Blood on the keyboard

Oregon gave away free money earlier this month. I didn't find out I qualified for some until a couple days ago, long after the funds ran out. I don't care. My main concern is laundry. I haven't been able to get near the bank to replenish my stash of quarters for two weeks because of that free money giveaway. Long lines of unsocially distant desperate people wrapped around the bank every time I trolled through the parking lot. No way am I going to stand in line for quarters. So I'm doing my laundry by hand in the tub.

I guess in a pandemic I need to make some allowances for comfort. Wearing cardboard underpants is one of those allowances. My skivvies are stiff and ripply like crepe paper but I'm getting used to it. Once I've broken them in, it's really not much like wearing hair shirts. I'm not suffering. It's like being back in college. Back then I was oblivious because of substance abuse. Washing clothes in the sink was part of the adventure. Now I'm oblivious because of exhaustion and old age.

Speaking of self-flagellation, I am hopeful that my family and I have found a new facility to receive our maternal parental unit. With the expert help of a placement advisor, we have located a care home in my neighborhood. We haven't signed anything yet. We have some questions to ask. But I'm hopeful that the search is successfully ended and in about thirty days, the chore of moving the old lady and her stuff can begin. I wish I could just put her into storage. I wonder if my vertigo will ease up when this task is finally done. 

Speaking of exhaustion, Portland is coming undone. It is unsettling to see Portland in the national news for so many weeks. My first thought is, ha, the joke is on you, to all the people who moved to Portland for its mellow laid-back vibe. Then I remember violence is a tragic expression of an unmet need, and I feel sad. I can't unravel all the needs entangled in the nightly riots I see on the news. I can't stop picking at my cuticles. Yesterday I felt something weird while I was typing and saw blood on my keyboard. 

I'm starting to create conspiracy theories in my head to explain the madness. Unsubstantiated theories comfort in times of distress. Maybe liberals are a little behind in the production of creative conspiracy theories, but I'm sure if we do a little brainstorming, we could catch up. Like, for instance, what if the rioters who are looting and breaking things are really minions of Mordor out to make the peaceful protesters look bad? Yeesh! Would humans actually do something so cunning and cruel? Today my brain wandered into the bizarre possibility that they sacrificed one of their own for the cause. How insane is that? But, I ask you, is there evidence to the contrary? I mean, can you prove the moon isn't made of green cheese? 

My protection is to hide in my burrow, keep my head down, and attract as little attention as possible. I wash a few pairs of socks and a couple t-shirts every night, marveling at how everything I wear is some shade of gray, even when it started out white or black. After I wring out the water and hang things to dry on hangers from the window sill over the tub, I watch the news and cringe when the Eye of Sauron looks our way. I feel sick when I realize how many wackjobs live in this city, possibly just yards away from my doorstep. My illusory bubble is evaporating. I wear my pastel plaid face mask and imagine I have a target on my back.

Summer is ending and I haven't properly sweated yet. I've cried some, though. I miss my cat. I miss my mom. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss being around people. 

From self-awareness to self-obsession in two seconds or less

Howdy blogbots. Has this ever happened to you? You are busy grappling with whatever issue confronts you, no time to think. Then you take a bio break and while you are sitting there, you let down your guard and the weight of your life suddenly falls upon your hunched shoulders. In the time it takes to blink and take in one breath, you realize your world appears to be imploding and you say oh God out loud, forgetting for a moment where you are. No? Hmm. Maybe it's just me.

Meditation aficionados wrestle willingly with self-awareness as a path toward self-forgetting. For me, self-awareness is the kick that plunges me into self-obsession. I would like to launch myself off the cliff of self-awareness, metaphorically speaking, and find myself floating in serene detachment above the fray of my humanness. Self-forgetting sounds like heaven. Maybe it is, I don't know, I haven't been there. I'm not even sure such a place exists, but whatever.

Taking bathroom moments to reflect for me is dangerous. Washing dishes is another mind trap. My hands are occupied, leaving my mind free to roam. Roaming is not relaxing. Roaming is an invitation to reflect (self-awareness) and judge (self-obsession). What am I judging? Thanks for asking. Myself. You. The world and all its inhabitants. Life. Time and space. My mother and her slow demise.

The oh God moment emerges from a bone-deep certainty that everything is moments away from screeching to a halt. As if I knew the timing of the destruction of everything. Ha. There's an example of self-obsession for you. Everything is (probably) not imploding today. Therefore, my problem is my fear that everything is imploding.

Moreover, my fear of imminent implosion really applies to me, not so much to you, sorry. Of course, I would be sad if you imploded, but what I really care about is how implosion would affect me. What pain and suffering would I experience during said implosion? Oh, alas, alackaday. Poor me.

In movies, there's a moment sometimes when you can see the hero reach an emotional resolution. It's evident in the relaxation of the shoulders, a deep gaze, a nod, indicating an acceptance, a surrender to a new normal. Maybe there is a change of circumstance, a loss of something dear . . . the music swells, the montage fades to serenity, roll credits.

I have those moments sometimes: A sense of resignation and acceptance, a calm surrender to the strange limbo of my interrupted life. For a breath, I feel relief. Then I realize nothing has changed. She's still slowly dying, this could take years, and my life is not my own.

Life is not a movie. In my personal movie, the hero (me) goes home to her apartment and waits.

A few nights ago, Mom walked me to the back door after my visit. We perused the progress of two waist-high tomato plants planted in big clay pots. Someone had courageously planted one corn plant in another pot. Since then, Mom hasn't felt like walking much, not even when I told her the corn plant grew six inches overnight. I'm not keeping track of her decline, but my sense is that she's preferring her couch to walking about half the time now, when it used to be she would walk me to the door every evening. But it's not a linear decline; sometimes she surprises me with her alert conversation and peppy stride.

Death is gaslighting us both. Ha. There's my self-obsession again, making her death all about me. Her life really is imploding (in slow motion) but I'm the one choosing to suffer.

The Chronic Malcontent should not become a car mechanic

I'm bone-dog weary, but I keep slogging through the days. On the bright side, sunshine! On the dark side, dementia! Life is a balance sheet of debits and credits. I add up both sides and think I've got things figured out. Then pink eye! (Mom, not me). It's always something, even when I don't know what it is. We all know how the story ends, but how we get to the ending is the part that puts hair on my chest. And upper lip. And nostrils.

After our visit to urgent care to get the pink eye diagnosis, my mother called me to tell me one of my headlights was out. That was nice of her. Even more impressive, she remembered to call me even after trudging the three-minute hike back to her room, fifteen minutes after having a cigarette, which typically temporarily erases a good portion of her brain cells.

I went to the auto supply store yesterday to buy new headlight bulbs and new wipers. As I pulled out my debit card, I kept waiting for the clerk to offer to install them for me, at least, the wipers. They've done it in the past for me, in a fraction of the time it usually takes me to do it. It's not like there was a line, but apparently he didn't want to go outside. So off I went, $47.00 poorer with some trepidation about what would come next.

I had previously checked YouTube for a video that would show me how to replace a headlight bulb in a decrepit old Ford Focus. Videos abound. When I backed my car into my usual parking spot in front of the laurel hedge, I felt well equipped with the knowledge of headlight replacement. I gathered my tools: gloves, basically. The nice mechanic on the video said don't touch the bulbs with your bare hands. I pulled on my lavender rubber-palmed gardening gloves and smacked them together in anticipation of success to come.

First, I optimistically opened the package of new headlight bulbs. Then I yanked on the hood release and managed to get the hood up and onto the support stick. Next, I peeled off the rubber gaskets that covered the headlight assembly, thinking eeew, these things look remarkably like dusty black contraceptive diaphragms. I set them aside. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: I hope I will remember to replace them when I'm done.

I reached my hand into the space by the left headlight assembly. There I encountered my first problem, I mean, challenge. The guy in the video seemed to have a lot more space to maneuver than I was finding in my car. I could barely get one hand in there to try to loosen the plastic retainer ring holding the bulb in place. I could feel the ring, though, so I persevered.

The ring wouldn't budge. I tried one hand, then the other hand. If I could only get both hands in there! I tried to picture my mechanic undertaking this task. Nuh-uh. Not going to happen. Maybe I'm doing this wrong. I switched to the other headlight, and twisted the ring. It came off easily and fell down into the engine compartment.

I stared down into the depths of the engine, feeling my heart rate go up, and wondering what would happen if I pretended like that hadn't happened? Would the ring melt and start a fire as I was cruising along the freeway? Would the car even start?

“Failure is not an option,” I muttered. I left the hood up and went into my apartment, seeking inspiration. I grabbed a 36-inch metal ruler, a roll of duct tape, and an X-acto knife. The cat looked askance at me as I hurried back out the door.

