Greetings from Computer Number Four

There is a side benefit of coming to the library to blog.  I am getting out in the world again, instead of hiding in my house.  I was hoping to walk up here today, but the weather was fouler than I wanted to endure, so I drove.  Until I can get a bike to ride, I plan to walk up, a distance of about 1.5 miles from home, a good short jaunt.  I am terribly out of shape, and a short walk is a good way to ease back into a fitness program.  My heart will thank me for it, I know.

There is a different crowd at the computer bank this morning, and there are lots of empty chairs around the table, unlike my first visit here.  Today, most of the people here are in their late-forties, or fifties, with a sprinkling of us in our early-to-mid sixties.  Everyone is quiet, respectful of their neighbors; products of stricter libraries, no doubt, in their formative years.

I noticed the last time I was here that several of the younger (younger than 50, that is) people were doing job searches.  There are 12 computers in this bank and five of them were looking for work, including The Miner. (I overheard her say to the fellow to her left that she had been looking on Craig's List and another job-search site I can't recall.  He asked her what kind of work she was looking for.  She replied that her only experience so far had been with several local fast-food restaurants.  I think I know why she is out of work.)  That's almost 42% of the users out of work, or under-employed.  I hope that doesn't represent the percentage of the local out-of-work population, or we are doomed.

Ah, things are looking up.  A dear soul who loves to talk to anyone and everyone, loudly and non-stop, has joined us.  She speaks in exclamations, something I haven't encountered since working on the psych ward at Charleston Naval Hospital, many years ago.  I think I have seen her hanging out on The Square, among the homeless and indigent.  Maybe she comes here for the company, or to get in out of the weather.  She's pretty savvy with the computer, though, so I wonder what's her story, why she appears to be homeless and not wrapped too tightly.

On the other hand, maybe I am the one not wrapped so tight, you know?  For the last five years, I have slowly, inexorably, withdrawn from society, partly due to The Octopus, partly in shame because of the circumstances around my divorce from Ex-B and my increasing level of poverty.  I spend my time between my job (my only contact with other people on a regular basis, besides Daughter and Grandson) and The Warren (my rabbit-hole house).  I think having to give up my Internet connection at home will prove to be a godsend, for it is forcing me to be "among them" again.  I see I have a period of adjustment to get through, learning to be accepting of my fellows, instead of wishing this computer were in a three-walled cubicle where they can't see me, and I can't see or hear them. 

Wow!  This isn't what I expected to blog about today, but I think I'll let it be.  Maybe Computer #4 has some power to elicit truth from its user; a key, perhaps, that opens doors sealed for years and years.

Or, maybe I'm beginning to disengage from the Unreal life I've been leading, moving toward something a bit more Real, if such a thing exists.  Stay tuned.

Support Your Local Library

I has Internet!  (I would insert an image of a LOL-cat standing on a keyboard, but I am not allowed to save pictures onto this computer.  Use your wonderful imaginations.) While I don't have the ability to save images on this computer to use when I blog here, it turns out that I can bring a post, with images and links, on a flash (thumb) drive and load it onto my computer-du-jour.  Sweet!


Until I can afford my own connection again, I can use a computer at our local library, which I didn't know about last week.  (Our state taxes at work, for useful purposes.)  There are 12 computers available; I'm on #12 today.  All the others are occupied and busy-busy. 

We are a motley bunch, we library-loggers.  Housewives, students, grandmothers older than I am, street people: even some guy in a great-looking business suit is here, typing away for all he's worth.  I have a feeling there might be some sort of parental controls on the network (sorry, teen-playing-hooky-from-school - no porn for you today!), but otherwise I think the policy is to surf to your heart's content. 

The young man across from me is muttering out loud (I don't think he realizes just how loud he is) about not finding what he wants to get his paper (probably due today) completed.  A pretty red-haired girl to his left is trying to find something up the farthest reaches of her right nostril - oh, good, she found it.  I can see that using the library computers is going to be a great opportunity to study people. All for the one-dollar price of a library card!

When I had access, I took it for granted, didn't log onto the 'Net every day.  I also didn't realize how dependent I have become on having access at my fingertips (no pun, yada-yada), or how much of my daily life is tied up with accessing the Internet. 

Since I no longer have a telephone, I use the Internet to contact my daughter, not the most efficient or timely method of communicating.  I could use the office phone, but the practice is frowned upon, especially by The Weasel.  Also, that limits my phone time to the days and office hours that I work.  And to the few moments each day that I'm not actually working at my job.  Still, one is grateful for what one has available, you know?

Five years ago, I swore up and down that I'd never -- NEVER! -- use the Internet for bill-paying, or shopping, or banking; anything involving my financial information that could be hacked into by some kid with nothing to do but see how far he could get with the hacking skills he just learned in school.  I haven't been able to check my bank balance for over a week.  (Don't know why I bother checking, though - there's nothing in the account but fond memories.)

