Living the five seasons in Tucson

This week I spent an hour driving eleven miles across town to a shoe store to pick up a pair of walking shoes I ordered online. That's not news, everyone is doing it. Look at me go, contributing to the economy. I'm a dynamo.

I could have opted for curbside pickup but I'm not as leery as I once was of being around other people indoors. I wore a mask, as I always do when I go shopping. It was weird, though. I was one of the few. I mean, I was one of two. There were two of us wearing masks, and one was the cashier. I felt the pressure, I have to admit. 

Should I get a t-shirt that says something like immuno-compromised or preexisting conditions on board, as an excuse, basically, a reason why I'm not buckling to peer pressure? I'd like a t-shirt that says what are you staring at? or mind your own effing business. But that is my fleeting need for self-righteous vindication talking. I try not to let that part of me out of the cage if I can help it. It only gets me into trouble.

About the reluctance to mask up, I don't get it. Isn't there another variant making the rounds? Maybe everyone in Tucson has had COVID-19 already, except for that cashier and me. It's like an invasion of body snatchers. Except I can't win. If I take my mask off, I might be able to hide my bleeding-heart liberal presence among the herd, but taking my mask off puts me at risk of breathing in COVID. I might think I'm laying low but end up coughing my brains out with long COVID. 

I didn't plan to write about that. 

Metro Tucson has just over a million inhabitants, and I think I met all of them on my drive across town. I'm guessing citizens have more than one vehicle and they drive them both at the same time whenever possible, as if we get points for how many square feet we occupy at any moment. And how fast we are going. I fail on both counts. The speed limit on most east-to-west city streets is 45 mph, which means many drivers go much faster. The beast can manage a trot if I apply the spurs, but we are really most content clopping along at a mild 35 mph. Drivers wave and toot their horns as they speed around me. So nice.

Tucson is a large basin surrounded by mountain ranges on all four sides. The mountains have turned into a bit of a constraint. The city has sprawled up into the foothills of its mountainous boundaries. That's where the rich people live. 

You need a helicopter to get around this place. There's only one freeway, the I-10 going west to Phoenix or east to Albuquerque. The entire city of Tucson is a crowded grid of surface streets coopted by trucks and SUVs, which seem hellbent on mowing down all pedestrians and bicyclists with the audacity to try to share the roadway. 

I lived in Los Angeles for twenty years so I know how cities can sprawl. Tucson reminds me of L.A. Los Angeles had the ocean, though. Tucson's ocean equivalent is the desert beyond the mountain cage that traps the city. In L.A., I could take a bus and eventually put my toes in the Pacific Ocean. In Tucson, putting your toes in desert sand will give you third-degree burns. 

It's been almost one year since I made the drive from Portland to Tucson. Now I've experienced all five seasons. I understand the weather cycle now. Right now, it's spring. The doves are cooing in the trees, on the days when the wind isn't howling. The tiny lizards are sunning themselves on the concrete steps. The neighbors are enjoying their rap music outdoors with the bass cranked to brain death levels. Winter is over. The thermometer will be in the low 90s all week. 

Spring is short here. We'll have a few nice weeks, followed by months of mind-boggling heat and drenching monsoons. I'm going to enjoy my new walking shoes before summer peels the skin from my bones. 

The Chronic Malcontent achieves serenity, or something like it

Howdy Blogbots. This might be a short post. Nothing much happened this week. I'm tempted to make something up, just to keep you entertained. Like the six of you care. I admit, I often spin the content on the Hellish Handbasket blog, but I don't make content up. I leave out stuff (mostly because I can't remember anything anymore) but I don't add stuff. I pretty much tell it straight on, with few embellishments. So when I say nothing much happened this week, that means I went about my business in a nondramatic fashion. I visited my friend E at the trailer. I talked with my friend S on the Zoom. I walked around the neighborhood last night in the balmy spring gloaming. I wrote a couple chapters in my next book project and edited a disaster that appeared in my inbox on Thursday. I can hear you already—boring! Where's the drama?

No drama. What is drama, anyway, when you live in this place and time? Even when I'm dramatic, it's all fake. Bombs are not falling on my head. I'm not running for my life. 

Nondrama for me means I'm no longer reacting to the day-to-day minutiae of my mundane existence. So what, I have a few pests now and then in my kitchen, ho hum. Bugs gotta live, too. Wind in the trees, spinning trash out of the dumpster, right on, seen that before. Weather is a stupid thing to complain about. How many years (and geographicals) has it taken me to figure that out? Yeah, my beast of a minivan has a few hiccups once in a while. What car doesn't? Money pit misery makers on four wheels. Every morning I look out my window and say, huh, you are still here.

The best stories have some sort of conflict. That's what I've heard. Maybe I'm sunk so deep in my messy bog of ho-hum-ness that I can't sniff out the conflict in my life anymore. I think it's more likely I'm just plain worn out. It's exhausting caring about things. My tiny boring life deserves no drama.

 The only thing that riles me up these days is news that animals, especially pets, have suffered or died because of human cruelty. I don't want to write about that. Thinking about it makes me want to curl up in a ball and die. Humans, it seems to me, are too stupid and mean to live. Then I read a fun book or see some good art and think, well . . .

Other than the occasional meltdown on behalf of abused pets, this week I'm feeling serene. I'm tempted to dig into other people's dramas, just so I have something with which to entertain you. However, it's not easy to generate a strong sense of excitement over another person's drama, no matter how dramatic it is. You know what I mean? It's just hard to get into someone else's shoes. I try, though, I really do. I think I am an empathetic person, in general, despite my self-centeredness. I don't like to see anyone or anything suffer. Not even the little dudes in my kitchen. I'm not a cat. 

Conversely, I do like to celebrate the successes and triumphs of others. My boat really floats when other people's dreams come true. If I can help you get your boat down the ramp and into the water, I'm your person. Except if your dream is to invade another country, but that would be a special case of an insane crackhead. Generally, I love people (but not too close), and I want them to thrive and be happy (but not at the expense of others). 

Drama has its place, but maybe not near me. I just don't have the energy anymore to be on the firing line of life.

Another week on the Zoom

I drive so rarely, my car decided it couldn't be bothered to start. I know the feeling. I often feel that way myself, like, what is the point? On Monday I forked over some money to the place up the street for a new battery. When I got my car back, it seemed to exhibit a new resolve, although the clock indicated it had somehow entered a different time zone. Being time-zone-challenged, I plan to use my usual approach: wait and see what happens. Perhaps the clock will reset itself. It's happened before. It's like when socks, or gloves, or keys go missing. They quite often reappear.

Speaking of things disappearing and reappearing, one of my friends has a poltergeist. My friend has had it for years. A thing goes missing. A needle and thread. A document. My friend searches like a mad person, can't find the thing. Eventually my friend gives up. Then the thing mysteriously returns, sometimes days later, suddenly appearing in plain sight. 

I don't have spirits following me around. Far as I know. I am glad about that. If you see a spirit following me, don't tell me.

So Monday's quest was to replace my car battery. Tuesday it rained (with thunder, lightning, and wind). I've already forgotten how that felt. It's a little preview of what comes in July. Wednesday I led a workshop to help artists figure out what art products they should sell. That was fun. A futile endeavor. It's always fun trying to herd cats. Mm, cats. Much rather be herding cats than teaching artists. 

On Thursday I decided I'd better get out of the Bat Cave. I walked to the local Goodwill. It was a twenty minute walk, mostly through a neighborhood of desert houses. Desert houses in the poor part of town are made of cinderblocks. The roofs are flat. Of course I can't see inside, but I imagine everyone is lying on the floor to escape the heat that pools under the low ceilings. Goodwill was small and moderately crowded. I was one of a few shoppers wearing a mask. Every time I go around others, I think, is it my turn? I've been careful, I've been lucky, I've dodged this thing for two years. Is my luck going to run out?

