Shopping Season

I wondered what day it was when I had to park my car in Antarctica and walk to the local grocery store. It was 11am on Tuesday. But the traffic suggested that maybe it was Saturday, and I was just confused. Christmas was over. The herd of shoppers had promised to return to their houses heaping with previous purchases and back to their desk jobs at their cluttered cubicles. But it seemed we were experiencing an extended holiday season. Thank you, corporate America.

Whining children were pushed in carts by their unconcerned mothers. Children that should have been pushed in carts, zigzagged incoherently in the aisle. Families shopped together in packs, stalking and hunting their next big purchase. This was what I had hoped to avoid by doing my Christmas shopping on-line.

I rationalized that the screaming children were still on Holiday break, and their parents couldn’t leave them home alone. Someone should tell them that a little bit of Benadryl and a ball gag goes a long way. And everyone knows that duct tape is multipurpose.

It wasn’t just the families with children either. Everyone was out. The senior shoppers walked painfully past the 50% Christmas decorations, debating on whether or not that $1 item was really worth that much. Everywhere I turned there was one standing in front of me--limping with a cane or driving a large Amigo. And then they would suddenly stop and block the aisle.

I wasn’t there to bargain shop. I had a list. I needed onions and milk and bread. I had a legitimate reason to be there. I worked Christmas, and it was my day off. I wasn’t on some extended Holiday. So get the fuck out of my way!

Apparently, this week was supposed to be a big Christmas shopping week. I didn’t get that memo. I suppose everyone had to spend their gift cards right away and scoop up all the cheap deals. Like they don’t have enough shit. I know I have enough shit. This is what turns people into Hoarders. These super bargains and advertisements touting how much we need something and how much we’ll save—when really we would save more by never buying it in the first place.

I prefer to shop between 11pm-7am. No screaming children. Empty parking lots. When I turn down an aisle, I don’t have to navigate around anyone except for the stockers. And they’re harmless—not like shoppers. Shoppers have poisonous fangs. They emit gases that make the aisles spin and your chest grow tight. And if they touch you—even brush past you, you could die instantaneously. If I look down any aisle and see that I won’t be able to keep a safe passing distance between me and one of those shoppers, I go to the next aisle.

It’s not that I don’t like shopping. I enjoy going down each aisle at the grocery store in consecutive order. I like to read the labels and touch new items. When I’m looking at non-food items, I’m attracted to silver, glass and bright shiny things. But other shoppers and their offspring make it a haven of death. I don’t like to feel that I’m being rushed. I don’t like someone standing too close or someone hovering behind me, waiting to get their leach hands on the item I just touched.

Or what about those shoppers who stand right in front of my brand of milk—1% Organic. Why couldn’t they be standing in front of the Lactaid milk or the eggs? It’s like they are doing it on purpose--to break me. So they can crack my skull open and eat my brains.

And those self-check out lanes. I’m okay with them unless someone is standing impatiently behind me. They sigh loudly, shift their weight several times and fidget. That makes me nervous, and then I can’t concentrate. Those are the same shoppers that start to scan their own groceries and send them down the belt before I have even started bagging mine. So I start throwing things into bags. When I get home, I discover smashed bread and injured tomatoes.

Shoppers are dangerous, so I lay low. I buy my things at night and make purchases on the internet. When I do go to the store, I wear camouflage and spray around the perimeter of my car with shopper’s urine. Because you can’t reason with a cannibal. They’re savages.

Zombie Nurse

When I work 3rd shift, everyday is like waking up with a hangover. Body aches, head aches. Nothing that Motrin or Tylenol can really touch. A constant fuzziness in my brain, like the grey matter started to mold up there. Put that Reticular Activating System back in the crisper would you? Oops someone forgot to close the cerebellum bag. Now it’s all crusty and dry. Damn it. I was going to use that.

Can’t get enough sleep--ever. After three 12 hour shifts in a row, I crash. I go to bed during day light hours, but don’t wake up until it’s dark again. The daylight never happened. It’s winter in Michigan; there’s no daylight anyway. In my dreams, I pop vitamin D pills like their M&Ms and visit long hallways filled with tanning beds and UV lights.

The zombie apocalypse is real. We are the living zombies. We eat. We sleep. Sometimes we shit and shower. We go to work. And then we do it all over again. Notice that glazed look in our eyes. bRaIns! BrAiNs! We can’t seem to wake our brains. So we crave yours hoping that if we eat your dayshift brains, we will feel the sun on our pale dead bodies.

I watch other people sleep. I’m the night shift nurse with the squeaky shoes that opens the door every hour to make sure that you’re sleeping. This is why you can’t sleep in the hospital. I can’t sleep, so neither should you.

“Are you having any chest pain?” I ask.
“No, not right now. I’m sleeping,” You say.
“I could have sworn you said you were having chest pain.”
“I was sleeping”.
“Does this hurt?” I ask as I punch you in the chest.
“Hey—Ouch!”
“Better get you some nitro. Let me get your vital signs. While we’re at it, we should get a troponin and an EKG.”
The phlebotomist jabs a needle in your vein while the respiratory therapist places cold electrodes on your chest.
“But it doesn’t really hurt that much,” You say.
I pump the blood pressure cuff up to 250mmHg.

When I’m not working, I have found that activities that used to be enjoyable have lost their appeal.

Instead of cooking, I point and click on Facebook’s Café World. I point and click an entire meal, watching virtual people enjoy gingerbread houses, pot roasts and gourmet duck. Wish I felt like cooking.

Instead of writing, I watch Buck Roger’s Episodes on Hulu.

Instead of going to the movies, I stream movies through the Xbox from Netflix.

Eating? Brains sound good. Otherwise I’m a little nauseated. Healthy choices like vegetables and fruits seem obsolete. I want brains and junk food. Brains and chocolate chip cookies. Brains and chips.

Why bother getting dressed on my days off? For that matter, why bother showering? I’m probably just going to get back into bed in a few hours anyway, so that I can sleep during those normal sleeping hours when it’s dark--instead of working under fluorescent lights. So off days become pajama days on the couch. Followed by more sleeping in the bed.

Naptime replaces all favorite hobbies, interests and relationships.

Corn Whores agree--Corn is Cheap

I’m convinced that Subway is working on global domination. No matter where you drive, there’s a Subway within a mile radius, touting their healthy choices. They are setting themselves up as the healthy fast food—a better choice. Don’t go do McDonald’s. Go to Subway instead. Subway is probably a healthier choice, depending on what you pick from the menu. However, the food is just as unreal and manufactured as any other fast food corporation.

Their sandwiches are loaded with processed lunch meat that contain hydrolyzed proteins and nitrate preservatives. Their 9 Grain Wheat bread contains high fructose corn syrup. The number one ingredient in their fat-free honey mustard dressing is corn syrup. It’s the second ingredient in their red wine vinaigrette. Lunch meats also contain corn syrup. Not to mention the lists of unpronounceable additives: disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, sodium phosphates), polysorbate 80, sodium tripolyphosphate, sodium diacetate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, tetrasodium phosphate.

Like any corporation that is striving to take over the world, they want to do it cheaply. Corn is a cheap ingredient. The fast food industry needs a source of cheap meat and cheap food products in order to make a profit. Lucky for them--corn is in everything. Corn is overproduced and unprofitable for farmers to grow, so the government must provide subsidies. What do you do with an overabundance of corn? You find ways to get rid of it. You hide it all food products. Read your labels.

Cows, pigs and chickens used to eat grass. Now they are fed corn. They are fed corn because they get fatter faster. How much corn do you think we consume? Are we being fattened up? I keep thinking there are giants waiting to feast on us.

One of the ingredients in Subway’s oven roasted chicken patty is “chicken type flavor.” It’s chicken isn’t it? So why would you have to put chicken flavor on a chicken?

The following is a menu item copied and pasted from Subway’s website. All red items are corn derived.

OVEN ROASTED CHICKEN PATTY Oven roasted chicken with rib meat, water, seasoning (corn syrup solids, vinegar powder [maltodextrin, modified corn starch & tapioca starch, dried vinegar], brown sugar, salt, dextrose, garlic powder, onion powder, chicken type flavor [hydrolyzed corn gluten, autolyzed yeast extract, thiamine hydrochloride, disodium inosinate & disodium guanylate]), sodium phosphate.

The grocery store gives us the illusion of choice. I recently watched a documentary Food Inc. Three corporations control 90% all the meat sources in the United States. So you may think that you have all these choices, but you don’t. Your meat still came from the same corporate slaughter house. Sick, corn-fed cows standing in 2 feet of their own shit.

You say that you’re a vegetarian. That’s all very nice. But our vegetables and fruits are being
controlled as well. Monsanto has been diligently working on patenting life. Eventually they will control our food source and choose what we get to eat. Monsanto has been suing farmers that reuse their seeds, because it’s an infringement on Monsanto’s patent.

I’m just as guilty as the next person. I indulge in fast food. I buy meat from the grocery store. If you close your eyes and really taste what you’re eating, does it really taste good? I did this with some grapes recently. It tasted sweet. Wet and sweet, but not much like a grape. Our food is being hijacked.

There are a few ways to get around this.
1. Move to a hippy commune.
2. Own your own farm and use heirloom seeds and raise your own meat.
3. Start your own hippy commune.
4. Buy fruits, veggies and meat from small local farmers.
5. Demand better quality food from stores & restaurants.
6. Support your local hippy commune.
7. Starve to death.

Links of interest:
Food Inc. http://www.takepart.com/foodinc
King Corn http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/

A side note. A couple years ago, I discovered I was allergic to corn. It was corn that was making me short of breath and wheezy. I’m not sure if this allergy is related to the genetic modification of our food or my poor genetic make up. Either way, I’m bitter because I can no longer indulge in tortilla chips, polenta and cornbread casserole. I can’t have it, so nobody else should either. But it has also made me an avid label reader. And it concerns me how much corn is in everything. Wheat and soy are also found in many food products. Both grains are listed in the top 8 food allergens. If I want to eat wheat or soy or corn, then I’ll chose to do so, but why must they be hidden in everything?

