Heroin is Bad.

In case you have missed this, in the last forty years, today's "news" wants to keep you informed. Heroin is bad for you. It causes crime and sickness and junkies. There are even clinics for treatment and halfway houses and all sorts of stuff.
None that any of us want in our neighborhoods, but, hey, that's where the heroin is.

I don't want or mean to minimize the issue of heroin, addiction, and treatments. This IS stuff people should know about. Be aware of it -- yes, right in your backyard.

But it does annoy me that all this is being treated as brand new news.

It isn't.

The issues and concerns are exactly the same as in the 90s, when "heroin chic" brought the addiction back into the headlines. The issues of treatment, and theft and sharing needles -- it's all old news.

Most of it -- there have been some changes in treatments -- in the 90s was recycled news from the 70s. If you can find old newspapers, pull up a few articles on the subject. Word for word, they could be written today and called news.

Epidemic, the reporters emphasize. (Even though the word epidemic has been discredited in relation to actual illnesses)
Epidemic, they said in the 90s.
Epidemic, they said in the 70s.

If this is new news, maybe instead of recycling the same old news about the issue, someone (like an investigative reporter?) should look into why this may be a 20-year cycle epidemic. What makes any issue or illness or addiction repeat in the same pattern, over and over again.

If this is a cyclical issue, why is no one looking to break the cycle?
Why are they only wanting to treat it?

Why is something 20 or 40 years old being touted as "news"? It's pretty old, don't you think?
If only they would report something that has changed.

That would be news.

Sick and Sad

I finally got a job, started it, was doing well enough to be offered extra hours and -- after I accepted the etra hours, I got sick. I went to the Emergency Room and got medicines and went back to work for those extra hour days.
Not the best plan, but I had said I would do it, so I did it.
But by the time the time was done, I was dragging, and went to the doctor.
Who put me off work for the next five days.

Who gets sick like that? Babies? Old people?
I am neither, although I often feel very, very old.
Being widowed, losing my caretaker role, being unemployed (maybe unemployable) are all aging factors.

Being free of caretaking, being employed, I hope will be freeing. Will restore some youth, some joy, some energy.

So, I got sick.
Boo!

Seems to be a family thing going on. A curse upon our house, or something bad written in the heavens. A  curse upon us!

One sister had bleeding issues back at Thanksgiving and ended up with a hysterectomy in April.
She is doing much better these days -- even has energy to take walks for fun.

Another sister, more recently, fell and hurt her back. It has just come to light that she actually broke a bone in her back. She's still walking and stuff, although it's been painful for her -- but the broken bone isn't even the cause of her pain and discomfort!
She is, ever so slowly getting better.

Bronchitis, even the ever-lasting kind, looks like a walk in the park (for fun) after those experiences.

I'll get better, too.

After all, it's in the stars.

Winged Protection

My granddaughter, Hailey, age 5, draws me pictures of winged creatures that she then tapes up on the walls above and around my bed. She says they are fairies; I tend to think of them as angels. A rose by any other name...

She has also drawn me a picture of herself with her super powers, and she drew me a picture of her brother in the playpen. Both these pictures also went on the wall.
Under a rainbow.
And both these pictures had angel fairy pictures placed around them.

My bed and my grandbabies are very protected, it seems.
(Which is, of course, okay by me.)

This morning, when I woke up and reached for my glasses case, there was one of these pictures lying across the nightstand. It covered the glasses case, my phone, and my current book. There was no way for me to miss it.

And no reason for it to be there.

No obvious reason that is. The tape was still on the paper, the tape was still sticky.
But there was  a blue fairy angel smiling up at me and making sure I knew that it was there today.





I start my new job today with just a little extra boost of "good".

Residuals

I wonder these days about hauntings.

To be honest, I've never thought about hauntings much -- I grew up knowing they happen. It's only recently that I've been wondering about the details and operation of the act of haunting.

I want to think that Rex is somewhere else, healthy, happy, unworried. For all my loneliness and lostness, I don't want him to be lingering here, taking care of me/us/things. I want him to be at peace.

That said, spirit or not, something of him does linger here,
Every room is infused with his presence.
Especially this front room where he spent all his time the last months of his life.

There's a concept, in paranormal circles, of residual haunting.
The definition is something like a recording that plays, over and over. A lot of legendary ghosts seem to be residuals. They do the same things, say the same things, are in the same places, time after time. All the white ladies gliding down stairways (even, in some cases, when the stairway is no longer in that part of the room). All the Weeping Widows wandering the garden paths. Crying babies and angry men. Sounds of swords clashing and battleaxes slashing on a peaceful sunny day.

