The chronic malcontent may be a hothouse flower

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The chronic malcontent receives a challenge

I let a friend read my anonymous blog. The next time I saw her she said, “I have a challenge for you.” I thought she was going to ask me how to cook an artichoke or replace a plastic wheel cover, but no such luck. “I challenge you to write a blog post about the opposite of the chronic malcontent.”

I gaped at her. What would that be? Would that be my ridiculously happy inner optimist? She seemed awfully certain such a persona bubbled somewhere inside me. My brain instantly fried at the idea.

I'm sure as I gaped I rolled my eyes. Although I've sought spiritual help for that particular character flaw, my eye-rolling habit hasn't eased up much, probably because eye-rolling expresses so eloquently what I am so often thinking and feeling without my having to say a word. “I'll give it some thought,” I said, not willing to promise something I couldn't deliver.

I didn't want to admit I've worked hard over the years to erase my inner optimist. As a founding member of Optimists Anonymous, I can claim many years of continuous abstinence from optimism. Like all members of Opt-Anon, I've trained myself to look only on the dark side. I sing only dirges, if I sing at all. Mostly I just moan. I admit, sometimes I smile. But I'm crying on the inside.

We've got a lot to cry about these days. Lately, I bury my nose in my cat's fur and groan. What's my problem? For once, it isn't about me. I want to know, how can optimism cure the illnesses of the world?

I have deep sadness for all the people who suffer everywhere, too many to name. I'm sure you do too. Tragedy isn't about optimism or pessimism. How I feel affects nothing. I weep at the photos of California burning. I moan at stories of Puerto Ricans dying from lack of clean water. I gnash my teeth and wail at the photos of Rohingya women whose children have been snatched from their arms and thrown alive into fires. It is all too clear, life sucks and then we die.

I want to move to a village of women, surrounded by a wall of thorns, preferably somewhere with affordable health insurance and endless sunshine. I might be willing to blow my Opt-Anon program to sing and dance with my arms waving free. I might even take my top off, who knows, and help with child care.

The end feels near, but quietly near: I expect to go out with a whimper, not a bang. Apocalypses are for dramatic people. Us bland folks just wither, shrivel, and blow away with civilization's dusty hair balls. Meanwhile, I keep my head down and trudge the road of malcontented destiny. It doesn't matter how we feel, people. Nobody cares what we think. It's all about action. Gotta keep on truckin' til it's over.

The chronic malcontent feng shuis the crap out of her desk

You know things are heading south when feng shui-ing your desk seems like a solution. Today as I was avoiding writing an article I'm not sure how to start, I ran across a video by a blonde white woman who wanted to feng shui her desk so she could be more productive. I thought, Hey, I want to be more productive. Is that all I need to do, feng shui my desk? What the hell is feng shui, anyway?

As I started writing this post, I suddenly wondered, Hey, have I already written about this? I did a quick search on my blog, and sure enough, back in 2013 when I was whining about waiting for my Chair to tell me to resubmit my wretched massive tome for the umpteenth time, I wrote about feng shui-ing the Love Shack. Did it work? I finished the dissertation, if that means anything.

This time, I just want to write a short article. Maybe I don't have to do the whole place. I'm thinking just my desk. Like the rest of the place, my desk is swamped with clutter and detritus. Sticky notes, toothpicks, half-empty ballpoint pens, used tissues, unfiled papers... Is it hampering my productivity? Probably. I will apply feng shui principles to fix my desk qi. Chi. Whatever.

Where do I start? I guess with the Bagua. Okay. I'm imagining my desk divided into nine quadrants. Tic tac toe. Right ahead of me is the career quadrant. What do I see there? My keyboard. The color for this quadrant apparently should be black. My keyboard is black! Right on, sister. I'm feeling more energetic already. What's next? The lower right quadrant is for attracting helpful people and travel. Hmmm. Right now, that quadrant is occupied by my desktop scanner and a beat up cardboard box of pens, sticky notes, highlighters, and binder clips. What does this mean? Maybe that I'll soon be traveling to the office supply store for more paper clips and tape? No doubt that is where the helpful people will be found.

The next quadrant is for creativity. Uh-oh. Another box placed to control the clutter, this one larger, made of clear plastic. This box corrals my mother's checkbook, my digital camera, postcards I never sent advertising my book, and miscellaneous pamphlets. Maybe with the exception of my camera, I don't see a whole lot of creativity going on in this quadrant.

The upper right quadrant should have something pink, for attracting love. I'm not seeing any pink. This is where I keep my receipts, stacked up on a dinky chest of drawers that holds stamps, erasers, and other miscellaneous office supplies. Behind the chest are the local phone books. Every year I get new phone books. I use them once or twice a year, but I can't say I love these phone books. No love going on here that I can see. Well, my mother's receipts are stacked next to mine. Maybe that is evidence of love.

In the upper middle quadrant, we have fame. The color for fame is red, and this is where the light should be placed. Yay, this is where my clip-on gooseneck lamp leans out over my computer monitor. Finally, something in the right place. But my lamp is black, not red. Darn it. Maybe I should change the bulb out for a red bulb? That would be creepy. Can't see how that would bring me fame, but who knows how this feng shui stuff works. Maybe I need to be willing to work by eerie red lamp light in order to become famous. Do I want fame? Maybe not that much.

The upper left quadrant is for wealth. Gold, purple, green... nope, I see the monster black tower of my computer's processor, taking up the entire quadrant. I guess I could call it a wealth black hole... I recently upgraded my computer's brain. It runs much faster now, but I am somewhat poorer. Maybe I can line up some gold trinkets along the top of the box, that might help.

The middle left quadrant is for family. Half of my printer takes up that entire space. My cordless phone sits there too, my lifeline to family. Okay! Color should be green. Sigh. Moving on. The lower left quadrant is for knowledge. The rest of my printer takes up that space, and no, it is neither green nor blue, it's black. But it prints in blue or green on a good day, does that count?

Finally, the middle quadrant is reserved for health. My computer monitor sits solidly in that space. Where else would I put it? The color should be yellow or earth tones. Once again, I fail. My monitor is black, although it can show yellow and earth tones, on occasion. It's just black around the edges, right? Do they even make yellow monitors? I know, I can arrange a bunch of yellow sticky notes around the edge, like a frame. That oughta do it.

I'm feeling a bit disappointed that my desk isn't easily feng shui-able, until I remember, hey, feng shui is magic! I don't have to see these colors to make them fix my qi. I can tape colored paper under each quadrant, under my desk! I know, how cool is that! It's kind of like think and grow rich! Do what you love and the money will follow! Visualize world peace! We all know those work like a charm. Just knowing the colors are there is apparently enough. It's like taking vitamins. it's all about faith.

Okay. Did feng shui-ing my desk work? Do I feel more energized? Am I more productive? Hey, I wrote a blog post, does that count? What about that article, you say? Well, it's lunchtime. I'm hungry. The sun is shining. I need to get my laundry out of the dryer. Maybe I'll take a nap. Maybe feng shui takes some time to work. Oh wait, I forgot. I need to clap my hands in all the corners of the room to dispel negative qi. Back in a moment.

Okay. Wow, suddenly I feel so tired. Too much sorrow, too much feng shui. Exit, stage right.

The chronic malcontent visualizes whirled peas

Howdy, Blogbots. How's it going? Are we there yet? Where's there? I mean, have we made it to hell yet? Sure feels like we'll be there soon, the way things are going.

My tiny parched brain doesn't know what to think anymore. I've given up thinking. Thinking is highly overrated. Even a worm can think. I think. I've decided thinking gets me nowhere. I'm done with feeling too, have I mentioned that? No more feelings. Thinking and feeling, I'm done.

What's left? Besides sitting like a blob in front of Facebook? Well, thanks for asking. These days my new diet is action. For example, today I went for a walk in the park for a half hour. I would have gone further, but my toe hurts. Guess I haven't managed to stop feeling completely. Darn it.

Yesterday I took my computer to be upgraded with a new hard drive. I tried not to feel anything as I dropped off my baby (a heavy, bulky, black desktop tower) at a computer repair outfit in North Portland. Withdrawals set in on the drive home. Within an hour, I was feeling a lot of feelings. Anxiety and fear, mostly, as I imagined that the computer repair guy (who seemed like a perfectly nice young man) had downloaded all my data and would soon be draining my bank accounts.

Today I picked up the upgraded computer. He showed me how fast it was before he unplugged it from his shop monitor. I didn't hear much; I was mesmerized by the image of my sister's smiling face on the screen. My desktop wallpaper is set to show photos. I have many thousands of photos. I felt a bit like I'd taken off my clothes in public and pranced around naked. No, I have no naked pictures on my computer, it's not that. It just felt like a weird invasion to see my private family photos on the computer geek's monitor.