When I returned to the car, I looked into the engine, trying to find the ring, but my eyes weren't adjusting to the bright sunshine. I couldn't see a thing, just velvety darkness. I rummaged in the glove box. Where the heck is my flashlight? Don't I have a flashlight? Note to self: get a flashlight!

I was going to run back into the apartment for a flashlight but remembered the Multnomah County Library keychain flashlight I had received at 2017 Wordstock. I clicked the tiny button and shone the LED beam into the engine. Yep, there it was, that stupid ring, sitting on a horizontal surface much closer to the ground than to the hood. Too far for me to reach, even if there had been room to insert my arm into the narrow space.

I shoved the metal ruler down toward the area where the ring was sitting, hoping I wouldn't dislodge something essential, like, I don't know, the engine. I applied my former skill as a golfer to putt the ring toward an opening where I thought it could potentially fall down onto the ground. After some tries, success! The ring fell on the ground. I bent down, reached under the car, and snatched it up triumphantly, holding it aloft like a trophy. I glanced surreptitiously at the diners eating at the tables outside the cafe across the street but nobody was watching.

By now I was a good twenty minutes into the job and I hadn't even managed to remove the old headlights. Nevertheless, I persisted.

I yanked out the old bulb assembly from the right headlight. I removed the old bulb from the thingamajig that it plugged into, you know, the thing with all those scary looking wires no doubt leading to my car's electronic brain, if it has such a thing, which I doubt. I tossed the old bulb into the trash. I inserted the new bulb into the thingamajig and poked it back into the hole leading into the headlight area. It did not slide in as easily as it popped out.

Did you know you can look through the headlight cover and see from the front what your hand is doing from the back? I poked the bulb into the hole and watched from the front as it refused to line up. And kept on refusing. What the heck?

Now I'm sweating and my back is aching from bending over the front of the car. I straightened up and stared at the partly cloudy sky. Briefly I thought, too bad I can't enjoy this lovely day. Looking for a miracle, I switched to the other headlight, thinking, I don't know what I was thinking. I was in a state of low-grade panic, you know the feeling, where your brain is one stresser away from shutting down and forcing your body into the fetal position?

I used my right hand to try to loosen the plastic ring. It came off immediately. I figured out that unplugging the thingamajig with the wires was the easiest way to get the ring off. Wish I'd figured that out for the other side! Now I could take out the old bulb and insert the new one. It worked! Now to get the ring back on. Wait, which way does it go?

I tried it one way, I tried it the other way. Finally, something clicked. The ring went on. I turned it a bit to lock it in place, reattached the wire thing, and voila! Success. Now to replicate my success on the other side.

I wrestled for many long minutes before I finally got the bulb into the socket, the ring on and tightened, and the wires plugged back in. Wow. What an ordeal.

I was ready to close the hood when I remembered the plastic covers. Whew. They were a lot harder going back on than they were coming off, but finally I got them back into place. I shut the hood. I noticed the hood was slightly askew. Wha—? I opened the hood again and found I'd shut the old bulb from the right headlight into the space where mechanics typically lay their tools, up by the wipers. I grabbed the bulb and tossed it in the trash with the other one.

Now the moment of truth. I put the key in the ignition and started the car. In bright daylight it was hard to see, but it appeared that both headlights were working. The test would come when I visited Mom in the evening.

My next task was to replace both front wipers, which I managed to do in record time (like 10 minutes). I think I was still riding my competence high. You know how that is, when you accomplish something you weren't 100% sure you could do and then you feel like you can run a marathon or make a cold call? If I could bottle and sell that feeling, I'd be in Tahiti right now. Assuming no hurricanes or typhoons were headed for me, of course.

Now I feel like I should vacuum my car out and get it washed. What is up with that? You fix one thing, suddenly everything needs fixing. Just a few minutes ago, I dusted some shelves and suddenly had the urge to vacuum. That compulsion can go on indefinitely. Next thing you know, you start looking for a new apartment.

Tonight I'll go visit Mom and take her outside with her smoking buddy so they can have their after-dinner cigarette. Mom's eye is looking much better, thanks for asking. I'm ready for rain, darkness, and whatever else might be headed this way.

The chronic malcontent does a little clandestine gardening

Today I went for a walk around the reservoir before the heat ramped up and the smoky air moved in. The air was warm, the sky was still blue. I drank in the heat, although I admit I was flagging somewhat toward the end. In a fit of public service, I had brought an empty plastic bag with me in case I found some trash to pick up along my route. Not surprising, I found some trash.

I picked up a large aluminum ice-tea can, two big brown glass IPA bottles, a fast-food container I did not open, a small empty cardboard box, a piece of yellow do-not-cross plastic tape, and a square of black plastic whose purpose I could not identify. I was also packing my digital camera, my phone, and a half-bottle of water. I was dripping with self-righteousness when I finally made it up the hill to the recycling bins by the ranger station.

Having done my civic duty, I sauntered home and found to my relief it was still cooler in the Love Shack than it was outside. I hunkered down for the afternoon, catching up on my recordkeeping, bemoaning my lack of income, and waiting for my phone to alert me that it was time to head out in the heat to visit Mom and take the old ladies out for their evening smoke.

Tonight Mom's smoking buddy Jane seemed more anxious than usual. 

“Julie moved out,” Jane said glumly when we were seated in the smoking area. Julie was her neighbor, a younger woman who escaped the facility after healing from a broken hip. Maybe she even went back home.

“Julie was a nice person,” Mom said consolingly. “Vivian is still there, though,” she said, referring to the woman on Jane's other side.

“Well, I just can't stand it!” Jane said, lighting her cigarette with trembling hands.

“Don't you get along with Vivian?” I asked cautiously. Vivian seemed harmless to me. I've never spoken to her, but she's so tiny and hunched over, I doubt she could actually look me in the face. I could take her, I'm pretty sure, unless she knows kung fu.

“I'm afraid I won't be able to help if something goes wrong,” Jane said.

“But that isn't your job,” I pointed out.

“I guess I could just ring the call button,” Jane muttered.

By this point, my mother was halfway through her cigarette, which means her brain had turned into cotton candy. She alternated between staring at the ash at the end of her cigarette and staring at Jane's cigarette, I assume comparing her ashes to Jane's. Her eyes were big and a little wild.

“I don't think I can stand any more of this,” Jane said. “That rose bush is covering my window. I'm going to call the ombudsman if the manager doesn't get out here and cut it back!”

Now, I may have mentioned before that this rose bush is Jane's nemesis. Jane has only one window, so you can understand that her view is important to her. She likes to sit at her table and monitor who comes to the front door. She's monitored the hell out of me over the past year, until I started parking in the back and punching in a code to get in the back door.

When Mom first moved to the facility, back when she still had free will, Mom heard Jane complaining about the leggy rose bush that was blocking her view and decided to do something about it. She took her clippers and cut the thing back. Radically. Soon thereafter I received a terse email telling me to tell my mother never to cut the rose bush again. In fact, she should keep her clippers off all the plants in front, because that was the manager's territory.

Mom resentfully retired her clippers. However, Jane's complaints have continued relentlessly. All summer we've been discussing whether we should sneak out and cut back the bush. If Mom hadn't lost so many brain cells, she might have surreptitiously trimmed a stem or two. The thought of security cameras kept us from acting. Until tonight.

I walked Mom back to her room. We looked at each other. I'm pretty sure her mind was blank, but I was thinking, if anyone is going to trim that rose bush, it should be me. I dug into the old coffee can where Mom kept her clippers. I held them up.

“Should we do it?”

Mom started to grin and I knew she understood. “Do you think so?”

“Let's do it!” She grabbed her walker and we slowly beelined back down the hall toward the front door. When we got there, she hung back a little. I said, “Don't quit on me now. You gotta let me back in.” It only crossed my mind for a second that she might pretend she didn't know me. I pictured myself ringing the bell to get the med-aide to let me back in. Dead giveaway that we were up to something. No way could I say my mother was the mastermind, considering her mind is on vacation.

Too late to back out now. I was determined. I quickly opened the door and slipped out into the heat. I hustled over to the rose bush, clipped one long stem in one snip, and trotted back to the door. Mom peered through the window with wide eyes. Then she pushed open the door and let me in. We trucked back to her room, me trying to casually hold the thorny stems in one hand and sauntering a little in case we were on camera.

I don't know what Mom was thinking. She was silent. I was quiet too, but I hoped for several miracles: that the security cameras weren't working, that tomorrow the manager would not notice one stem gone, that Mom would immediately forget my dastardly deed, that Jane wouldn't notice the missing stem and turn me in, that nosy Sally (who cruises the halls everyday) would not ask me why I had parts of a rose bush clutched gingerly in one hand. You know, just your basic everyday prayers.

We made it back to her room undisturbed. One thorn scratch later, the evidence was successfully bagged and out of sight. The clippers were retired. Mom walked me to the back door, and I made my getaway. She gave me the peace sign as I drove away into the eerily glowing orange sunset.