Friday was April 1, another good day for a walk. Does walking help? (Help with what, you might ask.) Who can say. Saturday was a day of phone calls. I praise the TV gods for SNL. Sunday was a day of Zoom meetings. The week is over. I am done.

My life seems to be a frayed slogfest of loose ends. I complete everything on my list, but the outcomes are unknown. For all those Zoom meetings, did I help anyone? I don't know. All that spraying of the insecticide in my kitchen, is it going to keep me safe? I doubt it. The new car battery, will it guarantee my car will start next time I turn the key? Can't be sure. I learned more about time zones last week, namely that Arizona is in its own private Idaho when it comes to time. Does anyone really know what time it is? Today I led a workshop on Zoom. People from multiple time zones attended. I am embarrassed to tell you how many tries it took me to get the correct time zones on the flyer.

I may not know what time it is, but I show up for life, that's the best I can say. I've just about given up on the idea that my life has meaning and purpose. It does if I say it does, but I'm sort of over it. Maybe it's just the vertigo. Maybe it's the high pressure building in, inviting me to get lost in blue sky. Today is over. Tomorrow will bring its own set of tasks and unknown outcomes. Sooner or later, I will be done.

 

Searching for stability

I have been ruled by weather and climate all my life. Even as a kid in Portland, I clung to summer. I dreaded fall because it led to winter. I despised clouds. I wrote poems with gushing titles like Ode to Spring. I hated being cold. I used to stare in confusion at people who said they enjoyed Portland's cloudy moist days, people who actually reveled in rain, people who went up to Mt. Hood to—gah!—play in the snow. Even after chasing the sun to Tucson, I get cranky on cloudy days. Most of my adult life, unless the temperature tops 90°F, wherever I have gone, I have worn a hat on my head and socks on my hands. People are sometimes shocked to see I actually have hair. 

Weather is ruling me here in Tucson, just as it did in Portland, and I suspect it is influencing my vertigo. One day when my frustration with the rattling in my ear turned into action, I searched Dr. Google for information and found some articles that linked vertigo to migraines and barometric pressure. One helpful Netizen offered a ton of great information about migraines and air pressure. The place in the U.S. with the most stable air pressure, this amateur scientist said, was San Diego.

I continue to search for home. Is San Diego or environs the place for me? I don't think San Diego is within my budget, but who knows. I could live on the beach in the Beast. People are doing it. 

To help me make my decision, I wanted to find out if what I read was true, that San Diego barometric pressure is most stable, and further, I wanted to know if San Diego barometric pressure was different from Tucson barometric pressure. To answer my questions, I downloaded three days of air pressure data from the NOAA website. I used the altimeter data because it has been adjusted to account for elevation. Tucson is at 2,389 feet, compared to San Diego, which sits at just 62 feet above sea level. Air pressure changes with elevation, and that is what the altimeter readings account for.

I used the same three days for four locations: Portland, San Diego, Tucson, and Yuma. Weather on the west coast tends to move from west to east, so weather happening along the coastline might take a day or more to reach Tucson, but the days I chose didn't seem to be particularly dramatic in terms of storms or high pressure, so to keep it simple, I just used those data. 

I calculated the minimums and maximums for each city and subtracted to get the range, which is one measure of variation. The range (difference between maximum and minimum) for Tucson and Yuma were similar at 0.26 and 0.28, respectively. Portland was higher at 0.37. San Diego came in the lowest at 0.10, indicating that city showed the least amount of fluctuation in barometric pressure over that three-day period.

THREE DAYS	YUMA	TUCSON	SAN DIEGO	PORTLAND
MAX	30.06	30.11	30.09	30.22
MIN	29.80	29.83	29.99	29.85
DIFF	0.26	0.28	0.10	0.37

The data seem to support the idea that San Diego has stable air pressure. San Diego had less than half the variation in air pressure that Tucson and Yuma showed for this three-day period. Tucson had just barely more variation compared to Yuma. 

Portland had a lot more variation, but the waves were very slow, not choppy. You might like a chart.



What does this tell me? It might be true. In terms of my vertigo, San Diego might be better than Tucson. 

Next, I am considering the possible effects of my diet on my vertigo. I personally am not convinced that my vertigo relates to migraine headaches, but the spunky little ENT I visited earlier this month seemed to think I don't have garden-variety BPPV, that maybe it has something to do with a type of migraine. I think she's wrong, but what do I know, I'm just the ignorant person living inside this out-of-balance body.

In my experience, six things affect vertigo:  movement, gravity, sound, temperature, air pressure changes, and stress. I've lived with this condition since 2015. You can go back in this blog and read about it. I've complained a lot over the years. It's what I do.

Anyway, diet. My nemesis. I blame food for everything, even as I whine to the gods about how unfair it is that I can't eat like so-called normal people. If I could subsist on pancakes and ice cream without blowing up like a balloon, you better believe I would. Just looking at pancakes is good for a two-pound weight gain. My problem is I don't know how to stop once I start. I'm such an addict. But what if some of the foods I'm eating—and there are only, like, a dozen of them—are contributing to my vertigo? That would be sad, if I'd had the solution all along. Just click your heels three times, nibble on this root vegetable, and all your balance problems will be gone. Right.

According to the info sheet the ENT gave me, to head off migraines, I should avoid, reduce, or limit these foods: chocolate, nuts, peanut butter, coffee and caffeinated tea, many cheeses, eggs, yogurt, fresh bread, green beans, lentils, onions, raisins, and avocado. 

I don't eat all of those things regularly, but many are staples in my diet. Eggs, for instance. Yogurt. I don't eat meat, so eggs and yogurt are my protein sources. I am not sure what I would eat instead. I tried the soy/tofu diet, back in, like, 2010, during my vegan meltdown. Been there, done that, almost killed me. 

Guess what foods are supposedly "safe": American cheese, ice cream, pudding, milk, white bread, potatoes, rice, oatmeal, fresh meat/fish/poultry, many root vegetables, and apples. Basically white things, dead things, and sugar. Bright side: Pancakes would be on this list, as long as they have no yeast in them. 

I am left with so many questions. Why is milk okay but not yogurt? Is it the probiotics? Why is American cheese okay but not Swiss? What do we have against the Swiss? I'm so confused. 

Nothing makes sense. I keep trying to order the thoughts in my head. It's like herding lizards. I shake my snow globe head almost constantly, trying to keep the ear rocks suspended. I'm sure these stupid ocotonia have wandered far and wide since they started their journey in 2015. Now they are exploring all the ear canals, far from home, going on their endless river cruise. I wish the spunky ENT could shoot some dye into my ears, put me under a scope, and see where the crystals are actually gathering. I bet my ear canals would light up like a playroom full of kindergarteners. 

Speaking of little dudes, good news. After repeated sprayings of insecticide around the Bat Cave, I believe I have secured the perimeter. For the past few days, I've seen only tiny stupid babies, easily dispatched with no compassion. I am sure my cockroach dreams will eventually subside. 

I wonder if the bug spray has an effect on my vertigo. Hmm. More to be revealed.

To earn or not to earn

Somehow I've managed to divorce earning money from receiving money. It's as if the hose got disconnected from the faucet or something. No, that's not right. It's as if I'm putting energy into a meatgrinder, cranking the handle for all I'm worth, sweating up a storm, and nothing is coming out the other end. Not meat juice, not water, not air. Then when I go look in my refrigerator, there's meat in there. Like, how did that happen? 

I am not a meat eater, so this is a bad analogy. All I know is, something is wacky with me and money. I'm turning the handle but nothing is coming out the spigot. It's similar to the wackiness between me and time, the challenge I discussed last week. 

What the heck am I talking about? Vertigo is clawing my brain into pieces. My head is reeling from a storm system moving through. Actual rain is coming down from the sky. Moisture. Falling from the sky. So weird. 