The old hard drive remains in the belly of the beast, a ghost frozen in a moment in time, available in case this new solid state hard drive fails. My life as of yesterday, encased in amber, as it were.

Summer swept back into town today with the east wind. The recent rains reined in the Eagle Creek Fire somewhat, so I smell no smoke on the air today. So lovely. I get why people move here. Tomorrow we'll have one more day of lovely warm breezy summer air, and then the rains will return. Back down into our burrows we'll go. I get why people leave this town after a few winters.

I brought the demented scrawny maternal parental unit some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. That made her smile. I hope they don't tear up her innards. She's been doing better in the diarrhea department, thanks for asking. Next week she has a dental appointment to get her six teeth cleaned. We discussed underpants strategy. It's odd to talk diapers with my mother. I don't mind if I say something stupid like everything will be fine, because I know she'll forget it in five minutes.

My neighbor, a quiet young man named Everett, got a girlfriend. Lindsey is not quiet. She's a door slammer. She's not angry. She's just active. Maybe I can learn from Lindsey—action is my new magic word, after all. Although stomping isn't really my thing. Still, I can tell by the way she lets her closet door slam that she's a liberated spirit. I want to be a liberated spirit. I'm not sure what that entails, but it sounds like fun. I wonder if Lindsey does much thinking and feeling. A couple weeks ago, as I was walking back from the park I noticed she had left her house keys in her front door. I politely knocked and pointed out the keys hanging from the doorknob. Then I introduced myself. That is how I know her name. Otherwise we probably would never have met. I hear her slam doors and stomp around, but I never see her. She's a noisy ghost.

I finally bought a new keyboard. The old one was full of cat hair and detritus. The spacebar often got stuck, which is not great for accurate editing. I replaced it with a cheap one, like the cheap one I had. The only difference is, I left the new keyboard in the plastic cover. Ha. I know you can buy keyboard covers, and if this thing falls apart, I guess I'll get one. Meanwhile, I'm typing on plastic. It's got a distinctive plat plat sound. Since I got it, I can see the dents over the keys I use the most. That spacebar really gets a workout. And the C and V keys. Probably copy and paste. And the D key for some reason. Don't know what that is all about. The main problem with typing on plastic is the shine. I can't see the keys. On the best of days, I'm not a great keyboarder. Sometimes I just shut my eyes and type. Remember, it's all about action, Blogbots.

The chronic malcontent can't breathe

The wind turned again and brought the pall of smoke from the Eagle Creek Fire back to Portland. Last night the smell of smoke woke me. I got up and closed the windows I could reach in the dark. I feel sick imagining that I'm breathing the ashes of dead animals and burned up trees. It's beyond campfire smell. This is the smell of running for your life. This is the smell of the end of days. My chest is heavy. My sinuses are clogged. I want to throw open the windows to bring in some fresh air, but the air is cutting up my throat.

Good news, rain is on the way. Tomorrow with any luck, a bit of rain will wash the smoke out of Portland skies and start to tamp down the fire that rages 40 miles away. So far, over 40,000 acres have burned—not the biggest wildfire in the state, but certainly the one with the stupidest origin: fireworks set off by an oblivious self-centered teen. The fire has burned a few structures, a couple homes, shut down the highway for days, and forced hundreds of people to evacuate their pets and livestock. Right now, the fire is about 35% contained.

Bad news, the rain will drench hillsides barren of any growth, and all those dead trees and debris will slide down the steep hillsides to end up in creeks and across roads. I hope not in anyone's backyard, but gravity does what it will.

Meanwhile, life goes on, despite the disasters, natural and human-caused, that seem to pick at my fragile serenity. It's always some damn thing, isn't it? The airbag light won't go off. Sleekly sluggish giant rats come to feed at my bird feeder (can we say Lyme Disease?). My mother's diarrhea plague persists. The new wheelcover (replacing the one broken by the tire company when they sold me new tires) rubs against my wheel, click, click, click. My computer glasses no longer quite work because my arms got shorter or something. Dang it.

The poorly paying editing jobs stack up like planes circling Laguardia. The keyboard space bar sticks because of all the cat hair under the keys. One of my molars repeatedly shudders at cold or hot, bringing up visions of root canals and crowns. That's just stuff in my tiny parched world. Expand the lens out a few hundred feet and it's enough to make a person want to move to Mexico.

In fact, if things keep going here the way they've been going, I wouldn't be surprised to see the trickle of ex-pats moving south become a full torrent of people seeking asylum from Make America Great Again. The place is getting a little too damn great for me.

Oh, poor me, I live in the richest country on earth. Poor me. Of course, I'm not rich, but somewhere here, there are rich people, I'm pretty sure. I don't happen to know any, but I'm sure they are around somewhere. Not that they would do anything for me if they saw me on the street with my hand out, but I'm sure they donate to good causes. I get solicitor calls all the time for a woman who lives on the west side of town who happens to share my name. Somehow my phone number got attached to her address. I know she donates to many good causes. Good people are out there. Even though I'm pretty sure she also voted for Trump.                 Dang it, there goes the space bar again. Hold on, I gotta hit it to make it stop adding extra spaces. There.

I'd like to take a deep breath and start the day over, but the air in here is just a bit smoky. I hope when I wake tomorrow, the rain is pouring and the smoke is gone. I hope we all find freedom from suffering and the flies finally abandon my kitchen. I hope my airbag light magically goes off and I can go for a walk in the rain.

A cluster f--k of cluster flies

Howdy, Blogbots. What's new? Yesterday I dropped by my mother's former condo to tell the new owners where they could find the remote device for the garage door (hidden above the kitchen sink to thwart would-be garage burglars). I met the middle-aged son of the old folks who bought the place. Standing on the back patio, peering into the interior, I saw an old gentleman sitting on a folding chair in the kitchen. It was awkward and weird to see strangers in my mother's home. As I stood there, I remembered all the stuff my brother and I moved, gave away, and donated—the armchairs, the end tables, the kitchen table, the dishes—to clear that space and make way for a new family.

I hope the new owners will be happy there. I hope I never have to see that condo again. I almost left them my phone number—I had it on a card, in my hand. I saw the son notice the card. Something held me back. My desire to be helpful warred with my desire to be done with the whole thing. Just a bad dream. It never happened.

Meanwhile, the money is in the bank, my mother is waiting for the end of the world at the assisted living place, the spacebar on my keyboard is sticky, and I need to figure out how to live in the present. Same old.

I went for a walk in a rustic sprawling nature park with Bravadita. She's an unemployed cranky cancer survivor and I'm waiting for my mother to die so my life can begin. You can imagine how our conversations went as we plodded along dusty trails under hot sun. She complained about her roommate. I complained about my mother. Did we figure anything out? Pretty much, life sucks and then you die.

Yesterday evening I pulled all my scrap lumber out from behind my bedroom door. You might wonder why I have lumber in my bedroom. You mean, you don't? Well, I build stuff sometimes. Over the years, I've built a couch. I built some tables. I built some shelves. I built my cat a window seat so he could look out the bathroom window. That window seat fell down a few weeks ago. Hey, I said I build things, I didn't say I was a good carpenter. Whenever I build stuff, I understand why a former carpenter boyfriend was so angry all the time.

A few days ago, I built a new window seat for the cat. Compared to the old window seat, this arrangement is sleek and elegant. Just unpainted wood that I can take apart and recycle when we move out of the Love Shack. The cat seemed pretty happy to have his perch back. I felt good that I used some of my scrap lumber. Reuse, recycle.

So now I'm looking at the random piles of mdf, plywood scraps, 1 x 2s, a few 4-foot shelves, and one solitary 8-foot 2 x 4, all stacked around my living room. I'm amazed I was able to fit this much wood behind my bedroom door. My brother is supposed to come over today and haul it away. I'm not sure where he plans to take it. I sort of don't want to know. I just called him to remind him of the plan. He was watching TV. I'm skeptical he will feel like motivating in this heat.

I found some old paintings I did in 2001. I felt bleak and unhappy when I looked at them, so I covered them with white primer. I will give the boards away to some aspiring artist, along with some fancy paper, Bristol board, acrylic paint, and miscellaneous art supplies. I'm letting go of the past to make room for the future. Tra la la.

My sister visited Portland for 11 days. She stayed with me in the Love Shack. It was an experiment to see if we could possibly stand to be roommates when we are old. Unfortunately, Portland was sweltering under a heat wave, and I have no air conditioning, only a ceiling fan to stir up the hot air. She wilts in the heat. We spent a couple days at the mall, walking around looking at stuff. I like the heat, mostly, although 107° F was pretty warm, even for me.

