More Bolts and Jolts All Around

It's only early afternoon, and I've just heard one friend died, one friend's longtime partner walked out with an "I don't love you and haven't for a while" bomb and one friend is losing his home. Too much to process for so early in the day.

Needless to say, not a good day.

"I'm so sorry" is all I have to offer. I wish I at least had some money to throw at these problems, or a home I could open to those who need one.

Please let my book sell...

It's Not Nostalgia!

So lately I've been listening to almost only ProgRock. It's my thing. It's always been my thing. I just didn't have time or inclination to hang back and listen for a long time. But I do now, and I am. Tonight I'm telling a friend (who said she's been making collages) that it feels like we're going into the 70s again. She said I'm nostagic, but that's not it.

No, most of it isn't new to me or my ears. It was everywhere I was in the 70s. All my friends (the artsy HS & college crews) were into ProgRock. But this isn't a bemoaning for how good things were in the 70s and how I miss them. This is about how incredible I think this music and these performers are. The 70s were awful, apart from the drugs being better and non-violent. Rationing, inflation, Nixon, the 60s assassinations aftereffects, the war and its immediate aftereffects, Watergate, Kent State...and disco... the 70s sucked.

So no, pal o'mine, it's not nostalgia, it's a re-appreciation, a homecoming, a fall-back-in-love kinda thing. And this time I'm relatively sober. It sounds even better.

The More I See The Less I Like

Sarah friggin ass Palin on tv, like the media whore she is, and telling the Times she's wanting to be President? The fastest growing drug area is the drugs that treat you for what other drugs do to you. Now that's sheer genius in business. Create a drug that you then have to take another drug to cure you of. Medicare Part whatever doesn't cover vitamins. My Heat Grant is less than half of what it was last year, and a quarter of what it was 2 years ago. Thanks, Bushie Boy. Congress is 98% sociopaths. The poor keep getting poorer. People are stupid, or soul-less, or both.

And ya know what? This is just the tilt of the roller coaster. Wave bye-bye.

Maybe, just maybe my Dad was a prophet. He said, over a hand of gin rummy in the mid-70s , that I'd live to see the US owned by China and that we'll all be "coolies" (he was born in 1906) here. I told him he was crazy. Ha.

When will the workers realize what's being done to them by their owners?

Old Ties, New Tries

For whatever reason, the last few weeks have brought a number of people I haven't had contact with in decades back into my life. Quite a few are through one particular person, and I have to wonder why and why now- but there are no answers. Lots of questions though.

There are epochs in my life that I can encapsulate and reduce to an all-inclusive diorama in my head. But not with this group of folks; the tentacles go in very many directions, thru many years, even including the only lately acquainted. I don't know what to make of it all. I'm a very different person than I was 20 or 30 years ago and assuming so is everyone else. Is this a second chance, a way to repair or unkarma ourselves or just all coincidence? How come Herman is the center, when he's been dead for 18 years already? Should I ask the questions or wait & see if the answers become evident? Really, there are several I don't want to ask but want the answers...

In it all I'm somewhat intimidated and don't know where that fear comes from. Funny, because I think of myself as a pretty fearless person. This free-floating anxiety has to be coming from somewhere... is it intuitive and a survival instinct kicking in, telling me not to grab that torch and go back into that cave? That I can't dig it out of my guts and look at it bugs me. And it is a gut level kind of thing. But is it real or just the shock- like when JP showed up at my job out of nowhere and many years' absence?

Or is it the people involved- and then not really "the people", but 1 person- that's got me so off kilter? Well, I think in writing this I've pinned it, but not wholely. I just keep asking, "Why?" Perhaps I'll just shut up and see what happens.

Conductor, Where Does This Train End?

We are chugging somewhere. While the politicians fight over how best to ruin the lives of the people, those of us who still think do what we do.

Many of the thinking that I know are on a meta-psychi-physic trail right now. Who knows where that'll go.

Herman Slater told me to keep an eye on the political and spiritual movements as they are where the future gets molded. I don't know if that applies anymore.

Lately, I've found comedians to be kind of the prophets and leaders we have in history. People who pointed out truths and held mirrors up to power. Are we too fearful to discuss these things without humor? Have we become so ignorant that it's the only way to instruct? The biggest laughs of my life came from horrible personal disasters. Is it inherent in humans to seek comedy when terrified?

And where has the violence of the Teabaggers come from? They've been assaulting those who don't agree with them...and their videoheads cheer it on. Have they gone nuts?

I see fascism ahead. It worries me.

I just want to adda link to a last-year post:
http://austanspace.blogspot.com/2009/04/whiners.html

Microwave Sickness Experiment Part 3: One Year Later

It's been a year since I gave up using cordless phones and microwaves in my home.

http://austanspace.blogspot.com/2009/11/experiment.html

Though the growth on my clavicle hasn't receded much since the initial shrink, there are now no swollen glands around my ear, on my neck or my scalp. A year ago I had several painful bloated glands in those areas, and was considering surgery again (I'd already had 2 removed from my neck and 1 from under my tongue).

It's a bit of a hassle to live with tethered phones after years of cordless, but it pays off in a lot of ways. The old-fashioned mode of giving full attention to a call is a small joy. For so long, I'd been doing many other things while on the phone. It's a simpler and even somehow more respectful thing to sit in one spot and chat. It also gives a value to phone time- those who go on and on saying nothing are more easily moved along when they know you have other things to do which you can't while talking on the phone. These are side benefits I wasn't expecting.

So though some call me whatever they will, I'll stay with corded phones. It's given me a lot more time to do things I'd rather do. The phone doesn't easily intrude in my life anymore, and now there are plenty of times it's just not convenient to answer so I don't. All of which has reduced my stress level. And possibly, that's part of why my glands have receded. Who knows? I say if it's working don't mess with it.

Desperately Seeking Wayne

This week has been a weird journey. My Allyson had the surgery she needed, and though I send my love, a mama ought to be there in person. But I can't be. Poverty does that. My eldest nephew has a serious operation coming up, and again I can't be there. So what do I do? I do what I can. I write. And I help other writers when I can.

An author contacted me about a blog I wrote about Herman Slater, who used to be my boss. That contact, and consequent limp down memory lane made me want to find certain people. One of those people being Wayne K, who lived with Herman the last 2 years he was around. I went to the Childe website where I saw Wayne was looking for me, too. So I googled. That led me to a writers' site, which will be hugely useful to me once I find Wayne. I've left Wayne messages every way I could, including his blog right here on blogspot.

Dammit Wayne, I've missed the hell outta you. I read you're hitched and wrote at least one book- Hot Damn! Congrats! We have years to catch up on. Comment here, leave yr email addy- I moderate, so I'll get it in my email & not publish it (of course). Can't wait to hear from you!!! And I have shit to tell you, and a secret to clear up.

Update: I talked to Wayne the night before last. It was like we'd spoken last week rather than 16 years ago. Finally, I straightened out something that'd been eating at me for 18 years. And if all goes well, he and his wife will come vacation here next year. There's something about old friends, even moreso when you're among the last survivors of a certain experience, that's oddly comforting.