Anyway, I can't think very well when the bucket is sloshing in my head. I think what I'm trying to do right now is describe my experience this week of doing work for no pay. I seem to be caught up in swirls and eddies that take me nowhere. Words are failing me.

The past few weeks, I've edited three papers for the for-profit higher education institution that hired me as a part-time dissertation editor. I'm supposed to get paid a certain amount per student per term. It isn't hard work. The hardest part is learning the quirks of the institution's dissertation guidelines, which seriously depart from APA style. 

Enough palaver. What I'm saying is that I've done a bunch of work, the term is over, and I have not been paid. I think I recall the supervisor saying they pay twice per term. It's a paltry amount, minus taxes, so I'm not holding my breath, hoping to have money for bread. What am I saying? I don't eat bread. Okay, milk. I don't drink milk. Money for onions. I don't know. My brain is going sideways. 

The agency guy I sometimes edit for sent me a little paper to edit yesterday. A proposal thing in a weird institutional template. I polished it up and shipped it off. Five hours later, the guy writes back, oh hey, here's the institution's handbook, can you see if what you edited complies with the format in Appendix E? I wanted to yell at him (via email), you idiot, why didn't you send it to me before I edited the paper? But I thought, what would be the point, other than releasing my frustration? So I downloaded the handbook and looked at it. It had some examples of title page, copyright page, you know, all that front matter stuff nobody ever reads, as well as some formatting requirements.

I wrote to the agency guy: You want me to format this paper?

He wrote back: Yes, would you?

I'd already spent over two hours just editing the text. Now I was expected to reformat the paper and add a title page, copyright page, acknowledgments page, and a table of contents. 

Oh, did I tell you how much I am getting paid? Sixty dollars. 

I might as well be paying him for the privilege of being of service. Ditto the institution I supposedly work for. 

I recently decided to stop teaching online Zoom classes for artists who want to learn business. It's not worth the hassles. I'm intrinsically motivated, you know that. I have to be. The pay is $25 per hour to teach a class. Minus taxes. I'm paying transit tax for a county in which I no longer reside. I spend many hours gathering my material and refining it into presentations that I hope artists will enjoy and understand. I don't expect praise, although I get some now and then. I also don't expect to be reamed for using incorrect personal pronouns when students don't turn on their cameras or otherwise give me a clue. 

Have you tried speaking without any personal pronouns at all? It's quite challenging. I have changed all my business emails to "pronouns: any." Honestly, I don't care what you call me. Pronounce it any way you want, make up your own spelling. My sense of well-being does not depend on you using my preferred pronouns. 

What was I talking about? Oh yeah: the meatgrinder. I put in energy and effort, I turn handle, and no meat comes out. It's a metaphor. Not a good one. I have a commitment to self to blog every Sunday, no matter what. Sometimes I can't find the words. I don't even know what I am feeling, other than dizzy.

And yet, my fridge is full. Not of meat, but I have plenty of eggs, yogurt, vegetables, fruit, nuts, twigs, and gravel. I'm not starving. There is gas in my car (I hardly go anywhere, I think gas prices will probably drop by the time I need to fill up). I'm doing fine. 

The disconnect I perceive might not be real. 

If I have to choose between a "real" job that pays a "regular wage" and this weird quasi-freelancing editing gig, which is better for me? If I'm not going to get paid, is it better to be useful? Or is it better to work on my own projects and tell everyone else, no, I can no longer do your projects for a few pennies or no pennies at all? Rain is a suitable mood, and the Bat Cave is a perfect place to excavate the words that escape me.
 

Standing still in the stream of time

Yesterday was the day America sprang forward. I'm talking about clocks, of course. People all over the country were waking up and discovering they had forgotten to change their clocks. A few confused souls had no doubt set their clock back one hour (one of those confused souls called me an hour earlier than they were supposed to today, that is how I know). Some other confused souls had confused cell phones (I was one of those souls), phones that failed to update their location and promptly lost their minds.

One of the benefits of moving to Arizona, so I thought, was the luxury of not having to change my clocks twice a year. Most of Arizona remains on Mountain Standard Time, no matter what. Even in the tiny Bat Cave, I have three battery-powered analog clocks, plus one old-fashioned electric digital clock with glowing red numerals. I thought, what a relief, I won't have to go through the tedious task of adjusting my clocks. Woe is me, what a burden. I assumed my phone and two computers would manage the moment successfully, considering nothing needed to change. Standing still, right?

You'd think. 

As I said, my phone lost its mind and required a reboot to reorient itself regarding it's physical location on the planet. Then I discovered Google Calendar tried to update me to the Mountain Time Zone, probably because I had failed to differentiate between Mountain Standard Time and Mountain Daylight Time in the settings. (New to Arizona!) As the day wore on, my brain wore out, overloaded with numbers and well-meaning people trying to set me straight. My friend E said we are the same time zone as Mountain Time. Yes, but E did not say Mountain Standard Time. Apparently my Google Calendar has been on Mountain Daylight Time. That is my guess. 

Stick a fork in me, I'm done. I have spent the entire day trying to understand time. It doesn't help that my caller today set their clock backward rather than forward. Thus, because my phone lost its mind, the caller was calling two hours before our expected call time, which propelled me instantly into a crisis of confidence. (Who am I? Where am I? Does anyone really know what time it is?) That hissing sound you hear is my brain overheating.

I finally figured it out. 

I've been visualizing time as a round thing, like the face of an analog clock, when I should have been visualizing time as a series of rectangles. It's no wonder I'm having trouble. My brain has never been good with analog time. When I was nine years old, I spent a fair part of one afternoon standing in the hall staring at the huge clock on the wall. I was not allowed to reenter the classroom until I could "tell time." Humiliated and ashamed, I stood there staring, until an adult walked by. I cheated, of course, because what nine year old understands that integrity builds character, and I asked the kind adult to tell me what time it was. With the magic formula in hand, I triumphantly reentered the classroom, told my teacher the time, and resumed my seat, still having no clue what made the big hand different from the little hand. 

I eventually caught on, as we often do, we learn to tie our shoes and ride a bike and tell time on a round clock, and since then, time for me has been a round thing. Now, because I moved to Arizona, I know it's a rectangular thing.

Rectangles called time zones divide up the face of the North American continent. You knew this. In the spring, through a magic known as collective agreement (and an illness known as collective inertia), the time zones get off their butts and shift to the right one hour. In the fall, the time zones sigh, heave themselves to their wobbly feet, and move back to the left one hour to settle in for winter.

And what happens to me? I sit still, like a hotspot under the surface of the earth, while the time zones shift above me. Tectonic time zone plates. 

The consequence of standing still as the time zones shift is that I always have to be aware of which time zone is squatting over me. Is it the one to the left of me, or the one to the right? Yesterday it was the time zone to the right of me—those other Mountain Time Zone guys, the ones on Daylight Time, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, those states have been hunkering over the Bat Cave for the past six months. To my confusion, I wake up this morning and find myself squashed by the weight of California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. 

I am awakening to the power of geography! Who knew this would happen from moving to Arizona and gloating about not having to change my clocks. I tell you, I would gladly change my clocks twice a year to avoid having to be hyper-conscious of what the states on either side of me are doing. Yesterday I was on Mountain Daylight Time, now I'm on Pacific Time! All without changing my own clocks. I thought it would be so great to sit still while everyone shifted around me. Instead I discover everyone shifted in unison, like a grand flock of swallows, and I'm the lone scrub quail, grousing in the dust. 

The Hellish Handbasket goes into the hospitality business

The property management company is upping its revenue gathering efforts. The tenants were forewarned. Yesterday, it was my turn. At ten in the morning, as I was cooking my breakfast, two large scruffy men entered the Bat Cave with the intention of installing water meters on the copper pipes going to the upstairs and downstairs apartments. Instead of adding a flat fee to the rent to account for water usage, now through the magic of Wi-fi, we will be accurately charged for our long showers. Yay, accuracy. 