Suicidal god

My dog’s on suicide precautions. I had to take away all her eating utensils--even the chopsticks. So now she has to eat directly from the bowl. It doesn’t seem to slow her down. Then I hid the dirty shirt that she likes to drag around. Figured it could be a potential hanging hazard. It’s just that all she does is eat, sleep and lay on the couch with those sad eyes. Anytime I don’t do what she wants, she threatens to kill herself. She says she’ll do it too.

I tried to spend extra time with her. I let her know that I was there for her anytime she wanted to talk. But she wouldn’t talk to me. Just laid there and stared at me like she was dying. Then I thought, they have drugs for this sort of thing. Puppy Prozac. Doggy Diazepam. A Canine Cocktail for happy wagging tails.

So I took Judah to the doggy psychiatrist.

“I think she may have a drinking problem,” I explained.
The psychiatrist frowned and wrote something down.
“So she’s been drinking a lot of water?” the psychiatrist asked.
“No, not water.” I glanced at the dog and whispered. “You know an alcohol problem.”
Judah rolled her eyes.
“I noticed that there were several wine bottles in the recycle bin,” I said.
“And she has access to the wine?”
I don’t think the psychiatrist believed me.
“She spends a lot of time home alone,” I said.
“Is there anything else that makes you think that Judah is depressed?”
“She sleeps on the couch all day.”
I looked at Judah. She denied everything as we sat there in the office. She was even smiling and wagging her tail.
“She chews her nails too. I think she might be anxious.”
The psychiatrist recommended diet and exercise for us both.

***
As soon as we got home, Judah started to make threats. If I didn’t take her outside or give her breakfast or snacks, she’d slit her wrists.
“Whatever,” I said. “You don’t have any thumbs.”
Then she said, “Down the street not across.”
I handed her another biscuit.

The next day she spit out her doggy treat. It was one of those green dental ones.
“Who do you think I am?” she asked.
“The dog,” I said.
“That’s right. Thee Dog. Capital D. And everyone knows what dog spells backwards.”
“God. Little g,” I said.
“I’m calling the animal cruelty hot line.”
“Don’t,” I said. But I only half meant it. I was thinking about calling animal control myself. I’d slip her tags over her head and claim that I didn’t know whose she was.

Judah stared directly at my plate at my half eaten Porterhouse, medium rare. I was forced to saw off half a portion.
“It’s a little overdone, don’t you think?” she asked.
You eat rotten things. You fall asleep with your nose in your ass. You roll on dead things. But I didn’t say any of those things, because of her delicate condition.
“Be sure to make me dessert,” she said, eying the chocolate chip cookies.
“You can’t have those,” I said.
“Why because I’m a dog?”
“You’re allergic.”
“Pick the chocolate chips out.”
“I’m not picking--”
“I’m good friends with PETA. I’ll tell them you’re poisoning me.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She glared at me. These weren’t the sad eyes of depression.
I spent 20 minutes picking out chocolate chips. Her cookie was nothing but crumbs.
“Next time why don’t you make peanut butter cookies?” She licked her paws.
“Yes, Dog,” I said.

Thanksgiving with the Tobbies

I was in the middle of rolling a pork roulade when the phone rang. The caller I.D. flashed Robbie Tobbie. That’s my mom’s boyfriend. I had raw meat hands. I let it ring. I didn’t want to talk to him anyway. I should have never started being nice to him. Now he thinks we’re friends and gives me junk that he picks up at garage sales.

Whenever I try to visit with Mom, it’s always the same thing. Robbie Tobbie shows up drunk, and continues to drink cheap beer between shots of Jack. Every five minutes he is woohooing! High fiving. Shaking hands. Until he gets paranoid that we are conspiring against him. Then he goes to the garage to start up his the Nova that he’s had since he was 16. Revs the engine. He’s never actually had it on the road. Then he pulls the quad out and drives it around the loop of the driveway.

I placed the roulade in the fridge and washed my hands. He didn’t leave a message.
I called mom.
“So why is Robbie Tobbie calling me?”
“Oh must be he’s mad because you won’t let him bring his dog.”
I had respectfully asked him not bring his dog. His puppy that growls and chews on table legs and has no shots.
“Says if his dog’s not welcome, he’s not coming.”

Last Thanksgiving I sat at home and played video games, because Robbie Tobbie got mad and wouldn’t bring mom down. Mom has issues. She won’t drive outside the city
that she was born in. It was one of my best Thanksgivings.

“Do you need me to pick you up?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
I had pumpkin rolls in the freezer ready to thaw. Cranberry onion stuffing. Sautéed squash for the risotto.
“So you’re not coming?”

The whole point of having Thanksgiving at my house was so that I didn’t have to drive two hours there and two hours back. I had to work the next day. Nobody else had to work. Both Mom and Robbie had been unemployed for over 2 years. We had made these plans a month in advance. I bought all the ingredients and had almost finished prepping the entire feast. All they had to do was show up. But Mom couldn’t even do that.

“I don’t know Duesie. I’ll call you back at 7”
Of course she didn’t call. When I called her, she didn’t pick up. She probably rushed over to Robbie Tobbie’s house to tell him I was mad.

When I’m Up North, she pretends that they are not together. According to her she kicked him out months ago. Then she says that he won’t show up and acts surprised when he does. His picture still hangs on the wall in the living room.

After Robbie’s done riding the quad around the drive way, he passes out in her bed. But they’re not together. She’s mad that he owes her 2 years worth of rent. He just spent $6000 of is 401K on a gutted Nova. His unemployment runs out this month. No one’s going to hire him with his beer gut and missing teeth—not that he would ever pass as piss test.

Maybe she keeps him around as a chauffeur or to bring in firewood. She thinks she can control him, but she can’t. Robbie Tobbie does what he wants.

She called me back at 8:30.
“I don’t know, Duesie.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll bring dinner, but this is the last time.”

I carted a cooler full of Thanksgiving food 2 hours North. Mom apologized the entire dinner. Robbie Tobbie ate in silence and plopped himself on the couch afterwards. No compliments. No thank you.

“I would have come down on Wednesday no problem if everyone had their shit together,” Robbie said from his spot on the couch.
I can tell by his tone that we’re not friends anymore. And that’s just fine.
“I’m glad I didn’t inconvenience anyone,” I said.
I imagined next Thanksgiving like a scene from Fried Green Tomatoes--Robbie Tobbie mysteriously absent while we munch on the best BBQ ever.

I wheeled my empty cooler to the car.
“Aren’t you staying, Duesie?” Mom asked
“I have to work in the morning, remember?”
“I could come back down with you.”

Maybe I would be the only one eating BBQ next Thanksgiving.

Turkey Day, An American Tradition

Stuff a large bird with bread and bake it. Make gravy from the bird’s organs, but call them giblets, because that sounds more lighthearted. Make enough gravy to fill a cruise ship. Serve the bird with massive side dishes of mashed potatoes, corn, and green bean casserole. Don’t forget the warm rolls slathered in non-hydrogenated margarine, because butter is unhealthy.

Eat until it hurts. There’s not enough room for salad, but you think you can squeeze in another spoonful of casserole. Sit on the couch with the remote control and flip through the channels. Surf the internet during commercials. While the TV is blaring in the background, find something more interesting to watch on Hulu. Watch The Biggest Loser and be thankful that you’re not 400 pounds yet. Belch. Fart. You discover that there’s room for dessert. There’s a starving Ethiopian living in your left leg.

Take notes on Black Friday deals. You might not even have to leave your chair this year. This delights you. Pull up another window on your screen. You watch a YouTube video about the 33 year old man who died in his recliner because he was morbidly obese. You’re thankful that you can get out of the chair with the greatest of ease. You unbutton your pants to let the turkey breathe in your belly.

This year you’re hoping to skip the smack down in the toy aisle over Twilight Dolls and Zhuzhu pets. Last year you camped out in the parking lot in a long line. Once you got into the store, some large black woman lost her wig to a white bitch. There was hair pulling and blood.

It’s important. You will be sacrificing your comfort to obtain family and friends items that they need to have by December 25. So you can exchange gifts between mouthfuls of ham and chocolate truffles. Aunt Doris would have died without The Clapper last year. And the Chia Pet that she gave you---well, you thanked her profusely and discreetly placed it on the Goodwill pile when you got home.

From the lesbian corner

Being neighbors in the city is quite the paradox. You come to know personal habits of complete strangers without ever learning their names—like witnessing a neighbor sitting on their toilet through an un-curtained window. Instead of introducing ourselves, we make up names for them and sometimes stories.

After two months of partying, Mr. Braid is moving. It seemed like partying anyway. The front yard was set up with two picnic tables and random furniture. And the grill was lit every night while the men sat around the picnic table smoking and drinking beer. But I’m starting to think that maybe it wasn’t a party. Maybe his house was too full, and there wasn’t room enough to cook and eat inside because he had taken in a less fortunate family.

But now it’s cold, and the party has ended. And Mr. Braid who was going to lead a crusade against dog owners who didn’t pick up their dog shit, has taken his picnic table elsewhere. He would always dream big when he was drinking and smoking at his picnic table. He’d call us over, Hey Honey. Hey Sweetie. He thought we were sisters. He’d tell us his next big plan. The neighborhood pig roast. The new park. Then he’d drive drunk in his Chevy truck. Now his house is dark and the Chevy is gone.

The only thing I ever saw of the neighbors that lived in the house before Mr. Braid was the constant glow of the big screen TV. For all I know, there might have been a corpse rotting on the couch. Mr. Braid was different. He’d actually come out of his house to plant tomatoes and play horse shoes. He even helped fix up the former crack house. Mr. Braid was the only neighbor who ever talked to us. Let us know when he’d be out of town. Invited us to his Pig roast. Returned our green bowl after the party. Offered to mow our lawn.

