are. The afternoon I saw her, it started raining. My vertigo returned the next day and it hasn't let up for more than a day here or there since. Now it's August. Monsoon is in full swing, and the bucket in my head is sloshing constantly. Unless the ENT is a weather god, there is nothing she will be able to do. Can she control air pressure? I'm predicting she will tell me I have vestibular migraine and I should stop drinking coffee. I wonder what she would say if I came to the appointment with a pencil jammed in my ear. She seemed like a pretty cool cookie. She probably wouldn't bat an eye. She's probably seen it all, here in the desert during monsoon.

Is anything really new?

Howdy Blogbots. How are you doing? Have you ever wondered how time can seem as slow as summer and yet also be as fast as a flash flood? Time is clearly malleable (but not by me). I know I get the same twenty-four hours every day, not more some days and less other days. I know it's my perception that shifts. It's like my assumption that I stand at the center of the universe and everything revolves around me. It's erroneous, I know, but darn hard to shake.

So, time. I'm waiting to move into an apartment. It's been a long two months, waiting. Somehow, though, I still wake up every day and say out loud, what the heck, how can it be another morning? Seems like we just had one yesterday. What gives?

Part of me thinks, this better be one hell of a great apartment, considering how difficult it has been to wrangle it into being. I'm past the point of frustration and headed into the great hilarity beyond. Can this be happening? This can't possibly be happening. Yet, it seems to be happening. What a joke. Har har. 

Speaking of getting bored with the same old, one word for you:  sunsets. At first I was entranced with the Tucson sunsets. I photographed them endlessly and sent sunset-of-the-day photos to my siblings and friends, who responded with polite appreciation. After a while, I realized I might as well have sent them the same image every day, because every sunset looked just as amazing as the last. I hate to admit it, but seen one, seen all. 

Same with flash floods and the rushing Rillito River. I could hardly believe my eyes the first time I saw that tree-lined dry riverbed flowing bank-to-bank with muddy brown water. I filled up my phone with a gallery of photos and sent some to my siblings and friends, who were equally amazed that a rushing river could suddenly appear out of nowhere in a dry desert town. 

Not so dry. The wettest July on record, I guess, given that we've had thunderstorms and torrential downpours almost every day for the past month. At first I was leery of opening the front door. The wind howled and lashed the trees. The rain pounded on the metal awnings. The energy was overwhelming. The second time, I ventured down the steps. The third time I took my phone out into it and tried to capture the lightning without getting killed. Now I wake up at 3:00 a.m. and groggily think, oh hey, is that another thunderstorm as the thunder crashes overhead and the rain hammers the roof. Ho hum. I bet the Rillito is full. Cool. Maybe I'll check it out later. Or not.

My first sighting of a javelina got my heartrate going. It was dark when I saw a mysterious shadow crunching in the gravel next to the neighbor's little red Toyota. I was properly astounded when I recognized the porcine silhouette. My second sighting occurred a couple evenings ago as the sun was setting in yet another glorious display. I was about ten minutes into my hike around the trailer park when a fat brown peccary sauntered across the road barely ten yards in front of me. I froze, wondering if I could outrun the creature if it happened to point its tusks at me. My hesitation delayed my second thought, which was, phone, get my phone! It took me long precious seconds to dig my phone out of my pocket so I ended up photographing the javelina's porky brown hind end as it moseyed between trailers toward the dry wash out back. 

I enlarged the photo and put a red circle around the hind end so you could maybe just discern the dark hind end of the javelina from the dark shrubbery around it. I sent the photo to my family. My sister responded with gratifying amazement and a little bit of concern for my safety, which is always nice to hear. Then she asked me when am I moving, again? thus reminding me that I perhaps have better things to do than photoshopping red circles around the butt of a javelina. 

I've (metaphorically) jumped off a cliff into a new city and here I am, frozen in midair, not know if or when or how I'm going to stick the landing. I'm repeatedly bombarded by novelty. After a while, I have to wonder, is there anything new under the sun? Now I find my amazement in realizing I'm on my way to becoming jaded by fantastical Tucson. Wake up! New day, new sunset, new critters to admire. The sun is going down. No thunderstorms on tap to boil up and rush down the mountains at me. Time to go see what's outside.