I moved my electric skillet to a safer location while the guy cut a hole in my wall over the sink. My breakfast cooked and sat on the counter, growing bacteria. Eventually during a lull, I put it in the fridge. My kitchen was a disaster zone, insulation, dust, and roaches everywhere. When the guys left two and a half hours later, I had three plastic-covered square holes in my kitchen wall and some mental images I'd really rather forget. 

One of the holes was under the sink. The space under the sink is a deep, dark, roach day-and-night spa, moody with its gray paint and gentle humidity. I don't keep trash under there but I'm sure decades of tenants did, leaving behind a delicious fetid aroma perfect for roach relaxation. Now there is a 12-inch square of white plastic covering a hole that I'm pretty sure leads to hell, with off-ramps to every roach nest along the way. 

The fun started when a grizzled dusty man named David sawed an 8-inch square hole in the dry wall and started yanking out insulation, also known as bed-and-breakfast for the nest of cockroaches I knew were living behind the electrical outlet. I warned him. I will spare you the details. I am still queasy. 

While he waited for one of his compadres to bring him a tool, David pulled out his phone and showed me the view from his property, somewhere out a road I'd heard of but had no idea where it was, up a hill with a fantastic view of mountains and desert. He had a live camera going all the time, and he checked it periodically as he was working. The sound of wind ruffling across a web microphone kept coming out of his shirt pocket. It was like a baby monitor for his property.

"That's where my house used to be," he said, pointing at a flat bare area of dirt. "Burned down last year."

Terrified roaches fled along the counter, making a break for freedom. I shot them with alcohol. 

"There was a tornado out there. Left a wire shorted out under the roof. Six months later, the whole place burned to the ground."

David went outside to get something and have a cigarette. A beefy guy in a neon vest came in and took over, cutting a second hole on the other side of the electrical outlet. 

"Whoa, I found the nest," he said, dancing back and bumping into the Barbie stove, which was sitting in the middle of my 4-foot square kitchen. "I hate roaches," he grinned at me. He was missing one of his front teeth. 

Soon there were cockroaches all over the counter, running for their lives. I gave the insect spray to the worker, and he nuked the vicinity. I shot alcohol at the ones who got past his first line of attack. 

His brother Hector came in and out to fetch and carry things to the apartment next door. I sat in my TV watching chair, watching the guys work. At one point, they moved outside to show their boss something on their phones and to complain about the fourth worker, Jesse, who went AWOL during the afternoon and was not seen again. I looked at the hole in my kitchen wall and realized I was looking through a corresponding hole in my neighbor's wall, straight into their kitchen. I saw the back of a stove, part of a counter, and further away, the edge of a sofa. Their walls are the same color off-white as mine, and just as bare. 

The workers did not bother to put back the pieces of drywall they cut out. Instead, they covered the holes with pieces of shiny white plastic. One is about eight inches square, the other is a foot square. The squares are shiny white. The walls are glossy off white. One of the squares is screwed into the wall at the four corners with black drywall screws. Do you know what it is like to see something black on the wall out of the corner of your eye? Not good. I feel inordinately jumpy whenever I am in my kitchen.

As soon as the workers were gone, I took wide masking tape and taped up all the edges on the two pieces of plastic by the electrical outlet. The electrical outlet was already well taped around the edges; until I put that tape on there, that was the preferred entrance to the roach bed-and-breakfast that was behind the wall. I know that nest is still there. Some got nuked, but eggs are hatching, and orphan babies are coming. I taped the plastic covers to block easy access to my living space. They will have to come in through the hole under the sink. The gateway to and from hell. I'm dusting off my handbasket. 

The lure of the geographic

I grew up on a quiet shady middle class street lined with a mishmash of old farmsteads and ranch-style houses in the armpit of northeast Portland, the largest city in the state of Oregon, which is one of the states in the Pacific Northwest area of the United States of America, which is on the . . . where are we, again? I am trying to orient myself in time and space in order to determine if I have dementia. 

I no longer live on that quiet tree-lined street, and most of the trees are gone, but several of the families I grew up with are still there. My brother lives around the corner, so he keeps up with the latest news about our old neighbors. The news used to be, oh, hey, Fred had a great crop of corn this year, you want some? Lately the news is more like, wow, Bill just turned one hundred, and, did you hear, Dotty and George are moving into assisted living? 

Moving to assisted living would be a traumatic experience at any age, but especially if you have dementia. Dotty and George moved last week into a place just down the street from the retirement home where my mother used to live before we moved her to the care home. When I heard the news about Dotty and George, I thought, oh, that's sad, but now they will get the care they need. Well, the news today was when Dotty got home from the store, George had taken the car and disappeared. Some time later, the sheriffs found him at a Bimart in Damascus, which is south on the freeway from Portland some twenty miles. George got lost and couldn't find his way home.

I get it. I bet he was wondering, where's home? What is home now? Not my shabby chic ranch house on the modest street where I lived for so many years with all my wonderful neighbors and friends. No, now it's some weird cottage with people coming and going at all hours, regimented meal times, and food that comes out of an industrial-size can. Home? No thanks, not for me. 

If I had been George, I would have kept on driving. 

I worry about getting dementia. For quite a while, I pictured my dementia response as a stroll into the desert with a shovel. Wrapped in a fashionable linen coat-shroud ensemble, I would pick a spot with a view and soft sand, dig myself a narrow trench, and recline comfortably in it as the sun went down. A few shots of tequila and a handful of pills and I'd be sailing into the sunset. That seemed like a plan, if I could find some U of A student to sell me some fentanyl. Then I read some blogs about car camping and van life and learned about a concept known as pack-it-in-pack-it-out. Oh, man.

Apparently wet things don't compost in the desert! Argh. I'm a Willamette Valley girl, where people's skin grows moss and mold if they stop moving. I had no idea that when you leave organic litter behind in a desert campground, it doesn't compost. It desiccates. That means the moisture evaporates but the orange peels, French fries, apple cores, and bread crusts never disappear. The parched ground does not harbor the insects needed to turn organic waste into nice loamy compost. That means my dead body will linger on forever, like King Tut, until someone stumbles upon my peaceful overlook and discovers a gross mummy half-buried in sand clutching an empty bottle of tequila. Ick, you say? I agree. I would not want to leave that for someone to find. 

Hearing about George's story has resurrected some memories of my mother as she declined further into dementia. It's been over a year, but I don't think I'm over it yet. I wonder sometimes if I should seek professional help. Some of my friends are worried about me. I can imagine sitting across from some therapist in a Zoom room, trying to describe the past couple years. I can hear the young therapist saying, well, Carol, sounds like you have suffered some losses, but welcome to the club. You are not the only one suffering. Like, would that be helpful to hear? I don't think so. I say that to myself every day and it hasn't seemed to have improved my mental outlook. On the other hand, what if the therapist said, wow, Carol, you have really suffered some significant losses, it's amazing you are still able to function. If she said that, I would probably disintegrate into separate parts and completely cease to exist. I can't handle empathy, any more than I can handle gifts and hugs. I know. So self-centered. 

I am starting to realize that life after sixty-five for me looks like a process of coming to terms with my mortality and the mortality of others. For me, I don't weep. As my body betrays me, I muddle along from day to day with my usual grouchiness. However, I weep for other creatures near and far. I can't find the philosophical balance, that neutral spot where I can see suffering and not be devastated by it. I can't look at injustice and say, well, dictators will be dictators, let's all pray for their sorry-ass souls and keep on trucking. I can't accept that half the people in the U.S.A. would like the other half to die. Now I see that I was born and raised in a special place and time, in an oasis of peace and good health, insulated from reality. 

Getting in the car and driving until you get back home seems like a completely logical response. But if home no longer exists, where do you go?