Some are video recordings, some are audio only.

There's a presence here, Rex's presence. It is impressed upon the house; imbued into the walls.
Now this may be true only for me or for us. When we go, so may that presence.
(And then we will know a different measure of loss and loneliness, but that's another topic for another day.)

I think I can live with this.
I think his presence can be here, while his spirit is not.
Just as his voice or his image could be on a recording. (If I had any. My little  recluse.)
Playing the recording would not mean he was here, just that he had been.




I just hope I am right about it.

"Nobody Warned Us"

There was a (dubious) news report out of Washington State that survivors of the massive landslide were commenting and complaining that they had never been told a landslide could happen.

 I call it dubious, first of all, because those people are still busy looking for loved ones, looking for beloved things.
Secondly, they are in shock and deep, deep grief, so that nothing said at this time should be reported as anything other than mourning. Not responsible journalism. (If such a thing still exists.)
Third, the statement just screams "Lawyer"! Not just lawyer, but the worst kind of lawyer: the ambulance-chasing, you-can-make-me-a-lot-of-money type of lawyer.

God help the survivors, the vultures are already circling, greedy claws extended.

No doubt, eventually, this will make it to the courts as a liability issue. Survivors will be looking to place blame. That's something very human of them.
No doubt some judge somewhere will think it should be heard, in defiance of all common sense.

Some building statements that shouldn't need to be made:
1) If you build on a hill or cliff or anywhere "UP" everything can fall "down."
2) Oceanfront property is susceptible to hurricanes
3)Other waterfront property is susceptible to flooding.
4)There may be water shortages in desert areas.
5)Water shortage areas will be susceptible to fire.
6)Anywhere that lightning strikes there could be fires.
7)Tornadoes can happen anywhere.
8) There is no such thing as "solid" earth.  The earth is liquid -- sometimes water, sometimes melted rock. Even the continents are on the move; afloat.

Just a few things to think about before you buy or build anything anywhere.
It shouldn't require an ambulance chaser, a political prosecutor, or a publicity seeking judge to air foolishness, stupidity, and naivete before the whole world.

Let them heal.
Help them struggle.
Neither money nor blame will replace what they've lost, and lost forever. Don't make them think it might.

Changing Things

It's time for changes. I can't keep going on.
 can't do as I've been doing.
I just can't.

Everyone expects too much of me, and I try to go along because being all things to all people has been how I've tried to live my life.
Now, when I say "I can't" or "I don't" they don't hear me.

No one anywhere hears me.
In offices.
On the telephone.
Even on Facebook.
No one hears.

Not too many steps away from "no one's here," is it?

I have an outline idea of what I'm going to do and where I'm going to go. It is vague at this time.
I only know changes need to be made and I am taking the steps to make them.

suttee.

It all makes sense now.

Life and Love and Other Things

I have been trying to write of other things than my own problems. I don't want this blog to be a whining moaning list of things to complain about. I don't want it to be a pity party for me. I don't want it to be about me, specifically.

I want it to be about life in general. Politics, social media, diet, religion, education, children and grandchildren -- all the things that make up the array of things we grapple with from day to day. That's what I want.

For now, I can't seem to think beyond my own life-box. 

I'm stuck and I can't seem to move beyond these limitations.

Someday I will, I'm sure. 

Someday, I'll live again, love again, have opinions again, and I'll re-find my writer's voice.

Someday.

That day isn't yet.

I have many beginnings of ideas, thoughts, concepts to discuss. A recent facebook discussion inspired an article about the education system. But it remains unwritten, as headaches and busy-ness and the visitation of the demon build up walls faster than I can build windows. 

And forget about doors! There's no time for doors. 

The important thing is to keep a little light coming into this thick and sturdy box.

Why keep writing, then?

Well, that is the best way to poke holes in the wall and let a little light in.

Also, there may be someone out there that needs to read something like this.

Someone who needs to know there can be light in darkness.

Someone who needs to know that tears can cleanse as well as burn.

Someone who needs to know how someone else navigates the pitfalls of an empty life.

Someone who needs to know about hope, and choices, and giving up.

Someone who needs to know that, in spite of it all, there remains life, and love, and other things.