No soup for you, white people

Today was a day of glorious sunshine. Tomorrow we return to clouds and rain. It is summer in Portland. We don't tan in Oregon, we rust. Perfect weather for the annual Naked Bike Ride (no, I did not participate, not wanting to blind people with my pasty white skin.

Speaking of white, we're at it again! We just don't seem to get it. I can hardly stand to watch the news. Photos of kids in cages and sound tracks of weeping parents and toddlers is shocking to some of us. But for a few moments at a time, I can imagine how others might see those images as just another liberal frothy emotional manipulation. Sobbing children, how trite, can't those liberals come up with something more original?

♫ This land is your land, this land is my land, as long as we are white men, we own it all. From the murder of Natives to the enslavement of Africans, we took this land, and now it's ours. If you are white, this land was made for you and me. ♫ Tra-la-la...

We bumped the Native Americans off their land and did our best to exterminate them. We kidnapped people from Africa and enslaved them, raped their women, and sold their children. We put Japanese Americans in internment camps, after taking their property. Even in our modern era, we repeatedly mow down young black men (and sometimes women) whose main crime is being black. And now we're valiantly attempting to teach those brown-skinned parents not to come here by taking away their children when they come seeking asylum and the American dream.

It's utterly mind-boggling, until I realize that this is what happens to any group with virtually unlimited power and resources. The powerful always win over the powerless. Human greed and fear of the “other,” combined with military and physical superiority, means entire groups of people are exploited, subjugated, imprisoned, or killed—or all of the above. 

I've been feeling a bit of rage.

Violence is a tragic expression of an unmet need. I keep reminding myself that some (not all) white men are afraid of losing what they have (power, safety, security, wealth) or not getting what they want (power over other people's land, wealth, labor, and lives). It feels terrible to not get what we want—ask any two-year-old. But when grown men with power (and guns) act like cranky nap-deprived two-year-olds, I start thinking of heading for the hills. 

Where would I be safe? How long can I hide behind my white skin? Sooner or later, we'll have to make amends. I'd give up soup for a year if I thought that would do it, but I suspect it won't. The best I can offer is the fact that I did not propagate. 

The chronic malcontent is starting to drool

This evening I was sitting in a meeting, reading out loud to a small group from a list on a piece of paper, and I found myself slurring some words. As I was reading, my mind was galloping along a well-worn path: Am I having a stroke? Are my teeth falling out? Is my hind-brain dragging? Have I gotten so lazy I can't be bothered to enunciate anymore?

My mouth suddenly felt uncommonly soupy. My dental hygienist, Debbie, often praises me on the amount of saliva I manage to generate, so it could be I was feeling overly energetic in the saliva department. Should I surreptitiously attempt to wipe the spit off my lip with my mittened hand? No, that would be gross. Like anyone is watching... is anyone watching?

In a split second, my brain had split in three: one part was reading, one part was observing me reading, and the third part was wondering if I was going to burst into hysterical laughter at any moment. I managed to make it through the reading with a semblance of a Mona Lisa smile. Finally, it was someone else's turn to read. I settled back in my chair and bent my head to my notebook. I started sketching furiously. A face, a drooping mouth...What the heck was going on?

Sometimes I stammer when I get self-conscious. It sometimes occurs when I listen to myself reading out loud. My level of self-awareness rises to such a pitch, I begin to pay excruciatingly close attention to my voice. The usual ticker tape of self-judgment begins to roll through the screen at the bottom of my mind: Do I sound like an idiot? I hate my voice. Am I mumbling? My lips are falling off! I can't breathe! Invariably, when I get to that point, I fumble the reading because I'm turning blue from lack of oxygen.

This rant reminds me of the time I entered a Toastmaster's contest during finals week in college. In front of 100 people, I bungled my speech. It was without a doubt the most humiliating moment of my life, still guaranteed to break me out in a cold sweat if I think too deeply about it.

I'm beginning to see a common thread here. It's my old enemy, self. Not the good guy self, as in self-care and self-realization, but the bad guy self, as in self-obsession, self-recrimination, and self-centeredness. Oh, those pesky selves. Wherever you go, there they are. There's no escaping them! I picture them as fleabitten little monkeys, wearing ratty red vests and fezzes, bashing cymbals in my eardrums at all hours. Hey, maybe that's where this vertigo is coming from. (I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary of the first time I felt the vertigo, in case you are tracking. Which I'm not.)

Speaking of things there is no escaping: The ants are back. After a relatively ant-free winter, the hordes have returned. Luckily, I am not unprepared, thanks to the advice of my good friend, Carlita. I laid down my defenses some weeks ago (anti-ant spray). The desiccated carcasses of dead ant soldiers litter the counter under the window. Ha ha. But the scouts are somehow finding a way through my defenses and onto my shirt, where they make a run for the top of the hill (my head). They rarely get further than the back of my neck. Although last night one spent a few minutes speeding round the rim of my eyeglasses before I caught him and flung him in the brig.

Hey, I wonder if there is a spray to eliminate the overwhelming sense of self I'm sometimes feeling? Some kind of anti-self spray. Guaranteed to relieve you of the bondage of self. Wow, if I could bottle that, I bet I could make a fortune. Hey, you heard it here first!

For those who say they can't...

If you've read my blog before, you know I spend a lot of time whining about stuff. As a self-obsessed chronic malcontent, it doesn't matter what it is, I can whine about it. I can whine about how my mother's dementia is turning her brain to mush, I can whine about the crummy Ford Focus I bought because I didn't want to shop anymore, I can whine about editing the papers of dissertators who have clearly balked at reading the style manual. Really, everything is a candidate for whining in my world. Lately, I've been whining a mantra along the lines of I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it.

What does it refer to? Hey, thanks for asking. When I whine that I can't do it, I mean I've come to the end of my rope, I've hit the wall, the camel's back is shattered, and the fat lady is singing. It's a cry to heaven: I can't do it! Fill in the blank, whatever it is, I can't do it! Maybe I used to be able to do it, but no more. No can do.

I found myself whining this mantra today when my maternal parental unit (which really needs to go back to the factory on Clelldor for servicing) invited herself along on a shopping trip I hadn't planned.

“I need some baking soda,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

“And some other things. Do you think we could go to Freddy's?”

Normally, I would be quite willing, but today I was scrambling to finish editing two chapters of a challenging dissertation, and I wasn't entirely certain I would be able to submit the file by the 6 PM deadline. My first thought was to cry, I can't do it! But Mom comes first, so I said okay and picked her up at 10:30. I took time to make some coffee and swallow a few gulps, but no time to make breakfast or eat it.

“You're late,” she said, assembling her going-out gear: cigarette case, lighters, gloves, cell phone case. “I thought I got the day wrong.”

“Sorry, Mom. Got your list?”

I drove the few blocks to the supermarket and parked. The wind was chilly; it was raining, but not hard. Just a typical crappy spring day in Portland. I let her manage her own exit from the car while I grabbed two grocery bags from the back seat, thinking to myself, it's good for her to maneuver independently for as long as possible, right? And wondering how I would explain to my siblings if she accidentally slammed the door on one of her twig-like legs.

We made it into the store without mishap. I pulled a small grocery cart from the stack of carts and let her go before me so I could pick up whatever detritus fell from her pockets as she walked. (I've learned that one the hard way.) Slowly we trundled through the aisles: baking soda, applesauce, chicken, ice cream, fresh fruit, one potato. I thought, no problem, we'll be out of here in 20 minutes.

In the produce department, I tried not to recognize Marge and Linda, relatives from my father's side of the family, shopping for broccoli. Marge is 94. Her daughter Linda is 66. I didn't know that, but as our two old mothers stood bleating at each other, Linda and I commiserated about the care of elderly maternal parental units and the prospects for our own futures, and in the course of the conversation, we both disclosed our ages.

Linda didn't sound like she's that worried about her old age. I figured it out: Linda has a husband, children, and grandchildren. In the struggle to beat old age, she'll be in the winner's circle. Me, I'll be working till I die penniless and alone. That's my health plan and retirement plan, conveniently packaged into one.

You can't rush two old ladies who are trying to touch base even though they can't hear what the other one is saying. I remarked at how similar the two looked: shrunken, tiny, wrinkled, bright-eyed skeletons. I didn't try to listen to their conversation, but I have an inkling of what it was probably about on Mom's side. For years, Marge has lived at the big retirement community Mom moved to temporarily over the summer—the “warehouse for old people”—so I'm pretty sure Mom was explaining to Marge why she didn't stay for long at that retirement village, opting instead to move back to her condo. That's the move that precipitated the steep mental decline, as you may recall, leaving me and my siblings with a strangely different mother.

Eventually I scanned and bagged the eight items in the basket and paid for them with my mother's debit card. Then we went over to the in-store jewelry department to get her watchband repaired. That only took five minutes, and Mom fretted impatiently on my behalf so I didn't have to. Then she complained about having to pay $10.00 to the guy for the repair. I wanted to scream, I can't do this anymore, but I didn't. We got the watch. I let her lead the way out of the store.