The general dissatisfaction of being alive

Nothing is truly wrong, but nothing is right, either. The space in-between has captured me like a sticky bait trap. I’m mired up to my knees in malcontentedness, waving my dead bug arms at the sky: Curse you! What am I cursing? I don't know. Life? When I curse, I curse at everything, just like when I cry, I cry for everything. I’m sensing that the time for whining and grieving is over, like, move on, Carol, and yet when I hear about others’ losses, it refreshes my own grief and I crash all over again.

On the bright side, the sticky in-between place traps my brain but it doesn’t trap my body. I still get out of bed in the morning. I still get busy tackling my to-do list for the day. I show up for my commitments. Even though most of the time, everything I do seems pointless, I still do my best under the circumstances of the day. I don’t expect much from myself or anyone else, and I don’t berate myself or anyone else if outcomes fall short. Expectations are part of the sticky trap.

Sometimes I look in the mirror, see my mother, and laugh. Sometimes I look in the mirror, see how my shape resembles what I remember of her shape, and a sense of rage washes over me. I don't want to be my mother, yet my body seems compelled to mimic hers, five sizes bigger. I hope my brain will fall further from the tree, but the odds aren't in my favor.   

Since I’ve been taking the bisphosphonate for osteoporosis, I am regaining weight I lost over the past year. I hope my bones are rebuilding, knitting back the framework that holds me upright so I don’t fracture a hip the next time I trip on a curb while gazing at the Tucson sky. I’d rather not regain the flab that drags me down, but aging is a neutral phenomenon that does not consider my desires or feelings. I was thrilled that I was able to fit into my old blue jeans, the two pairs I’ve kept in a drawer for twenty years, waiting for the magical day I would be able to wear them again. The day came here in Tucson. Oh joy. After wearing them a few times, I realized, hey, they make denim with spandex now, for a scoche more give in the thighs and butt. I'm not into being restricted by my clothes anymore. Now that I can fit into the jeans, I no longer want to. What is the lesson of this story? Sometimes you get what you ask for, and it’s not what you want after all? Change happens? It doesn't matter how you look, it only matters how you feel? I don’t know, you figure it out.

For the most part, in real life, I don’t care what I look like. I wear men’s pajama pants to the store. I don’t care what I smell like, either. In the past two years, I’ve worn deodorant exactly one time, when I went to the ENT last week. Now that my life is on Zoom, though, I care about what people see on their screen, for those brief moments they are actually looking at me and not at themselves. What is my background, am I tastefully blurred (can they see I live in a basement?), what are my colors (do I blend artistically with the blurred background?), am I wearing my “public” hat (fleece beanie) or my “private” hat (old stocking cap)? I don’t care what they think of me, but I like to enhance their Zoom viewing experience if possible.

Nobody else cares. I’ve “visited” so many homes over the past couple years, and seen umpteen screens showing people’s cluttered dining rooms, unwashed dishes, disorganized home offices, unmade beds, dusty ceilling fans, annoying pets, and prominent nose hairs. Besides me, only the PBS Newshour crew seems to pay attention to their backdrops.

I had two and a half weeks of relief from the vertigo. The bucket in my head stopped sloshing day and night, just gently rippled now and then, and the hissing in my right ear was mostly silent. My mood lifted. I felt reborn. Amazing how everything seems better when you feel good, even though nothing is different.

Then I went to the ENT.

The day after the ENT appointment, the vertigo poured over me like a tidal wave, and I was back to life on the boat. I can’t blame the ENT. All she did was clean the wax out of my ears. I blame the fluctuating air pressure. The day of the ENT appointment, we had a storm. Low pressure. The next day, clouds, the next day, sunshine as high pressure swept down from the north. Then low pressure returned. Then high pressure, and now we’re in for another rain storm. You get the picture. I’m a creature of the barometer, it seems. I can’t figure out what else it could be. I have lived my life the same way, every day, month after month, eating more or less the same thing, going to bed at the same time, watching the same late-night TV shows, spending half my days on Zoom, trying to write my next novel. Same old, same old. As far as I can tell, the only thing changing is the air around me.

Speaking of stuck in a loop, I’m still searching for meaning and purpose. I guess I’m living proof that it is possible to have a functional, productive life without having a purpose. I get a lot done. I’m the only one who decides if what I do has meaning and value. Is it all pointless? Perhaps. In the big cosmic picture, life has one purpose: to persist. In that sense, I’m fulfilling my purpose, although I have failed to procreate, so this line of DNA dies with me. I don’t believe my manifest destiny is to pass on my genetic code to a new generation, so why do I believe I need to believe in some sort of higher purpose to give my life meaning and value?

I would go nuts without this blog. Even if no one reads it, this blog is the one place where I can say what I want, spin my experience into something that makes sense to me, make fun of myself (and others, sometimes), and reveal my absurdities and foibles. I could pay a therapist to perform this function, but I can just imagine how that might go. Tell me about your childhood. I don’t want a solution, I want a witness, and this blog is that for me. Sometimes I have to stay stuck in the in-betweenies until I’m ready to lift my feet out of the muck and move on.

A day of miracles and it's not over yet

Today was a day of multiple miracles. I call them miracles. I don't know if they emanate from a divine source—unlikely, in my human opinion—but these occurrences weren't orchestrated by me, that much I know. All I did was say yes. 

First miracle. A friend from Minneapolis flew into Tucson to join the rabid rock and mineral fanatics for a gem show now happening at the Convention Center. Gems shows are a thing, apparently. I am not part of the gem show cult. That's not the miracle. Well, maybe it's sort of a miracle that I'm not a member of a cult. I reserve the right, though: There's still time. Anyway, I the miracle is my MSP friend came to Tucson! 

Second miracle. I found my way to the Tucson Convention Center. I know what you are thinking: Carol, really? In this era of GPS, you probably would not classify that as a miracle. I do. First, I barely know how to use my phone. I use this amazing device called a roadmap. It's actually paper. I know! Crazy. The upside to using a roadmap is it uses no data while I'm sitting in my car trying to figure out where I am. The downside is I forget the map as soon as I close the atlas.  

I do know how to use Google Maps. How do you think I got to Tucson? Well, I did get lost on the way once or twice, but I'm here now, no arguing with that. Whenever I need to find something, I check Google Maps. Yesterday on my laptop I Google Mapped the locations of parking meters near the Convention Center. I wrote a few notes to take with me, otherwise I would be, like, wait, what was it again, do I turn right off Stone Avenue or left? As it turned out, the parking meters I had mapped myself to had been removed. No parking on Ochoa! 

Third miracle. After driving around downtown Tucson in circles for a few minutes, I found a metered parking space. Meters are free on Sunday, which is why I was determined to find a spot. The hotel wanted $16.00 per day to park there. The Convention Center was definitely not an option: the line to get into the almost full parking lot was a half-mile long (and $10.00 per day). No thanks. 

Fourth miracle. I parked the Beast in the spot. More or less. I mean, I was within eighteen inches of the curb and almost parallel with the curb. Honestly, it was a very small spot, even for a small car. I was parking a Dodge Caravan, which if you know minivans is not a sleek little soccer-mom car. The Beast is a box, a mini-box truck. And, oh, did I mention, the parking spot was on the left side of the one-way street? Not my favorite side of the street to park on, even in a Ford Focus. I've been known to botch the parking process when I'm parking on the left side of the street. That parking disability probably has disturbing implications about the condition of the right side of my brain. 

Anyway! 

Fifth miracle. After a lovely visit, I agreed to give my friend a ride to one of the many gem shows happening around town. Even while we talked, I was able to retrace my steps back to my car without having to refer to the many photos I snapped on my walk over to the hotel. Multitasking! 