I'm sure my sister won't move to Tucson to live with me when we are in our 80s. It's unlikely I'll be willing to move to anyplace that gets snow and ice in winter. Seems like Portugal might be a good compromise.

My sister helped me organize some of the stuff in my apartment. Under cover of darkness, we dragged out to the curb a heavy coffee table (yes, that I had built) that was taking up space under a table in my bedroom (so much stuff in my bedroom!). The coffee table was dark green, with wheels, and a built-in fish pond, I kid you not. Yep, a fish pond. Or you could plant succulents in it, very versatile. I was anxious that the thing would remain unclaimed for days and I would have to pay to have it hauled away. Happily, the table was gone early the next day. Now I know my curb is a black hole into which I can jettison other items I don't want. Very handy, living on the busiest bus route in the city.

The air is smoke-filled today because of wildfires burning in the state. Hot air and smoke is not good, but neither is 40 inches of rain and 130 mph winds. I'm feeling for the Texas gulf coast right now.

During the heat, I've had a problem with flies, not regular house flies, but particularly big, slow, noisy, intrusive flies called cluster flies, so-called because they congregate in clusters. I don't see them clustering, except after they are dead, shot out of the air with an alcohol mist. So cool and refreshing. Cluster flies (or any flies, or ants or spiders) don't care much for being sprayed with alcohol. Every time I spray a huge fly and watch it die in the bathtub, I feel a bit of my residual good karma peeling away. No doubt I will reincarnate as a cluster fly.

Only blogbots visit my blog these days. And my sister. And Bravadita. My blog heyday is past: my viewership is bumping along the bottom. I've lost the focus. I'm in waiting mode. I can only complain about being in waiting mode for so long. And nobody cares anyway. The days are punctuated with blips of energy: selling the condo, hosting my sister, seeing the eclipse. I dream of moving to the desert, as if I will be a different person after I move. I've done enough geographicals to know that wherever I go, there I am. I take all my quirks and foibles with me.

My new philosophy is to pare my life to the bone. Simplify everything. Discard irrelevance—furniture, dishes, books, art, clothing, thoughts, feelings. My future happiness lies in taking action. Don't think much, don't feel anything, just take action. Action is how change happens. I can't think my way out of life. I can't think my way to success—clearly, or I would have done it by now. No, thinking is highly overrated. And who needs feelings, they just get in the way. Feelings just block me from taking action. I'm jettisoning all my human weakness to emulate robothood. We'll see how that goes. It got the lumber out of my bedroom, so maybe it's starting to work. I'll keep you posted, Blogbots.

Don't whine. Advice from the chronic malcontent: Get busy

Today as I was slicing a bulbous slippery yam, the knife slipped and chopped down on my left pinky. Afraid to look, I wrapped a wad of paper towel around my finger, gripped it hard, and did a little dance of pain. I had visions of the decision in front of me . . . would I prefer to lose the tip of my finger or would I prefer to pay the cost of going to the doctor? Hmmm. Finger . . . money. . . So hard to decide. For a few more months, I think, I still have health insurance, unless the Republicans figure out how to get along. Luckily, two band-aids did the trick, and now I'm typing, woohoo, look at me go. Dodged that bullet. Knife. Whatever.

Do you worry about losing your health insurance? At first I was worried, but now I am resigned. Soon my health insurance plan will be once again don't get sick and be careful with knives. I remember surviving years with no health insurance, with just the L.A. Free Clinic as my medical provider. Of course, I was a lot younger then.

The reservoirs at Mt. Tabor Park are full of water. The wind comes from the west and ripples the surface, reflecting the sky. We haven't had rain in over a month. Two nights ago, as the sun was setting, I was striding around the reservoir, enjoying the cool air. Suddenly I spotted a duck marching along the path ahead, followed by a brood (paddle? army? platoon?) of five barely fuzzy ducklings, trucking along in the gloaming, looking for a way to get down to the water. Runners and walkers went by, barely noticing the duck as she marched in a zigzag pattern toward me. Whenever she stopped, her kids would plop down on their fuzzy butts, hunkering until Mom started moving again. I didn't move, and she waddled right by me. She looked like any young mother with five infants: thin and frazzled.

As I was walking along the park trail last night, I had a disconcerting thought: I have passed my peak. My prime has come and gone. My best years are most likely behind me. If I was ever going to succeed, it most likely would have happened in my 40s. If I was going to be a great painter, a great writer, it would probably have happened by now. I don't have the energy to feel bad about it. Now I'm 60, and I no longer care about things like career, ambition, making a difference. I just want to survive until I can start taking social security. If there will be such a thing when I'm 62.

Like many cities in this new bizarre era, Portland is having a housing shortage. Decrepit motor homes and campers line many city streets. Tent cities mushroom around freeway interchanges. Residents are furious. Some houseless people aren't good neighbors, apparently. At the behest of irate taxpayers, city officials are passing laws prohibiting camping, parking, sleeping on sidewalks. Where are these people supposed to go? I feel like I'm about three months away from living in my car. I can't move into my mother's spare bedroom anymore. The sale of her condo is pending.

I've decided to stop dreaming of my future after I move to some hot, dry desert town. It's making me crazy to imagine moving but not be able to take much concrete action. While I am slowly downsizing, I am trying to enjoy my mother while I can. It has to be enough, to just be here now. That is how she is living these days, fully immersed in the moment. I call her the Zen Master.

I feel like I'm holding my breath. I'm waiting for the signal that tells me it's time for a change. Meanwhile, I'm in a slowly degrading holding pattern. My resources are draining out of my leaky life, drip drip drip.

Well, the good news is, I don't have to care about anything. I don't have to believe in anything. I just have to show up, one day at a time, and do the work. Time to get busy.

Nothing left to lose

Yesterday as I was watering the wilting mini-roses at my mother's condo garden, I thought about how I would like to die, if I have a choice. Not too many people get to choose the time and place of their demise. I doubt I'll be the exception. Still, it doesn't hurt to set some parameters. For instance, if I knew I would end up in a nursing home where there's no Internet and nothing but gummy string beans to eat with my parboiled chicken, I would definitely opt out.

My mother isn't dead, but wishes she were. “I'm no use to anyone,” she said. “I don't know why I'm still alive. I'd rather be dead.”

I have mixed reactions when she says things like that. My inner two-year-old wants to scream, No, you can't die! Who will take care of me? My terrified inner demon wants to find the nearest cliff to shove her over (the longer she lives, the less money she'll leave behind). My inner adult wants to treasure every precious moment with my scrawny maternal parental unit. I could be wrong, but I sense she is winding down toward the end. I try not to think about it. I don't want to feel my grief yet.

It's strange to watch her decay. The river of life was carrying her along, and she was staying afloat, more or less, until about six months ago. She knew her mind was eroding; hence, the move to the retirement center in early April. In the past few months, she's grown increasingly fragile, like a little boat made of twigs and sticks. The current is moving as fast as ever, but her vintage craft is listing and taking on water, coming apart at the seams. It's her brain, mostly, that is disintegrating, although her body is weakening too.

She may yet surprise me. Somehow despite intermittent uncontrollable diarrhea attacks, she's managed to gain two pounds since she moved into the retirement center. I don't know where she put them, she's as skinny as ever. We are all applauding her, clapping her on the back (gently), congratulating her achievement. (I wish people would do that for me.) It is pretty great that she's gained some weight. But at what cost, I wonder? No dairy, no wheat, no coffee, no orange juice... no cherry pie. No wonder she feels like life is not worth living.

Tonight I met my brother over at her apartment to meet with the real estate agent and go over the two offers that came in on my mother's condo. I know nothing about real estate, but I managed to glean some knowledge after Googling prepaids, reserves, and closing costs. I don't think the real estate agent knows much more than I do. My brother bought a house about twenty years ago, so I consider him the expert. My mother's formerly extensive knowledge has gone to that great landfill in the sky. She sat passively on the end of the couch while the real estate agent, my brother, and I discussed the merits of the two offers.

I hope the Universe treats my mother gently as she goes down with her ship. That is what I want for me. I don't have the funds to move into a fancy place like Mom's retirement home. I doubt if Medicaid will be there for me should I need it. So my alternative is to die in place, wherever that may be. Apartment, motorhome, sidewalk, park bench. I will attempt to make sure my footprint is super small and easy to toss in the trash for whoever finds me, if I haven't lost all my marbles before then.