Here's the thing about whining that I can't do it anymore. It's bulls--t. Clearly, I can do it, because I keep on doing it, despite my whining. Until I'm unconscious or dead, or until I choose something different, I am doing this. That is irrefutable evidence that I can.

You know what they say about those who can't, right? Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. Besides sounding a bit snarky, that saying might not really be accurate. Doing and teaching are sometimes the same thing, and the line between can and can't isn't always clear.

The chronic malcontent has an epiphany about mindfulness

I have epiphanies about as often as I vacuum my carpet, which is to say, about once or twice a year, so when they happen, I try to milk them for all they are worth. Ditto when I vacuum. I roll around on the floor for months afterward, reveling in the absence of cat barf. Lately I've had a spate of little revelations related to the meaning of life and death, nothing really earth shattering, you know, just realizations along the lines of you can't take it with you, so you might as well dump it all now.

In certain circles (of which I am on the periphery, like when I was a barely tolerated 15-year-old lurking among the fringe loonies orbiting the center hall socialites), it seems I hear words like mindfulness with some frequency. Mindful seems to toddle along with words like right thinking, right livelihood, that sort of thing. It's very Zen. I don't know much about all that meditation yoga chi chi hoohaw, so I won't offer an opinion. But my epiphany is related to mindfulness, so if I'm going to write about it, it's quite likely you'll see me roll an eye or two, if you happen to be watching. Which I hope you aren't, because the place is a mess. I need to vacuum.

I've been worrying lately that I'm not mindful enough. What does that even mean? Thanks for asking. I'm not really sure. Suddenly I'm dumbfounded: I have been stewing and fretting, wondering if I should be pursuing mindfulness without fully knowing what it actually is. That's just nuts, when I think about it. That's like saying yes, please, I'd like a full glass of retsina without sipping someone else's first.

What does mindfulness mean to you? What words come to mind when you are feeling mindful? (Har har.) The word mind is starting to look odd as I'm typing it. Am I misspelling mind? (Would you mind?) Whoa. Suddenly I'm feeling a wave of vertigo. What is going on? My mind is trying to kill me. Let's assume it's a hot flash of creativity and move on, shall we?

Back to mindfulness. At first, I thought mindful meant being hyper self-aware. I've heard people say, “When I swim [or run or dance or make art], I'm fully present.” I think they are referring to a type of mindfulness, a feeling of being aware of being in one's skin. Wow, that's so meta. They swear they feel one with the universe, whatever that means. Even though they look like nerds with their goofy swim goggles. We are all just tiny specks, how can we be one with the universe? The universe is really big. Whatever. Anyway, I thought, it's one of those Zen things. After meditating for an hour, eat some rice cakes with soy butter and wash it down with wheat grass. Like that.

I wonder, why would anyone want to be that self-aware? Isn't life excruciating enough as it is? I do all I can to avoid feeling fully present. A normal person can't take a lot of self-awareness. That's what pork rinds and Pepsi are for, to dull the roar, so you can function. Am I right? Maybe that's why most Americans are getting fat. They are rebelling against being mindful.

Back to my epiphany. Here's what I think about mindfulness. I think mindfulness is just another form of self-obsession. Yep. I said it. It's out there now. What do I mean? Well, take mindful eating. People who don't read novels or newspapers while they eat are sneaks. They could interrupt you at any second with some inane comment about how delicious their organic potatoes are. Like I care. I'm reading, for god's sake!

They count their chews, they count their steps, they count their pennies, maybe all that weighing and measuring is all just self-obsession, masquerading as self-awareness. Whoa, am I going to get it from my Zen yoga junkie friends. I just basically called them all self-obsessed wackjobs.

There's another part to my epiphany. I can't share it with you, though, because if I do, it will lose its magic. When you have a really great idea, you should nurture it for awhile before you share it. That's how you help the magic grow. But I will say this: It's the opposite of being mindful, and it does not involve pork rinds.

The chronic malcontent flirts with terminal uniqueness

I'm sitting in the Love Shack, hunkered down under the ceiling fan with my feet in a bucket of cold water. The temperature outside is 96 °F. cooling down from something higher than that. It's about 90 in here, still not time to open the doors and windows. Hence, the bucket of water. Aaaah.

It's Friday. Now that I am living a carless summer, this is the day I typically take a 40-minute walk to meet a small but dedicated group of people to talk over some stuff. It's really too hot to hike the city sidewalks, but I am willing to go to any lengths. And the bus doesn't go there. So I walk.

Walking is good, because I am in a contemplative mood. What am I contemplating? Thanks for asking. My friend Bravadita is facing the challenge of her life—cancer. I don't understand it. I can't figure out how to think about it. I want to figure out how to deal with it. Stupid reaction, especially because it isn't me on the firing line. It's so typical of my brain to try to make everything about me.

What does one say to a friend who got blindsided with a diagnosis of cancer? To answer that question, I turned to the higher power: Google, of course. Type in what to say to friend with cancer... bam! About a billion webpages on the topic. See, never fear, the Internet is here. Here is what to say to a friend who has cancer:

I'm here for you. 
What can I do to help you today? 

Boring.

There's a much longer list of what not to say. Here are a few:

You just need some omega-3s and a few hours in a sweat lodge. 
How long do you have? 
Can I have your Gucci pumps when you are gone? 

Yeah, I can see how those responses might be a bit gauche.

Time out. My feet are numb. This plastic bucket (formerly a kitty litter container) isn't quite big enough for my size sevens. Ouch. Toe cramp. Sorry, I shouldn't be complaining about a tiny thing like a toe cramp.

That's one of the problems with my life. I want to pretend I'm the sickest, saddest, most decrepit human on the planet, but there's always some sad sack whose life is sadder than mine. What's up with that? I can't complain about losing my memory because my 86-year-old scrawny twig of a mother really is losing her memory: so not fun. I can't complain about a toe cramp, because Bravadita has frigging cancer. I can't complain about anything really, because I'm not dead. I'm alive, much as I try to pretend otherwise. And, as far as I know, I will probably be alive tomorrow. Argh!

Don't misunderstand me: I don't want to be dead. I just want to be special. Special would lend some meaning to my humdrum boring life. But only a certain kind of special, mind you. I don't want the reverse lottery kind of special: you know: cancer, amputation, brain amoebas, bus bandits. I don't want to be special enough to get hit by a car while I'm crossing Burnside, or to die in a plane crash that is never found, or to be pancaked into my basement by a 9.0 earthquake (all things I worry about, no matter how unlikely). No, if that is what comes from being special, I'm okay with ordinary. Let me hide out in the masses, a drop in the ocean of life, a worker among workers. Uniqueness can be terminal.

The chronic malcontent tries to avoid the consequences of living

Today I cried. Just a little, not for long, but it was an unexpected shock, to find myself sobbing into my hands. I haven't cried, really sobbed, since 2004 when my father was dying. Since then, I've felt sad, angry, and frustrated, but I haven't cried. Until today. The sudden storm of tears left me wondering if there's a limit to the number of calamities that people can handle. After I reassured my cat that I hadn't gone insane, I thought about what can make people cry.

Here's how I think it works: when we are preadolescent, we can handle one problem and that's it. Some problems are bigger than others, of course, but one that confounded me as a child was being denied access to something I wanted. Like a cookie, for example, or a Monkee magazine. Must have cookie! Must read about Monkees! Or losing something I possessed, like when my bratty brother would encroach upon my territory, bashing through the door to steal my stuff because he knew it made me crazy.

If our poor little child selves were confronted with more than one simple problem, we experienced total meltdown, and if problems piled up and lasted a long time, the repeated meltdowns eventually turned us into neurotic candidates for multiple Twelve Step programs. Well, I'll speak for myself.

However, by the time we are adults, we are pretty good at pretending we can handle whatever life throws at us, which is baloney, of course, though few of us will admit it. That's that whole admitting powerlessness thing... yeesh, too creepy, who wants to admit powerlessness? Not me.

Hey, ponder this! Somewhere around age 80, I think we revert to our younger self's strategy of tackling one problem at a time. It's not even like tackling. It's more like...all other problems cease to exist. No, that's not right. It's not that they don't exist, it's that they don't register on the radar. They simply don't appear on the to-do list. When our brains get to a certain stage of deterioration (or is it simply a case of old-age-related stubbornness?), we choose to address only one problem at a time, and it better not be a super big one, like downsizing to move into a one-bedroom apartment at a retirement place.