Sixth miracle. I drove my friend to the Kino Sports Center, a couple miles south of downtown Tucson, where she was meeting the other members of her party. Now, I admit, I was guided by the GPS Google Gal on my friend's iPhone. Given enough warning, I can usually follow directions, even from a robot. We found the place with no wrong turns, no detours, no backtracks. The giant dusty parking lot was packed. I double-parked outside some tents, where we said our goodbyes. The miracle is that I realized I could easily hop on the I-10 freeway and find my way back to the Bat Cave. I did not have to wander in circles. As long as I can see the Santa Catalina Mountains, I know which way to go. I admit, the fact that it was broad daylight and bright sunshine helped. At night, I would have been hopelessly lost until I happened to come across a familiar street name. Even then, I have a better than fifty-fifty chance of heading in the wrong direction. 

That's a lot of miracles in one day! I'm not done!

Seventh miracle. Eighty-plus degrees Fahrenheit. Need I say more? Crystal clear postcard-blue sky. No wind, not a hint in the air to indicate that by Wednesday the temperature is forecast to be ten degrees below our average high of 68°F-ish. Bundle up, the forecasters are saying. It's going to be below 60°F! Some outlying areas might see rain. Mt. Lemmon might get a little snow. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, it is 8°F below zero. That's minus eight. I would not survive in MSP. I shiver when the temperature drops below 50°F. I'm such a hothouse flower. 

I suppose every day could be a day full of miracles, if I just shift my perception. Miracle I haven't caught COVID. Miracle I haven't been killed by a neighbor with a gripe and a gun. Miracle I haven't killed anyone with the Beast. It's not hard to find miracles. They are everywhere, all the time.

Making a motion toward something

It's been a good week. The vertigo bucket in my head has been mostly calm sailing. The salt shaker in my right ear has been mostly silent or just barely hissing. I hardly notice it. Really, I can't complain. Even getting a mammogram wasn't a big deal. Deflating the fun bags used to hurt. Now I barely feel it. I was in such a good mood, I did my taxes! It really was a good week. 

I hope I remember this moment. Tomorrow my so-called part-time job starts. I got hired as a remote dissertation editor for a department in a scrappy for-profit college. I've never heard of universities having editors on staff. I don't know yet what to think. I'll let you know. I don't know yet what my schedule will be. I'll let you know. I suspect whatever happens, the expectations will be ridiculously high and the compensation absurdly low. As usual, I'll let you know. Why am I doing this? What do you mean, at my advanced age? I guess I need something to focus on, something to spin around. Spinning around my next book project isn't filling up the well. I need to feel useful. 

And you'll be with me for all of it, as usual. Lucky you! For more than a decade, I've relied on this blog to absorb my angst. You've been there with me. I started the blog with some rants about my employer, a for-profit career college. I complained about my dissertation program, as I recall. I told you how I felt about being laid off from my job. I celebrated the PhD with you. I shared with you the ups and downs of dealing with my mother's dementia. You were the first to know when my cat died. And when my mother died. And then you came with me to Tucson. You've been with me the entire journey. Thanks for being my witness as the moments have unfolded. 

New moment, new unfolding. I feel as if I leaped off a cliff coming to Tucson, and I'm still falling. I had a picture in my head of what life in Tucson would be like. Peaceful, warm, mild, slow. Tucson is not that. Instead, I found rough, raw, loud, and fast. It's all about the sky here. No matter the weather, the sky dominates. In Portland I was hemmed in by trees. Oak trees, maple trees, ash, aspen, and cottonwood trees, pines, cedars, and spruce, spewing their leaves, needles, and pollen everywhere and covering up the sky. I was smothered in trees. Here, trees are an afterthought, barely a thought. Scrubby beat up things hiding in the washes or ridiculous telephone pole palms that give no shade while shaking their stupid pompoms in the wind. 

After almost ten months, I still don't know what to make of this city. I still get lost. I still don't know where I belong or where I'm going. I still feel like getting in my car and heading west until I run out of road. 

A mild case of existential dread

COVID is still a thing here in Arizona. I'm laying low in the Bat Cave, hiding out from omicron, even though I know, as a bleeding heart liberal, I'm prone to believe the sky is falling, has always been falling, will always be falling. I don't fear death. I do fear long COVID. My brain already has enough hiccups. I double-mask and glove up when I go to the grocery store. Other than that, I've stopped going into buildings. I walk the streets alone, reveling in the 64F sunshine and wishing it were warmer. Meanwhile my sister in Boston is buried in two feet of snow. She's been feeding birds on her balcony. They are lined up like marauders on the railing. I'm afraid I'll get a text saying she was pecked to smithereens by chickadees and sparrows trying to get to her birdseed stash. 

Meanwhile, it's mild and dry here in Tucson. While I wait to die from a stroke, I have been patting myself on the back for finally getting the upper hand with the little dudes. I have been spraying weekly. I rarely see a little skittery dude now. Not alive, anyway. I see a few on their backs with their limbs frozen in the air. Did you know that some cockroaches are the same color as bits of sautéed onion? I know. Kind of puts you off your feed, doesn't it?

Let's see, what else? No more men with guns this week, no more people pounding on my door at midnight. Yesterday my neighbor on the other side of the wall had a little party with the girls. I couldn't hear the music but the bass from her stereo pounded for several hours through the wall. I wanted to rip a hole with my hammer and stick my head through. Here's Johnny! Now I kill you. However, I refrained. Once again, I was driven to the Internet to discover the name of my malady: misophonia. It's a thing, look it up. Earplugs don't work. I took a folding chair into the closet and sat there with my mp3 player going in my ears until the noise stopped. Eventually my heart settled back into its own rhythm rather than trying to beat in time to a song I could not hear. Neighbors. They come and go. Come August, I will be one who goes. 

Of course, life is uncertain. I'm feeling some existential dread. I heard that term on the radio today. I really like it. I think I will adopt it as my description for my state of mind. How are you, Carol? Oh, feeling a little extra existential dread today, how about you? 

It's hard to mope when the sun is shining. I have to put my back into it. Really make an effort. On these mild sunny days, it takes some serious motivation to maintain my chronic malcontentedness. It's like belonging to Misanthropes Anonymous. Sometimes I have a little slip and hate someone or something but mostly I've got this recovery thing handled. I have a lot to be thankful for. For instance, I think I might be getting a little stronger after five weeks of the bisphosphate pills. One false step on the treacherous Tucson pavement could shatter my timbers but I have hope that if I keep moving, gradually my bones will strengthen. Then when vertigo trips me over a curb, I'm more likely to pop up like Bobo the Clown. 

Mom used to say it's hell getting old. Now that I'm my mother, I can say it too. It's hell getting old. She lasted until 91, though, and I'm only 65. What the heck, Universe?

Speaking of what the heck, when I was fourteen years old, I wrote a book about some pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail. I wrote it in pencil on notebook paper. Five hundred pages. It took me four months. I tied the pages together with yarn and bound the book with kelly-green fabric glued onto corrugated cardboard. I'm looking at it right now as I'm typing this blogpost. It has traveled with me through the years, mainly because I didn't know what to do with it. Scanning it would take forever. Typing it is out of the question. Does it have any value as an artifact? If I were a famous writer or artist, it might. Like, wow, she was only fourteen when she wrote it. Nobody cares, but I still can't bear to relegate it to the recycle bin. 

Now, at last, through the wonder of modern technology, I discover I can have Google Docs type it for me. All I have to do is read it aloud. If I can stomach my teenage maunderings about covered wagons, Indian raids, and cute Indian boys, I don't think it's going to take all that long. Three pages of longhand scrawl condenses to about three typed paragraphs. If I manage to read this entire tome aloud, I think I will find out it's only about a hundred pages. Then I can store it in the cloud, shred the book, and let my literary executor deal with it, if I'm fortunate enough to have one of those. 

What did I just say? No recollection

 

In the past two days, two people have asked me if I'm really a chronic malcontent. I've been complaining in this space since, what, 2010? Maybe this whole blog thing I do isn't clear to anyone but me. You will interpret things I write in your own special way. Probably the most practical lesson I have learned in my years of working a program has been that what others think of me is none of my concern. 