 

Life in the trailer park shadows

 

Howdy, Blogbots, all seven of you. How is it going? It's Sunday again. I don't have much to report on the Occupy an Apartment front. I'm still waiting for more data before I initiate Operation Freakout. Meanwhile, I take each day as it comes. Daily, it seems, I'm gobsmacked by some new Tucson experience. 

Last week I mentioned I saw a tarantula crossing the road. (There's a joke there somewhere, see if you can find it.) Two nights ago, around midnight, I had the front door open to entice cooler air into the trailer after a heavy downpour. I heard footsteps crunching in the gravel outside. I thought, who would be out on the gravel at this time of night? Some creepy neighbor, perhaps? I peered out the window and saw a shadowy creature moving between the trailers. Hmm, I thought, is that a dog? As the animal moved slowly across the path by the front porch, I saw the unmistakable outline of a javelina strolling next to the neighbor's carport. 

This monsoon is apparently already one for the record books. We have received over five inches of rain since June 15; monsoon officially ends September 30. These almost-daily thunderstorms are unsettling. As long as the metal roofs and awnings hold, we'll be okay, but the clamor of wind, rain, and thunder is deafening. I keep dreaming a freight train is coming through the living room. 

Up till now, I've learned to keep the blinds drawn to ward off the desert sun. My mole-like eyes are adapting to life in gloomy shadows. Today's gloom, however, was because of an enormous rain cloud sitting over much of southern Arizona. This cloud emitted a purposeful drenching downpour from a pure white sky. Being from the Pacific Northwest, I'm used to that sort of sky. It's the kind of sky that makes you think, Wow, the mothership is squatting over me, dumping buckets with no end in sight—guess I'll stay indoors today. I have the local NWS radar bookmarked in my browser. I check it more often than I check email. Today, on the radar, a huge solid splat of green obliterated Tucson. There it sat, for hours. 

The desert mantra is turnaround, don't drown. Some roads in outlying areas cross normally dry washes. During and after rainstorms, those washes fill up with fast-moving water, which flows through various channels toward the Rillito River, which flows west to the Santa Cruz River. Almost the entire state of Arizona has been under a flash flood warning for a few days. After particularly violent storms, my phone lights up with obnoxious emergency alerts, day or night.

This morning I checked the radar and during a lull, I walked over to see how the Rillito River was doing. Meaning, how much water was flowing along its wide tree-filled channel. I saw more water than I did the last time I looked a couple days ago but not close to full. The sound of the rushing water was eerie, though. The water is the color of milk chocolate, that cruddy stuff you eat only if you can't get ahold of any 85%+ cacao. Medicinal chocolate, yum. I don't buy chocolate of any kind, because I can't eat only one square—I'm an all-or-nothing kind of chocolate eater.

Anyway, the floodwater is an unappetizing brown, but that's not the memorable part. That water moves fast. It is not fooling around. It would transport you into the next county before you could catch a breath. It would probably take your car too, if you were stupid enough to drive through one of those washes. Which apparently drivers do quite frequently. I saw it happen in Oregon, too. There's some sort of magnetic attraction between Jeeps and mudpuddles. I once saw two teen girls weeping in a Jeep that they had managed to mire in a mudpuddle to the top of their big-ass off-road wheels. I'm guessing the hankering to drive your vehicle through fast-moving floodwater is probably similar to a jaywalking compulsion. Sometimes you just gotta do it.

Back to my nocturnal visitor. I read up on javelinas and learned that they tend to travel in small packs. The one I saw seemed to be alone, although in the dark, I could not be sure. It crossed in front of the trailer. I grabbed my little flashlight and stepped warily out onto the side deck, keeping close to the back door in case the critter should decide to mince up the steps on its cloven hooves and come at me with its tusks. 

That desert creature couldn't have cared less about me. It was busy nibbling on little succulents and green weeds that have sprung up in the gravel. I remembered reading that javelinas have a keen sense of smell but their eyesight is poor. I shone the flashlight on it and saw small red eyes peer in my direction. I was clearly of no interest whatsoever. I got the feeling I had perhaps met the real manager of the trailer park.