Another reason I developed a serious Internet-withdrawal jones in the last few days is that I like to know what's going on with all of you out there.  Oddly enough (or perhaps not so oddly for me), I have more of a connection with all of the people whose blogs I follow than with any of my neighbors.  (The Butcher-from-Pittsburgh's dog and I have developed a rapport, of sorts, because we both like to howl at full moons, given the opportunity, but that's about as involved with his owners as I care to become.)

FLASH!  This just in!  The nostril-miner has donned a set of headphones and is singing (WAY off key) while bopping side to side, as if she were alone in the Universe.  The Holy Smoker sitting next to me and across from the Miner has cleared her throat three times so far, each clearing progressively louder, trying to get Miner's attention in order to give her the stink-eye. (Is it kosher to yell across the table, "Shut the phucque up!"?  No, probably not.  That's okay, though, you know, 'cause she's providing unbelievable fodder for a character I'll kill off in the potboiler I'm going to write - someday.  Writer's revenge is the sweetest of all.)

Okay, so I can't stay in here all night, surfing and posting whenever the mood (or jones) strikes me, and I can't sit here in my jammies or my all-together, and I can't bring food or drink to the table (probably ought not do that at home, either, muses she who has gone through three 'boards in the last four years), and I have to share.  ("Does not play well with others," my kindergarten report read, "and doesn't share her toys.  Also, little Martha runs with scissors, despite several warnings of the dangers involved.")  The up side, however, is that I don't have to use my dwindling resources on Internet access.

But you can be darned sure that the first thing I purchase when things improve is my own communications network with at least fifteen satellites strategically orbiting the globe so that I'll never--As God is my witness!--be without Internet access again! (Shades of Miz Scarlet.)

(Edited, at work, on 3-28-2012. Hope it reads better now.)

Back Soon...I Hope.

I've had to let my internet service go for awhile.  I am posting this note at work, which I (probably) am not supposed to do.  Will miss reading your blogs.  Hope to be reconnected soon.

See you around.

Feverish Thoughts

The neighborhood is full of bird-song and dog-song – and a multitude of raucous kid-songs. They all are singing one tune, “An Ode to Spring,” author unknown but as old as the Universe. I am feeling the beginnings of Spring Fever, myself, so I understand their singing. It’s time to drive out Black Rock Road, to Lake Marburg and listen to spring peepers, while they’re still in voice.


A few nights ago the waxing moon, its face nearly full, appeared beyond the light fog shrouding my town, a strange red-orange ring around its circumference. Ancient peoples took red in the night sky as a bad omen bringing death. I wondered, briefly – jokingly – if the color presaged the arrival of Asteroid 2012 DA14. Of course, it doesn’t. It was due to the moon’s reflected light shining through ice crystals in either the fog or the clouds beyond. Flights of fancy often overtake me in near-full moon light.


Daughter and I were talking about the approaching asteroid earlier this week. Mostly we were making gallows-humor jokes about it. (Warning: politically incorrect comment ahead.) I said that the asteroid is the true meaning of Montezuma’s Revenge. The Universe will get me for that, I know, and I will have it coming to me.


Our doubts about the accuracy of NASA’s predictions that 2012 DA14 will not cause any harm to Earth led us to ponder what we would do if we knew for certain this asteroid is The One. I asked her what she would do, but she’s still thinking about that. I said I would quit the job I have begun to hate, sell the house and ride off into the sunset, for parts known and unknown, to see as much of this planet as possible before The One smacks us upside the head.


“Really, Mom?”


Yes, I answered. Absolutely!


“Then why wait to find out? Why not do this now, as soon as you can make it happen? Aren’t you always telling me that my life is mine to make happen as I want it to be?”


I hate it when Daughter throws my own words back in my face.


“Well?”


I’m still thinking. I must admit, though, that I like the sound of her idea.


That, and the peepers-song.

Playing with Food

This is Mr. Muffinman.  He and his spouse came to lunch this afternoon.  Here he is getting cozy with Daughter, who also stopped by for lunch.

This is Mrs. Muffinman, giving Mister an earful for getting cozy with Daughter.

Shortly after the second photo was taken, Daughter consumed the Muffinman couple; first, Mister, then his jealous wife.

Other than the muffincide, the afternoon was pleasant.  Daughter and I chatted about all sorts of things, watched the squirrels scamper through the trees, ate our lunch of red beans and rice with andouille, then chased rainbow sundogs and the most beautiful sunset.

On the way back to her house, Daughter's stomach rumbled loudly.

The Muffinmans were still at it, I guess.