In the past, stating something like that has gotten me into hot water with my family. I can't say I care much. I'm distracted by things other than my blog and its readers. On Monday, in broad daylight, a young white man walked past my window carrying a long gun as if he was looking for someone and meant to use it. Ten minutes later, five police officers showed up with weapons drawn. On Wednesday night around midnight, someone pounded hard on my door. I peeked through the blinds and saw a young white man (not the guy with the gun) standing outside my door as if he expected me to open it for him. Maybe he was looking for the person who lives in the other same-number apartment in the other section of the complex. I didn't open my door to find out. 

I'm hunkered in my burrow, figuratively speaking, wondering how long before I give up trying to fend off reality. Maybe I'm chronically malcontented, maybe I'm just situationally malcontented. Maybe when that stupid ship I have always believed was offshore finally flounders in tie up at my dock, I can heave a sigh of relief and relax. Meanwhile, I soldier on, taking care of bithneth. 

Yesterday my friend E witnessed my signature on my healthcare powers of attorney. My sister now has the authority to pull the plug. I need to mail copies to the State of Arizona and drop off copies to my doctor's office. Next on my list is to fill out the POLST form (printed on orange paper, don't forget) and then write my will. The fun never stops. 

Last night I went through my closet yet again and pulled out some jackets I brought with me, thinking, who knows, COVID might end someday and I might need to look business-presentable. Now both things are unlikely, and I am no longer planning for a future in which it matters how I look. I'm letting go, not hanging on. It's past time to relinquish the past. Into the thrift store donation box the jackets went. I'm trying not to think about the long spaces of time that open up before me when I am less obsessed about my possessions. 

My next task last night was to go through a box of my old writings. I should have done this before I moved. I dug into some dogeared folders and found essays from early college days, as well as some lined notebooks of handwritten stories half-started, never finished. I used my old printer to scan the few things I thought worthy of keeping and jammed the moldering paper in a sack for recycling. 

Some of the handwritten stuff was hard to read. The ink was faded, the handwriting was illegible, and the ideas were trite, melodramatic, and self-conscious (unlike this blog). I had forgotten how much angst I used to have. All my characters were morose and self-righteous, all the scenarios were tense and predictable. If you think I'm a bitter writer now, you should have seen some of the stuff I tore up into pieces last night. Compared to that writer, the malcontent you meet here in this blog is Little Mary Sunshine. 

It serves no purpose except self-centered self-flagellation to retain that part of my past, even in stories. Self-flagellation is so 1980s. Stick a fork in me. Even these documents I've scanned will be lost in the cloud once I'm gone, as links to shared folders fade in memory and email addresses gather dust. Nobody cares. And I no longer care. I'm paring down, letting go, simplifying in preparation for the next adventure. Bottom line, like all humans, I will shuffle off this mortal coil empty-handed. All this stuff I thought was so essential to my wellbeing has become a concrete block around my neck. I feel a great sense of relief to lighten my load. Seven months left on my lease, then I'm off to the unknown. If I don't get shot by a stray bullet while eating my eggs and veggies. 

 

Delinquent neurons are not apologetic

The brain is back. As much as it ever was, anyway, which is good news for me, out here alone in the short branches of the wild west. It's good to have a brain that works when SUVs are coming at me at 50 mph. Last week my brain hiccupped in a weird new way but according to Dr. Google, it is unlikely to happen again, and indeed, my memories are as intact as they were before the hiccup, which is to say, generally faded, tattered, and stored at the back of a dark, high shelf in a closet I rarely can find. All systems normal. 

My mind has been failing for a while. My most recent brain glitch is probably just another notch on the downward spiral into dementia and death. Some years ago I realized that my brain was no longer a reliable partner. Somewhere around the intersection of menopause and my vegan meltdown, which was a rolling disaster that occupied my attention for several years, I became aware that mentally, things were different. 

The names of new acquaintances flew past me into the ether. Phone numbers evaded my retrieval attempts. I started forgetting names of people I'd known from California, people I'd worked with. Whole portions of conversations went missing. Discussions and decisions were lost to vagueness.

I fought the encroachment of incompetence by denying reality. For years, I had prided myself on my near-eidetic memory. That marvelous (unearned) skill smoothed my path from kindergarten through college and beyond. I refused to believe it was starting to fail. Quelle horreur!

My inability to accept the changes in my brain produced some stinging defeats as I doubled down on defending my mistakes. The facts (which mattered back then, unlike now) always revealed my thinking errors. Go back and look at the minutes, Carol! We said this, not that! When it started to become a pattern, I had to accept the sad reality that something in my brain had changed.

Smack someone down often enough and sooner or later they catch on. Eventually I learned to stop claiming to be correct. Out of sheer grief at being betrayed by the brain I thought I could trust, I swung to the opposite extreme and made sure everyone knew my memories were mired in a wasteland far from any known landmarks. 

My friends were sympathetic but impatient. They would only listen for so long before they were like, yeah, we get it, you're human, can we get back to the business at hand? With my family, when it emerged that Mom had dementia, I couldn't really get much mileage on the complaint engine. Yeah, poor Carol. Sad, but let's get back to poor old Mom! I couldn't compete. That was annoying. When I whined I can't remember, she would roll her eyes and laugh. As her brain deteriorated, though, she got more empathetic. Then I felt like a colossal cad for whining.

I learned to write everything down, a habit I employ to this day. If I didn't have Write blogpost on my calendar every Sunday afternoon, I would not be writing this blog post. 

Last week my brain took a half-day holiday and opted not to make new memories for a few hours. Man, I wish I could just opt out and have someone else take the wheel for a while. The rest of my brain muddled through the afternoon, casting resentful glances at the empty spaces the AWOL neurons had left behind. These slackers didn't tell anyone that they were leaving or where they were going or when they would be back, so the rest of us had to soldier on, moving from moment to moment with no breadcrumb leading back to where we'd been. It's definitely a surreal way to experience reality. A taste of what is to come, perhaps.

After lunch, the delinquent neurons came back online and were like, What's up, dudes? Oh, sorry, did we lock you out of the memory palace? Whoops, our bad. 

Those slackers. I'd like to write them up or something. Maybe tomorrow, if I remember. 

Who am I and what just happened?

Poor old Google can't keep up. I'm opening and closing several web accounts using multiple log-on identities on two different computers and Google keeps trying to alert me, Oh no, there could be a security breach! As long as I remember my passwords, I'm okay. Worst case, I get a text with a magic number. If I ever lose this phone or get a new one, I'm toast. I've lost one yahoo! identity because of a lost phone number. If it happens again, I'll just have to reinvent myself. 

Reinvention is not new to me. For example, I used to be a person who had a cat. Then the cat died (two years ago today) and I reinvented myself as a person who used to have a cat. Up until a year ago, I was someone with a mother. Now I'm not. I used to be a resident of Portland, and now I'm a resident of Tucson. Personal reinvention is the natural progression of life. Or is it reincarnation? I don't know. 

Speaking of starting over, I asked the universe if it wanted me to live in my car. You know how you sometimes ask the Universe stuff? Or is it just me? Universe, I said, if you want me to live in my car, okay, I'll give it a shot, but if you don't, please send money. 

You can't expect the Universe to do all the work. Sometimes the Universe needs help. Right after Christmas, I got on the Web and looked for a job. I found a job listing for an academic editor, updated my CV, figured out how to upload my documents, and clicked Apply. Whoosh! With that click, I had notified the Universe of my willingness to earn.

The Monday after New Year's, I got an email. The next day, I had a phone screen. The day after that, I had a Zoom interview. Thursday I got a job offer. How about that? I had one day to bask in my job-hunting glory. (They want me! I'm not too old!) The basking was short-lived. On Saturday, parts of my brain stopped working. 