Maybe he’s the only neighbor that talked to us because he thought we were sisters instead of the scary lesbians on the corner.

The Catholics, our neighbors in the big black house, thought Mr. Braid was in a Mexican gang, because he had so many people over to his house. The Catholics come from New York—obviously not the city of. It’s not like he was flashing his colors and rolling up one pant leg. He doesn’t even have tattoos.

I don’t think they’re really Catholic, but they're in their late 30’s and on their 5th kid. They listen to Christian music and talk to their kids about God sometimes. I think they work or volunteer at some food pantry. They don’t seem to have real jobs. They’re home at odd times. For a while, they home-schooled their children. When she had their last child, they were gone for a month. Jacks said that they had to go to Jerusalem to have their baby.

Mrs. Catholic dresses in organic, hippy clothes. Mr. Catholic looks like Dean Kane. I’ve rescued their runaway dog Scout a few times. We’ve given them a Christmas wreath and Christmas cookies. Now they have a homeless man living with them--the same man I called a bum. I think I may have offended them. But he was hanging out between our yard and their yard, drinking beer. Then he tried to climb our fence and threatened my dog. Mrs. Catholic hasn’t talked to me since I called the man a bum. He wasn’t particularly friendly. So I’m not up on my PC. But they thought Mr. Braid was a thug. So whatever.

We are sandwiched in between the Catholics and the Volvo drivers. They are buddies. They made a special door in their fence, so they could share yards. Mr.& Mrs. Volvo are renting from the Christian Republican Dyke that moved back out West. She looked like a Dyke. Only ever had women friends over. Women friends that drove Chevy trucks and also looked like dykes. She was 40 and single with an old dog. She had spiky hair and stovepipe legs. But she flew Easter flags and had a Bush Cheney sticker on her front door.

The new neighbors drive a Volvo and have 2 children. It seems like they might actually work. They keep their curtains wide open so you can see inside. They have a Tibetan peace flag hanging in their house just like the Catholics. Their living room is the same color as ours. Jacks said they copied our color scheme.

Mr. Nascar Roofer Man lives across from the Catholics. He drives a white work truck. Mrs. Catholic said he’s a recovering Drug addict. The Catholics and Mr. Nascar used to be friends, but they aren’t that close anymore. I don’t think the Catholics wanted their kids mixing with the other kids in the neighborhood. His wife yells at the kids a lot. The bums hang out on his stoop. He re-roofed his house last summer.

While he was on his roof, he had a conversation with Amelio’s Mom a block away. I call her that because she is always yelling for AMELIO in her deep, throaty smoker’s voice. Her yelling doesn’t help any. Amelio is all of 5 years old and always plays in the street. I almost hit him once. There doesn’t seem to be any problem with abductions in this neighborhood. The kids just keep coming back, walking through our lawn as if the sidewalk is an incidental piece of cement.

I have lived in this house for 4 years. Just last month, Amelio’s mom introduced herself as our neighbor. Well, no shit. We can only hear you yelling every fucking day of our lives. Wish she’d fucking shut up for once. It wasn’t a social call. She was looking for some rakes that her sons had lifted. Those rakes lay on our lawn for 2 weeks. Like I know where they’re at now.

Amelio’s Mom drinks beer with the Mexican family at the former crack house. There’s a lot of people living in that house. My favorite is the Alzheimer’s Grandpa. He’s always walking, pushing an unwilling child in a stroller. The teenage boys wear skinny jeans and skateboard. They watch Univision all day with the door open in the summer. Sometimes I can smell corn tortillas.


There used to be an African family in the former meth lab house, but they had to move. Apparently, the landlord lost the place, because the renters on top weren’t paying. Foreclosure takes a long time. The non-paying family still lives on top. Non-descript mixed couple with a new baby. Makes me angry that they are still there and the Africans are gone. They were quiet and kept to themselves and kept their lawn nice.

The obsessive compulsive lady on the other side of the Volvo neighbors drives a red minivan and rakes her leaves into the street every autumn even though everyone else pays for yard waste pick-up. She constantly sweeps her driveway. Sweep sweep sweep.

Every once in a while the little old lady that wears purple and drives a purple truck and lives in a purple house walks by. Not always in purple. But it’s always a 1 color outfit. Her house has been for sale as long as I have lived here. I suppose nobody wants to buy a purple house. I feel bad for her, having to live in this neighborhood and not being able to sell her house.

I’ve thought about making Christmas cookies this year to give to the neighbors. I don’t want to be friends or anything--just friendly. I want a neighbor that watches my shit while I’m out of town--a neighbor that would call the police if someone was sneaking through my window instead of filming it for Youtube. But I wonder if it’s really worth the effort. They might be worried that the lesbians are trying to poison them. After all, I’m sure we’re known as the lesbians on the corner. Because I’ve never introduced myself and nobody has ever asked. Even Mr. Braid only knew us as Honey and Sweetie. And I only referred to him as Mr. Braid, because of the braid in his hair--even though I think his real name is Al.

Is Gary Dop God?

The Michigan lottery was just hanging out on the corner of Butternut and 144th with their trailer of lotto cash. The bills were part of a large sheet of perforated cardboard. Each rectangle was worth $1000. It was on a first come first serve basis. Magically, I was the first to arrive and emptied the trailer except for a few bills. I took the sheets rather than trying to separate the bills. It seemed the only logical thing to do. Before I could count my $1000 pieces of cardboard, I woke up.

But if you look up dreams about money, it’s never about money. Freudian thought views money as a symbol for excrement. Isn’t it obvious that a pile of cash is really just a pile of shit? I most certainly wouldn’t want to spend it or pay my bills. It’s really that I have a problem with anal fixation, and I’m mentally damaged from strict toilet training as a child. What the fuck? Everything is about sex or shit with Freud.

I played the lotto on Friday the 13th. I didn’t win. This isn’t some happy fairy story. But Jacks won $20 on a scratch off. Maybe her luck was my luck by proximity. Really, I have been more fortunate lately. In September, I was offered and accepted a new job in ICU/TU when the odds of finding a new job in this economy are 5%. I’m not sure who came up with that number, but it makes a good story. The 1st day that I worked in ICU on my own, I had a seriously critically ill patient on a ventilator with an ART line, CVP line and about 7 IV solutions all working to keep this patient alive. I would not have been surprised if this patient had died, but the patient lived that night and the next night. My new boss sent me an e-mail congratulating me on my good work! Me, who was scared shitless to work in ICU.

Last week I received an acceptance letter from Vagabondage Press. They accepted “The Key Collector” for The Battered Suitcase for the Spring 2010 issue. http://www.vagabondagepress.com/

It’s not just me either. Some of my MFA buddies have reported prize nominations and acceptances for their writings. My MFA buddies say that this new fortune should be attributed to Gary Dop. http://www.garydop.com/index.html Gary Dop is God, they say. He is also a University of Nebraska MFA graduate. It’s rumored that his poetry gets published every month. In fact, he might even get paid to write. So they follow the Commandments of Dop, hoping that they too can receive publishing blessings. #1 Send out multiple submissions. #2 Snail mail has a better chance of being accepted than e-mail. #3 Keep sending out multiple submissions. Okay, so I don’t really know the commandments, because I don’t believe in Gary Dop. I believe that he exists. I just don’t believe in his supernatural powers. And then I took his name in vain. Gary Dop Damn it! My MFA buddies chastised me. Maybe if I believed in Gary Dop, I’d win the lotto. Maybe I could make a Gary Dop shrine and pray to his mother. Maybe I could hang a painting of him over my bed, so he could look down upon me while I sleep peacefully in my bed and dream about winning the lotto and getting published.

Fuck You Chase!

I received a phone call from Chase Mortgage Company. They hold my mortgage. Some new person was handling my loan modification. I was confused. As far as I knew the account had been closed. I had not qualified. Two months after submitting my application, I had called to check on the status. I talked to some  woman an accent. I was being down-staffed a shift a week. Student loans were looming in the future. But she said that she didn’t see the problem.

The woman suggested that I try to refinance instead. I had tried to refinance in 2008. After I was told that I would most certainly be refinanced and paid $400, I was denied. They kept the $400. Yet, Chase granted me another $5000 credit card. Gee, thanks.

I was all set to call this Chase representative back and tell him to fuck off, I don’t need your help anymore. But I’m a pussy. And he’s not Chase, just a worker for the man who has his own bills to pay. He congratulated me on my new job. He wasn’t like the woman.

If I can help it, I will never finance anything through Chase again. I will not recommend them. BOYCOTT CHASE! I realize that Chase is a corporate-conglomeration and my opinion, happiness and well-being means very little to them. The feeling is mutual.

I will continue to pay my payments on-time and look eagerly to the future when I can sell this house and not owe Chase anything.

Voyeurism

Ah, the voyeurism of Facebook. It allows you to befriend acquaintances from high school, friends from former lives and relatives that you haven’t seen in at least 10 years. Maybe it’s about getting the friend numbers up there in order not to look like a loser. Because it’s not like you really talk after the befriending. They’re static pictures with profiles. Once in a while they’ll send an update. After 15 years, you find out that they’re enjoying coffee or their kid is home sick with the swine flu.

But what do you really say after so much time? Hey, I fuck women now. I hate kids. And I don’t believe in the same bullshit that you do. Instead I put a disclaimer on my page, warning of controversial topics. And some of these friends and acquaintances from my former life disappear quietly--perhaps wishing that they hadn’t learned quite so much and desperately trying to remember the way I used to be.

I’ve clicked on these distant friends, looking at their pictures, asking myself if I look that old. I’m obviously in denial. Then I click on their friends and their friend’s friends. And I start to find people that I used to know. People that I left behind for another life. And I realize exactly how much time has passed. Time enough for children to grow into adults, unrecognizable giants compared to their former selves. Time for hairlines to recede beyond denial. Worry lines turn to crinkles and to wrinkles. Salt & pepper hair turns white. People that were old then, ancient now. Some thinner, some fatter and a few unchanged.