The chronic malcontent takes a vacation

I took a weekend off and visited Albuquerque, NM, for a reunion with some friends. Traveling was sufficiently stressful to distract me from the miasma of my normal life. I got to think about something other than my mother's diarrhea. Instead, I pondered airports, security lines, screaming babies, irate travelers, hotel pillows, and yummy but indigestible food. All in all, it was great to get away, even though it will take three days to recuperate from the trip. Worth it!

On Sunday, two planes, a train, and a bus later, I walked into my apartment, which smelled like mold and neglected cat. On Sunday, Portland was just starting a far-too-short heat wave. I threw open the windows and reveled in the warm air. My cat lolled on his blue cotton rug, ecstatic at my return, showing me (almost) unconditional affection in exchange for tummy rubs. It doesn't get much better than that.

Today the temperature dropped 30 degrees, compared to yesterday. My feet are freezing. If I close my eyes, I can just barely conjure the feeling of the plush hotel pillows, the smooth sheets, the sound of the pesky fan that intermittently shattered the silence. My vacation memories are receding quickly into the past, muscled aside by the demands of the maternal parental unit.

I visited my mother on Sunday evening. We are developing a ritual. I show up just after dinner (they call it supper at the assisted living place). Mom is either sitting outside in the smoking hut or stretched out on the couch, watching television. On Sunday, she brought me up to date on the state of her bowels.

The blue skies of Albuquerque were fading fast in my mind as I listened to my mother's tale of intestinal woe. We discussed the menu. She couldn't remember what she had eaten for lunch. I asked if she'd eaten anything the night before. She couldn't tell me. I'm pretty sure her late night snacking wasn't helping.

“We won't be able to figure out if certain foods are causing this diarrhea problem if you are eating all this junk,” I said, looking at the cookies and crackers in my mother's cupboards and fridge.

“I know,” she said. She agrees with everything I say these days. Sometimes I see a look on her face that indicates she may be hearing a foreign language coming out of my mouth.

On Monday morning, she called me.

“It was bad today,” she said morosely. I knew what it referred to.

“I'm coming over tonight,” I said. “That's it. No more dairy. No more wheat. No more junk food.”

That evening, I raided my mother's cupboards and fridge. I took everything except two boxes of saltine crackers, which I placed on a shelf high beyond the reach of her skinny bent fingers. I took her Mint Milano cookies. I took her generic cheerios and rice krispies. I took her chocolate muffins. I took the crackers that her friend Tiny had given her, and the lactose-free yogurt. I took the graham crackers. And I took the last bit of her cherry pie that had been sitting on her counter for two weeks.

I packed all the food in two bags and put it in my car.  Then I went to the store and bought gluten-free bread and Cheerios (the real thing), gluten-free wheat-free crackers, some vegan substitute butter, some frozen fruit popsicles (with no high fructose corn syrup), and two bananas. I took it all back to Mom's apartment and unloaded the loot.

We took the Cheerios and bread down to the dining room where residents can use a big refrigerator to store things. Mom already keeps her rice milk there.

The night cook was cleaning up after the evening meal. She saw the box of Cheerios and said, “Don't put that in there. It goes here.”

Finally we got everything stowed. Mom collapsed on the couch, worn out from the walk.

I went home, tossed the pie, and saved the cereal for the birds, squirrels, and rats. I ate the crackers for dinner. I stored the Mint Milanos into my own refrigerator. After one day of eating Mint Milanos, I gathered up all the cookies and muffins, put them in a trash bag, and walked them out to the big garbage can. Thank god I'm not so far gone I will dig in the trash for Mint Milanos. But I confess, it did cross my mind. I'm a little stressed out.

I have this recurring fear that my mother and I will end up in adjoining rooms in some linoleum-floored Medicaid facility far from friends and family, slobbering into bibs, unable to recognize each other. And the food will be parboiled crap, full of gluten and sugar. And I won't be able to protest.

The vertigo scrapes the inside of my head constantly. Tomorrow I am taking Mom to the doctor. I fear I will fail to tell him everything that needs to be said, because I can't remember things anymore. Being a caregiver is hard. A weekend vacation isn't enough. I can't imagine how parents do this everyday for 18 (or more) years. All I can say is, It's a good thing I never had kids.

Getting down and dirty with the Chronic Malcontent

My maternal parental unit has got the squits. Ever since she moved to to the retirement community, she's been plagued with explosive . . . well, gosh, I don't know how else to say it. Diarrhea. There, I said it.

Few things are funnier than the human digestive process, but when it's your scrawny stick of a mother whose 87-year-old sphincter can no longer hold back the surging tide, well, it's not quite as funny anymore. My nose scrunches as I write this.

I visit her every other day, usually right after lunch or dinner. I walk out to the smoking area with her, and walk back inside with her as she hustles to make it to her toilet. Last night we made the trip twice before her stomach would let her settle and enjoy her cigarette.

I make feeble jokes to lighten her mood. She's bored. She wants to go for a ride, but no way am I letting her get in my car. I try to persuade her to consider wearing adult diapers (she isn't against it, she just forgets).

A couple weeks ago, I got a call from Nurse Katy: “Your mother had a fall. She's headed to the hospital in an ambulance right now.” Mom had passed out and ended up on the floor outside her bathroom with her pants around her knees. That is the way she was brought into the emergency room, half-naked with a flowered sheet wrapped around her tiny skeleton.

As stints in the ER go, it wasn't bad. The techs and nurses were patient and kind. By the time Mom had some fluids in her, she was feeling better. She motored to the bathroom three times using a walker, head down, hospital gown flapping in her wake. Three hours later, she walked out under her own steam, wearing little orange skid-proof socks they give people in the ER who have somehow managed to arrive with no shoes. The tech said, “So long, Slugger.”

Since then, we've been doing tests, trying to figure out why the food she eats runs straight through her. Well, when I say we, I mean, she poops in a bucket and the staff at the retirement place send it to a lab, where some poor schmuck (probably a graduate of the healthcare program offered by the barely functional for-profit vocational college I used to work for) pokes around in the poop, looking for the pony (germs). I don't know, I'm guessing.

The lab tests came back negative. No pony.

My brother, who has lately been experiencing some diarrhea of his own, blames it on “a bug” going around. How Mom managed to get the bug when none of her neighbors have is a stretch, but whatever. We all have our theories. My brother's is a bug. I blame the food. After my five-year slow-motion train wreck with Dr. Tony the Naturopath, it is understandable I might see food as both the culprit and the remedy.

The only person who has no theory is my mother.

She can complain of feeling bad, but she can't form a theory or undertake a regimen to address the problem. That mother is gone. In her place is this new mother who lives completely in the moment (or sometimes in the past). Thoughts are heavy things to carry into the future. She prefers to leave them behind. She's like my cat. Whatever is happening right now is her reality. Don't they say we should all try to live more in the moment? Instead of trying to live for a better past or trying to control the future? So Zen. Who knew all you need is dementia!

Happy Earth Day from the Chronic Malcontent

As a long-practicing dermatillomaniac, I assess my mental state by how many raw open bloody wounds festoon my cuticles on any given day. A few nights ago I noticed all ten of my fingertips were devoid of wounds. I was astounded. The pressure was apparently too much; the next day I counted six open wounds and two hangnails I hadn't yet been able to yank. Sigh. As my cuticles go, there goes my serenity.

Why am I so anxious? Thanks for asking. As a self-described chronic malcontent, I always have a tenuous relationship with relaxation, peace, and serenity. My normal state is morose discontented fretfulness, as evidenced by the deep vertical furrow between my eyebrows. (Today I met a man who has a matching brow furrow! I didn't say anything to him about it, of course, but I felt better, somehow, knowing I'm not the only one who wears a sure sign of malcontentedness for everyone to see.) Anyway, fretful anxiety is my default state.

The past two weeks have been unusually unsettling. First, we've had one day of sun to five days of rain. Portland is waterlogged. Not flooding, just saturated. Sun breaks happen, and I turn toward them like the hothouse flower I am, but within minutes the clouds roll back in and it's pouring. We had a crap winter—way more snow and ice than usual, and so far spring has been wetter and cooler than average. I dream of Arizona daily.

Second, my maternal parental unit chose an assisted living place to move into, and thus on April 7 we made it happen, me, my brother, and two hired movers—professionals who had all the equipment, a fancy truck, and knew what they were doing (minimum charge $300). I arranged the furniture, hung the paintings and photographs. I got a senior-friendly microwave. I built her a dinky round wood-top table to replace her kitchen table so she would have someplace to eat her Cheerios. I'm still fetching things from the condo. Today it was gardening tools.

Her brain works intermittently. She has had a few good days. One day last week, she said she took a shower and only sprayed the aide once. We had a good laugh at that. I brought her some of her old sheet music (stored at my house for the past year) and she tentatively picked out some tunes on the grand piano in the common room. I sat with her in the outdoor smoking area, talking about nothing in particular, as rain drops fell on the rhodies behind us. The air smelled like spring (as long as I was upwind).