My mother reached that moment a few years ago when she found her brain wasn't retaining the instructions for sending and receiving email. Her world started closing in on her, and she recognized it as it was happening. In fact, she embraced it. “I'm not learning one more darn thing!” she declared and thus achieved independence from the little bit of modern technology her children had managed to thrust upon her (computer, cell phone, email, Facebook). Tomorrow my mother turns 86, and coincidentally (or not), she will be picking up the keys to her new apartment at the retirement community. Let the moving commence! Said the weary elder daughter.

I'm only 58 (only!), but today I had had enough. Too much! Too much sadness, too much anger, too much frustration, not enough serenity, not enough surrender. Life comes at all of us, but my stupid stubborn well-educated brain keeps trying to convince me that I'm exempt somehow from the consequences of living. My response to realizing I'm not exempt was to burst into tears. Real classy.

My eyes are gritty. My nose is clogged. The cat is demanding I stop typing. It's late. The paper I'm editing will be waiting for me tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Going to the hardware store for bread

Events conspire to reinforce my belief that everything is going to hell in a stinky hand-basket. Planes. Mountains. Smithereens. Blown head gaskets. Dripping green stuff. Decrepit mothers. Rising rents. The cafe across the street that I've loved to complain about for the past year closed for good last week. Everywhere I look, I see the fabric of the world (or the world as I know it) falling apart. I know my perception is an illusion, a curious artifact of my puny hiccuping brain.

Here's the deal. If I look for trouble, I shouldn't be shocked or dismayed if find it. When I watch a TV show that is set in a hospital, I shouldn't be too surprised or grossed out if every scene is about someone puking up blood. Ditto a cop show about cops chasing bad guys, week after week, nothing but bad guys. When I watch the news, I should expect to see mostly tragedies, not because the world is mostly full of tragedies, but because most of what happens in the world is not newsworthy. Life happens. Move on.

Like a baby planet nucleus, I can make every bad thing about me. Me, the center of the universe. As if I have any control or influence on events that happen halfway across the globe. My sister arrived safely in Berlin. As I trotted along the paths in the park today, I thought to myself, whew, we dodged a bullet. But no, not true. Bullets are flying constantly. There's no dodging the bullets life continuously shoots at us. No, wait. Not at us, that's not true, either. Life isn't out to get us. Life shoots bullets at everything. Some bullets are called bee stings, some are called asteroids. Some miss, some hit something. Sooner or later, we all get hit.

We never hear stories about planes that don't crash, or cars that don't mow people down, or people who aren't bombing or being bombed. We don't hear about rivers that aren't flooding or cats that are peacefully sleeping on keyboards. We could write about that stuff. We could make shows about that stuff. Then what would we have? Something like My Dinner With Andre, maybe, something truer to life yet excruciatingly, mind-numbingly dull. Anybody who likes stories knows that there's no story without conflict. I mean, I could tell you about my terribly tedious boring yawn of a day, but where would be the fun in that, for you or for me?

My last editing project was a thesis about antitrust law in Saudi Arabia, the European Union, and the United States. Ninety pages of mediocre maundering on mergers, markets, price fixing, and dominant position... I kept waiting for the juicy stuff. Come on, kid, where are the corporations that broke antitrust law and were taken down by the Justice Department in a hail of badges and bullets? Where are the stories of the sad-sack CEOs who shed crocodile tears for the juries to avoid going to federal prison? Where are the stories about the consumers who lost their life savings to crooks and creeps and cretins in the crazy world of commerce? What about the hapless foreign businessmen who are rotting in Saudi jails for collusion?

Nope. Not there. Ninety pages of ho-hum, Bluebook legal citation style. Three days of yawn torture. $20.00 in my pocket in exchange for each hour of my life energy. Worth it? I don't know. What is my life energy worth? Try plugging a toaster into me. I'm pretty sure you will be disappointed. If you were expecting toast, that is.

And to prove we are all in the hellish hand-basket together, whats-his-name Malik pulled a Mike Nesmith and left One Direction. The wailing and suffering and angst made the 11:00 news last night. The new announcer read the story in a bemused voice to an audience that was possibly equally bemused. I know I was. Bemused. Perplexed. Confounded. There's no making sense of life, but I feel compelled to keep trying.

Shmushed

I just finished editing and uploading some hapless doctoral student's wretched massive tome. Now I have a few minutes before The Walking Dead comes on the local re-run channel to reflect on ants, editing, and stupid people.

I'm feeling a little disgruntled. I counted up the hours I spent on the editing project and calculated I earned just over $16.00 per hour. You might think that is a pretty good wage. If you think that, you would be wrong. Don't forget that at least 40% must be set aside for taxes.

While I was in the bathroom staring at the whiskers hanging out of my nose, I reflected on the possibility of writing a little program that would edit a dissertation for me according to a frivolously random algorithm, replacing commas with semi-colons and periods with exclamation marks. My edited product might defy the rules of grammar; but it would certainly read more energetically! Grammar-shmammar, that's what I always say. To my cat when he's licking his butt in the chair next to me.

The most recent editing project, and the source of my disgruntlement, consisted of the first three chapters of the client's dissertation and her proposal. It's rare to edit the dissertation before approval has been granted to field the study. I get the feeling that this client's brain is not firing on all cylinders. No doubt she is exhausted from smacking her children, placating her husband, and making empty promises to her committee. Or maybe she's just not ready for prime time.

I edited the proposal first, so I would know what the study was about. That took an entire day. On day 2, after I was part way through the dissertation itself, I happened to see an email from the agency guy in my inbox: Hope you haven't started the proposal: the client has an updated version. Enjoy! My yowl of horror and dismay inspired my cat to leave the room for a while. I did a quick document-compare and found very little had changed. No harm, no foul. Thank you, editing gods.

Speaking of editing gods, where were they last week, I wonder, when I won and lost my first (and probably last) dissertation coaching client? All gods are fickle—driving gods, dieting gods, ant-killing gods are just a few of the wingnuts that rule my world...but few gods are more unpredictable or capricious than the editing gods. This is the story.

I got a call on my cell phone from someone I didn't know. That happens occasionally. I rarely hear the thing buzz. My business number rolls over to a Google Voice number, and Google Voice sends me a transcript of the message. I always chuckle when I read Google's attempt to convert someone's quickly spoken words into text, especially if the person has an accent. Which was the case with the message that prompted the ensuing fiasco/learning opportunity.

I deciphered the message by listening to it and heard a man's voice say, “My professor recommended I get a coach.” After some back and forth by email and phone, I met Alphonse last Saturday at a local college campus (not the one he was enrolled with), where we sat at a picnic table in the sun and tried to understand each other. He told he he was enrolled in an online doctoral program in Education at someplace based in Colorado. He needed a coach and some help with APA formatting, he said.

“Do you have a copy of the APA book?” I asked. I held up my tattered and annotated copy. He looked perplexed.

Alphonse is from Kenya and retains a strong accent even after two decades in the U.S. It takes me a while to get familiar with a new accent. Meanwhile, I read lips. His lips were thin, and his teeth were perfectly white. His gums glowed pink, like there was a light on inside his mouth. He laughed a lot. Too much, and way too loudly. I hadn't been out of the house much lately, so I felt a little shrunken at his exuberance.

“Here are two of my assignments that need editing,” he said, holding out two bent pieces of white paper crammed with lines of single-spaced text in a variety of barely readable fonts. I could feel my eyes crossing (which in retrospect was an important clue, if I ever decide I want to do this again). He told me he was in a doctoral program, which led me to assume that he actually qualified to be in a doctoral program. I mean, I assumed he could write at least at a college level; he had to have a master's degree from somewhere, right? So I didn't do more than glance at the assignments he showed me.

Caught in my assumption, I failed to see red flag #1 (poor writing skills) and forged bravely into the muck, agreeing to edit his school assignments, which two days later got me into a frothy brouhaha with his professor, a faceless academic working at a two-bit for-profit university (not unlike the one from which I matriculated), who thought I had written Alphonse's assignments for him. More on that in a moment.

My second error was assuming that because Alphonse could use a cell phone, he could use a computer. Specifically, that he could send and receive emails with attachments. That assumption led me to refuse to receive the flashdrive he tried to give me, stating instead, oh, just email me the files. I'll edit them and send them back to you! Tra la la. Thus, red flag #2: poor computer skills. It's difficult to instruct someone how to download a file over the phone.

Red flag #3 involved his concern about how much my services were going to cost him. Duh. If a person has to ask, obviously they can't afford me. But at that point, I was more interested in the process of acquiring a real coaching client than I was in making money editing. Curiosity won out over chasing the cash. I have yet to be paid, but it's only $67.00, so I'm not too concerned.

As you can imagine, the fact that Alphonse couldn't send and receive email attachments meant he had to physically drive to my apartment and deliver a flashdrive to me. The first time, I met him in the street. He handed off the little gizmo and departed in his Toyota Prius. The second (and third times), in utter frustration, I invited him into my sacred space (red flag #4! Luckily he wasn't allergic to cats) and attempted to teach him how to do some things on my computer: send and receive an attachment, do some online research at the county library, and log into his university course room and upload a file. Alphonse sweated, mopped his brow, and laughed and laughed.