The last time I saw you . . .

You were at the garage sale that Jessie threw. She insisted on getting rid of all our junk. You recognized the white dress that I let you borrow for some big event. You had a ring on your finger. Before that, we were raking someone else’s lawn and you told me you were going to date him. I think you might have felt bad about it, but you didn’t know then, that I didn’t really care. He was the least of my worries.

We were in church. And you made sure you looked the other way. Before that we sat together on a park bench in Zeeland by the fountain where I gave you the “let’s be friends” letter. You cried.

I saw you in Ange's back yard. At least 10 years ago-- maybe more. And the time before that was at Vonnie's when Robbie was like 2. Then again in 1989 on our Spring Vacation. We drove all the way to Dunn. You played the Cocktail Soundtrack. You were into Hippy Hippy Shake. The first time, you were a baby in my house. Gram Fran was there. I got a doll that year for Christmas and I named it after you.

We saw you at Family Video store in Holland. You were driving an antique car.

You were working at Wal-Mart.

I tried to avoid you as I walked out the church door. Moments before that you had been behind the pulpit giving your sermon.

You were in the front row at church. You were grade school age. Your nose was always stuffy because of allergies. I think you had a stack of pogs.

Your hair was permed and you were probably playing your trumpet on stage.

We were both shopping at Target. You were visiting from D.C.

You were up from some other state, visiting. We ate at TGI Fridays.

In our 1 bedroom apartment. You told us to try an open relationship.

In a smoke-filled apartment in Okalahoma City, the day after New Years. Someone had made Mexican chicken tortilla soup.

I have a vague recollection of seeing you last at a nursing home. You must have just started working there or something.

You were bringing your son to the Emergency Room. I was on my way into work.

We were passengers in a friend’s car. Your boyfriend wouldn’t stop calling.

I saw you at Wheatland with your husband, but you didn’t hear me when I called your name. I let it go. You disappeared into the crowd.

The Nishi Monologue

After not having the right word for poop, that fateful day on the bus, I learned to wait and see what words the other kids were using. Vagina was never a word that came up. Nobody talked about their vaginas. Dick was frequently referenced. In the 5th grade, J.S. brought a condom to class and stuck it on the drinking fountain. In middle school, he showed up covered in hickies. I’m sure he knew what a vagina was.

I didn’t know what to call it until after middle school health class. We were bombarded with medical terms: STDs, condoms and VAGINA. But vagina was such an ugly word.

Before then, I knew that spot as a NISHI. Nishi sounds like a sushi roll. Sashimi over rice delicately covered with pickled ginger with a side of wasabe and soy sauce for dipping.

When I googled Nishi, it showed up as a Japanese surname and an Indian 1st name. It’s Sankrit for Night. So I googled Nishi along with Vagina and all I got was a compiled list of words for vagina from the Vagina Monologues. No history. No background. No origins. But some other mom besides my mom used this word. I had figured it was another word Mom had made up or had been passed down from her mother-- like the word she used for the cows in the field—CooBossies.

I expanded my repertoire of words from movies. In Go Fish, they are laying in circle on the floor listing all the names they knew for that dark spot: Honey Pot, Bearded Clam and Love Mound. But it was Boys on the Side that had the word that stuck.

Jane: [Elaine is crying at Robin's bedside, the nurse thinks her sniffles are relative to a cold, and tells her she could aggravate her daughter's condition] It's not a goddamn cold! Don't be such a hoo-hoo. Nurse: [apathetic] And what's a hoo-hoo? Elaine: [kindly] It's a cunt, dear. [nurse gasps] Elaine: Now why don't you leave us alone?

Hoo-hoo is he word that stuck. Only I like to spell it whowho. Maybe it should be a whatwhat.

Picking up Women at the Gas Station

People freak out about meeting other people on the internet. They could be serial rapists or serial killers. I would have to say you have the same chance of meeting them on the internet as you do in real life.

Jessie was driving her shitty little Saturn. I was sitting in the back seat. A big red truck drove along side of us and honked. They were honking because they approved of our rainbow sticker. We pulled into a gas station and the truck pulled into the gas station across the street. Before we left, the red truck drove over to our side. A short little Mexican woman jumped out. Somehow Jessie arranged a date between me and this woman, Esme.

It was almost a blind date. I didn’t know her. We danced at Diversions, and I brought her home. And then she didn’t leave for 2 months. Esme lived on 16th street in an olive green house with her mother and the 8 year-old son she had when she was only 13. The kitchen walls and ceiling were brown with grease. There had been a fire. Tester noodles were crusted on the backsplash.

Her mother wore oxygen and was too fat to tie her own shoes. She couldn’t move very fast, but her voice carried and she scared me a little. I met many of her friends and family that commented on my light eyes. I only ever caught half the conversation, because it was always in Spanish. Esme drove a gold Camero with naked women silhouettes. It didn’t run very well and spent most of the time parked in her backyard. I didn’t really think anything about her not working, because I was a college student. A lot of us didn’t work or didn’t work that often. But I think she was dealing. And that was why she was on probation. Only I didn’t understand this until later.

I was 21. I believed what people told me. It only lasted 2 months, and I would have ended it sooner, but I was scared how she would react. I caught her in lies. Was it an overdose or a brain tumor or multiple personality disorder? Esme wasn’t educated enough to keep the lies believable. Instead of picking one lie, she would combine and overlap them where they didn’t make sense. I wasn’t stupid, only new to liars and manipulators.

She stole my chocolate one day. I think it was intended to be funny. But I’m serious about my chocolate. I tried to get it back, and she was rather rough about it. I realized while we wrestled on the floor that she could hurt me and wouldn’t care if she did.

There was something mean about her. She had this kitten for a while, but as soon as she saw another kitten that she liked better she threw the old kitten out. She said it was ugly.

Esme had been looking forward to going to the graduation dance with me. She had just bought a new outfit. A couple of days before the dance, I broke up with her via letter. Jessie delivered it. The next day there was a box of things on the porch, pictures of us together with her face cut out and everything I ever gave her. She requested I return everything that she ever gave to me. I didn’t. I still have my broken hematite ring, the glass fang with a bubble of mercury and some pesos from Mexico. I don’t have a single picture of her though.

Jessie said she saw her drive by the house a few times in her red truck (really her fiancés red truck, the fiancé she had the entire time) But we moved. I didn’t see her again until Tulip Time. She acted like we were real close, called me some endearing term. I kept on walking.

I heard about her later through the lesbian grapevine. Sylvia shook her head in amazement, “You dated Horse Hair?” “Why do you call her that?” I asked. “Because she had a fucking mullet.” Sylvia said that Horse Hair had dated her girlfriend Erica. At one point she came to D&W with a loaded gun and waved it around. And another friend of mine had dated her sometime later and got a disease. She might have had bad hair, but she got around.

Memories of a Cougar

The last time I saw Beatriz must have been over 5 years ago. When my couple of dates with her daughter, Carmen were not so remote. When I looked more like myself then with the blonde spiky hair. Beatriz asked me if I had a girlfriend or something. She remembered that I had dated Carmen. But I can’t remember how the conversation started. Or maybe Carmen had asked Beatriz to ask me. That’s when Bea’s cheeks were fuller. Before the dentures. Before her skin turned from olive to pasty grey.

Before the date with Carmen. I worked with Bea on 2nd shift at the Nursing Home—washing up residents after they dug themselves out and finger painted with their own shit. Ah, those were the days. Bea had perfectly curled hair and dark lipstick with liner. There was something elegant about her. She was only in her 50’s then. Now she’s a great-grandma. So I can only assume that one of Carmen’s kids is the parent.

Seems like I met Carmen on Yahoo personals. At the time, I was living with Jessie and Mel. It was during my serial monogamous rebound relationships--after Joe, after my 2 day stay in Pumpkin Town. It was after Horse Hair. January, February, March 1999? No it had to be March, because I was already hired in at the hospital. Our first date was at Ponderosa. I had never eaten at Ponderosa. It was before I knew what good food was. She brought her children. They had bright green or blue eyes. And I had to touch them otherwise give them Ojo. That’s when I learned about the Evil Eye. If you look at a child and want to hold them and then don’t, they get sick with the Evil Eye.

Our second date was at—fuck I can’t remember the name. Now Rumor’s bar, but it was a lesbian bar then. She wanted to smoke her cigarette outside. Carmen said they wouldn’t let her smoke her “special” cigarettes inside, because they stunk too much. So we stood outside in the parking lot or maybe we were sitting in her car. It didn’t smell like a cigarette. Her “special” cigarette was of the MaryJane brand, but I didn’t really know about that then.

I think she kissed me on the cheek before she let me out of the car. Maybe I let myself out of the car. And I never saw her again until the other day. Goddamn, I would not have recognized her. Except Bea was there, and I recognized Bea. And she introduced Carmen. She had been a hot 40 year-old Latina with her mother’s hot lips. Now she was a rough 50 year old with pockmarked skin and pajamas. I don’t think she recognized me by face or name. I was some stranger amidst an information exchange. But what are 2 dates that I can’t clearly remember? 2 dates and a few e-mails 10 years ago doesn’t lend itself very well to tangible memory. It’s so distant and fuzzy, it might not have ever happened.

Not long after our last date, Jessie and Mel saw Carmen making out with some man in a truck. Carmen saw them see her and she ducked away. Looking back I think the whole date thing with Carmen was a set-up. I suspect she was friends with Horse Hair. They lived on the same street. Things with Horse Hair didn’t end well and there was stalking involved. Stalking that might have continued, had I not moved. Maybe Carmen had been sent as a spy. But it never amounted to anything. Maybe Horse Hair was trying to find out if I still talked about her. Which I didn’t. So there was nothing to find out.