 

If you can help it, don't get old

It's spring in Portland, which means it is sunny one moment and pouring the next. As I drove across town today, I felt like I had my own dark cloud following me, dumping huge gloppy raindrops on my windshield. Off to the south the sun was shining, same to the north...that sloppy gray cloud dogged me all the way home.

I know it's spring because I have brain fog. This is my typical SAD time, don't ask me why. We've had some sunny, even hot, stretches of weather, and I felt okay. But now, three days of clouds and I'm in my own private fog bank. I'd shake my head in disgust but that sets off the ear rocks. Don't want that.

Mom said she needed crackers. Yesterday I fetched graham crackers and soda crackers for my mother. I dropped them off around lunch time. She said, “I thought of two more things I need.”

This is what it is like in Old Person's Town. She can manage if everything goes along status quo, if nothing upsets her carefully orchestrated routine. But if something unusual happens, she can't process it. She can't figure out what to do next. It's like the logical sequence of events is no longer clear.

I got an email from her cell phone provider that the old 2G phone she's had for a few years will soon be nonfunctional. If we want a free 3G phone, all I have to do is ask for one. So I did, and a couple weeks later, it arrived in the mail, a cruddy little burner phone that looked almost exactly like her old cruddy little burner phone.

I spent some time on her landline phone with the cell phone provider getting the new phone activated with her old phone number. I set her ring tone to be some goofy country western song just to irritate her. Then I programmed my phone numbers and my brother's phone numbers into it. She can't access these phone numbers—she just types in a number if she wants to make a call. But if someone finds the phone (and her) and wants to know where she belongs, maybe they will give us a call. Found an old lady... is she yours?

I don't expect Mom to figure out the nuances of her cell phone. Half the time, she can't figure out how to answer it when it rings. It's good she has one, though. When she goes out walking, she carries it in a little black suitcase strapped to her wrist. It's her life alert system.

We had some trouble figuring out what to do with the old phone. Technically it still worked. But having two cell phones doubled her mental difficulty. I put the old phone in the box the new one came in, wrote what was inside on the cover, and gave it to her. “Put this someplace,” I said.

She hesitated, looking confused. She bent down and put it on the floor next to the cell phone charger. I guess that made sense to her. I realized I had an expectation that she could figure out a good place to store the box. I didn't expect it to be on the floor, but whatever. It's not my house.

The other day Mom and I were talking about the problem of homeless people in Portland. She has compassion, but only if prodded into realizing that most homeless people would prefer shelter if they could afford to pay for it. We discussed the rising rents. I didn't tell her my rent is going up $50 next month. I said if my landlord evicted me so he could jack up the rent, I would have to move in with her. “That would be okay with me,” she said.

“Could you stand to have a roommate?” I asked her. “I'm not sure I could.” She didn't answer.

Every time my phone rings, my first thought is, this is it. This is the call that changes my life. This is why I pay for caller ID on my landline. When I see her number in the little window, my heart stutters a bit. A few days ago, she ate something that didn't agree with her (hence the request for crackers). On the second day of the illness, she called me and said, “Well, I'm still alive,” sounding triumphantly relieved. That made me think the digestive trouble was worse than she let on.

When I get old, there won't be anyone around to bring me crackers after three days of hellish diarrhea. My final plan, if I live long enough and can still act (and drive), is to drive out into the desert with a bottle of pills and some tequila. Ah, sunshine at last. So long, brain fog!

I'll have some fries, with a side of righteous indignation, please

No complaints from rainbow city. I'll take our unsettled rain squalls and sun breaks over 6-foot snow drifts any day. On the hierarchy of things to complain about, cold comes first, way above wet. Pretty much the worst thing here in the Northwest is cold AND wet, which happens predictably often for nine months of the year. But yesterday the temp hit 56°! After the arctic polar Canadian chill blast thingie, it felt downright balmy. What's a little moisture when it's practically tropical!

How did I celebrate? Thanks for asking. In anticipation of my upcoming personal health insurance nightmare, in which I throw myself upon the mercy of the open market, I showed up for my 50,000-mile checkup with my soon-to-be former doctor at Kaiser. She's wonderful. Even when she's probing my lady parts, I know I'm in capable hands. Nobody is allowed to visit the private terrain down there except my wonderful doctor.