Without a doubt, Alphonse has the worst writing skills I have ever encountered. I do not lie when I say the editing I did for him was essentially a translation from a bizarrely poetic foreign language consisting almost entirely of... well, see for yourself.

This passage, by the way, was formatted entirely in bold. This was one of four paragraphs, all similar. After weeping a little, I began to pick my way through this verbal minefield and eventually produced a concise, neat translation that more or less represented the ideas I was able to glean from the essay. I felt I'd done a stellar job editing difficult material, and allowed myself a smidge of prideful satisfaction, which quickly dissipated when I got a call from Alphonse telling me his professor wanted to talk to me about the editing I'd done for him.

After some phone tag (on a holiday!), I connected with Dr. Bob, who calmly and with arrogant complacency commenced to regal me with his professional pedigree: program director, wrote the curriculum, president of a college, founded a college... yada, yada. By this time, I had looked him up on the Web and I knew exactly who he was: an academic wannabe stuck in the for-profit higher education world. And a bully, too, I found out.

I don't bully easily; I bend, I don't fight back. I didn't argue with Dr. Bob. I couldn't have gotten a word in, even if I had wanted to. I knew I had done nothing wrong: Alphonse hired me to edit his essays, and I had done my job as an editor; however, from an educator's point of view, I had made it possible for Alphonse to cheat. Once I saw that editing his papers was not going to help Alphonse toward his goal of earning a Ph.D., it was clear I had to release my new coaching client.

Meanwhile, Alphonse decided he didn't like his online university and the bossy Dr. Bob and began taking steps to transfer to a local university in his neighborhood. He emailed me yesterday that wanted me to edit his admissions essay. I declined. Alphonse has called my cell phone three times today. My cell phone was dead; forgot to charge it up. Ha. Maybe there is an editing god.

This is way too long, so I'll tell you about the ants another day. Hint: The word of the day: shmushed.

Death by bug

This week I took time out between rainstorms to go for a jog. I slogged along in my running gear, following my usual path through the park. First, I climbed the main staircase to warm up. I went at a pretty good clip, considering I'm an aging slacker couch potato. I tried to keep my chin ahead of my hips...that seems to propel me forward somehow, as long as my feet catch up in time. I breathed through my nose as well as I could, considering my sinuses are chronically clogged. (Breathing through my mouth makes me look desperate: older gal, trying too hard.)

Every week, no matter how I push myself, young things of various genders leap up the steps past me like gazelles. They make it look effortless. I feel the wind of their passing, and I breathe in the fumes of their coconut body wash, but I keep my head down, watching where I place my feet. Eventually, I get to the top, the summit of the hill, formerly a volcano, now a flat tree-lined avenue of grass where children chase dogs chasing Frisbees. The sweeping evergreens were a lot smaller 40 years ago when my boyfriend used to park his Buick Special overlooking the city so we could smoke weed and do other fun stuff.

The gazelles were long gone by the time I gained the summit. I walked to catch my breath and looked at the city through gaps in the trees. Then I started jogging again, going back down the hill, but the long way this time, down and around, along the gently sloping road, which led me eventually to the reservoirs we hope to save from the EPA, the agency I usually like but currently wish would let our city water be. Whatever. The jog down the hill always feels like a cop-out, especially when some runners pass me going uphill in the opposite direction. My excuse is that I'm old.

At the reservoir road, I stopped and stretched and looked at the sky to see if I should linger or keep moving to avoid oncoming rain clouds. Sometimes you can see it coming right at you and there's nothing you can do. Sometimes, though, you can stay ahead if you hurry.

This week, I thought, I need to up my game. Thinking of my still-too-tight Levis and the ass that I drag around behind me, I decided to run back uphill the way I had come down, vowing to keep going as long as my various body parts held together. Things were going good. I was feeling strong, watching my feet as I plodded steadily along the edge of the road, one eye out for bicycles. Pretty soon, my heart rate began to rise, and then to soar. My left ankle began to twinge, followed by my left knee, not enough to make me stop, but enough to make me reflect on old joints and tired ligaments.

Finally, my congested sinuses couldn't siphon enough oxygen out of the air to keep my tired muscles firing, and I began to breathe through my mouth, although I shut it every time I met someone coming in the opposite direction, to preserve my illusion of youthful vigor. I wasn't gulping air, really, just scooping air, kind of like a whale scoops plankton as it moves through the ocean depths. And that's when I scooped up the bug.

I should have scooped through my teeth. If I had, I would have caught the sucker before it made it halfway down my throat toward my laboring lungs. As it was, my throat closed in the nick of time, and left the bug stuck, halfway down, too far down to come back up, except by the most drastic and messy of measures. Contemplating a finger-jam-induced upchuck in the park with dogs and kids and runners and Frisbees nearby didn't last long, so I did the logical thing and swallowed.

After a few convulsive swallows and some loud hacking-style coughs, with me bent over, hands on knees, tongue hanging out, the bug slid the rest of the way down my gullet. Protein, I reassured myself. Everyone needs more protein. I tried not to imagine the bug was kicking out its last moments while it paddled around in my stomach acid.

As I walked the rest of the way up the hill, I wondered what would have happened if my throat hadn't closed in time, if that bug had stuck there, blocking my airway, and no one had happened by to find out why the old lady was laying in the road turning blue? Would the coroner find the bug during the autopsy? Would the ruling be death by bug? Or would it be ruled accidental death due to a foolish old person's illusion that just because she once finished a marathon twenty years ago that she can trot up a long hill with impunity?

Obviously, I lived to tell the tale. I didn't get an upset tummy or have projectile diarrhea. The bug did not crawl out of my throat (or any other orifice) later while I was sleeping, at least, not that I know of. (Eeewww.) I once read that the average person inadvertently eats several spiders a year. So, what's one more bug? Maybe I should be saying yum.

Saddle sore

My forward momentum plunged into a tailspin with the coming of fall and cool weather. Even though this afternoon the rain clouds scattered, gracing us with blue sky and balmy air, I can't not know what I know is coming: it's fall, and the gaping dark maw of winter will soon be sucking the life from my soul. This SAD time is normal for me. No need to send in the whitecoats.

Unfortunately, I did not expect that my usual SAD time would be made worse by my first foray into teaching since I left the career college (or since it abandoned me, I should say) in May of 2013. What am I talking about? This week I organized and taught a class on a marketing research topic to seven small business owners, as a beta-test with the intention of refining the class and offering it to a larger group sometime later this fall. I thought it would be fun. I expected to feel happy. I was looking forward to getting back in the saddle.

I prepared. Really. Given my resources, I did my best to get ready. I rented a small conference room in a charming, hip, easily accessible location. I bought a new laptop to show my cool PowerPoint. I wrote and designed and printed and bound 50-page workbooks for each attendee. I ordered box lunches from a reputable health food store, along with a box of coffee. I cut and colored my hair. I tapered my black pants. I wore deodorant. In short, I did everything I could think of to be ready for my first teaching gig in over a year.

I invited a hand-picked audience of small business owners, all women, most of whom I had met at various networking events over the past four months. They all seemed interesting and competent, and I thought they would be willing to give me good feedback on my class in exchange for free admission, a free workbook, and free food. And don't forget the box o' coffee. The women represented a range of industries: professional coaching, web design, interior design, marketing, fitness, and landscape design. They all considered themselves marketers.

The terms of the rental agreement gave me only 15 minutes to pack everything in and set it up. It took me ten of that to figure out how to hook my laptop to the projector. Hence, I was about ten minutes late getting started (and still one attendee strolled in well after I'd begun). I never did set up my video camera.

Within moments I was sweating; for two hours I never stopped sweating. The space was too small. The table was too low. The laptop keys were weirdly flat. Coffee and electronics didn't coexist well (luckily her little Apple device escaped the worst of the spill). The food boxes all had bottles of water in them (no wonder the boxes were so heavy; I should have read the fine print). There was no creamer with the coffee. The air conditioner outside was intermittently loud, but I was too claustrophobic to shut the door.

Yet, like the experienced teacher I am, I soldiered on, trying to give them good information and keep things interactive and engaging. I don't think they knew that I was a sweaty mess. They haven't known me long enough to know that a personal meltdown is imminent when I take off my hat. Yes, I know, hard to believe, but it's true: I spent the entire three hours sans hat.

The final hour began with the coffee spill and from my point of view deteriorated from there. I managed to end the class on time and distribute the food boxes while mopping up coffee. The table became even more crowded as the attendees opened up the boxes, unwrapped roast turkey and harvarti cheese sandwiches, and uncapped little plastic dishes of kale salad and fresh strawberries. There was even a cookie. I was too sweaty to do more than open my flimsy plastic bottle of bland water. Sipping convulsively, I asked them my first feedback question: what did you learn today that you can apply to your business?