But 10 years later I have these faint memories, and I wonder if I’m the only one who remembers or am I only confabulating. Memories fail. I see that now. Do I remember how it really happened or how I think it happened?

Slavery Ads on C-List

Ads copied, pasted & altered (except for original spelling errors) from C-list (green font denotes name change to protect the allegedly guilty):

In Need of Line Cooks (Lizard Room/The PapSmear HouseLounge)
Located downtown on the corner of Slavery & Indentured Servitude. Must be open to work 3pm-11:30pm Monday-Saturday.Must being willing to learn to roll sushi.Must be able to handle the stress of two restuarants from one kitchen. Will get a set schedule. Please don't call or stop in! Email resumes to fuckmeintheasslounge@slavery.com
Location: Lizard Room/The Papsmear House Lounge
Compensation: 7.40
This is a part-time job.

***
Family Style Restaurant:
Entry Level Management (30-40 hours/wk). Starting Position - Lead Night Cook. Full Time. Paid Vacation. Demostrates Leadership Skills. Great Work Ethic - Role Model Conscientious. Works well within a team environment. Great at cost control Great at food quality. Career minded in the food industry. Compensation: $8.50-$8.75/hr.

The Lizard Room wants a line cook to handle the stress of making food for 2 restaurants, roll sushi, and maintain a flexible schedule (be available 6 days a week, but not necessarily work or get paid) for $7.40 with no benefits. Notice they can’t even spell restaurant correctly in their ad. $7.40 is minimum wage. The dishwasher is making the same amount by spraying dirty dishes and running them through a machine. I’m not suggesting that the dishwasher get paid less, but should the line cook only be getting the same for work that is more difficult? You could probably make just as much or more working at McDonald’s or holding one of those cardboard signs that advertise Eat at Joes or Going out of Business.

It wasn’t that long ago that I saw a dishwasher position posted on C-List for minimum wage. They wanted them to be able to pass a drug test. WTF? If I was working in a hot, stinky dish room, getting paid $7.40 an hour, I would have to take drugs just so I wouldn’t kill myself.


The Lizard room menu features sushi rolls ranging from $6-8 per roll with the most expensive rolls being $16-18. The poor little line cook in the back has to work almost 3 hours to pay for one of those top dollar rolls that s/he made. You will also find on the menu Asian fusion cuisine and signature martinis for $12. They have a fancy website featuring a half naked chick, and advertise being the premier college bar. I always thought that independent businesses treated their employees better than the corporate conglomerations.

In the second C-List add you can manage a Family Restaurant for $1 more/hr—that is if you meet their high quality standards.


There are other independent restaurants that pay a little more. Take SuckMyDick Restaurant for instance—an upscale establishment that makes all their food from scratch. For $9/hr you can have keys to the restaurant, open the restaurant, prep, clean, maintenance equipment, be on-call without pay, create your own recipes for daily features, cook food for catering or in house parties while simultaneously getting slammed by the lunch/dinner rushes, and fix the toilet. Benefits? Zero. You can smoke pot and expand your culinary skills, but other than that . . . No paid vacation. If you take any time off, you just don’t get paid. If you’re sick, you have to bring in a doctor’s note even though they don’t offer health insurance. It doesn’t matter that you work full-time. Oh and that day that you requested off a month ago—well, you have to work. Sorry. But you say that you have formal chef training and a Culinary Arts degree. That’s nice. You still only get $9/hr.

This isn’t the glamorous life of the iron chefs on food network with their pretentious dishes. This is real life. Artists don’t get paid.

So when you go out to eat and order your pita bread with hummus and your grass fed filet mignon, remember the one who cooked it to order and arranged it nicely on your plate. Your expensive little dinner is probably more than what they make in a day. And when looking at the unemployment rate in Michigan also consider those people who are working, but getting paid minimum wage without benefits. Go to school, get an education! Some of these people have gone to school and do have an education. And even if they don’t have a degree, doesn’t everyone deserve to get paid what they are worth? If someone wants to work and pay their bills, they should have the opportunity to do so. $7.40/hr does not equal life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It equals slave labor. You could make more prostituting yourself out on C-List—only the authorities have been cracking down on that sort of thing.

The Longest Relationship I Ever Had

10 years and 7 months—something like that. Almost everything I know about nursing, I learned there. My job has probably been the only stable thing in my life. I have moved 8 times, lost 2 partners, almost lost my mom, watched my father-in-law die, started and abandoned the MSN program and finished my MFA. That’s the short version.


Even before the restructuring, I knew the end was drawing near. I could feel it at 6:30 am as I walked down the long corridor. I wondered how many more times I would ride the elevator to my floor. What was next? I kept having dreams about tornadoes and tsunamis. These dreams are often about change and rebirth. I thought maybe I would die in a fiery plane crash on my way to Nebraska. That obviously didn’t happen.


Yesterday I worked the last day at my 1st nursing job. I didn’t know it was going to be my last day until the day before. It was anti-climatic. A regular let’s discharge everybody Friday. No bangles. No buzzers. No banners. Just an e-mail on how I’ll leave a void. Assholes leave voids too.


Packed up my stash of snacks. Emptied the freezer. Shredded my mail file and evaluation portfolio. Picked out the books that were still relevant.


All day I made a list in my head of the things that I won’t miss. All the discharge paper work—not many people are discharged on the night shift. Not having a bright light over the bed. Being on the last floor the doctors come to round. Getting up at 4:30am. The constant ring of the phone. Semi-private rooms. Medications in a million different places. Being Vocera-ed for stupid ass shit—but maybe that will be somebody else’s job.


J.G. asked me if I was a little sad. She asked if I was going to miss them. I said that I was and that I would, but I hesitated a little and laughed at the end. So she didn’t believe me. You’re not really sad, she said. Well, I am, but I don’t want to be. And I most certainly don’t want to be in front of people. It’s hard to be sad when I know I’m only going to be 5 floors down, and in all likelihood will be back as a float staff from my new floor. And it’s hard to be sad when I don’t feel anything yet. Except a sinking, nauseated feeling in my stomach. Besides nobody died. Everybody is still right there where I left them—for now.


I stood in my boss’s office to say good-bye. I think maybe she was holding back tears. Maybe. It was verging on something emotional, and I didn’t like it. I had this compulsion to hug her, but I know she doesn’t like hugs. Instead I said, this feels weird, so I’m out of here.


Truthfully, I’m scared shitless. I’ll be the one orientating, not mentoring someone else. I’ll be the new person. I’ll be the person who doesn’t know stuff. And I’m really going to miss them.

Socialism is Bad Mmmmkay

Marijuana was completely legal until the government said that it wasn’t. Hemp production interfered with cotton farm special interest groups. They demonized Marijuana and coined the catch phrase Reefer Madness! It is still demonized today. Alcohol was legal until Prohibition. It was demonized from 1919 to 1933 when it was miraculously legalized again under government control. Was there anything inherently bad about alcohol that it had to be made illegal? No, the government just wasn’t making any money on it. They had to take it away, make us want it really bad, so much so that we wouldn’t mind if they let us have it back with stipulations—a sin tax.


My point being is that the government will say that anything is bad or wrong or illegal if they are not gaining from it in some way—usually monetarily. This is also true of certain political ideologies. The government plays these little mind games with us, using propaganda to make us think that certain ways of thinking are unpatriotic and dirty. It’s bad, because we say it’s bad. We are being mind-fucked.


Quotes from George Orwell’s 1984:
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3


I think we compartmentalize everything and believe that certain things can never touch or co-exist like socialism, capitalism, communism. But they do coexist. They all ebb and flow into each other. Can you really have pure capitalism? Do people really want pure capitalism? Do you now what they would entail? It’s all just Propaganda. We are trained to believe that Socialism and Communism are dirty words.

socialism:
–noun
1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Socialism that exists in America:
Independent Self-sustainable Hippy Communes, Amish living, Churches, Welfare, God’s Kitchen, GoodWill, Non-profit Hospitals, Food Pantries, Salvation Army, Student Grants, Public Schools, Fire Departments Police Department, Public Libraries, Public Parks, Government Worker Programs:Civil Service Retirement Systems,Federal Employee Retirement Systems,Railroad Retirement System, Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Programs:Public Housing,Rental Vouchers & Certificates,Section 8 Housing, Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Social Security Programs:Social Security (OASDI), Unemployment Insurance,Temporary Disability Insurance,MedicareMedicaid, Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, Welfare Programs: Supplemental Security Income,Temporary Assistance for Needy Families,Food Stamp Program,Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC),National School Lunch Program,School Breakfast Program

communism:
1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2.(often initial capital letter ) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

10 essential tenets of communism:
Central banking system
Government controlled education
Government controlled labor
Government ownership of transportation and communication vehicles
Government ownership of agricultural means and factories
Total abolition of private property
Property rights confiscation
Heavy income tax on everyone
Elimination of rights of inheritance
Regional planning

^Some of these Communist tenets do exist here in the United States. What are you going to do about it? Eliminate public education?


After WWII, everyone got nervous about Socialism and Communism, because they associated these political ideologies with crazy fucked up dictators like Stalin and Hitler. These leaders were fascist totalitarians. Any political leader has the capacity to be corrupt regardless of political ideology. So even though we have socialism in our society today, we don’t call it socialism, because that’s a dirty word.

totalitarian: –adjective 1. of or pertaining to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.2. exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.

fascism:
–noun 1. (sometimes initial capital letter ) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

Tactics used to demonize Socialism/Communism:

Red Scare – U.S. witch hunt for Communists. If you were even remotely unpatriotic, you might be considered Communist—thus a threat the U.S. Today we would use the word Enemy Combatant, and they would send you to Guantanomo Bay. This was if you expressed any views in opposition to the government. Forget about Free Speech.

Cold War –USSR vs The West (aka U.S.) U.S. tried to push Democracy and Capitalism onto Communist Russia. This led to the Nuclear Arms Race and Space Race to see who had the bigger dick.