The assistant, on the other hand, was... well, I could say her behavior was disappointing, but I think I'll describe her as a king hell bummer hot mess. I can only assume she trained at the career college for which I used to work. I didn't ask, I assumed. Not nice of me, I know.

First, she was brusque and breezy. Normally, I don't mind brusque and breezy. You can be brusque and breezy, and still be personable. Just quickly personable, as you rush away to do something no doubt more important. I could accept that. But she didn't seem inclined to slow down and look me in the eye.

“You were just here in July,” she said accusingly, looking at the computer screen which is now de rigeur for every doctor's office.

“I know,” I sighed. “It wasn't my idea.”

“What do you mean?” she frowned.

“I got a robocall,” I tried to explain, and even as I spoke, I realized I had failed to put the right amount of righteous indignation in my voice. If I had just sounded like a customer, I'm sure she would have backed off. In my defense, it was barely 8:30 in the morning (crack of dawn for this puppy), and I hadn't had anything to eat. I didn't have much enthusiasm for churning up some frothy indignation. Wishing that pap smear services came with a coffee bar, I went on, “The voice said to call, and so I called. The girl who answered said I should make an appointment, so here I am.”

“Huh. Do you want a flu shot while you are here?”

“Sure, why not,” I sighed.

“Here. Opening goes in the back.” She handed me a white sheet and a paisley gown and sped out the door. Chanting to myself opening goes in the back, opening goes in the back, I shucked my layers and proceeded to drape myself in the one-size-fits-most cotton gown. I sat on the end of the table, scritching my butt on the paper cover and waited.

After about five minutes, the aide knocked on the door and came in, carrying something I didn't want to look at too closely.

She grabbed my left arm, flipped the cover off the syringe, and jammed the needle into my muscle. With one hand, she slapped a little blue-patterned band-aid over the hole she'd made in my arm. It happened so fast, I had a mere moment to be simultaneously appalled and impressed. Clearly, she did this often. Clearly, I did not.

The actual exam took an anti-climactic ten minutes, tops. After being poked and prodded, reamed, steamed, and drycleaned, and after wishing my doctor happy holidays, silently hoping I would see her next year, I dragged my clothes back on and shuffled down to the lab to get some blood drawn for a cholesterol check. As I sat there, a little damp and used, waiting my turn, I began to feel a little wan. I chalked it up to lack of food, rain, and pelvic exam.

Later, back at home, I fixed eggs and a pile of broccoli and zucchini and scarfed it down. Pretty soon I felt even worse. My left shoulder hurt: I could barely raise my arm without groaning. In fact, all my joints hurt. I felt achy all over. Hey! I think I have the flu. What the—!

I took a nap, but that didn't help. I met a friend for dinner. She told me that the aide didn't know how to give a proper shot. That helped briefly, as did the french fries, but by TV time, I was moaning on the couch. My cat looked askance at me as I kicked the blankets in frustration. I couldn't find a position that didn't hurt, and my shoulder felt like I had been shot. Or how I imagined it might feel had I actually been shot. Finally, I gave up. I took an ibuprofen and went to bed. Exit, stage right, dragging a case of righteous indignation like a full diaper behind me.

The next day, I felt fine, and thus was able to appreciate the magnificent sight of a double rainbow glowing against the massive gray clouds piled up before me. It was gone quickly, as the rain clouds scudded off to the east to dump snow on Mt. Hood. I reveled in a fleeting glimpse of blue sky, enjoying a delicious 5-minute respite before the next deluge.

Seems like I've been here before

Have you ever driven on a freeway at night in rainy fog and felt like you were not moving at all, or felt like you might just possibly be at home in bed dreaming you were driving on a freeway at night in rainy fog? I believe the term for this phenomenon is spatial disorientation. It happened to me a few years ago when I was on my way to the company holiday party. I had no idea where I was going—a golf course country club I'd never heard of before—so it was easy to get confused. Confusion was just a heartbeat away from imagining I wasn't really driving a car at all. It seemed possible that at any moment I would awaken to find myself at home in bed. Or upside down, hanging from my seat belt, bleeding from my nose and mouth.