Blessed, Beautiful Balancing Sleep

I have been sleeping a lot the last couple of weeks. It's so much better than dozing and waking. It's a wonderful place to be, asleep. No worries, no demands, no unsolvable problems to solve. Just being.

Not that there are no problems in the sleep  world. There are.

In the lovely half-worlds between awake and asleep, and between asleep and awake, there are many many things. Thoughts, memories, wishes realized, dreams not dead, stories to be told unrolling.
Punishments exacted for sins known to the dreamer, be it willful, accidental, or circumstantial sinning.

But at least the dreamer knows.
Unlike life, or a so-called loving god, in the dream state of partially self-inflicted tortures, the dreamer knows what the punishment is for. Knows the why. Knows the how. Knows the when and where. Even knows that the way to end it is to rouse to wakefulness.

There is something soothing in knowing why pain is inflicted.
There is something beautiful in punishment balancing sin, even when the so-called sin was minor and the punishment is angry and excessive.
There's a reason for it.

In waking life, there is no reason.
There is no why, no explanation, no lesson learned.
God, the 'loving' father,seems an abusive irrational parent.

Any decent parent knows to tell their child why it is being punished. The child may not understand why something merits punishment, but knows that x(wrongdoing)= y(punishment). It's pretty basic.

Someone should tell god, maybe.

Snowy Days

Well, the Cincinnati area has set and/or broken a snow record. We have had 40 days of accumulating snow, according to official records. There's something Biblical in that, isn't there?

In many ways, it's been an apocalyptic winter. Definitely, it's been a record setter, in many ways and in many places. In Washington state, it has ended with a massive mudslide that has wiped out most of a community. They are still looking for the people, combing through homes and digging through slop, and the rain will mingle with the tears as too many are lost or left. I hope the winter is over for them, and I hope they get a miracle or two or twenty.
People have died of cold while inside their homes.
Whiteouts have taken lives on the highways.
Cabin fever has led to murders, assaults, and other insanity.

I hate this long cold winter. This is not the kind of historical time anyone (except maybe meteorologists) wants to live in.

But -- March is ending, and we have the proverbial wisdom of coming in like a lion going out like a lamb. I'm ready for some lamb, how about you?
Little lambs, and green grass, and blue skies with puffy white clouds, and fruit blossoms shedding a different kind of white on the ground.

I'm ready to put the cold and snowy days behind me, and look forward to the warm and colorful days ahead.

If it's really stopped snowing, and there is an end to the killing power of winter 2013-2014.
Too many have died.

Snow Days

There's been a lot in the news -- and in the minds of parents -- about the 'excessive' number of snow days this prolonged snowy cold winter has been responsible for.

It's crazy. All the time and attention that the media and our lawmakers are giving to this consideration.
It's ridiculous.

The whole concept of education paid by the day is ridiculous. Children learn when they are interested, not between 9 and 3 on weekdays. Requiring so many days in a desk/chair is not, never has, and never will force learning.
Can you think of any other business where this is the model of operations?

I don't know the solution -- maybe not have school during January and extend it through June, before it gets hot.
We spend a lot of time teaching to the test (which isn't even a good test of learning) so maybe reaching year-end goals could be part of when to end the school year. Although that might require more real teaching than modern teachers are allowed to do.

Before modern times, school schedules were made at/for the families' convenience. In the agricultural society, school was scheduled around planting/harvesting times. Weather was also a consideration.

Above all else, the consideration was for our children. Too hot, too cold -- they stayed home. Roads unsafe, whether due to ice or floods or winds -- they stayed home.
Their health and safety was the vital deciding factor.

Not how many days they had been sitting in their assigned seat.

This is how we take care of our children?
This is how we "educate" them about what is important?

Now, some places figure their finances based on having so many seats filled for so many days. Nothing else matters in figuring costs and expenses. As well as the costs of schools being closed, and the costs of additional (unnecessary) day care, we can now add in the cost of legislating giving ourselves permission to keep our children home in inclement weather. There are no more important issues before our government. Death Penalty, Drug Wars, Bigotry, Hate Crimes -- our lawmakers are being paid to decide if we are allowed to use common sense in weather matters.
Why?
Because some bean counter says x seats = x dollars, and that's the way it is.
Because some statistician says "1 in 5" or "2 in 12 "or whatever numbers they can make do the tricks that push their platform?

I say, while they are wasting their time and our money over three to five days, why not take a long hard look at the whole 'requirement' system. And, of course, the way we pay for it.