Democracy does not equal Capitalism.

democracy:–noun, plural -cies.
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.
3. a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
4.political or social equality; democratic spirit.


Democracy actually sounds like it might have some socialistic properties.


Everyone demonizes everyone else. Conservatives demonize Liberals and Socialism. Liberals demonize Conservatives, Capitalism and Patriotism. I think somebody is purposefully manufacturing rifts between us. There is NO difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties. They are all friends behind the curtain. They have to make it look like they are enemies, so that we will be satisfied--so we can pretend that there’s a choice. But they are all together working toward this secret invisible goal. More money for them.


They want us to fight. That person believes in gay rights and a woman’s right to choose, so they turn left. You believe in God, Guns and a baby’s right to life, so you go right. But those are the issues that the politicians present on the surface. They don’t give a damn about my issues or your issues or the environment or aborted babies. They use those issues to divide us, so they have the control.

Whether we have Capitalism, Socialism or Communism—the people at the top always make the most money and make all the rules. So it really doesn’t make a difference. Not really. There’s too much corruption in government for there to ever be any real change.

capitalism:
–noun
An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.


Privately controlled could be a mega corporate-conglomeration or an independent small business owner. Capitalism includes both Wal-Mart, your source for cheap plastic crap from China and the farmer selling his crops at the Farmer’s Market. I don’t think the founders of Capitalism ever envisioned Wal-Mart. There is also Free Trade in Capitalism-- your job sent to Mexico or China. Where do you see an opportunity for the hard-working man to be a part of this free market? Getting on top? Making lots of money? Big Markets are going to squash the little man or the little woman. You only make money and get on top if you are already making money and on top. But these Corporations have jobs. That means money for the little guy. If we can’t make money on our own, we have to prostitute ourselves out to someone else.


We have all been programmed to believe certain political ideologies are superior to certain other political ideologies. Just as we have been programmed to believe that certain religious beliefs are preferred over certain other religious beliefs.


Remember we have all been Mind-Fucked. Beware of the Thought Police.

My Word for Poop

Poop. It’s a funny word. You can’t say it without smiling a little. Maybe because it’s everyone’s dirty little secret. Everyone likes to pretend that they don’t have to and that theirs doesn’t stink. Before Kindergarten, I was unfamiliar with the word “poop.” Mom made up her own word for that embarrassing bodily function—“ahkee.” I don’t now how it’s spelled, and I can’t find it on Urban Dictionary. Maybe the word was passed down from Grandma. Dad called it something else “taking a dump” or “shit.” “Taking a dump” doesn’t lend itself very well to conversation when talking about poop as a noun. And “shit” was not an acceptable choice for a Kindergartener. When the subject came up on the bus (because poop is a subject that always comes up), I chimed in with what I knew about “ahkee.” The conversation halted abruptly, turned to laughter and finally ridicule. That’s where I went wrong in school—not by dressing funny or being overweight or asthmatic. It was because I didn’t have the right word for poop. If I could do it over again, I’d say shit instead.


As a nurse, I’m frequently concerned about other people’s poop—whether or not they are pooping and making sure it’s the right kind of poop. I refer to it frequently as a Bowel Movement or B.M, especially to the 65 and older crowd. If I say that to anyone younger than 40, they look at me like I just spoke to them in Mandarin Chinese. Nurses may have to change their terminology soon.


Jacks says that in her line of work, everything she makes turns to shit eventually. That Coconut Risotto, Gourmet Grilled Cheese, and Artichoke & Blue Cheese Bisque—all goes to shit.


I recently spent a three day weekend at the Wheatland Music Festival. No running water. Just lines of blue, plastic port-o-johns from a company called Fresh Start. Each year, the conditions of these port-johns declines as the festival goers become more drunk and stoned. One year someone decided to shit along side of the hole instead of in it. The piles of shit in the blue water rise along with tampons, paper and foreign objects. Don’t forget the flies and the abandoned beer bottle sitting to the side. Why would you ever bring a drink into one of those things?


Fresh Start was out there every day with their shit hoses and tanks of blue water. Each truck had a cute little name with a cartoon. Honey Pot, Honey Jar, Honey Trucker, Honey Bucket. I realize that honey is a product of bee shit. But I don’t really want to associate deliciously sweet golden honey with human shit. Not appetizing. No matter what you call it, it’s still shit. There’s nothing cute or delicious about it. Especially as the smell of raw sewage wafts over you as you take a bite of an elephant ear.


Last week, I was watching the news with my parents.
“No one uses the word manure anymore,” Dad said.
“Oh?” I said. Where the hell was he going with this?
“They used the word scat,” he said.
“Are you sure they used that word?” I asked.
He had been watching a news program earlier that week that referred to monkey manure as scat. I informed him that scat is a sexual practice involving shit. One should never have this type of conversation with your parents. Especially before 6am.


I was having a drunk conversation with JW. I joked that at the next Wheatland, I would just wear a diaper like the NASA astronauts. Whenever I would hold up my index finger and have a strained look on my face, everyone would know that I needed a moment of quiet. And as always with poop, the conversation steadily declined to dirtier and more profane subjects. JW asked if I had ever heard of Space Docking. Of course, I immediately thought of space ships, space walks and satellite repair. Apparently this is a sexual practice that involves pooping in someone’s vagina. Can you say E.Coli? We determined that it would have to be a solid turd rather than diarrhea otherwise it could not be called docking.


No wonder Mom told me it was “Ahkee.”

Eating Pie

One of my poet friends shuns social networking sites. Says he doesn’t want to be connected to the world. He’s happy with his peaceful life. I get that. Why does everyone need to know everyone else’s business? Aren’t these sites only devices to hypnotize us with advertising? Don’t they cause social networking addictions—where we aren’t addicted to connecting with people as much as we are addicted to the meaningless applications and time wasters under the façade of “games.” And is it really necessary to have messages sent from Facebook and Twitter to your phone? My once best friend in 3rd grade who I haven’t talked to in 15 years just drank a cup of coffee 30 miles away. Or my ex-girlfriend’s sister’s kid woke up with a hang over. These aren’t urgent messages. We could have gone on living without them.



But aren’t these messages from friends on Facebook or Myspace just a faster more immediate mail service? Isn’t Twitter an updated version off the telegraph? Some people are worried that nobody talks anymore. Why can’t they just pick up the phone? I have set up dinner dates with friends without ever picking up a phone. Isn’t this how people used to get together before the phone? Send letters and notes? I suppose if you have a problem with social networking sites, the internet or cell phones, then maybe you should get rid of your landline and join the Amish.



The other day I updated my Facebook to: Made peach pie. Real peach pie--not from a can. The peaches still had green leaves attached. I received a slew of comments. Even my mom wanted to know where her piece was. My friend JW left multiple comments about this peach pie. We see him once a year at the Wheatland Music Festival. Jacks & I know him through his girlfriend, and we see her just as much as we see him. So I don't know where he lives, and I don't have his phone number. But he’s a seriously nice guy. I told him he could have a slice of pie if he drove an hour and 30 minutes to our house. He asked me for our phone number, which I gladly sent to him—not thinking that we would actually hear from him. At 9:30pm, my cell phone did its little song & dance. It was JW. He was on his way and wanted to know how to get to the house. At first, I thought it was a little strange, because I hadn’t seen him in a year, and he was driving all that way for pie. It had been a half-serious invitation. But if he was willing make the drive, I was willing to give him the whole damn pie. And then I was worried that maybe he was interested in another kind of pie. Not that he’s the type of guy who likes to eat everyone’s pies.



I'm not so sure he came all that way just for peach pie, but he wasn’t looking for any other kind of pie, and the visit wasn’t so strange either. I think he was just looking that human connection. So we ate pie, drank coffee and bullshitted until 2am. Had it not been for Facebook, JW would have sat home alone without peach pie, and we would have slept, missing out on a good time.



I still don’t deliver, but I think I’ll make pie more often. Maybe branch out and make cookies and cakes.

Better to euthanize your child rather than have them brainwashed by Obama.

So many haters, man. I might not agree with everything Obama says or does. I might not agree with a lot of things. But Jesus Fucking Christ. Can't the president address the children? It's not like he's starting a war without the approval of congress or anything. Omigod. We should be grateful that he gives a shit. Oh no. Oh no. He's brainwashing the children. By having them write an essay on their educational goals? Mmmm. He's a socialist. If you're so goddamn afraid of socialism, you better hand over your unemployment, social security, medicare/medicaid, foodstamps and whateverelse the government helped you with.


I think I might be more concerned that Cartoon Network, Xbox or Facebook was trying to brainwash my children. But the president? If your children have the capacity to be brainwashed by one presidential address, there's no hope for them anyway. You might as well euthanize them.

Fucking Breeders (or Fucking Kids)

Warning this may be offensive to you if you have children or are planning to have children. I’m not sorry.


The neighborhood is a little quieter. I think the little fuckers are back in school now. I’m all about year-around school and uniforms. They play in the road. Litter. Ride their bikes through our lawn. Pull the branches off our stubby maple. Beat each other up. Fucking kids. Can’t wait until the annoying ice cream truck retires for the season. A little snow and the fuckers will be holed up in front of a TV with a game controller in their hands. Next summer I hope to have a thorn barrier, hedge roses and raspberry bushes. Ride through the lawn now bitches.


I remember this little old lady at the nursing home, M.G. She was a stick of her former self. She had been a missionary. Never married. Never had children. Traveled the world. Met Ghandi. Did all sorts of self-less things, I’m sure. One thing she said has always stuck with me, “Married people don’t do anything.” She said this with such conviction and snobbery. But I think she was right. We get into relationships, and it becomes all about the honeymoon phase and how we can see more of each other. It’s all about being up each other's butts. Then we either get comfortable or continue to do nothing to improve ourselves. Or we become unhappy and try to find things that will make us as happy as we were when we first met. This is why people have children, because they are bored or unhappy. Instead of fixing themselves, they create a younger version of themselves, hoping these younger versions will turn out better. Will do more. Have more. Be more. And just maybe the parents can live vicariously through their child’s experiences. Can’t anyone stay happy and childless? Everything is too perfect or drama-free in their lives, so they must procreate it.