Most of the time, though, my mother is depressed and cranky at losing her independence, even though it was her idea. She knows she can't get mad at me, because then who would fetch her cigarettes, but I can tell she sure would like to get some resentment off her chest. I'm the one that sent her to that prison. She hates the food; she can't figure out the schedule; everything is in the wrong place... she copes by going to bed. I don't think a whole lotta gardening will be going on, but she's got her clippers now, just in case. I hope I don't hear any complaints about Mom whacking the rose bushes.

Third, last week, my cat's eye got infected, and now we have the thrice daily ritual of me trying to hold his twisty body still for the few seconds I need to rub ointment on his cheek in the general vicinity of his eye. It's a battle I'm not winning, but his eye is looking much better, so some of the goop must be finding the mark. I call him Squint Eastwood. I'm just grateful I don't have to give him a pill. If you have ever tried to pill a cat, you know what I mean.

A few days ago, I went for a walk around the Mt. Tabor reservoirs (.56 of a mile in circumference). The walk started out sunny, ended up rainy, ho hum, what's new. Someone had dragged an old well-used black leather office chair up the path to the reservoir and left it there in the walkway, where runners and walkers detoured around it. Maybe whoever donated it to the park thought people would like to sit there to watch the sun go down beyond the hills. Ha. Joke. What sun?

I walked past the chair a few times as I made my circuit, hunkered in my rain gear, watching it get wet. On my fifth circuit, the rain was pelting down and no one was nearby, so I grabbed that old chair and dragged it to a spot next to a park bench. I felt quite satisfied as I walked around the reservoirs one more time. I felt I had beaten back a tiny bit of the chaos, now that the seating was arranged to my liking. I hope no one saw me indulging my inner OCD tyrant.

As I was driving to my meeting today in my fossil-fuel burning car and remembering picking up trash in front of my elementary school on the first Earth Day in 1970, I thought about how hellish old age really is. People don't talk about it much. People don't talk about the food that goes through you so fast you don't have time to make it to the bathroom before it's dripping down your leg. Nobody wants to think about how it feels to see your contemporaries pushing wheelchairs and walkers up and down the hallways, heads bent, eyes dull. In the morning, you hear the hollering of Bingo numbers from the activities room. In the evening, you hear the droning of prayers over the dying woman in the room next door. You hear the chatter of the aides (the jailers) swooping by in their colorful scrubs, and for a moment you think, what weird hotel is this place? Then you remember, this isn't a hotel. This is where you go to die.

I am becoming more and more certain that if I am able to make the decision and execute it, I will opt out sooner not later, rather than wait until it's too late. I don't want to end up warehoused in a barracks for old people. Sure, maybe I would have some of my furniture and pictures around me—my Mom's place looks strangely familiar with her old flowered couch and chair, but you can't fool her. It's still a prison, and she knows it.

Don't jump

Howdy, blogbots. I'm taking time out of stressing about my mother's impending move to assisted living to reflect on my morning adventure. Today I took a bus downtown for a SCORE workshop on social media marketing. I signed up over a month ago, not realizing it would happen in the middle of one of the more hectic weeks in my life. But I have trained myself to show up to the tasks on my calendar. So off to town I went.

I think the bus driver was new. He meandered sedately from stop to stop, easing the bus to the curb with care. He greeted every passenger with a bright Good morning! Traffic was bottlenecked at a construction mess around SE 33rd. The driver inched the bus between parked cars and oncoming trucks. At any moment, I expected to hear the side of the bus take off a parked car's left-side mirror. I held my breath until we came out the other side. At 12th, the bus driver traded places with a new driver, who adjusted his seat and mirrors and took off in a roaring cloud of dust. I guess we might have been running a few minutes late.

The bus filled up as we headed toward town. I enjoyed the view from my window seat. No rain today, yay, but not much sun either. Just a sky of hazy white clouds, the kind with the capacity to surprise: burn off to clear blue sky or sprinkle rain all day. Traffic slowed as we neared the Hawthorne Bridge. Trucks and buses haven't been able to cross the Morrison Bridge for a few years because the deck is crumbling. This summer, our city plans to fix the mess, so as of April 1, most car traffic is now diverted to the Hawthorne Bridge until next fall. As you can imagine, there was quite a traffic jam.

The bus crept across the bridge. I had a great view of the boats moored along the river's edge. I wondered what kind of people could afford the condos built along the river. I wondered how many people have been living on their boats since the housing crash in 2008. The river was calm but murky. March was the fourth wettest month on record, so the rivers are all running high.

Suddenly I heard several passengers' crying, "No, oh no, oh no, no, no!" People along the right side of the bus began energetically popping up in their seats. I was on the left side of the bus. I thought, is a bicyclist trapped? A pedestrian fallen in the road? What is happening?

The bus driver stopped the bus. "Open the door!" Some passengers pounded on the back door. They burst out the door and then I watched through the window as they grabbed a man who was attempting to climb over the railing of the bridge. One rescuer grabbed the man in a bear hug, and I caught a glimpse of a face—red cheeks, grizzled chin. I thought I saw shame and chagrin. The man twisted away from the men who were attempting to restrain him and marched unsteadily along the bridge sidewalk toward the pedestrian off ramp.

Meanwhile, multiple people were calling 911 on their cellphones to report a suicidal man on the Hawthorne Bridge.

Eventually the bus continued into downtown. I got off at the next stop and hiked up to the Courthouse at SW 6th and Main for the workshop, which was pretty much a dud for me personally. I will probably forget to blog about it, so in case you are curious, here are the highlights: no breakfast, no coffee, memorable bus ride, old courthouse, three attendees, no refreshments, obese presenter obsessed with food, mediocre PowerPoint, sales pitch for Constant Contact, ended ten minutes early, caught bus, home by noon.

The real story (besides the suicidal man) is how I could take a morning off from the job of orchestrating my mother's move to assisted living. Like I said, I do what is on my calendar. I signed up for this workshop over a month ago, long before we found the facility and started preparations to move.

Last night Mom's brain was mush. She'd stayed up to 3 am going through stuff to keep and sell in a yard sale. She was barely coherent when I brought her six more empty boxes. I was worried. Taking a morning off seemed a bit irresponsible, but hell. I can't manage my mother's brain. This morning I called her and she sounded much better. I guess she got some sleep and ate some food. I am hopeful that she'll survive this move and thrive in the new place. Stay tuned.

#where'sthebarf?

I've been wearing the same tired old pair of winter shoes for five years. I love my beat-up Merrills. They've taken me through mud puddles and ice puddles, across cement sidewalks and gravel driveways all over NW Portland. These shoes are shaped like torpedoes, which means these shoes aren't great for running, but I can kick things with them, like falling trees, attacking dogs, and marauding children, although I haven't actually had to do much of that. The black suede is gray and crusty with dirt and dust. Sadly, the soles are wearing down. I estimate they might give me another five years of service.

I know what you are thinking—five-year-old shoes, and you think they will last another five years? Are you nuts? More to the point, are you completely outside all bounds of respect for fashion?

I can hear your incredulity. I'm amazed you can conjure so much incredulity, considering the state of our national politics, but hey, more power to you. Whatever gets you foaming at the mouth. It takes more than out-of-style shoes to get my heart rate up, but I respect your indignation, whatever prods it to the surface.

I used to be a slave to fashion. To be precise, I was a slave to other people's ideas of fashion. I used to make custom clothing for a living, back in one of my former lives as a . . . well, let's just name it what it was—seamstress!—in Hollywood. Yep, the one in California. My clients brought me pictures of gravity-defying outfits (inevitably designed for a size zero) and demanded I make the outfits for them (in polyester satin, sans beading, in size 16, for my daughter's wedding, which by the way is next Saturday). I know I don't have the right to use the word slave, considering my skin color and life of lower-middle class blue-collar privilege, but maybe some of what I felt in those days was a ghost of slavery. I certainly felt trapped in a horrible job, bent over hot machines doing the bidding of harsh judgmental mistresses.

I guess I have associated fashion with pain, embarrassment, and resentment, which might explain why my current modus operandi is to use things till they disintegrate. It's how I treat my automobiles: drive 'em till they drop. It's how I treat my clothes: wear them until they shred into tiny pieces. So it's no big surprise that is how I treat my footwear.

All that is the long way to announce, in honor of spring, I bought a new pair of walking shoes. I bought them online, which is always a crap shoot, I'm sure you know—the convenience of purchasing in my pajamas is often outweighed by the disappointment of shoes that don't fit and look stupid.