Goodbye, Bil.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, your life’s path will intersect that of another’s and you’ll be better off for it, no matter how brief the encounter. A few weeks ago, a man I barely knew but greatly admired died, and I’ve been trying – in the days since – to put into words just why his passing pains me as much as it does.

I met Bil Gilbert in 1973 or ’74, can’t remember which. The occasion was a get-together to celebrate the return of my (first)ex-husband’s cousin from a trip with Bil to the Arctic Circle. I remember thinking, when we were introduced, that he was a lot shorter than I thought he might be, and a heck of a lot scruffier. But, then, Bil wasn’t put on this earth to grace the cover of GQ or Playgirl magazines. Bil was here to write (among a great many other things), and he did a damned fine job of it.

I wasn’t in Bil’s circle of friends, though I would have liked to be. He had a wicked sense of humor and was a great storyteller. Bil paid attention to the people around him, almost as if he were studying them with the same interest as the wild animals that caught his attention. While he gave me the impression he didn’t suffer fools, gladly or otherwise, he was civil in letting you know you were an idiot. At least, that was my experience as a result of an incident involving me, my First Husband and a beautiful black snake I almost drove over. FH and I thought, for some long forgotten (and ill-conceived) notion, that it would make a fantastic gift for his cousin, whose house we were leaving after a short visit. We, rather too gleefully for our ages, hurried back to Cousin’s house to bestow upon him our great offering. Bil was visiting there the day we acted the fools, and his ultra-quiet suggestion that we put the snake back where we found it made us snap out of our silliness and do precisely that. I believe Bil was one of those people who could wield sharp words so skillfully that you wouldn’t know you had been cut until you stood up and your butt fell off.

Most of what I know – or think I know – about Bil Gilbert I’ve learned from his writing, for, as I mentioned above, I barely knew him. I think I’ve encountered him four, maybe five, times since that first meeting thirty-eight or so years ago. I wish there had been more occasions. There were so many things about his life I wanted to ask him, so many of his stories I wanted to hear. He unknowingly fostered my continuing interest in crows and other corvids. Bil lived the kind of life I told myself, when I was twelve years old, I would have: the life of an adventurer, an explorer and a writer. I think that’s what drew me to him and made me want to be in his circle of friends.

However, I am glad to have met him, to have crossed paths with him, no matter how few and far between the meetings. The last time I spoke with him was at Cousin’s 50th birthday. I was telling him observations I’ve made from watching my backyard crows. Bil said I should write them and submit them to the newsletter for an organization he started, the American Society of Crows and Ravens. I haven’t yet, but his encouragement meant more to me than any I’ve ever received from anyone else. I’ll remember Bil and his kindness forever.

Chasing the American Dream

Lady Liberty

I am on a quest to find the American Dream.  I don't know what it is, exactly, so first I have to define it.  I have a vague notion of what it is supposed to be, but I think that notion is wrong.  The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people way back when we liked each other, is a stand-in icon for The Dream, but I doubt she knows anymore what the Dream is, either.  The United States isn't the same nation it was when she came to grace New York Harbor.  Hell, it isn't even the same nation it was when I first started thinking about what The Dream meant, over forty-five years ago.  Of course, I might have become a cynic in those last forty-five years, and maybe The Dream isn't what's changed, but my view of life in America.

Maybe there is no such thing as The Dream.  Maybe the dream is a myth, a fantasy, a legend, or - maybe - a nightmare.  Maybe The Dream is the true "opiate of the masses," the carrot on a stick that keeps us going, the illusory image of Utopia, of Paradise, dangled before the lower classes to distract them from the reality of their existence.  A few are allowed to win The Dream's lottery, to keep hope alive for the rest, to keep us so busy struggling to win that we "ignore the Man behind the curtain," when perhaps we should be pulling the curtains down, exposing the frauds, the poseurs for what they really are.

Our politicians, seems to me, are puppets whose strings are pulled by Corporate America, their pockets filled with graft and other ill-gotten gains.  They've traded in doing what's right for the citizenry for doing what's expedient for their political careers.  Yes, Mr. President, I'm looking at you, too, when I say that.  "Got hope?", you asked, four years ago.  Not anymore, dude. 

Maybe it isn't so much the American Dream I'm trying to find as much as it is a focus, a direction, for my life.  Most likely, it is that I am tired of struggling and am looking for someone to blame for those things I cannot control.

I guess I'll add 'find the American Dream' to my bucket list.  Despite my cynicism and frustrations with our national (and my personal) state of affairs, I still believe The Dream is out there.

Then again, I believed Tinker Bell would revive if I just believed in her and clapped my hands when Peter Pan (played by actress Mary Martin) asked me to, right there in our living room, when I was ten years old.  (She did, though, you know.)