And other not-so-random ways to die . . .

When you’ve had a girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend die a span of 5 years, you get a little paranoid. It’s not a matter of if it happens again but when. We all die eventually. So even though it may not happen now or 10 to 20 years from now, it will happen. But who will be first? Will it be me or my partner?


Jacks might inherit her mother’s breast cancer. The next cigarette could lead to an early
heart attack? Or a random chunk of blue ice could fall from a passenger plane, killing her instantaneously. Maybe she’ll be electrocuted during a house repair project or choke to death at the dinner table. The cat could trip her on the stairs.


This past weekend I was out of town for my 3 day work week. I felt that impending
doom, worried that she might already be lying dead in a ditch somewhere. All because it was 10pm and I had not heard from her since 11am. I couldn’t remember if she was headed Up North for a visit or if she was supposed to be working.


I left her a voice mail. Texted her. Nothing. I tried to calm myself. Maybe she didn’t have very good cell phone service Up North. Maybe she was busy at work and couldn’t call me back. Maybe she went out for a pack of cigarettes and was never coming back. Earlier that day I had noticed that she had disappeared off my Facebook page. I was no longer in a relationship with Jacks, according to Facebook. If she was really dead, there was nothing I could do about it anyway. I told myself to just go to sleep. I took a Benadryl and proceeded to toss and turn. I texted her brother. He hadn’t heard from her either. .


My phone vibrated at 10:30 with a message from Jacks. Her phone was almost dead and she didn’t have her charger. She would be home soon, and she loved me. I was relieved but still wide awake. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I heard her voice from the safety of our home.


15 minutes later, she called me but not from home. She was at exit 90. She needed the number for a tow truck. She had been driving 70mph down the freeway when her tire flew off and her truck hit the cement, sparks flying. The truck stopped inches from the guard rail.


The guys at Tuffy said the lug nuts were sheered off perfectly like someone had cut them off. Rather suspicious. A couple days earlier we had noticed that the top right hand corner of her license plate had been cut out. Some fucker must have used a tin snips to steal her tag. She only makes $9.00/hr. Seriously, if you can’t afford your own tag, ride the bus! She drives a rusty 1991 Chevy S-10. Why couldn’t they have gone to the rich neighborhood? Why not a BMW or a Lexus?


Tuffy said the truck should have flipped over and veered into on-coming traffic. Those feelings of impending doom were not unwarranted. Jacks said she had similar feelings.
The tag and the tire are both replaceable—Jacks, not so much.

You suck.

I don't think I have ever received so many rejections in my life. And they are so passive. I would feel better if they just punched me in the face or kicked me in the ass. Glimmer Train rejected "The Key Collector." Only they don't even use the term rejection. It just states "complete." Meaning they have looked at my shit, and they don't want it, but thank you anyway. No letter about how much I suck or why I suck or how I could suck less. Or maybe I need to suck more or suck at something else.


I have never been rejected by any colleges/universities that I applied to--graduate or undergraduate. Until 2004, I had never been denied a job that I applied for. Now that job applications are mostly on-line, you get these pre-canned messages. "Better qualified candidates were selected". Or you just don't hear back at all. And you're damn lucky to get an interview. I even signed up as a volunteer at the literacy center. You think I've heard back from them? I can't even give my services away.

Naked Moms & Notes on how to be more pathetic

Goddamn it. Mom wants to be my Facebook friend. WTF? She's not the most computer literate person. But I'm sure one thing will lead to another, and she'll find my irreverent blog. Fucking A. So much for getting myself out there.


Any suggestions? I can’t not friend my own mother. I’m sorry you gave birth to me, but you can’t be my Facebook friend. Letting Mom read my stuff is like being naked. It's not cool to be naked in front of your mom. Not cool at all.


Speaking of nakedness and mothers--not to be confused with naked mothers. Mom's been wearing this rather thin, worn night gown. She needs a new one. It's so thin she wears a robe over it. She says they don't have nightgowns anymore only pjs. I find this hard to believe. Anyway . . .I ask her what’s wrong with pjs. She says that she wears a nightgown because Dad likes easy access. I can't believe my mother is saying shit like this. My mother who doesn't like to discuss sex, religion or politics.


On another note --the bitching about work note--I applied for the ICU/TU position again. Never got an interview the last time. That’s pathetic. Not being able to even get an interview with the organization I currently work for. Please hire me. I'm pathetic and poor. I can be cute too if you just give me a chance. Smart? We'll have to work on smart.


Changed my cover letter. Cited specific examples of how awesome I was the last time I worked on their floor. If this doesn’t work, I may have to resort to a fictional resume or maybe a creative non-fiction with a disclaimer. *Certain facts were embellished. *Certain events were manufactured. *References may be manufactured for aesthetic reasons.

Copper Flames

We had big plans to go camping Up North. Only it started to rain a little before we got there. Light, misty, warm drizzle. Jacks drove us to Loon Lake. It’s on a seasonal road. If you’re not from there, you’d never find it. There’s one shitter, a hole in the ground. You better bring your own shower. Otherwise use the lake. We put down our tarp, assembled poles. Red to red. Blue to blue. And we raced to get the tent in standing position with rain fly. Every so often the wind would rustle the branches, sending us a pseudo down pour.


These were last minute big plans. We were doing this in the dark, using the car head lights. But we managed. Had a tent. 2 air mattresses. A shower/shitter. A screened in picnic area—only that soon turned into a Daddy Long Legs Haven.


We had hot dogs to roast and marshmallows to toast. No firewood. Anything that might have been used as kindling was soaked. No paper to start. Not that we could have fit anything more into my little hatchback Kia anyway.


Uncle Smoothie saved the day with dry logs and a can of gasoline. He brought Cousin T along. We had invited him to camp with us. Gasoline fire is quick but doesn’t last. The logs wouldn’t start. Cousin T threw some scrap paper in the fire. Only it wasn’t scrap. It was Uncle Smoothie’s truck title. Oops. Mostly we had a smoke signal. The fire didn’t really get going until it really started to rain. We retreated to the tent and fake farted until we fell asleep laughing.


The rain subsided by morning. We were able to get a second fire going from the coals. French Press Coffee and drinkable oatmeal. The coffee was good. Then it started to rain again. We played cards with Cousin T and then switched to scrabble. Only we gave up on that because he kept cheating. Hiding letters in his hoodie.


The tent started to leak. Wet pillows. Wet bedding. Wet ass. We packed the valuables and drove to Grandma’s where we dropped off Cousin T. We headed over to Mom’s for a shit and a shower. We thought things might clear, but there was a permanent cloud. We ended up throwing the muddy wet tent in the back of Mom’s truck. Nothing folds up nicely after camping. There was no way it would fit back into my little Kia.


Mom fed us a garden vegetable dinner. Beans with bacon. Zucchini & summer squash with butter. Corn slathered in butter. Sliced tomatoes. And oatmeal cookies. I think that’s all we ever do when we’re Up North. Eat and drink coffee.


When it stopped raining that night, Mom drove us to Head Quarters. Deeper into the woods on seasonal roads somewhere on state property. That’s where her boyfriend, Rob had been camping for the past 2 weeks. It looked like Rob had been out there longer than 2 weeks. The disorganized random shit he had out there—garage sale items that he had picked up: craftsman tool boxes, miniature pewter statues, lamps, kids toys.


Uncle Hiram was out there against medical advice. Mom wouldn’t shut-up about his congestive heart failure and COPD. Said he was killing himself with the drinking and his smoking. He’s an adult. Maybe killing himself was the point.


And Mike Kane had been living down the hill for the past 2 months in a reconstructed shack with a shitter on the lake. Seriously, you could sit on the toilet and look over the lake. He was the peaceful hippy type with a longish beard, a wooden stick for a cane, and stocky black dog. Jacks and Mom had talked about the Kane curse. Something bad happens to all of them by someone else’s hand or their own. Suicide, murder, cancer. I wondered how he was cursed.


I didn’t know it until we were driving away that Mike Kane had only been out of prison for 6 years. Stabbed a guy for $50 dollars while he was fucked up on crystal meth. Did 25 years. He was the nicest guy.


Uncle Hiram brought his stash. Said he paid $50 for 1/8th. He got ripped off. He’s blind. The shit was brown. So they smoked the oregano and pretended to get high for Uncle Hiram’s sake. He would fall asleep intermittently and wake up in the middle of a conversation and just start right in. I don’t think it was from anything he was smoking. I think it was a combination of lack of oxygen and elevated blood sugar from the beer.


I sat on an old boat seat low to the ground watching the copper flames. Every so often I would pick a Daddy Long Legs off my hoodie and throw it into the fire. There we were surrounded by trees and dark sky. And the only way to get in or out was by a two-track dirt lane.


It’s weird how the most peaceful, beautiful night was a night with a bunch of old men. Far away from the sulfur smell of the city and the orange night sky. No houses. No hum of traffic.


Jacks and I went 4-wheeling the next day on a different seasonal road. Traveled 30 miles and hardly saw a house. We were even lost for a little while. But we felt so free.

Flexibility

http://tigerlilydust.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/flexible/

Steps to Dependence and Self-Loathing

It won’t matter how much determination you have. Or how hard you work. Or how long you go to school. The more educated you are, the higher your debt to the government. Unless you have rich parents or win the lottery or marry a sugar daddy or sugar momma.


If you happened to get caught smoking, growing or selling weed before you started your education, you can forget it. You might as well keep smoking and selling it. A felony limits your career opportunities to under the table, completely illegal or dishwasher. A felony drug charge eliminates the possibility of a student loan. Yet felons who committed violent crimes qualify for student loans as long as it wasn’t drug related. How the fuck does this make sense? An armed robber can get a student loan, but not a weed dealer. My theory—drugs have a way of opening up new ways of thinking. Drugs = liberal, peace-loving, possibly anti-government hippy thinker. Can you imagine a higher education for someone who thinks that way? They might change the whole world.