In this case, when I opened the box and saw my new all-black walking shoes, I thought, hmmmm, these look like . . .  old lady shoes! They might as well be Easy Spirits! Humph. Even I have my fashion limits. I'll wear bell bottoms or pegged trousers, I don't care what the shape of my pants is, but I draw the line at wearing Easy Spirits. Probably because they were my mother's preferred brand, before I sold her on the style benefits of Merrills.

I tried these new style-less shoes on with my thick running socks, thinking, well if they don't feel perfectly awesome, I can wrap them up and ship them back, no questions asked. I trotted around the carpet, testing them, tuned to every rub and pinch. My right foot is wider than my left, don't ask me why, which means I must compromise between loose fit on the left and tight fit on the right. I guess my left foot is a 6 1/2 but I buy a size 7 to accommodate my wider right foot. When I buy running shoes, which I wear with a thicker sock, I usually order size 7 1/2s. That means I occasionally look down and experience a shock at how long my feet look.

I trotted around my living room for three days, wondering, should I send them back, should I keep them? Finally, I decided to send them back and try again. I got out the box and checked the soles of the shoes to make sure they were clean . . .  oh, no. What? Between the grooves on the left shoe was smashed an all-too-familiar sight: cat barf! No way!

Well, you know what they say: you step in it, you bought the shoes. Resigned, I took the shoes out to the store yesterday for a little spin and was pleasantly relieved: no blisters, no pain. Today I took them out for a 2-mile hike around the reservoir in the rain. The shoes warmed right up and melted to the shape of my foot. By the time I got home, they fit perfectly.

But I have looked all over my place and I still can't find the pile of cat barf I stepped in. I guess if my sinuses weren't so clogged with allergies, cat hair, and mold spores, I might be able to sniff it out. Maybe someday, or not. I never claimed to be a great housekeeper, a fact I hope my sister remembers when she comes to visit this summer.

I don't care how I look anymore. My shoes might look stupid, but they feel great. I'm greatly relieved. Freedom from pain is worth looking old and foolishly out of style.

It's almost spring . . . time for a little networking!

I've hunkered in my cave long enough. It's almost spring. Time to do a little networking! If you've read any of my blog posts from 2015, you know I think networking is highly overrated. Especially when the facilitators hand you a “Networking Bingo” card with stupid questions like, Find someone who wasn't born in Oregon, and Find someone who was! But tonight I was ready to get out of the house, so I waited on the corner in the freezing rain for twenty minutes for a bus to take me downtown to a networking event.

The event was billed as a speed mentoring event, a chance for entrepreneurs to meet some so-called experts to pick their brains about marketing, strategy, finance, and legal issues. What could be more fun? Thirty entrepreneurs in a new age concrete and wood conference room, milling around trying to avoid eye contact with each other. Ho hum. So been there done that. But I was ready! Let me at that Bingo card!

I was easily the oldest person in the room. I guess I should start getting used to that. The upside to being old, though, is that I don't care what people think about me anymore. I can say anything to anyone. I'll never see them again. And few of these people were likely to be in my target market, so la la la.

The six mentors had to take us two at a time; each entrepreneur was supposed to get fifteen minutes of one-on-one time. Oh boy!

My first two sessions were with marketing experts, a couple of smart, confident women I could have talked with for a long time over coffee. They both valiantly gave me what they could before the bell rang and it was time to move on to the next table.

Actually, my first session lasted only about ten minutes, because my partner hogged the time. I mean, hogged the time. She even came back and gave the mentor a swatch of her unique (and pungent) geranium aroma-therapy oil. I tried not to be resentful.

My third session was with a “strategist,” Josh, a young man with a diffident air. No one else had signed up for that time slot, so I sat alone as I handed him a postcard for my recently published book. He asked me some polite questions, trying to get a feel for my business direction.

I was just drawing a breath to begin waxing poetic about my dream of establishing a small publishing empire when a young woman sat down in the chair next to me and heaved an enormous sigh. My session partner had arrived.

Josh's eyes left me and settled on her. We both stared. She was dressed in a rumpled vintage get up that I might have worn when I was in my twenties, back when I cared how I looked. Her skin was smooth, her lips were red, her eyes were shadowed, her hair was fluffy and pulled up into some kind of shape. She looked messy but real, coy but accessible, and within seconds, I was pretty sure I had her figured out.

“Well, let's let that percolate,” Josh said vaguely, setting my postcard aside. To the newcomer, he said, “Hi, what brings you here?”

“I had a business. Gardening. With my boyfriend. He signed me up, and then he left me. Now I have this business, mostly contract work for walls and walkways, and I don't have insurance, and I don't know what I'm doing,” she said breathlessly, eyelashes fluttering. Her lips were mesmerizing, I had to admit. Josh was certainly mesmerized. The temperature between them ratcheted up a peg. I sat back in my chair and watched.

Her name was something like Nora, and she was on the prowl for attention. Josh was bored and ready to comply. Nora described her business in a self-deprecating way, casting sidelong glances at Josh, and occasionally at me, because I was there, after all. Nobody could deny that I was there, watching. Finally, she ran down, and Josh seemed speechless. Without thinking first, I asked, “What could go wrong?”

“What?”

“What could go wrong? If you don't have insurance...?”

“Yeah, good question,” Josh said.

Nora said a few things, I said some things (devil's advocate is my best role), and Josh pretended to agree. As I listened to Nora talk about her landscaping business, I could tell her heart wasn't fully in it. I know what that feels like, and I've seen it many times in my former students, who were struggling to get associate's degrees in fields they didn't care about.

“It seems like you aren't really into this business,” I said respectfully. “What would you rather be doing?”

Nora took a deep breath. A smile lit up her face. She sat up straight in her chair and waved both arms. I thought, wow, this will be good.

“I want to build a huge garden, twenty acres, with a sauna hut in the middle, in the hills outside of [some town I didn't recognize] in Massachusetts!”

Then she slumped. “But I love my clients!” she moaned. “Their gardens are my babies. The vines and flowers . . . I can't leave my babies.”

“They won't love your gardens the way you do,” I said unsympathetically. “They'll forget to trim those vines and let them grow all over their houses . . .  You'll never get away. Your clients will drain you dry if you let them.”

Nora made a pouty face. I thought, whoops, maybe that was a bit harsh, so I smiled disingenuously to ease the sting. I used to be afraid of young women like Nora, I realized. Looking into her vapid, self-centered eyes, I realized, she doesn't want to be in business. She just wants attention. Then I realized that I was actually talking about myself, about my editing clients draining me dry, and suddenly I couldn't breathe.

I said to Nora gently, “Think about where you want to be in five years, ten years... Don't wait until you are old like me to pursue your dream.”

Josh said, “I know what it's like to detour away from doing what you love.” I thought, hey, something is going on with him, too. I turned my earnest gaze his way and asked, “What detour did you take? What would you rather be doing?”

“I play the upright bass in a jazz band,” he said sheepishly. “I like doing this business thing, but . . .”

“It's hard to make money doing music,” I said. He nodded.

“I have a family to take care of. But I'd really just like to be shredding my bass.” We all sat quietly for a moment, pondering detours and shredded basses. Then Josh shook himself and turned to me. “What about you, what's your dream?”

I reflected for a split second and said, “I'm closer now to my perfect life than I've ever been before. Writing, publishing, making art. It's what I've wanted to do since I was nine years old. And now I'm doing it.”

A few minutes later, the bell chimed, and it was time to move on to the next table.

The chronic malcontent points out some landmarks on our trip to hell

A few days ago, as I was scrubbing just the white squares on my black-and-white checkerboard linoleum kitchen floor, I pondered the possibility that we are past the point of no return on our trip to hell, and the hand-basket seems to be crumbling around us. The journalists and reporters are not reassuring. The earth may have reached a tipping point as the climate changes, not good for us little humans scurrying around on the planet's surface. Democracy has sprung a billion leaks and threatens to founder as possibly the least bad form of government. A few days ago my car wouldn't start. I mean, all the signs seem to indicate we are on a one-way trip to hell in a hand-basket.

So, what if everything really is falling apart? Like any journey, I suppose the trip to hell will happen in several stages. Here is my guess about what the stages might look like, if you are a crazy wackjob like me.

It wasn't my fault. When something goes wrong, the first thought is, well, whatever it is, it wasn't my fault. Like mistakes were made (but not by me). Pass the buck, avoid responsibility, hide under the rock, don't admit there's dirty laundry. Pretend like I wasn't even there. That sometimes works for awhile.