It happened while I was on a Zoom meeting. Maybe I was super stressed out, I don't recall. I had a ten- minute talk, and luckily, I had notes. I think what I said made sense, but I can't be sure. I don't remember much. By the time the talk was over, I was experiencing a phenomenon known as transient global amnesia. Now that I'm more or less on intimate terms with the condition, I think I can snuggle up to it and call it TGA. 

TGA is a sudden, profound, temporary inability to form short-term memories. I know! Who knew such a thing was even possible!? Not me. I thought I'd had a stroke. After the Zoom meeting ended, I ran to the mirror and started making faces at myself and flailing my arms around in the air over my head. Was my mouth drooping? Had I started drooling? Were my arms matching each other in their range of motion? No to the first two questions, yes to the third. Did I know my name? Yes. Could I type? Let's find out.

I consulted Dr. Google and quickly discovered my malady had a name. Transient global amnesia. It sounds frightening, and it was. Transient sounded reassuring, but global? Amnesia? Oh no, who am I? What just happened?

TGA is a strange phenomenon. My mind had wandered out into the short branches and could not find its way back home. Thoughts ran through my brain like water. Once they passed through my mental processor, they were gone as if they had never existed. File not found, file deleted, file corrupt. I was literally trapped in each moment, like a goldfish in a water bubble. I could not reconjure the thoughts I'd just had moments before. I could have a conversation, but I could not hold the thread of the conversation in my mind. Every sentence was new, disconnected from anything that just passed. I attended another two meetings, limping from one sentence to the next, before I could eat lunch and assess the damage. Formats and agendas saved me. I could read, I could follow directions. I just couldn't remember what had just happened. 

The word that kept me calm was temporary. Sure enough, in a few hours, the fog lifted. The websites I consulted indicated I might not remember much about what happened during the episode. I know what I had done because I had notes and my calendar, but I can't recall specifics of what I said or what others said. A few hazy images linger now, but mostly yesterday afternoon is a black hole. 

I have profound empathy for what my demented mother most likely suffered in her final years. It was utterly confounding and disabling to be unable to access my short-term memories. It's ironic that the goal of meditators is to detach from distractions and stay in the present moment. Someone should figure out how to put TGAs in a bottle, Red Bull for Buddhists. Guaranteed to keep you in the here and now.

I don't think I am cut out for meditation. Before this episode, I was neutral on the idea of the here and now. Now I am sure, being stuck in the here and now is not nirvana. It's okay to visit, but don't lose your way back to where you were. 

Which leads me back around to this new editing job. It's a part-time remote gig editing dissertation chapters for half a dozen students a few weeks of each ten-week term. I need a functional brain to do the job. I'd like to believe that the Universe has come through, delivering an income source when asked, so I don't have to end up living in my car, but we know the Universe can be a trickster. 

This week the new college is checking out my former employer, a crummy career college that laid off a bunch of teachers in 2013, me included, and finally gasped its last in 2020, thanks to COVID. The defunct career college (of which I have blogged a great deal! See just about any post prior to 2013) is following good camping practices by packing it in, packing it out, and leaving no trace. I had to send copies of my W2s to the background check company to prove I actually worked there. 

The new school might decide I'm a liar. I doubt it, though. They need people like me, people who are intrinsically motivated by something other than money. It's a for-profit institution. If you have read my blog over the years, you know how I feel about for-profit higher education. I know they underpay employees to keep tuition low. I know the hours will be ridiculous, and I will have no say in anything. I know this from experience. If they decide to hire me, I will accept the job with my eyes open. Editing student papers will help me stay current in my quest to be of service to nontraditional graduate students who need support and guidance. It's my thing.  

As long as my brain holds out, I will keep trying to live usefully and walk humbly. 

Let me take you to noisy town

Happy new year, Blogbots, all six of you. How are you doing? I hope you are staying safe in this stupid cold season. Yes, cold. Tucson temps fell below freezing last night. For the past week, we've been socked in with clouds and rain. It felt like Portland in early November. Then the clouds rolled east, leaving clear skies. You know what happens in the desert at night: The temperature plummets. I can hear you say, Really, Carol? Plummets? When I say plummets, I know it's all relative. Some of you are in actual plummet-prone places. (Have I ever used the word plummets so many times in one paragraph?) I'm thinking Albuquerque. Minneapolis. I'll step aside; I can't compete. However, remember, I moved here for the famous warm winters! I've been checking the maps for someplace warmer and drier that doesn't involve moving to another planet.

Speaking of noise, fireworks! On New Year's Eve, the big vacant lot just over the cinder block wall on the far side of the parking area was the scene of some pretty impressive DIY displays. (I kept checking to make sure my car wasn't on fire.) I'm on the first floor, so I couldn't see much through the trees and the block wall, but my neighbors upstairs were on the parapet above me, oohing and ahhing at each explosion and glittery colorful burst. I imagine they were sitting in chairs, but I didn't go up the stairs to find out. I don't think I could have interacted with them without resentfully asking them to use their indoor voices after 10:00 p.m. Anyway, New Year's is a thing here. The fireworks were hammering the neighborhood from six o'clock until the taco dropped at midnight. (There really was a taco drop somewhere in Tucson, I'm not making that up.) By 12:30 a.m., everyone had shot their firecracker inventories. I'm sure that is when the heavy drinking started, but I was asleep by then, worn out by the noise. 

Today the sun was brilliant. I walked my usual 30-minute circuit, enjoying the balmy 60°F warmth and sunshine. In daylight, I glimpsed the house that is the source of the neighborhood party noise. The sub-woofer was still going. A pre-teen boy was dancing on the flat roof, I kid you not. Speaking of kids, I am going to guess this is the house that keeps chickens and a goat on the property. A rooster crows at odd hours of the day, and occasionally I hear a goat bleating. I'm so confused. Meanwhile, the pounding bass continues to pound. I can't hear it, but I can feel it in my decrepit bones. 

Anyway, happy ho ho and all that stuff. I'm trying to ignore the cacophony of noises in and around the Bat Cave. The neighbor kid's bedroom is on the other side of the wall, five feet from where I sit. She's got a television. My loaner refrigerator is drowning out most of her noise. The loaner fridge has a little drummer boy behind the ice box. Whenever the fan comes on, he sits up and does his clattery thing to awaken the defroster, and then goes back to sleep. The fan roars on for another hour. This is a very small apartment. The only way to escape a noise is by drowning it out with a bigger noise. But the granddaddy of noise comes from that house on the other side of the vacant lot. It's always party time in the Old Pueblo.

Speaking of confused, last night I went onto one of my websites to update the copyright year. My heart dropped when instead of my website, I saw the infamous white screen of death. Oh no! I suspected a plug-in had gone bad, failed to update or something, but I couldn't get into my admin area to deactivate the culprit. What's a non-tech-savvy oldster to do? Failure was not an option. I did some noodling around on the internet and remembered that my ancient computer still has an old ftp program, which I used to use to shuffle files hither and thither. Would it still work? Would I remember how to use it? 

I bashed around, trying to follow instructions from multiple web experts, and eventually stumbled on some solution. Lo, when I clicked the button, my website reappeared, resurrected from the dead. I was able to repair my plug-in problem and now things seem to be functioning properly. Such are the dilemmas of stubborn DIY oldsters who do not want to admit things are harder than they used to be. Not that I've ever been a tech wizard. I'm a fast reader, is all. 

For example, tonight I was leading a Zoom meeting. Suddenly we were inundated with Zoom bombers. For a moment I was paralyzed with shock. Then I realized I needed to find the host credentials and log on as the host. I did that, and eventually I figured out how to remove the trespassers. Someone advised me to lock the meeting. I did that, and after that, we carried on in peace and quiet. I've never been a Zoom host before but I learned quickly. I admit, I felt a certain amount of satisfaction in having the power to eject someone from a meeting. I can think of umpteen times over the years I wished I'd had that power. So long, bye bye. Of course, I'm sure lots of people wished they had that power over me.