It was a disconcerting feeling to not be sure if I was where I seemed to be. I steered my car over to the slow lane and slapped my face a few times to see if pain would help reality reassert itself. I made it to the party late and sat at an empty table near the door. The entire evening took on a surreal quality. The windows were fogged with condensation. The golf course was inky blackness. The food was generic catered. People I worked with every day were wearing sequins, mini-skirts, and clouds of perfume. I won three gift baskets. Eventually I knew I would have to drive home. The thought was both worrying and exciting.

Obviously I made it home. The experience has remained with me, though. Now I understand how pilots crash planes. Reality changes when you have no reference points to gauge your speed. Dreams start to seem more real than real life.

On Wednesday I visited my naturopath, the maniacal fiend who masquerades as a doctor. He loves me, and not just for the check I write without complaint. He can try things on me that might make some squeamish. In my gullible ignorance I don't know when to say no. This time he dosed me with nux vomica (for the food poisoning, thanks a lot, Trader Joe). Then he took me to the closet, bade me lie on the (heated) bed, and stuck needles in my shins and my belly. He threw a thermal blanket over me, cranked up the heat, and let me cook for 20 minutes. Once I got used to the idea of having a needle in my stomach, I relaxed. Some part of me exited my body and drifted happily around in some alternate reality somewhere, until his knock on the door brought me back with an unpleasant thump. Bam.

After I visit the naturopath, I always feel compelled to take a nap before heading off to the career college for night classes. During my nap, I dreamed I was in Los Angeles, trying to find my apartment. I went to the apartment I used to live in, totally confused. Everything looked familiar, but weird, like it was ten years later. When I came out of the apartment, I couldn't find my car. Dude! After walking the streets for awhile, looking for my Ford Focus, I gave up and I enlisted my dad to drive me around West Hollywood in one of his big American cars. It was great to see him again, even though he didn't have much to say, as usual. My sister was in the back seat, helpfully steering the car whenever Dad wanted to lean out the window for a closer look down some palm-tree lined avenue. It was great fun tooling around in the smoggy sunshine, despite the fact that we never did find my car. Thanks for the ride, Dad.

When I woke up, I was disoriented. The room was hot. My brain was foggy. I wondered if that dream was a portent of the dementia to come. It doesn't seem so impossible to imagine a time when I drive to the store and can't find my way home. Or I park my car at the mall and forget where I parked it. How do you hold water in your hands? A GPS would be the trail of crumbs leading me home, but what if I don't recognize the place when I get there?

Welcome to my week. As I wait for word from the committee on the status of my dissertation concept paper, the cracks in my carefully built facade are becoming apparent. To fight off entropy and discontent, today I braved the rain and crowds to purchase a new toilet seat. Merry ho ho to me. (My car was waiting for me where I parked it.) When I got home, I installed the new seat and tested it out. We have lift off! Chalk up one for me, one small blow against disorder, chaos, and crumbling reality.

A nasty, bitter cosmic soup

Yesterday I checked the dissertation online course room to see if there was word on the status of my concept paper. After two weeks, there it was, the dreaded notice: Course Work Updated. I was at work, but I couldn't wait. I wanted to see how much blood had been spilled in the reviewing of the wretched tome. I only had two students in class, poking desultorily at homework for other classes, so I downloaded the file to my flashdrive and opened it up.

About ten comments, total, along with some unexpected praise. No blood, not even some bruises. Just a couple hangnails. Could have been worse. She said once I make these “minor, minor” revisions, she thinks it will be ready to send on to the faceless, nameless committee (emphasis mine). (I'll see it when I believe it.)

So you think I would have been buoyed with hope yesterday as I slogged my way through keyboarding, professional development, back to keyboarding, and then to 10-key calculator class, but nope. I felt distinctly unsettled, and it only became more noticeable as the day went on. I got stuck in a traffic jam trying to go home for lunch: dead stop on the freeway, so I got off at Johnson Creek (that took forever) and finally headed north on 82nd. Stop and go, stop and go, all the way to my neighborhood. Lots of time to think. Lots of time to stew.