Who can I blame? The next stage starts with admitting I was there, but it was someone else's fault. I'm just a hapless victim, those lousy liberals or those confounded conservatives are really to blame. Or how about those people who don't look like me, they look suspicious, with their unsettling voices and funny skin. It must be their fault!

Let me at 'em! Now that I've identified the source of my troubles, I'm one breath closer to wanting to beat the crap out of them. Or at least deny them any civility and respect. Let me take away their rights or something, keep them from being happy and healthy. That will make me feel a lot better. That's all they deserve, anyway, those people who have the gall to be different from me. They are lucky I let them live. If you want to join me, we can beat them up together. Nothing like being part of a mob to make one feel empowered and righteous, am I right?

I've got mine and you can't have any. As soon as we've trashed the other, you and I will start to eyeball each other and realize, the more you have, the less there is for me. So, no, we can't be friends. We teamed up when we had to, but now that the threat is gone, I'm building a wall. A really yuge wall.

I'm bigger than you, so give me all yours. And now that I'm safe behind my wall, and I've hoarded a bunch of stuff to make me feel wealthy and worthwhile, I realize I don't have enough, I need all your stuff, too. Plus, because I'm bigger and badder, I deserve to have more stuff. Your stuff. All the stuff. So give it to me. If you don't, I'll take it. Because I can. Don't whine.

At this point, the path forks into two options: urgency or resignation.

Option 1: I don't care about you, I've got to survive. Get out of my way! I don't care what you say, I don't care what you feel, I don't care if your children are shoeless or the planet is dying. You mean nothing to me. The future of your grandchildren means nothing to me. The only thing that matters is my survival, right now, in this moment. At this point, hell is just around the corner, but of course, I can't see it.

Option 2: I don't care what happens anymore, what's the use. If I get to this point, I've accepted my fate. I can see hell ahead of me, clear as day. I resign myself to the vagaries of the universe. I realize there is no meaning or purpose to existence, that the whole thing was just a stupid, futile dream. You can have my things. I'm giving up.

Yikes! After writing this, I have a knot in my stomach not unlike the knot I feel when I've watched the news for the past four weeks. I'm making up the stages of a journey that seems all too real. I can't get my tiny brain to accept the events and statements I see and hear daily. (And I can't stop compulsively watching and listening! Argh!)

Part of me thinks, wow, I should have been a journalist! This new world is a journalist's paradise. Another part of me thinks, isn't that a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Nero fiddling while Rome burns? Waving my hands like I'm on Space Mountain while I'm going to hell in a hand-basket? Even journalists will go down with the ship, busily commentating as we sink beneath the waves.

Where did this alternate reality come from, and how soon can it go away?

Today as I was holding a dinky flashlight over my landlord's shoulder so he could attempt to rewire the thermostat of my electric heater, I wondered what drives people to hate other people. All I can figure is, it's fear. A big burning hemorrhoid of fear, too horrible to even acknowledge, let alone deal with. Fear has plunged us into an alternate reality. I would like to wake up from this bizarre new world.

My landlord came over today to fix my thermostat, which went kapooey yesterday. I was on the phone last night, talking to a friend. I heard a hiss and a fizzle coming from the wall. I looked over at the thermostat and saw wisps of gray smoke floating away from the little box. I knew that probably wasn't good. I turned the heater knob all the way off and as I kept murmuring uh-huh and you don't say to my friend on the phone, I strolled into the kitchen and liberated my ancient fire extinguisher from its plastic holder on the wall by the back door.

No fire seemed imminent, but I took my important papers into the bedroom when I went to bed last night. I also took the fire extinguisher with me. I pictured myself putting my cat into a pillowcase and lowering him out the window to a neighbor below, before I jumped and brained myself on the concrete. I didn't sleep very well.

Today the landlord came over. He took the little box apart.

“Shouldn't we turn off the power?” I asked nervously.

“I'll turn it off at the breaker box,” he said and went to the basement. I heard some banging. He came back. We stood peering at the defunct thermostat. I wanted to tell him I knew he could get a lot more money if he evicted me and rented to someone else, but I kept my mouth shut. This didn't seem like the right time.

He pulled out a device and tapped the wires with it. Then he tapped a wire to a lamp plugged into another outlet. Nothing happened. He shook the device. Finally, a red light came on and the thing started beeping. He went back to the thermostat and tapped the wires. Nothing happened. We both heaved a sigh.

“Your wife would not forgive me if you turned into a crispy critter,” I said.

“I bet that box is older than you,” he said. I told him how old I was. “Well, darn near,” he added.

He fooled around with the wires for a bit. “Darn. I got the wrong thermostat,” he said. “I need one with four wires. I'll be back pretty soon.” He went out the door to his truck and drove away.

Three hours later, he came back.

“I had to go to six places to find the right one,” he said. He didn't sound angry.

I held the flashlight again while he worked some magic with a plier-like tool and some little yellow plastic cap-like thingies. He twisted the old wires with the new wires with the yellow caps. Then he shoved all the wires, old and new, back into the metal box in the wall and put the cover on.

“Okay, let's turn on the breaker,” he said. He went to the basement and came back. I was standing directly behind him as he turned the knob. A large bang ensued, followed by some sparks.

“Are you okay?” I said, imagining the worst.

“I'm okay.” He was clutching his hand to his chest, more out of shock than from injury. We looked at each other. I'm sure my eyes were as big as his.

“I'll call the electrician,” he said as he packed up his stuff.

So now I sit in a cold room with my feet ensconced in my dry-rice foot warmer, wondering why people are driven to hate. All I can figure is, it's our old friend, fear. We get so wrapped up in fear we can't even stop to ask what we are afraid of. Right now, I guess we're afraid of people who don't look like us, coming to kill us. It's irrational fear. We should fear our cars or our bathtubs—those are the real killers.

Sadly, you can't reason with someone who is afraid. Facts don't matter. You can't tell them, shut up, quit whining. You can't say, what's your problem, get over it. It does no good to say, your fear is irrational and you are behaving like idiots. People can't hear logic when they are mired in fear. I don't care what side you are on. Scared people are deaf people.

Of course, nobody wants to admit they are afraid, so they mask their fear with anger. That's what I do. I'm sure I'm not alone, judging by the number of angry people that seem to be out on the streets. I handle my anger and fear by hiding in my apartment and compulsively checking the news. Other people handle their fear and anger by yelling loud, nasty things about and at the people they don't like.

I'd like to say I'm on the side of the righteous, but I'm beginning to wonder what side that might be. Both sides seem to use similar tactics to express their fear and anger. We've lost our American mojo, that glue that held us together. Maybe unity was an illusion, like prosperity. Like a mirage. Now we're just tribes of monkeys, throwing rocks at each other because we've lost something we had or we didn't get something we wanted. And thus the human species regresses back to the mean. Thanks, Mr. Obama. I miss you terribly. It was great while it lasted.

The chronic malcontent marches to a different drum

Yesterday was the historic women's march in downtown Portland. I wanted to go, but I had meetings in NW Portland, 2 miles away from the action. The march was supposed to last until 4:00 pm, and my last meeting ended at 2:00 pm. I thought, hey, I'll just leave my car here and take the bus over to the route, maybe walk the last leg with the crowd. What could possibly go wrong?

After waiting impatiently at the bus stop for about 10 minutes, no buses in sight, I thought, hey, I'll just walk down and intercept the protesters somewhere near the waterfront at the end of the route. Action is the magic word, after all. I like to walk.

I'm not much of a joiner, but I wasn't going to miss out on history in the making, even if I only caught 500 yards of the route, skulking at the end of the pack. So I trudged on down to the river, equipped with hiking boots, a long hooded raincoat, an umbrella, and my old intermittently functioning Sony Cybershot digital camera. The rain was steady but not terribly cold, just a typical winter day in Portland. After the snow, ice, and 20-degree days we had last week, the air felt almost balmy. I was glad to be on the move toward something.

As I got closer to the route, I saw groups of people and families coming toward me, dragging waterlogged signs and wearing funny pink hats. They were talking and laughing, clearly done marching, signs forgotten. I crossed under the Burnside Bridge in Old Town, at the site of the Saturday Market, now vacant for the winter season. On one side of the MAX rail line, a horde of people were lined up to catch the train. On the other side, sheltered by the bridge overpass, was a line of sleeping bags and makeshift tents: a small contingent of our very large homeless population, wrapped like mummies, most likely too exhausted and demoralized to protest for better lives.