Obama started this program that will allow people to volunteer to reduce or eliminate their school loans. That doesn’t seem so bad. However, there are rumors that these volunteers will be used to create a civil servant army separate from the U.S. Army. One that would be used to keep the peace in times of upheaval. Like if we decided we wanted to rise up against an unjust government, this civil army would throw us into detainment camps. This is one of the conspiracy theories.


I was delighted when he created that program for loan restructuring. Yay, something that might actually help me. My friend Q, single-parent, makes jack shit in a factory has been having trouble making her house payment. They wouldn’t help her because she has been late. Well no shit! That’s why she is asking for help. I also applied for restructuring, because I have lost hours and soon I will have to pay back student loans. They said I didn’t qualify because I paid on-time. They didn’t see the problem.


Those tax refund bonuses that were handed out a couple of times. People who really needed them, didn’t get them. I know several people who had their refund bonuses garnished for debts that were greater than 7 years old.



The new programs that are out there to help people--exist only in name not in reality. They are there to make us think that someone gives a shit— to appease us.


Look at the new Cash for Clunkers program. On the surface, it appears the government is doing us a favor. $4500 for any intact car when we buy a new one. I don’t know anyone right now who has money to buy a new car even with $4500 off. I bought my little Kia in 2005 for $15,000. So that would still be $10,500. That’s $300 per month for almost 3 years. A used car is still cheaper. But the dealerships aren’t allowed to resell these clunkers--not even their parts. Instead the government requires that dealerships pour sodium silicate into the engine. This turns to glass. Afterward, they can be flattened into metal pancakes. This means less parts for used cars. This will make used cars more expensive to repair and also to buy. And then when the government stops the program we will be in a worse place than when we started—not able to afford either a new or used car. I’m not sure if they don’t think when they institute these programs. Or if they know exactly what they’re doing and don’t give a shit. I think perhaps the government made a deal with the company that manufactures sodium silicate. Just like the government made a deal with China for these energy efficient light bulbs that contain MERCURY.


The government will own us all through our enormous debt. We’ll be dependent on them for everything. Everyone will have to move in with everyone else. Bunk beds in every room and beans & rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.



These are just steps in creating a larger gap between the elite rich and the rest of us.

The Manufactured Nursing Shortage

In 1986 my Allergist told me there would be a nursing shortage in 2000. I was 10 years old, I believed anything my doctor told me. I’m not sure why I remember him telling me that. Why would a 10 year old care if there was going to be any kind of shortage in the future unless it was chocolate ice cream or pizza or something of immediate value. Besides, I had plans to become a doctor, an Allergist or a Pulmonologist. I could see the years of schooling stretched out before me.


At 13 writing seemed like the profession for me. I would create these stories and write my friends in as characters. I made them laugh. I had no problems with chemistry and biology. And math—I could do it. But every night it was a struggle, Dad helping me with my math homework and me crying. Some story problem about polka-dot shirts. I don’t think we ever got that one right. English made sense. I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables. I wanted to be V.C. Andrews. That’s before I realized that V.C. Andrews was not good literature.


But I sobered up and chose a nursing major. It was practical, and I didn’t know what else to do. I could always write in my spare time.


In 1996 there weren’t waiting lists to get into GVSU Kirkhof School of nursing. And you didn’t need a 4.0 to get either. There seemed to be plenty of instructors.


Currently, there are not enough nursing instructors to teach the amount of students who are waiting. But this is manufactured. When I was in nursing school, they were starting to phase out all the instructors who did not have their doctorate. A masters degree in nursing wasn’t good enough to teach it anymore. This completely eliminated the number of available instructors thus creating a “shortage.” With fewer instructors, GVSU was forced to admit less nursing students to its program. And this created the waiting list and ridiculously high standards. Especially when I hear that they are picking students based solely on grade point averages. I’m sorry this doesn’t make a good nurse.


I didn’t remember this until just last week. But they told us in 1998 that hospital nursing was on its way out, because hospital stays were not has long and many surgeries were being done on an outpatient basis. Since I started in 1999, I have seen a decrease in admissions for rotator cuff repairs and ACL repairs. People go home the same day. I have seen people have microdiskectomies and go home the same day.


The hospitals in the area have very few positions open for RNs. The ones listed are part-time, prn or on-call. Hospitals w, x, y, z. Hospital W mandated a wage freeze, laid off nurses and restructured. Hospital X is not doing so well after building a new hospital. They have cut employee hours. I expect them to go under and be bought about by Hospital Z. Hospital Y is also not doing so well after building a new hospital. Hospital Z was in a hiring freeze for about a year. Hospital V seems to be doing okay—they have the most job postings. Hospital U is a floundering small hospital that closed one of its specialty areas. I really don’t know that they do much of anything.

I can definitely say that there is not a nursing shortage in the hospital industry.

Following Directons

Jacks was driving us to Holland. We had to pick up Judah from the dog-sitter. Jacks always says Holland’s not on her map. She says this because she’s from Up North, and until recently none of these places existed in her mind. Anyway she couldn’t remember how to get back Rachel’s house. So I called Rachel and she gave me her street address. I scribbled it on a scrap of paper.


“Okay,” I said and hung up the phone.


“So where’s it at?” Jacks asked.


“I don’t know.”


“What do you mean you don’t know?”


I looked at the address laying in my lap.


“I’m not sure,” I said.


“Didn’t you grow up here?” she asked


“Well, yeah . . . .But”


When I was 15, I didn’t really care whether I learned how to drive or not. It seemed like too much of a bother. Really I was scared shitless. It was much safer to have Mom cart me all over town to all my extra-curricular activities. There’s so much a person had to pay attention to while they were driving—lights, signs, pedestrians, other vehicles. I’ve never been the most mechanically inclined even with the simple things. I still prefer not to drive. I’m content to be the anxious but mostly oblivious passenger.


On my 16th birthday, I was not waiting in line at the DMV with a learner’s permit in hand. I was in New Buffalo setting up camp for the Shoreline Bike Tour. 360 miles in 1 week—on a bicycle, not a motorcycle. This only bought me another week of blissful ignorance. Needless to say I got my license--forced would be a better word. My parents wanted to retire from the taxi business.



My first car was a 1985 Chrysler New Yorker. It talked in this gentle manly voice. Your lights are on. Don’t forget your keys. It had turbo boost —not like Night Rider. It just had a label on the dashboard that said Turbo Boost. Maybe because it was a 8 cylinder.


It must have been my first winter driving. I was on the highway, driving home from church when my windshield clouded over with frost. I didn’t understand. Warm air was blowing through the vents like it should have been. I had cranked it up to the last number. This was bad. Instead of a clear windshield, everything was white. I tried to clear a hole with my warm hand. I slowed the car down to 40mph, then 35mph, then 30mph, trying to drive in a straight line--trying not to plunge into the deep ditch--until I could manage to pull into a parking lot. I shaved off the thin layer of ice from inside the windshield. Some pieces curled. The rest made flakes. It had snowed on my dashboard. I attempted to make my way home again.


Only it didn’t take long before the windshield iced over again. I scraped with my finger nails and pushed my warm palm into it. I drove slowly making an effort to stay on my side of the yellow line. I did this until I pulled into the driveway of a high school friend. By that time I was crying. She wasn’t home, but her dad was working in the garage.


I rolled down the window and blubbered. He looked at the window and peeked in.


“Did you try the defrost button?”


“The what?”


“The button that says defrost.”


I pressed the button that he indicated. Miraculously, the ice melted.


For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been having computer issues. I know it’s despicable that I own a Dell and not a Mac. But I don’t have that kind of money and this was a gift. The previous laptop (also not a Mac) fried. Anyway, my laptop wouldn’t connect to the wireless network. Jack’s laptop connected just fine, and I was able to directly connect. So it didn’t seem to be a network issue. It had been so strange. I had been on the internet when it had mysteriously disconnected. I tried to repair the connection, but I couldn’t even view wireless networks. The little Blue Tooth icon was no longer blue.


I tried the Dell chat room first. I chatted from the desktop computer while trying to follow the tech guy’s specific instructions.


Dell tech guy: You’re wrong. That’s not the problem at all.


I hadn’t even fully explained the problem.


Dell tech guy: What does it say when you try to connect?


Myself: There are no networks available to connect to.


He was obviously exasperated with me and instructed me to connect directly to the internet. He would look for himself.


Myself: How is that going to work? If I do that, I’ll lose the chat session.


Then he wrote something about if I would just follow his instructions. Finally I told him that I would deal with it later and closed the chat room.


On my second attempt, I called Dell’s 1-800 #. I gave them my service # and product # and explained the problem. Then they transferred me. Each time I gave my info and problem, they transferred me--3 times. I’m sorry ma’am you’ve been transferred to the wrong department. Each person had a thick Indian accent, and I felt ridiculous when I asked them to repeat the information. The phrase Wireless Network sounds quite different depending on the accent.


Eventually, I was transferred to the right department. Or maybe the guy on the other end felt sorry for the dimwitted American.


“What’s the name of your computer?”


I hadn’t realized my computer had a name. It was a Dell.


“Check the upper left hand corner, Ma’am.”


And there it was just as he described, printed nicely in English letters: Dell Precision M4300.


He talked me through the different screens, the Network connections, The Control Panel. Everything seemed to be working.


“Hit your internet button,” the man instructed.


“Internet button?”


My old computer had a nicely displayed internet button, clearly marked with a diagram on the top right hand side of the keyboard.


“It should be on the left side of the computer,” he said.


I looked on the side. There was a slide button. I had seen it there before, but hadn’t known what it was for. I wasn’t using it, so it didn’t concern me.


I slid the button over.


Miraculously, I was connected to internet.