Even after my nap and a quick salad (lettuce, chicken, raw carrots, roasted beets, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar), I still felt uneasy, and it lasted until this morning. Now I recognize that feeling. It comes from being judged. Yep. That is what drives my discontent. I hate to be evaluated, I dread criticism, I rebel against being judged. Oh, poor me, someone found something that could be improved in my paper. My brain knows this is a good thing, that my work will be the stronger for it. My gut feels like it was punched. You'd think I would be used to it by now, after six years of this doctoral nightmare. You know what it reminds me of? The days when I sold my soul making art for people, taking orders, subsuming my creative self for money. Wow, good to know. This isn't the same thing. I do this for me. Well, for me and my backer, also known as my mother, my biggest fan and staunchest critic.

Today the experience of receiving constructive criticism has taken on a more nuanced, layered tone. It's like a kettle of really weird cosmic soup. My distaste for being judged fills most of the pot. It's the potatoes of my malcontented perspective. Stir in a profound dislike of rainy weather. Add a stubborn resistance to working, exercising, and being polite. Crumble in a general fear for the safety of people everywhere, and top it off with a fatalistic certainty that we've destroyed the planet. What do you get? A really nasty, bitterly depressed cup o' soup.

It is ironically comic that I'm drinking my cosmic cup o' soup in the context of the day before Thanksgiving. This day is the gateway to the happiest time of the year. Normally this is my cue to hunker down, but today my larder was empty. I braved the crowds to hunt and gather food at the store. People pushed baskets piled high with plunder. As I dodged their careening carts, I peered into faces, looking for signs of gratitude. Mostly I saw weariness, when there was any expression at all. I assumed they were all planning a big day of cooking, eating, and family. Me, I just needed the usual basic supplies to keep me going another three days. As I waited in line with other human robots for an empty U-scan station, I saw blue sky and sunshine outside the sliding doors. But by the time I wrangled my paltry pile of groceries through the checkout, the sunshine was gone, and it was raining again.

It could be worse

While I'm avoiding writing my literature review, I have the time to obsess about other things. I'm feeling somewhat fragile. The best I can say today is that it is not raining. Whoa. Really? The best I can say? I need to congratulate myself on my approach to self-obsession, because this approach is working disconcertingly well. I'm so focused on self I forget that possibly 90% of the world population would give a lot to have my problems.

My problems are luxury problems. I don't have to worry about food (although I do despair over the state of the food supply). I don't have to fret over gas. (I actually think we should pay more for gas.) I have shelter (albeit nothing fancy, but it's a lot nicer than a grass shack or a tin shed). I have clothes (so what if they mostly were previously worn by others—reduce, recycle, reuse, right?). Really, my life is fine. Fine. I'm fine.

You already know how I feel about gratitude lists, so I won't bore you with that rant again. I'm not by nature a grateful person (although I have been known to smile on occasion). But really, if the best I can say is that it isn't raining, then I need to get out more, because my life is way too small.

I know what is happening. My brain is trying to kill me. I'm stuck in that peculiar paralysis mode where I can't quite get the gumption to open up my literature review and get down to work. I'm in that special state where I am almost, but not quite, ready to do something really crazy-distracting like... mop the kitchen floor or vacuum. This morning I had the urge to purge my closet—you know, pull it all out and start over. But then I imagined the horror of shopping for new clothes and quickly nixed that idea. But someday it has to happen. My closet is stale as a tomb, full of moths, spiders, art supplies, and a shop vac. I mean, really. Could it be worse?

Sure, it could be worse. I could have a job where I have to wear a uniform (been there, done that, no thanks!). Or a job where—god forbid!—I would have to wear pantyhose, a power suit, and pumps. (I'd live under the bridge before I ever do that again.) Seriously, who am I kidding? I can practically hear you say it (and you sound remarkably like my father, weird how you do that with your voice.) Well, all I can say in reply is that I'm entitled to my tantrum. I can feel whatever I want. But you are right. Eventually I must acknowledge reality—Reality, the big R, the one where I'm not the hub—and return to my right size. Eventually the floors will be scrubbed, the hairballs will be vacuumed, and the lit review will be written. Now if I could just keep it from raining...

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.