After that all I had to do was listen. I did remember to turn on my audio recorder; no way my brain could remain present in my body for more than a few seconds at a time. People said kind things; they offered praise. They offered constructive suggestions. After that first feedback question, they were off and running, dragging me along with them in their wake. These women are smart marketers, my perfect target audience. They anticipated my other feedback questions, giving me gems and nuggets and pearls and I, still sweating, tried to nod and look like I was listening. The praise swept quickly over me. The suggestions (which could have felt like criticism) swept over me too, but not as quickly. Nothing stuck. I found myself thinking, how soon can I wrap this up?

Toward the final half hour, the conversation devolved into a networking session, in which people eagerly offered to help another attendee who earlier had described a frustrating a marketing challenge she was facing. I was happy to let others in the group assume control. They turned their suggestion-making machine on her. I stopped sweating. I slowly and quietly eased into clean up mode, and eventually the group got the message. The introverted landscape designer fled as soon as she could, and I wished I could flee with her.

Finally, the extraverts moved toward the door. As the room emptied out, I began to feel more calm. My breathing eased up. I packed my stuff out to the car with a few willing hands. We said our goodbyes, and I was alone. Finally. At last. Alone.

And now I know something about myself that I didn't know before this class ended. Teaching face-to-face at the career college was a good gig for me while it lasted. I did it well, and the job made it possible for me to earn my doctorate. But teaching face-to-face now might not be such a good fit anymore. Maybe a bigger room would help, and more time to set up, and more practice. But the moment I knew I was headed for yet another pivot in my self-employment adventure was when I sat in my car and felt not pumped up and joyful for having connected effectively with an appreciative group of my peers but relieved that the event was over so I could go home and be alone.

I'm trying to see the value in the learning experience, even as the metaphorical branches seem to be getting shorter and thinner. I want to cling to twigs and not look down: The abyss beneath me (unemployment freefall) seems terrifying. But what if I use what I learned about myself to design a new strategy, away from face-to-face teaching toward some kind of online teaching vehicle? Maybe I'll find my fit if I let go of the short branches. Deep breath, leap, cyberspace, here I come.

The season of stupid people

This is the time of year when everything goes sideways. A lifetime of Septembers has left me with a vague sense of dread. What will I wear for the first day of school? Will my classmates laugh at me when they see me with my new glasses? What if I don't like my teachers? What if they find out I'm smart? So much to worry about. New year, new classmates, new teachers, new clothes, same dread.

I don't care anymore about classmates and teachers, and I really don't care what I wear, much to my sister's consternation. But the season still deflates my will to live. I think it has to do with the angle of the sun. We've had a lot of sun this summer, and it's been great. Then Labor Day, and bam, the air chilled, just for a few days, but now the air knows it can grow colder, and so it will, without regard for hothouse flowers like me, plummeting to 50°F, and if it can fall to 50°, what's to stop it from plunging to 40°, or 30°? Or even lower? Labor Day is when the bottom falls out of summer, and I can feel the dark clouds piling up just beyond the western hills, raging in from the ocean to drench us in bone-chilling rain. Any minute now. Even though today the air is warm, it's a vile deception: There is something in the air that smells like death.

When I was struggling to finish my Ph.D., whining almost continuously about my woes via this blog, I always knew there would eventually be an end to the struggle. Either I would fail, or I would quit, or I would finish. Whatever happened, I always knew that it would end someday, and that helped fuel my persistence. Finally, I phinished, as they say.

I launched my business with hope and mild excitement. Now, nine months later, I am thrashing in the messy bog of my startup debacle, and I realize, there may be an end to this suffering as well, but unlike with the doctorate, it's not as easy to see the finish line. I mean, I know the ultimate finish line could look like me admitting defeat and joining the ranks of America's jobseekers. That is not the outcome I would prefer, but as every day passes, it's looking more and more likely.

To earn money, I've been editing academic papers. It's not fun, and the pay rate is erratic: How much I earn per hour depends on how fast I can edit. Sometimes the authors are good writers—not much for me to do, a few formatting suggestions, a word change here or there. I can easily earn $40 per hour. Other times, English is not the first language, which means I'm editing what pretty much amounts to poetry, not good when the topic is land use in China. The paper I edited yesterday was some poor schmuck's literature review. “My Chair has returned this seven times! I just don't know what else to do!” Sound familiar?

By the time I had compiled an extensive list of suggestions to expand and revise his/her literature review, I calculated I was earning $17 per hour. I guess in some (third world) countries, $17 would be a princely wage. Maybe I should move there. As long as I have internet access, I can edit academic monstrosities from anywhere.

I just finished editing a journal article for someone in Texas. I calculated I earned $25 per hour on the paper, mostly cleaning up Word tables. (How the hell do people manage to butcher Word tables so thoroughly? I don't get it.) I submitted the paper and prepared to start my real work for the day: writing the workbook for my first marketing research test class. Five minutes later I got an email from the editing agency: The client has a new version of the article. Can you compare the two versions for differences?

Really? I spent a couple minutes doing a document compare between my revised version and the author's new version and realized that was a waste of time. Then I compared the author's first and second manuscripts: Word found no differences between the two files. WTF? Is someone trying to gaslight me?

What did I tell you? Everything is harder is September. This seems like proof to me. Of course, I am biased toward chronic malcontentedness.

The reunion planning committee crashes and burns

You want to bring the crazies out of the woodwork? Plan a high school reunion. I offered to assist, along with a handful of other well-meaning busy alums, and things were going more or less swimmingly (you bring the cake, I'll draw the stupid mascot on a poster, etc.) until two committees made some unilateral decisions, and the self-styled reunion committee chairperson derailed into tall grass.

It's my nature to help from behind the front lines, so to speak, and in this case, my instincts to hang back and not attend any committee meetings were correct. Maybe my intuition is more trustworthy than I thought. In a matter of a few days, a series of one-sided tirades escalated into a bizarre personality meltdown, culminating in the cancellation of the reunion. Wow. It just goes to show, you can graduate, but you can never really leave.

I think it started when someone not on the committee said something they shouldn't have on Facebook about the park that the chairperson had chosen for the event (too far out of town, too dirty, etc.). Our illustrious chairperson immediately lit up the internet with a vitriolic response. Some of it ended up in an email that got forwarded to me. I immediately hunkered down to dodge the bullets whizzing gaily over my head.

“If everyone in our committee does not like my leadership, let me know,” she wrote (which one committee member proceeded to do). “After all the hours I have spent.....and the hours I have put in, I am just about to cancel this reunion!” Then she banned two people from attending the reunion. (Can you do that?)

“This reunion is so important to me,” she went on. “Some of us may not be around for the 50th, so the 40th should be colorful and fun. I am so upset right now in tears.”

I found myself wondering if she's perhaps chronically ill? Maybe she's terminal and she doesn't want to say anything? ..... Nah. If she were, she would have let us all know, early and often. Nope, I'm pretty sure she's diagnosable with nothing more serious than a really mucky case of self-centered Little-Hitlerism. Which, unlike many other -isms, is not fatal, although if you have it and finally regain your senses, you may wish it were.

Sadly, things really started to unravel when the chairperson was unable to attend a committee meeting (due to a stress attack brought on by being slandered on Facebook). The remaining three stalwart committee members did what any group of functional adults would do: they got on with the business of planning the reunion. Then they bravely sent out minutes, which were forwarded to me. (I guess I'm the phantom member of the committee.)

Upon receiving the minutes of the meeting she had not attended, the chairperson sent out a response. She typed her rant between the lines of the secretary's minutes.

Secretary: We decided to continue with the planning, in the absence of the chairperson.

Chair: I don't see that you needed me there. You've made decisions! It should have been opinions!

Secretary: In regard to the cakes, if everyone agrees, this is what we'll do.

Chairperson: No! You do not make decisions!!! (You can measure blood pressure by the number of exclamation points, did you know that? It's true.)

Secretary: We'll order one sheet cake from Costco with [name of high school] on it in red and blue.

Chairperson: I told you I was getting the cake. I had a special table for it. It would have been simple if you had listened to me from the beginning. I already decided the cake and I said I was doing it.

(Wow. Just typing this dialogue is raising my blood pressure. I feel an exclamation point coming on.)

Secretary: Sorry, but I don't think we can ban anyone from the event.

Chairperson: It is not your decision!!!

Another email came through shortly after from one of the three remaining committee members, apologizing to the chairperson for upsetting her and tendering her resignation from the committee. And then there were two (and me, lurking).

The last I heard, the remaining two members have yanked the planning from the chairperson's grasping hands, and she's taking nitro tablets and calling her nurse. Well, so maybe she is ill. I guess I will work on being more compassionate.

The moral of this story? Best to let high school remain in the past. You didn't like those people 40 years ago; you aren't going to like them any better now.