I caught up to the marchers as they walked east on Pine, a couple blocks from the river. I found some vantage points off to the side to take some photos. Then I walked with some other loners through parking lots, not of the crowd but with the crowd, so to speak. Moving in the same direction, anyway. I carried no signs. As I stopped for a light at a street corner, a young girl with blonde wisps poking out from under her hood gave me a wide grin and said "Hi!" Somewhat surprised and not a little bemused, I returned her greeting and crossed Naito Parkway to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

The fast-moving Willamette River was the color of a day-old McDonald's latte, punctuated with floating branches and logs. By now I was pretty done with crowds, and my feet were killing me. I took some pictures to prove I was there. Marchers milled around in clumps, proudly displaying their signs: Women's rights are human rights, Not my president, and my favorite, Viva la vulva. Some marchers were still on the move, headed south toward the Morrison Bridge, where some kind of stage was set up. Music and voices boomed over a sound system. I skirted all that by walking along the river front, heading toward the bus line that would take me back to NW Portland and my car.

At the bus stop, I commandeered the butt-sized bus bench to rest my aching legs and feet. I would have given up the seat to someone else who needed it. A woman with a walker joined us, but her walker had a built-in seat, so I stayed put. Someone with a smartphone said buses were delayed because of heavy loads. I waited a few minutes. Then I thought, I could be here all day. Maybe the streetcar would be a better bet.

I heaved myself up and started walking away from the river, toward 10th Avenue, where I knew I could catch the streetcar to NW Portland. The rain slowed. I heard a drum beat and realized I was watching the end of the marchers, the last walkers moving slowly north on 4th Avenue. I took some photos of overflowing garbage cans and piles of discarded protest signs and kept moving. By now my right ankle was bruised from the unforgiving ankle support of my right boot. My left heel burned with a blister. My step was neither lively nor steady at this point.

At 10th Avenue, I found the streetcar stop flooded with hopeful wanna-be riders and no streetcar in sight. I walked slowly along 10th (downhill, thank god). I contemplated going into Powell's Books to see if the giftcard I'd carried in my wallet for two years was still good, but I feared if I stopped moving, I'd not be able to start again. By this time, I knew that my chances of catching the streetcar were slim to none, so I put my head down and decided to power on through.

The rain stopped. The wind came up, but the breeze refreshed me. As I trudged over to Johnson and turned uphill to head back to 24th Avenue, I wondered what if anything I had learned about marching, protesting, and political grievances. If I were a truly evolved human being, probably I could have transcended the murderous pains in my legs and feet and focused on the meaning of life and the pendulum that swings us from love to hate to love to hate. But the untrained human mind is easily distracted by pain. Nothing much came to me except... shoes. I need better walking shoes.

Eventually I spotted my car halfway up the block. I plodded to it, opened the door, and sank wearily into the driver's seat, wondering if my feet would ever forgive me.

Today I looked up my route on Google maps to see how far I actually walked. I'm embarrassed to report, my route was two miles long from my car to the waterfront. I walked another half a mile south to the Hawthorne Bridge. Then I walked back to NW Portland, more or less along the same route. All together, my trek was easily five miles long. The march itself was only 1.3 miles.

I'm ready to go Donner Party on my cat

Today is Day 6 of the... what are we calling this? Snowpocalyse? Snowmageddon? I don't know what people are calling it, but I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting it to be over.

The snow, once fluffy and pristine, has melted and been packed down multiple times, every day and every night as the temperature hovers between 20° and 35°F. The mush in the road is a grimy, rutted, whipped-up mess of snow, ice, gravel, and de-icing chemicals (which as far as I can tell, didn't work). I want out of here, but not into that.

Weak sunshine looks festive from my window, but the air outside is dry, brittle, and frigid. The roads are too slick for my little tin can Ford Focus—I fear gravity would take over if I tried to get down off this hill. It's too cold and slippery to walk down, a recipe for a broken hip. The good news: buses are running, albeit infrequently, because today is a holiday. But they are running. And that's a relief, because I am running out of food.

I wasn't built for this weather. I was made for warm, dry, sunny climes. I was made for California chaparral, Arizona cacti, dusty yards made of decorative rocks and desert flowers, blue skies and sunshine. My bones are rotting as I sit here with my feet buried inside a homemade foot warmer made of uncooked rice packed inside runnels sewed into an old pillowcase. After being microwaved umpteen times, the cotton is scorched. Today one of those scorched areas sprung a leak and a shower of tiny broken pieces of rice scattered across my desk and floor. I guess four minutes on high, every hour, is too much. I'll sew up the hole and try three and a half minutes, see how that goes.

I visited my car a couple days ago, just to make sure it was still there. It was, buried under a foot of snow, a car Popsicle. My brother warned me I should try to get the door open and start up the engine. Apparently batteries don't like cold weather any more than I do.

People in other parts of the country think we Portlanders are wimps and whiners. They are not wrong. Winter here rarely consists of more than rain, rain, and more rain. This big Arctic air bubble sitting over us happens from time to time, but it is rarely accompanied by a firehose of moisture. The last time I remember this much snow was almost ten years ago. I bought snowboots after that horrific experience. I dug them out of the back of the closet. That is how I blazed a path to my car.

I thought the weather would shift during the early morning hours tonight, but the NWS forecasters are now predicting freezing rain tonight and all day tomorrow. That means if I want to go get food, I will have to hike out or take the bus today, because once the freezing rain starts, the buses will stop running up here on the hill. My refrigerator is looking a bit bare, and my cat is starting to look oddly tasty.

When it starts raining, it is not expected to stop. In fact, temperatures may rise into the mid 40s on Wednesday. You know what that means, right? Oh, you don't? Well, it means that some of that snowpack in the mountains will start to melt, filling our local rivers and streams with a whole lot of water. Add to that the snow on the ground in Portland, clogged sewer grates, and saturated thawing ground and you get flooding and mudslides. The NWS has issued a flood watch. Luckily, I live on the shoulder of a hill. I am sure I won't get flooded. I am less sure that the road down the hill won't be subject to a small landslide or two. Unlikely. The trees that might have slid are mostly still lying in pieces in the parking strip after the previous ice storm.

I'm resenting weather today. I was hoping I would get out of here today (meaning, get my car out, drive to the store, see what is happening in the neighborhood), but it looks like that might not happen until Wednesday. I rarely am called to interact with this much weather. In an attempt to be grateful for my first-world problems, I tried to imagine what it would have felt like to be snowbound under nine feet of snow in Donner Pass. I'm sure I would not have survived. My ancestors who came from South Dakota and Wisconsin weren't wimps, but somehow over the generations, my ancestors' genes produced me, a hothouse flower with a built-in resentment against inclement weather. I'm so over winter.

Happy apocalypse from the Hellish Handbasket

I'm feeling anxious. It's pouring cold rain outside. At 4:00 pm, it's already dark. When winter solstice arrived, I got happy, sure that the days were finally lengthening, until a self-righteous friend pointed out to me the days don't actually start lengthening until about January 6. After that news, I sunk into a pit of seasonal affective disorder. When I get S.A.D., I worry about the failure of important forces like gravity. Suddenly I'm aware of how tenuous is my connection to the surface of the earth.

Everything gets under my skin. The holiday TV season is a desert wasteland. (How many times can you watch It's a Wonderful Life before you puke?) My inbox is overrun with emails begging my help for refugees, bees, and the rights of women to keep control of their uteruses. I'm worried about global warming and nuclear war. I keep thinking more chocolate is the solution, but my cupboards are bare.

I'd like to help every refugee, bee, and uterus, really, I would. If I could be sure my donated dollars would prevent Armageddon, I'd be happy to contribute. But everything will have to wait until spring. I'm mired in the dog days of winter blues.

I've washed the breakfast dishes. I've folded a pile of laundry I did days ago and lost an hour I'll never get back surfing Facebook. I guess there's nothing left to do but binge-watch episodes of TrueBlood.

This month has been a bad ending to a year that started out looking pretty good, for some of us, anyway. I miss the good old days of last spring... Apart from the election madness, the closing of this year seems especially sad. Some of my favorite musicians and actors have exited the stage for good. I still can't believe Bowie and Prince are gone. And Emerson and Lake. And now George Michael and Carrie Fisher. It's like everyone decided to opt out of 2017. Like rats from a sinking ship.

I don't feel much joy contemplating the mayhem that I fear is coming. Of course, I don't know what the future holds, nobody does. But do you get the feeling we are all sitting in a kettle of rapidly heating water? Will we be able to jump before we end up on China's dinner plate?

When I started this blog, my conception of “going to hell in a handbasket” was personal. I was slogging through dissertation hell and I wanted to share my misery with anyone who might listen. In my postdoc life, my idea of a dystopian nightmare future is no longer just my personal hell—I fear I'm not alone in this apocalyptic journey. Welcome to the Hellish Handbasket. To avoid serious injury or death, keep your arms and head inside the basket at all times.