Coming off a bender

While my sister was in town for a long weekend, the centerpiece of her visit was food. When I contemplate that statement, I wonder what images it inspires in your mind? Do you picture family feasts, home-cooked spreads, gourmet meals at local five-star restaurants? I mean, it's not often my sister comes to town. My older brother actually drove in from the coast for the occasion, so the entire family (all five of us) was all together, an occurrence rarer than a lunar eclipse. It would have been a perfect time to celebrate with fabulous food. That is not what happened.

The only one who knows how to cook in my family is my sister. I doubt it occurred to her to consider cooking a meal to celebrate the get-together. It certainly never occurred to me, because that isn't how it's done in my family. Cooking was our mother's job, and because she despised cooking, we grew up with canned green beans and hamburger patties.

Our idea of social food is Chinese take-out. My older brother has food allergies. I'm not supposed to eat sugar (among other things). My sister and mother eat like tiny birds. My younger brother will eat anything as long as it isn't from the vegetable family, and my father the compulsive overeater has gone to the all-you-can eat buffet in the sky. Even though we all have our preferences, food is still the center of the social time.

Food is a family thing, even when some family members have food issues. Or maybe that is where some family members get their food issues, I don't know. Just like money is a family thing, food is one of the sticky threads that snags you in childhood and trails after you the rest of your life, no matter how far you run. In my family, it doesn't matter how you feel, but it matters a lot how you look. People notice how you eat. Everyone notices if you gain a few pounds.

I picked my sister up from the airport on Thursday evening and delivered her to Mom's condo. As we pulled up to the back parking area, there was our scrawny mother talking with two older women. Mom stopped waving at her mini-roses and started waving at us. The two neighbors, who held two tiny yappy dogs on leashes, became the audience for the minor family drama that ensued.

Mom introduced us to the neighbors. We shook hands and petted the tiny dogs. I retrieved my sister's suitcase from the boot of my old Focus and started dragging it toward my mother's back door.

My mother grabbed my sister in a hug, gleefully saying to the two women, “This is my skinny child!”

I thought perhaps the neighbors looked a little uncomfortable, but I didn't stick around to find out. I rolled my eyes and kept moving into the house. I heard the subtext, loud and clear, though: This is my skinny child (and there goes my fat child!).

We aren't known for social grace in my family. My sister is the anomaly: She conducts herself like a princess wherever she goes (she's been to Europe, after all), but the rest of us are tooth-picking, armpit-scratching, conversational disasters. (Which could explain why my sister prefers Europe). We're all well-educated, but I fear we still exude a slightly sour aroma that indicates we hale from the wrong side of the tracks. No matter the Ph.D., my collar is blue and probably will be till I die. I mean, you can take the girl out of the public school, but... know what I mean?

I'm a chip off my father's block, so food has a special hold over me. This is why I don't buy anything but fish, chicken, turkey, and vegetables. If there is anything else in the house, I will eat it. Going out to eat is like taking an alcoholic to a bar and saying, oh, it's okay, just this once, have a beer. Live a little!

“I need to gain a few pounds,” my sister said as we perused yet another menu. Meanwhile, my mind was running in circles: Salad? I don't want any stinking salad! Could she tell how much I wanted the chocolate cake? (Or the french fries? Or the wheat bread? Or the cheesy pizza?)

“You only live once,” she said, as if she read my mind. At that point, she might as well have had little devil horns coming out of her perfect blonde hair. And a cute little pitchfork aimed at my bulging belly.

The rest of the weekend was the typical culinary nightmare. I get why my food-allergic brother avoids social situations. It takes monumental willpower to turn down food when you are out to eat with the family. It's just not done. Food is love. (And if you aren't feeling the love just then, you can focus on your food.) Food is the glue that holds family times together. If you don't eat (just a little bite of this amazing Belgian chocolate!), then you aren't on the team. You are undermining the team experience.

Clearly, I have no willpower. I know that. This is not news. As I wait for the wheat, sugar, dairy, soy, and corn starch to clear out of my overloaded system (the five fingers of death, according to Dr Tony the nutty naturopath), I reflect on powerlessness. My mother loaded me up with leftovers (week-old glop in a Chinese takeout carton, an unopened box of wheat-filled, sugar-laced granola), which I (eventually) tossed into the trash, but not after once again trying (and failing) to demonstrate that I can live life like a normal person.

As I recover from this bender, I wish I could say that I won't jaywalk again. But even on a good day, my mind is trying to kill me. Sugar may be a slow death, but it's death all the same.

If you can't beat 'em.... eat 'em

The ants in my kitchen discovered a flaw in the security system I devised to protect my compost bucket from marauders. I did not realize that the lid of the bucket, open to the back of the bucket, extended past the dike of diatomaceous earth I had erected. Thus I inadvertently left a convenient drawbridge for the army of ants, who wasted no time exploiting my carelessness. I entered the kitchen in the morning, bleary-eyed, to find a long trail of laborers marching from the bucket, to the wall, along the bottom of the cupboards (out of my sight), to some tiny opening behind the microwave a good ten feet away.

I made coffee and drank it, mulling over my strategy. For some minutes, I watched the trail and considered doing nothing. I felt like god must feel, watching the little critters trooping along the edge of the bucket. I could almost hear them gloating to themselves: Apple cores galore! Banana peels! It's the motherlode. We're rich! Our children are saved! Even as I imagined raining carnage down on their tiny heads, I admired their relentless persistence. I am pretty sure these little buggers will outlast me. Long after I'm gone to the big compost bin in the sky, the ant armies will be industriously scouring the earth for apple peels and rotten bananas.

Humans are bigger and (arguably) smarter, but we don't play a long game. We get distracted by the day-to-day, we lose our focus. Once you lose your focus, you lose your drive. Forward momentum dissipates along myriad pointless paths. The ant blows by you while you are gaping at the stars. And that is why ants will inherit the earth. Hmmm. Inherit? They already own it. We are just renting month to month.

Eventually I went with the nuclear option and rained carnage on the unwitting trail of ants. First, I took the compost bucket out to the green rolling bin and dumped the startled diners out on their heads along with the kitchen scraps. Then I moved everything off the counter, napalmed the trail with alcohol which I keep in a handy sprayer bottle for just this purpose (why else would you put rubbing alcohol in a sprayer bottle?), and wiped up the carcasses with paper towels.

Since then, my strategy is to go Hannibal Lecter any time I spot something moving. I hunt the nooks and dig into the crannies. I stand vigil with the rubbing alcohol AK-47. After shooting intruders, I carpet bomb with the diatom dust. I told my friend V. about the episode. She shared some similar experiences. For an insane moment, we cackled like a pair of Hitlers.

Do I sound like I'm having fun? I'm not. I don't want to kill ants. If there is a hell, I'm going there. After the most recent Ant Armageddon, I'm sure there's no hope for my soul. My karma is ruined for a thousand lifetimes. I used to care. I used to try to save scouts if I could, or at least try to flick them in a direction that would save them from drowning or frying. I strive to live and let live. I rescue flies, spiders, moths, and yellow jackets. With ants, however, I admit I'm engaging in size discrimination. Ants are just too damn small to save. And when they congregate, which is sadly their nature, it triggers a fear that I will lose my living space to tribes of tiny squatters. And I go ballistic.

Now I don't care anymore. I'm overwhelmed by sheer numbers. And it's frustrating to discover they don't go gently into the good night, these ants. They petition me constantly, in protest for my heavy-handed Hitler management style. They climb up my shirt (never down, always up, aim for the head, get her!). They bite my neck, they self-immolate on my stove, they sponsor tours to gaze at my toothbrush. I swear they dive-bomb out of thin air to infiltrate juicy targets. The only safe place is in a tub of hot water, and even then they rage at me from the shore.

I don't always notice their protests, which must be so frustrating for them (and maybe why they feel they must bite me.) For example, I'm usually unaware of the brave volunteers who infiltrate my salad bowl. My cat won't eat ants: He knows they bite. But my nose is useless and my eyesight is terrible, so I don't see the ants in my food, waving their little protest signs at me. Freedom from tyranny! Stop the bombing!

Should I abandon my kitchen to the ants? Well, do we really own our kitchens? In a metaphysical sense, you could say our kitchens own us. I mean, I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of time worshiping at the big white box. Whatever. Anyway, it would do no good to abdicate and let them have the kitchen. Because they aren't just in the kitchen. As I've noted, they are in the bathroom, the bedroom, and the living room. Last night they were mining something on the couch. If I looked real close, I bet I could see them wearing tiny helmets equipped with flashlights and waving little pickaxes. I guess I should be thankful they are happy to clean up after me. I just wish they would do it at night, after the picnic, and then fade with the light, like some of their insect brethren.

Well, if given a choice, I'll take ants over cockroaches or bed bugs. Any day. I guess I should count my lucky stars. One....two....I'm counting now.